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Political and Organizational Determinants of Bureaucratic Responsiveness

George Washington University

This article examines the responsiveness of the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) to contacts initiated by members of Congress, interest groups, and private citizens. I develop and test hypotheses regarding the importance of internal bureaucratic factors (e.g., workload) and external political forces (e.g., contactor characteristics). Although previous research, which focuses on urban service bureaucracies, indicates that procedurally neutral rules related to agency missions are the primary predictors of responsiveness, I demonstrate that political considerations exerted substantial influence over HCFA responsiveness. For example, the agency was in some ways more responsive to congressional contacts than to contacts initiated by groups and citizens. These results suggest that scholars of legislative-executive relations should pay more attention to contacts as these routine, ongoing encounters may affect the extent to which bureaucratic policy choices are consistent with the preferences of elected officials and their constituents.

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