Vital Statistics on the Presidency by Ragsdale Lyn K.;

Author:Ragsdale, Lyn K.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 1994831
Publisher: CQ Press
Published: 2014-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Organizational Complexity

Greater size typically means greater complexity. The larger an organization, the more likely internal differentiation will occur. In many ways the internal complexity of an office reflects the complexity of the environment. Presidents attempt to satisfy disparate policy goals and policy groups by creating special offices or councils within the EOP. These special offices need not last long; they exist to allow presidents to exhibit their concern about a particular problem or group. Table 6-6 depicts the organizational units of the executive office since its creation in 1939. Although the core of offices in the EOP remains well established today, other units, such as the Permanent Advisory Committee on Government Organizations (1953–1961), have come and gone within and across presidential administrations. Not surprisingly, every president wants to put his own stamp on the EOP, either by adding, subtracting, renaming, or combining units.

George W. Bush was no exception, and in 2002, he proposed to Congress the consolidation of various units in the EOP for budget purposes. This action, approved by Congress in the 2002 appropriations act covering the Executive Office of the President, combined the Council of Economic Advisers, the National Security Council, the Office of Policy and Development, and the Office of Administration into a single unit called “the White House.” These units heretofore had been treated as separate entities with separable budget lines. Indeed, despite the new budget measure, they continued to be separate, distinct entities within the executive office. Oddly, other long-standing, central units of the executive office—the Office of Management and Budget, the Council on Environmental Quality, the Office of National Drug Control Policy, the Office of Science and Technology Policy, and the Office of the United States Trade Representative—remained as named budget entities outside “the White House” umbrella. The justification for this reorganization was “consolidation and financial realignment for the Executive Office” and was planned to “give the President maximum flexibility in allocating resources and staff in support of his office; . . . allow the President to address emergent national needs; produce greater economies of scale and other efficiencies in procuring goods and services; and enhance accountability for performance.”3 Its more practical consequence was to obfuscate the actual expenses of large and very distinct units in the EOP. This change was abandoned by the Obama administration in 2009, when it returned to the old pattern of recording separately the budgets of each unit.

Another indicator of complexity is depicted in Table 6-7, which lists the Obama administration roster of twelve offices in the EOP. Table 6-8 lists the units of the WHO. The level of specialization, especially in the WHO, is striking. At the beginning of the Obama administration, some WHO offices were reorganized under new umbrellas but continued to carry on independent duties. For instance, the Office of National AIDS Policy was placed under the Domestic Policy Council but continued to manage AIDS policy as it had before the reorganization.

Another way of examining complexity is to consider the manner in which members of the WHO moved from generalist to specialist positions over time.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.