A State-Level Examination of Bureaucratic Policymaking: The Internal Organization of

Attention – Jessica Terman

The government is the one who is assigning and executing the policies to its people.
There is an agency that makes the policy in its other internal government agencies. This
agency makes public procurement policy, personnel policy, and information technology
policy for all other agencies. Its policymaking authority is wide that it is on the level of
legislature and chief executive in governing all other agencies across the government. While
this agency is tasked for the responsibilities to its other agencies, it has limited view in terms
of information-processing capacity and formal bureaucratic policymaking such as notice and
comment rulemaking because it is costly and time-consuming that’s why the agency is
choosing the areas in which they can engage in formal policymaking authority. The study
tackles bureaucratic policymaking in terms of the formal authority given to bureaucrats that
political principals except them to exercise to differing degrees through issuing internal
agency policies or memoranda or through administrative rulemaking. The study claims that
there are two ways that the public agencies can be organized. First is by internal organization
phenomena, which is aiming to make a particular program and function noticeable than
others in a given agency. Second is the phenomena external to the organization such as a
noticeable public issue through political actors and interest groups.
The study discusses different terms of having bureaucratic policymaking. The use of
formal agency policymaking authority suggest that the bureaucratic actors are responsive to
the political signals to differing extents under differing circumstances. In simple terms, there
is more bureaucratic policymaking patterns than political pressure and communication. The
organizational attention is an important component in agency agenda setting and
policymaking because it serves as a “attention signals” that helps the agencies focus on their
responsibilities. Part of organizational attention is through internal affair. Internal organized
attention is playing an important role in policymaking outputs and influencing performance.
This can occur through managerial decision making and strategies that internally prioritize
some agency functions over others and internal organizational shocks that alter organizational
dynamics. There are two parts of internally organized attention which is through issue
salience and through focusing events. Issue salience is defined by the importance that actors
in a given venue ascribe to them. Focusing events are conceptualized as shocks to a given
system that result in policy change. For the study of bureaucratic policymaking, there are
variables to be considered. The dependent variable for the study is the bureaucratic
policymaking. There are two ways of administrative procurement policymaking activity: the
timing at which the rulemaking activity occurs and the quantitative changes that a given rule
introduces. There is an allotted time in rulemaking process. Meaning, examining timing at
which a rule is proposed allows for the examination of bureaucratic policy-making in relation
to various internal organization attention. The independent variable in the study is the
internally organized attention which includes both issue salience and focusing events. This
was tackled earlier in the paper about the internally organized attention. For the control
variable, it includes the issue salience, political signaling, and political uncertainty. Issue
salience has two operations: rules that involve contracting with/purchasing from special
groups and rules that involved contracting for/purchasing special goods. In terms of signals, it
is most effective at eliciting desired response from bureaucracy if signals sent by both chief
executive and legislature. In analytic techniques, independent variables are measured in three
levels: quarter, fiscal year, and the rule. A hierarchical model is presented that allows for the
modeling of clustered observations that are nested in one another. Two separated analyses are
estimated: for policymaking timing and for quantitative policymaking change. The results
and discussion in this study is presented through tabular method and it is served as an
analysis for the bureaucratic policymaking data.
There is a debate regarding democratic governance and bureaucratic policymaking
authority. The bureaucratic response speculated that elected officials use political signal to
access policymaking authority in a way of legislation or budgetary shifts. Here in the
Philippines, the legislation is the one responsible for the national budget of the government.
In such of reality, the president of the country should have the cooperation of the legislative
department to look and guide for the national budget. The president can make a proposal to
revise the budget and the congress can review this proposal until such time that the budget
will get finalize. In politics, most probably that the president should have the alliance to the
legislation so that he can manage and control the legislation, though it should be observing
the separation of powers between the executive and legislative department. In terms of
abiding the law, the legislation is one responsible for the lawmaking and the president is the
one who will approve the law by which he should sign the bill. The president can also
propose for the revision of such law to the legislative department if he wants to change
something in the provisions. For the organizational attention, some of the public
organizations have multiple goals and operate in an unstable environment and the employees
are having a hard time prioritizing their responsibilities. It should have the focus in doing
their responsibilities according to the organization’s mission and vision. Organizational
attention can determine internally. Internally organized attention through issue salience
defined by importance that actors in a given venue ascribe to them. Meaning, noticing issues
should be a prioritize for the influencers. Having internal agency actors like entrepreneurs
and strategiest who are determined to attract resource for the mission and objectives of their
program can help resolve issues within public organizations. The organizational body can
review their resources for opportunities to exploit, engaging in innovative search to gain
resources and power for their programs. It can be done by having networking and
communicating with the actors and investors. If the event of resolving issues is not
prioritized, they might lose resources to another program or functional area in the agency.
Everyone within the organization should be actively functional so that the purpose of the
agency may be done successfully. If the resources will lose, it will also lose its importance
and the functions will be abolished. Overall, the issue salience plays an overall role in having
resources and attention for the sake of successful administrative strategies. Another way of
having internally organized attention is through focusing events. It is a system that maybe a
basis for policy change. The policymaking can be changed depending on the event in the
present and future. If there is an event like terrorism, or any natural disasters, the policy may
add or set a new policy with regards to the event by approving some policy related to the
event. For example, a typhoon occur and the government should act by releasing budget for
that specific event to help its people recover. Same as in terrorism wherein the commander-
in0chief will decide for the measures to eliminate terrorist. The focusing event creates
instability to the organization since they will have their focus and attention to the issues and
other consequences made by this attention. Overall, the two particulars (issue salience and
focusing events) represents both internal and external challenges for public organizations. If
the attention is both on internal and external, the issue salience and focusing events will force
the organization to respond. For the research of this study, the dependent variable is the
bureaucratic policymaking. It is stated in the study the specifics of making the policy.
Literally, it tackles the sentence structure and measurement of the rule. It is important to have
this kind of specifics so that the rule and policy will not be misinterpreted. Every period,
colon, semicolon, etc. signifies the meaning of the sentence and it should be strictly observed
so that it will become clear to any organization. The quantitative change introduced by a
given rule. It is a good operationalization of bureaucratic policymaking authority because
longer rules are often perceived by interest groups and other organizational stakeholders as
implementing burdensome regulation. Meaning, the longer rules, the harder to understand.
The rule must be straightforward and direct to the point so that it can be easily understand.
For the independent variable of the study, it is the internally organized attention. One of the
ways that bureaucratic actors do is by framing the functions and responsibilities of their
programs as crucial to the organization to get more resources. Policymaking authority should
have the procurement function so that it cannot be abused easily. Having greater proportion
of agency resources should be managed. For the control variables of this study is the issue
salience, political signaling, and political uncertainty. Issue salience is being discussed in this
paper so the next topic we need to tackle is the political signal and political uncertainty.
Political signals included in the model are statutory adoption, budgetary shifts, and agency
head appointments. Statutory adoption applies the statutory changes every quarter. Budgetary
shifts are measured the change every fiscal year. Agency head appointment is measured as
the quarter which the change in the leadership is occurred and appointed and the two
succeeding quarters. Political uncertainty plays a considerable role in agency outputs and
performance. It has two operationalizations: split partisan control across political institution
and gubernatorial election year. Split partisanship showing strong and sometimes blind
adherence to a particular party, faction, cause, or person. Gubernatorial election is coded
using the fiscal year around election year.
The results and discussion is being discussed in the study. The table 1 shows the
descriptive statistics for the model, and the model fit statistics and results of the analysis are
presented in table 2. For both timing and quantitative change models of administrative
policymaking, each of the variables of interest has a statistically significant effect on the use
of bureaucratic policymaking authority. Internal focusing events which the number of ethics
opinions issued in a given quarter were positively associated with the use of bureaucratic
policymaking authority. The odds that additional ethics hearings lead to the use of
bureaucratic policymaking authority are 0.10 higher than the odds that they don’t for the
timing of bureaucratic policymaking and 0.15 higher for the quantitative change. The internal
issue salience variables had varying results. A greater proportion of procurement employees
in the agency was more likely to lead to use the formal way. The agency budget is dedicated
to procurement leads to use of bureaucratic policymaking authority are 0.58 lower than the
odds that it don’t for the timing and 0.65 lower for quantitative change. There are two internal
issue salience variables which have differing effects. A larger proportion of agency staff leads
to greater use of formal bureaucratic policymaking authority while a larger proportion of
resources leads the use of less formal way. The results for the variables that been labeled
externally organized by external factors such as agency head appointments, statutory
adoption and interest group involvement. Overall, much of the organizational theory and
public management research supports this idea that public bureaucracies are open systems
subject to both internal and external constraints regarding managerial strategy and the use of
authority in ambiguous and harsh environments. For the conclusion, the study suggested
more research for future references. More evidences should be presented since it is a
continuous study and doesn’t end in a simple way. Data collection can be made through
interviews of various people involved in the administrative rulemaking and rule
implementation. They can be asked about the strategic works they do within their respective
agencies. It can be asked if there is a significance if there is a maximization of budget occur
and if can become salient and resource rich than others and if the strategies implemented are
working for the public interest. The study shows the assumptions of having consequential
bureaucratic policymaking. Rules are vary through its impacts. Quantitative change in
policymaking can be observed through content analysis. There is a high salient policy area
for the contracting and procurement influences the findings. Most of the policymakers are
having procurement rules change if it will become beneficial for them but it cannot be done
easily because of political backlash they may get if the ruling will become against the public
interest. Every rule-makers should considered everything before they do the decision.