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Iron Triangle
Public policy in America can be neatly visualized with the Iron Triangle, in which government, special interest groups, and the bureaucratic systems interact. Congressional committees, special interest groups, and bureaucracies are the three points on the triangle, and the designator "iron" signifies the strength and immutability of the institutions and relationships between them. Iron also symbolizes the rigidity of policy making, which does not allow stakeholders or parties outside of the triangle to have a meaningful influence on decisions.
Special interest groups, as monolithic as they seem, are really composed of constituents that ultimately cast votes for politicians and who promote and shape party lines. For this reason, the needs of special interest groups are of major concern to the government -- mainly members of the legislative bodies. The bureaucrats refer to the members of government agencies, groups that are comprised of non-elected officials who nevertheless act as public servants and...
It is critical that bureaucrats create meaningful relationships with the politicians in congress, because the budgets of governmental agencies are determined in part by congressional activity. In exchange for agency support and funding from congress, the bureaucrats enable the intervention of special interest groups on things like contract bidding. By pleasing the special interest groups, the agencies incur the goodwill (or wrath) of congress. By pleasing congress by influencing voting behavior, the special interest groups achieve their goals. And by pleasing the agencies through financial and political support, congress ensures the triangle is ironclad.
Corruption is endemic and unavoidable in the iron triangle. Pork barrel projects are part and parcel of the iron triangle relationships. When special interest groups offer votes in exchange for support for their projects, they welcome pork barrel investments from agencies. The special interest groups are the…
Public Policy in the State of Maryland: An Examination of Revenues and Potential Funding Options The objective of this work is to examine the funding policies in the State of Maryland of the Department of Natural Resources funding allotments and to critically analyze funding decision-making in this area of economic finance for the State of Maryland. The State of Maryland invests deeply in its natural resources, which is shown by the
Public Policy The process of setting congress agendas and policies has always been complex and contentious. Since some issues warrant consideration by policy makers, intense competitive exists in a position on the congressional policy agenda. This study discusses the trends in Congressional agenda setting as provided in the chart. As seen in the chart, Bipartisan Corporation has declined in the Congress. This is considered as one of the hallmark attributes of the
Public Policy The Bush administration believes that hydrogen cars hold to key to reducing pollution, decreasing dependence of foreign oil, making energy more affordable and overcoming resource shortages (Onion, 2004). In Bush's 2003 State of the Union address, he revealed his goal of having significant numbers of hydrogen cars on the road by 2020, pledging $1.2 billion in federal funding to achieve his objective. In 2004, the energy department included $318
Policy Proposal The public policy proposal is that the state should have an action plan for a potential Ebola outbreak. There are several reasons for this. The first reason is the health reason, where clearly there is a need to ensure that should there be any outbreak of Ebola, that it is contained, and that it does not get out into the general public. While the odds of an outbreak are
However, there are many limitations that are seen when it comes to the public policy ideas that are generated and the value they have (Newton & Van Deth, 2005). The first limitation is the perceived value of an idea for a public policy creation or change. In other words, if the community (or at least a large portion of it) does not see the value of the idea there
Public Policy in Local Government In a general setting, the public policy is understood as a set of regulations implemented by the state in order to manage a specific issue within the parameters imposed by the current legislations. In a different formulation, "Public policy can be generally defined as a system of laws, regulatory measures, courses of action, and funding priorities concerning a given topic promulgated by a governmental entity or its