THE DEATH OF AN AGENCY

Bruce Btmber

Review of Policy Research, 1998, vol. 15, issue 2‐3, 202-225

Abstract: The pluralistic logic of American government facilitates the creation of new agencies while posing obstacles to their elimination, making the outright closure of an agency an unusual event. The Republican majority elected to Congress in 1994 announced a priority of attempting that feat. This article examines the first of its few successes, the termination of the Office of Technology Assessment, and it considers whether this case is an exception to the rule of agency resiliency. I show that Congress targeted this agency because of its tiny budget, low political visibility, and absent constituency. This event was an exercise in budget symbolism, and is consistent with what one would predict of a legislature seeking to position itself as fiscally responsible yet restrained from making serious changes to the bureaucracy by powerful constituency interests.

Date: 1998
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