4 - Problem Monitoring in the Administrative State

Summary

At the heart of the dual dynamics of the administrative state is the processing of policy problems by the bureaucracy and Congress. Bureaucracies communicate to Congress about aspects of emergent policy problems relevant for policy making at higher levels of government. They do so from the vantage point of functional differentiation and topical specialization, with expertise developed through the delegation of attention. From this foundation, the processes of problem monitoring, definition, and transmission of information influence agenda change, and efforts by Congress to prioritize among issues.

By contrast, elected officials in Congress communicate the system wide priorities attached to the problems confronting government and blend problem definitions in an effort to steer policy making and orient bureaucratic problem solving. Elected officials must synthesize the disparate information generated by bureaucracy, fostering coordination or competition among agencies, and must do so with an eye toward making issue tradeoffs in setting the course for public policy. Elected officials decide which of the myriad problems identified and defined will be prioritized and, therefore, how bureaucratic problem solving will be adjusted in the future. Congressional issue shuffling, bundling, and promotion of competition in the provision of information are the functions embodied in congressional agenda setting.

More broadly, communications between the bureaucracy and Congress about the nature of the policy agenda form the linchpin linking bureaucratic problem solving and congressional prioritization to the system's overall adaptation and evolution over time. The ability of the bureaucracy to monitor problems and transmit information determines whether government addresses important problems or, bereft of information, finds itself unable to respond to changes in the issues on the agenda. For Congress's part, elected officials may expand or contract the supply of information from the bureaucracy by altering its prioritization of the problems, definitions, and information generated by bureaucracy. To this end, elected officials make the system more adaptive by ensuring a steady, broad-ranging supply of information on the policy environment: they foster constrained adaptation by constricting this supply.