Why Bureaucratic Autonomy?
Narratives of this sort–bureaucrats building reputations for their agencies, erecting coalitions behind their favored policies, and securing the policies that they favor despite the opposition of the most powerful politicians–are not isolated occurrences in American political development. Stories like these abound in the Progressive Era. Such cases raise important questions of democratic governance, not least the specter of unelected officials with broad policymaking power. Yet the primary query that these narratives raise is one of empirical bewilderment: Why and how does such autonomy happen? Why are some agencies autonomous, whereas others lie dormant? Why did the USDA and the Post Office Department succeed where the Interior Department failed? Why did the USDA and Post Office Department succeed in the Progressive Era and not before? Bureaucratic autonomy occurs when bureaucrats take actions consistent with their own wishes, actions to which politicians and organized interests def
