How bureaucrats shape political decisions: The role of policy information
| Published date | 01 December 2021 |
| Author | Jens Blom‐Hansen,Martin Baekgaard,Søren Serritzlew |
| Date | 01 December 2021 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/padm.12709 |
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
How bureaucrats shape political decisions: The
role of policy information
Jens Blom-Hansen | Martin Baekgaard | Søren Serritzlew
Department of Political Science, Aarhus
University, Aarhus, Denmark
Correspondence
Jens Blom-Hansen, Department of Political
Science, Aarhus University, Bartholins Allé,
Aarhus DK-8000 C, Denmark.
Email: jbh@ps.au.dk
Abstract
Studies of bureaucracy have been very concerned about
whether the bureaucracy exploits its informational advan-
tage vis-à-vis politicians to influence policy decisions. Yet,
little theorizing has been undertaken about how such influ-
ence takes place. We identify and test three mechanisms
that must be at work in order for policy information to func-
tion as a vehicle for political influence of bureaucrats. Using
data from politicians and bureaucrats in five different politi-
cal systems and survey experimental methods to deal with
endogeneity and social desirability bias, we find evidence
supporting all three mechanisms: bureaucrats are generally
willing to use policy information to influence political deci-
sions, politicians rely on policy information from bureau-
crats when making such decisions, and the way policy
information is presented matters for the policy preferences
of politicians. We discuss the implications of the results and
factors that are important for the mechanisms to apply.
1|INTRODUCTION
At the height of the Cuban missile crisis, President Kennedy had to make one of the most important decisions
in the post-Second World War period: how to respond to the Soviet deployment of missiles in Cuba. As
recounted in Allison's (1971) famous study of the crisis, Kennedy and his advisers discussed several options.
Kennedy's preference was for a clean, surgical air strike. However, the Air Force informed the President that
an air strike could not be surgical. It would have to be a massive attack. This information made the President
opt for the blockade that eventually succeeded in deterring the Soviets. However, as civilian experts later dis-
covered, the information from the Air Force was wrong. The surgical air strike would have been realistic. As
Allison (1971, p. 205) notes, the President had ‘learned the lesson of the Bay of Pigs, “Never rely on experts”,
less well than he supposed’.
Received: 25 March 2020 Revised: 30 October 2020 Accepted: 17 November 2020
DOI: 10.1111/padm.12709
658 © 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Public Admin. 2021;99:658–678.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/padm
While this example of bureaucratic influence on political decision-making is exceptional in its drama, it is far from
unusual that political decisions are influenced by policy information from government officials. For over one hundred
years, the literature on bureaucracy has pointed to the dilemma between bureaucratic expertise and political control.
The nagging question is whether non-expert politicians can control a specialized and permanent bureaucracy.The lit-
erature on bureaucracy has provided no final answer to this question but agrees that bureaucrats hold a privileged
information-providing role and occupy a key policy-advising role. Because they manage the flow of information to
politicians, bureaucrats control, or at least influence, the set of problems and solutions that politicians consider
(Wilson 1887; Goodnow 1900; Weber 1970 [1922]; Niskanen 1971; Simon 1976 [1945], pp. 45–60; Wilson 1989;
Meier and Olsen 2005; O'Toole 2006).
The literature points to several ways in which bureaucratic expertise may influence political decisions. Bureau-
crats have complex motives. They can be motivated by a ‘public spirit’, professionalism and a role perception as civil
servants, but they can also be motivated by self-interest (Golden 2000, pp. 20–24). The latter type of motivation also
entails that bureaucrats may seek their own policy objectives. This is a classic idea. Weber (1970 [1922], p. 233) cau-
tioned that bureaucrats may withhold information from politicians; Niskanen (1971) notes that bureaucratic–political
information asymmetries make it possible for bureaucrats to engage in political agenda-manipulation; and
Baumgartner and Jones (2015) argue that bureaucratic expertise influences the identification of political problems.
Although many mechanisms may plausibly link bureaucratic expertise to politics, it has proven challenging to
bring systematic empirical evidence on the causal impact on political preferences. The reason is probably that such
an endeavour faces daunting methodological challenges. How can bureaucratic information-providingbehaviour of a
manipulative nature realistically be observed? How can political reliance on bureaucratic expertise be mapped? How
can the influence of information be isolated from the multitude of other factors that influence political preferences?
Do bureaucrats sometimes provide information as a reaction to anticipated political decisions, or information they
know their political masters like (reverse causality)?
Our contribution is to provide causal evidence on one way in which bureaucratic expertise may influence politi-
cal decisions. More specifically, we study the bureaucratic provision of information that functions as the basis of
political decisions on policy problems. We refer to this type of information as policy information (and discuss this
concept in more detail later). For policy information to play a role in bureaucrats' shaping of political preferences,
three mechanisms must operate. First, bureaucrats must be willing to use policy information to influence policy. Sec-
ond, politicians should rely on policy information from bureaucrats when making political decisions. Third, the way
information is presented should matter for political preferences. If one of these mechanisms or conditions fails, there
will be a limit to how much policy information will matter. However, exploring the mechanisms empirically is method-
ologically challenging because of endogeneity and social desirability bias. The former refers to the two-way nature of
the relationship between information and preferences. Information may influence preferences, but information may
also be provided by bureaucrats in anticipation of political preferences. The latter refers to the tendency of people
to underreport socially undesirable activities and overreport socially desirable ones (Krumbal 2013). Bureaucrats may
not provide valid information on our first mechanism because it may be seen as illegitimate behaviour. Politicians
may not provide information on our second mechanism because it may portray them as incompetent.
We handle these methodological challenges with experimental designs (Mutz 2011). We study the first mecha-
nism by involving a group of bureaucrats in a list experiment. In this type of experiment, respondents are randomly
assigned to either a list of non-controversial statements or a list of the very same statements plus one additional con-
troversial item, which is the one of interest to the researcher. The respondents are only asked how many statements
they agree with but not which specific statements, and hence the respondent can express a potentially objectionable
opinion to the controversial statement in the safe knowledge that the researcher cannot identify this answer
(Glynn 2013). We investigate the second mechanism through a decision board experiment where respondents are
asked to select pieces of information from different information sources in an online decision board (see Christensen
and Moynihan 2020). This allows us to measure directly how much politicians rely on policy information as compared
to other information sources. Since the decision board experiment to some degree suffers from issues of ecological
BLOM-HANSEN ET AL.659
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