greater responsiveness only increases the opportunities for concentrated interests to exert influence over the agencies that are supposed to regulate them. Perhaps ironically, it may be the case that only those regulatory agencies that are able to escape domination by politicians will be able to effectively pursue the goals that those same elected officials wrote into law back when the public was paying attention. Effectiveness, in short, may demand a significant degree of bureaucratic autonomy, rather than democratic control.
…Carpenter’s key insight is that bureaucrats themselves have the power not only to shirk or subvert their principals, but in some cases to guide or even dominate them. The canvas on which he explains how this is possible is the history of one of America’s most powerful agencies, the Food and Drug Administration.
Teles is reviewing a book by David Carpenter, in which the author argues that the FDA’s power stems from its reputation. Because the FDA is highly regarded, it can maintain its independence from Congress.
Teles sees that as a good thing. His model of politics is that there are fleeting demands for regulation, to which Congress responds by establishing an agency. However, once the spotlight is off and the actual regulatory process is underway, the more politically responsive the agency, the more likely it is that the agency will be manipulated by special interests. It is better for the agency to polish its reputation and sustain independent power.
In this model, what is it that limits an agency’s power?
In theory, the loss of reputation leads to a loss of power. When has this happened? The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has a terrible reputation, but it has at least as much responsibility as ever. Same with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently spilled chemicals into the Colorado River, and as far as I can tell it suffered no consequences.
Still, I think that it is fair to say that technocrats focus on their reputations. Bad publicity does attract Congressional attention, and perhaps that makes an agency less aggressive than it otherwise might be.
But reputation-protection, rent-seeking, can be costly. A place like the Fed selects for chairmen who write self-serving memoirs. The question is whether the focus on reputation leads to better behavior or mere image-polishing.
In the private sector, there is the same tension. Reputation can be earned, or it can be manipulated through public relations. But one hopes that the competitive process will eventually expose the manipulators and reward the good performers.
Speaking of image-polishing and reputation-management through public relations, there was a tragi-comic piece in the Washington Post about the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s efforts to use an intermediary to bribe reporters for positive coverage by the instrument of small contributions to the charity of their choice.
The reference to “rent-seeking” was wise; but, there should be some understanding of the differences in the natures of the rents sought by administrators, managers, producers, and politicians.
Two points:
First, per your analysis:
“However, once the spotlight is off and the actual regulatory process is underway, the more politically responsive the agency, the more likely it is that the agency will be manipulated by special interests. It is better for the agency to polish its reputation and sustain independent power.”
The problem with that is that even if this model is successful it’s subject to the yesterday’s-solution-is-today’s error problem. Teles accidentally acknowledges this when he notes that the FDA’s reputationally based insulation from deregulation started to erode, in part, due to AIDS activists who wanted drugs to the market quicker. That suggests a problem with the Thalidomide example Teles makes much of, a success that big likely breeds a kind of hubris in the agency’s role, and an overconfidence in established procedure.
Second:
There’s a strong case to be made that the longer particular executive branch agencies exist the more regulatory capture happens outside the legislative oversight process.
In the real world senior bureaucrats work till an early retirement, then join a major consulting firm, like Booz-Allen-Hamilton, and draw two or three times the pay they did while in government; often while drawing retirement from the very agencies their new employer contract with while gaming the very policies and procedures they themselves either put in place or at least managed. The Pentagon bureaucracy and the uniformed military are especially notorious in this respect, but they are hardly unique.
How this happens with FDA in particular, I don’t know. However, I’d be surprised if there is not a very lucrative revolving door between FDA attorneys who help create create and enforce regulation and the big firms servicing the Mercks and Pfizers of the world. Thus you get a system whereby, to certain key people, it doesn’t matter so much how industry is regulated so long as there is always more regulation because they are not only the gatekeepers. They built the gate.
A loss of power can happen in several ways though, from replacement of the head, reduction in budget, micromanagement by congress. Reduction in responsibility is least likely because abrogation of responsibility is the most common source and there is rarely anyone else with authority. Meanwhile hope in vain because those who suffer are virtually never those with power.
“Back when the public was paying attention.”
I doubt this.
Technocrats merely represent the system that recruits, selects, and motivates them.
Technocracy is working very well in Singapore, and reasonably well in France, because they recruit based on good salaries and excellent post-service private sector jobs, select based on stringent exams and are motivated by a pride in country and in service.
Technocracy does not work in America, because recruitment takes years to get an application package through, selection is based on race, gender, and disability, and the bureaucracy is seen to be opposed to and opposed by the general population.
American airport security is surly, incompetent, hostile, and wasteful because that is what the American government desires.
Singaporean airport security is pleasant, police, rapid, and efficient because that is what the Singaporean government desires.
A friend of mine works for a state regulatory agency. He was taking a few days off, so I said, “While you’re gone will we get some regulatory relief?” He replied that he is just a small cog in an enormous machine that grinds on and on. When he or anyone else is absent, others step in and continue regulating. He painted a verbal image of a vast, uncontrolled mechanism that inexorably reduces individual freedom.