ABSTRACT
Federal bureaus, as sociopolitical phenomena, are more complex and sophisticated than our textbooks frequently portray. The difficulties with which bureau members operationalize new policies make the already established understandings, standards, and practices a set of “default settings” that hold until new policies develop fully. Bureaus are aggregates of people who work in multiple offices, with professional trainings, and under frequently well-defined and instituted patterns of activities, legal obligations, and outside relations. Change in the practices and decision standards of a bureau often occur by small steps but may accelerate under the concerted attentions and active efforts of bureaucratic leaders. The policy preferences and job interpretations that prevail within a bureau thus frame patterns of outside contact that can undermine an administration’s preferences. The chapter also presents some closing thoughts on the key concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book.
