Who holds the federal bureaucracies accountable for their actions? How are they held accountable?
Accountability is the public’s ability/ power to hold those charged with governance responsible for what they do (Lupia& McCubbins, 1994). The presidency, the congress and the courts are responsible for holding bureaucracies are held accountable.The president can influence the country’s bureaucracy through reformation, presidential appointees procedures, or budget allocations (Lupia& McCubbins, 1994). The congress on the other hand employs legislative oversight such as legislative veto, and sunset laws among other devices to control bureaucracy. The congress can also use elimination of a bureaucratic agency’s programs or budget to restrict it. Lastly, the judiciary ensures that bureaucrats observe the set legal standards, which promote accountability. This protects the general public from being abused by bureaucrats (Lupia& McCubbins, 1994).Courts are known to support bureaucratic agencies whose actions they perceive reasonable.
Bureaucratic agencies also have internal means of promoting accountability. Among those mechanisms is whistle-blowing. Whistle blowing is referred to as a bureaucrat’s act of exposing bureaucratic corruption or malpractice within the agency. Another method used to promote accountability is demographic representation (Lupia& McCubbins, 1994). This refers to having ademographically representative workforce with the idea thatbeing demographically represented in all levels improves responsiveness.
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