Bureaucratic (Governmental) Politics Paradigm

Who plays what games under what rules with what interests through which action-channels with what outcomes?

I.  Who plays:  players in positions

• chiefs
• staffers
• indians
• ad hoc players

II.  What games:  Games proceed neither at random not at leisure.  Regular channels structure the game; deadlines force issues to the attention of players.  The moves are thus to be explained in terms of the bargaining among players with separate and unequal power over particular "pieces," as in chess.

• decision
• policy
• action

III.  Under what rules:  (1) rules establish the positions, the paths by which men gain access to positions, the power of each position, the action-channels; (2) rules constrict the range of governmental decisions and actions that are acceptable; and (3) rules sanction moves of some kinds.

IV.  With what interests:

1.  parochial priorities and perceptions, the stereotypes or shared images of players

2.  The goals and interests that affect players' desired outcomes, which include:

•  national security interests
• organizational interests
• domestic interests
• personal interests

3.  stakes are a player's interests defined by the issue at hand and, in view of these stakes, a player decides on his stands

4.  Deadlines raise issues and force busy players to take stands.  Thus, players come to see quite different faces of the issue

V.  Through with action-channels: hierarchy

Action channels determine, in large part, which players enter what games, with what advantages and handicaps.

VI.  With what outcomes:  political resultants

...resultants in the sense that what happens is not chosen as a solution to a problem but rather results from compromise, conflict, and confusion of officials with diverse interests and unequal influence; political in the sense that the activity from which decisions and actions emerge is best characterized as bargaining along regularized channels among individual members of the government.

To what extent did bureaucratic politics affect various intelligence estimates of terrorist threats?  

Visit:

• Congressional Reports: Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities before and after the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001 at http://www.gpoaccess.gov/serialset/creports/911.html 

• National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon United States at  http://www.9-11commission.gov/

• An Angry Republican Roils Intelligence Waters