Do Your Government's Agencies Change Much When Leadership Changes?

[Phi for All]

I want to know if other countries suffer the way the US does when a political party gains power and doesn't support the functions of certain government departments. Right now, many of the agencies that protect US citizens from consumer fraud, environmental hazards, workplace dangers, veterans affairs, and emergency disaster management are being stripped of their effectiveness, and it seems wrong to me on many levels. It's wrong to have FEMA in the first place if you aren't going to take it seriously. It's wrong to have agencies we pay for no matter what, and then have all their clout and effectiveness removed. 

And let me just say it outright. In my lifetime, I've seen Democrats spend less on the military or border security, but they never ignored it the way the Republicans ignore the EPA, FEMA, OSHA, Veterans Affairs, and other agencies. Can anyone point to a Democrat appointee who was unfit for the job at one of these agencies? There's a whole list of people the Republicans have put in charge that had no experience whatsoever, and underperformed as expected. And after seeing the chaos that was "capitalized upon" in the aftermath of the Puerto Rico devastation, it seems obvious that managing emergencies cost-effectively is not in Republican interests because it takes money away from small businesses, like that highly-connected two-man firm in Montana that got the $300M contract to fix the power. 

So do your country's agencies suffer much depending who is in power? Does your universal healthcare coverage dip when conservatives are in power, or does even the right-wing agree it's great to be alive? It's probably normal to have certain regulations relaxed or strengthened, but I'm talking about putting someone in charge of a department or agency that is quite obviously there to yank its teeth or dismantle it or just simply make it look bad. We seem to always be taking three steps forward, two steps back as a societal strategy.

[tuco]

First let me say that our, Czech, governance is, in general, the opposite of efficient, competent, transparent and for the people governance but it is rather a self-serving machinery of opportunists.

However, to answer the question in OP: Yes, important roles in the structure of ministries (we do not have agencies) are changed according to the political will of election-winning parties. The official reason is that the heads of ministries, ministers, want to have around people whom they can trust, though I think there is another one. Since parties function like corporations - where voters are customers, product are promises, and goal is to grow - they need to reward people who work for them with cozy government jobs, where they can capitalize on opportunities provided by such jobs - access to information, government tenders, ability to change legislation,  contact with lobbyists etc.

While the EU requires from its member to have "Civil Service Law", partly to prevent the negatives mentioned in OP (discontinuity, lack of a long-term goal, instability) , its implementation is up to each member state and in my opinion does not work very well over here.

Edited April 2, 2018 by tuco

[Phi for All]

21 minutes ago, tuco said:

Since parties function like corporations - where voters are customers, product are promises, and goal is to grow - they need to reward people who work for them with cozy government jobs, where they can capitalize on opportunities provided by such jobs - access to information, government tenders, ability to change legislation,  contact with lobbyists etc.

I think this is the focal point for my enquiry. In the US, the far right wants to shrink the role of the federal government since they believe regulations interfere with commerce unfairly, YET they also want to use this business model you speak of, where voters are customers, millions are spent on media persuading them with promises, and THE GOAL IS TO GROW their own businesses using public agencies. The extremist Republicans want to shrink the regulatory side of government while growing its ability to fund their businesses.

These agencies/ministries are empowered by the democracy, and the citizen's need for their services doesn't change depending on who gets elected, yet in the US these leaders spend much of their time undoing work done in the last administration. And we're seeing now that no agency is exempt from this kind of treatment. We may be looking at an attempt to privatize the FBI in the future by discrediting its public service, its heroes, and its policies.

[CharonY]

I would be careful to distinguish between talking points and actual actions. While shrinking the government is a common talking point among Republicans,  since (and including) Reagan they never really shrunk it, with an almost constant ration of government employees to the overall population. The smallest government to date was, perhaps ironically, under Obama, though the recession also played a role in that.

While Trump is louder than most, his hiring freezes and other measures the overall impact on the force as a whole seems to be modest at best, and mostly found in the defense sector, according to most reports. What is striking is more that he does not appoint key leadership positions and/or fills them with entirely incompetent people. The question is then how well the agencies can still perform with a profound lack of leadership. 

The answer to that, I think, is how much influence the leadership has on the day-to-day operation, and this is more dependent on the structure of the agency and its mission rather than, e.g. from which country it is. I would think that there are plenty of mid-level employees who would just continue doing there things to the best of their ability. Other, smaller agencies which require key expertise to function in certain levels may be hit harder, though.

 

[Phi for All]

4 minutes ago, CharonY said:

The question is then how well the agencies can still perform with a profound lack of leadership. 

The answer to that, I think, is how much influence the leadership has on the day-to-day operation, and this is more dependent on the structure of the agency and its mission rather than, e.g. from which country it is.

Perhaps this should be the focus then. Can we arrange the structure of an agency so it supports its own mission to the best of its ability and minimizes the political fluctuations, or can we emulate the structures other countries use? For example, a science agency could fulfill its mission based on the work of scientists as opposed to a political appointee who studied business instead. 

I wonder how unique we are in thinking to elect businesspeople to high political office, or put wealthy neurosurgeons in charge of anti-poverty agencies, or allow someone who denies climate science to be in charge of the environment. Has this historically worked out for anyone?

[CharonY]

I should amend my statement by another element. Aside from incompetence, there are of course also appointments that are specifically there to dismantle agencies. How well that works depends of course on how much influence the leadership has on the overall function and structure of the agency and how tangible their failings may be.

One notorious agency are those that are involved in granting asylum, immigration and otherwise deal with foreigners. Since foreigners have no voting power, there are often rapid changes that can affect them appease the voter base. Other areas that  I feel are often bargaining chips are education (as no one really has a strategy that is guaranteed to work) and to some degree, the environment. The latter mostly because the effects tend not to be immediate. However, in Germany for example there are strong environmental lobbies which would make appearances more important than in the US.

If sufficient lobbying groups with different goals are involved, inertia may take over and despite different directives, it can continue with business as usual. Over time, and assuming no changes due to elections it may become the new status quo. The other distinction to be made is probably between agencies with highly specific goals, those with overarching missions and others, who are deeply tied to administrative processes (like administering services). Especially the latter are usually fairly resilient as a whole, as their failings are often felt by many folks. But an agency that promotes science, how does the average person notice whether it succeeds or not?