Does Politics Make a Difference at the EEOC?

Abstract

Stability and responsiveness are features of bureaucracy that affect both policy success and policy consistency with dynamic public values. This article explores the stability and responsiveness of a bureaucracy which, according to normative theory, should be less responsive to political stimuli, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Measures are constructed across time of political support for commission policies, as well as agency outputs and their effect on the client community. Linear time series regression methods are then applied in quantifying changes through time in policy implementation and their consistency with the ideology of incumbent political administrations. The findings demonstrate that equal employment opportunity policy is unstable, undergoing frequent transformations in response to changing political conditions.