Question

Explain the advantages and disadvantages of rules in bureaucracies. Specifically,what effect did the Pendleton Act and the Hatch Act have on the American federal bureaucracy?

Answer 1

Advantages are:

Within a bureaucracy imagination flourishes.- While a bureaucracy is often seen as a collection of rules and regulations, it is often a position where transparency is mandatory. People who work within a bureaucracy frequently have a higher educational level than the general public, are more self-directed, are more open-minded, and encourage their ingenuity in ways that facilitate the common good compared to others who are not bureaucrats.

Security at the job is given.- A bureaucracy's structure provides more job security than other types of control. When a worker adheres to the rules and regulations regulating his or her job, then they earn unique benefits and a stable paycheck that allows them to enjoy the lifestyle they want. Health insurance, vacation time, and even a retirement pension would all be included as part of the security a bureaucracy can provide.

The impersonal essence of the relationships that are built provides specific advantages in a effectively managed bureaucracy. It establishes a system in which equality is a focal point. Friendships don't affect the outcomes that are made. Political pressure is secondary to the leverage of doing a good, continuous job. This establishes a starting line where everyone has equal opportunity to succeed.

Disadvantages are:

There is no focus on further skills development.- Workers are constantly promoted within the bureaucratic frameworks of a bureaucracy, until they enter a place where they are initially incompetent. This is the place where people will stay until they want to retire because within the bureaucratic system there is little focus on developing new or additional competences. This suggests that a bureaucracy only succeeds if there are qualified workers who are striving to achieve positions with more influence.

It fosters a system that is not delivering true productivity- A bureaucracy establishes various guidelines and regulations to be complied with for the good of everyone. The problem with this is that at practically any time new rules and laws can be added which complicates the workloads people have to endure. This could require extra fill out forms, new filing rules, or new tests that need to be performed. It is a mechanism that fosters healthy efficiency, but restricts the individuals and departments ' true productive potential.

In the 1820s rich men dominated the bureaucracy. That changed with the election of President Andrew Jackson (1828), who opened jobs for the common people in government. He inaugurated the scheme of spoils in which party loyalty not competence or talent was the criterion of federal employment. This was the start of patronage and it continued into the late nineteenth century.

Congress passed the Pendleton Act in 1883 which provided a system for recruiting federal workers based on expertise rather than political loyalty; employees were also shielded from losing their jobs when the administration changed. The Hatch Act (1939) prevented government employees from running for office or knowingly lobbying for other candidates in order to promote a nonpartisan bureaucracy. Such restrictions on civil liberties are viewed by many as the price a professional, non-political bureaucracy has to pay for.