More than Agents: Federal Bureaucrats as Information Suppliers in Policymaking

by JoBeth S. Shafran

Despite the widespread notion of federal bureaucrats as implementers of congressional will, their role in the policymaking process extends far beyond. Traditionally understood through the lens of principal-agent theory, bureaucrats act as agents to their principal, Congress, executing and implementing legislative directives without much influence on policy shaping. However,  bureaucrats are also key information suppliers to Congress. In this paper, I explore the conditions that enable bureaucrats to become influential contributors who define problems and propose solutions during legislative discussions.

Policymakers, constrained by limited resources, time, and attention, selectively rely on key information sources. Certain political elites, such as bureaucrats and interest groups, are actively invited to participate in policy making, while others remain on the periphery. Congress delegates the tasks of information processing and knowledge accumulation to the bureaucracy in return for neutral expertise. As such, I argue that the information asymmetry, wherein bureaucrats hold specialized knowledge not readily available to legislators, can be strategically leveraged by Congress. Bureaucrats are more likely to testify at congressional hearings under three conditions: when alternative information sources are scarce; when their expertise is essential for committee tasks, such as agency oversight; and when their input can help manage diverse committee workloads. 

Focusing on congressional hearings across three policy domains—domestic commerce, energy, and health—from 1995 to 2010, I examine approximately 4,700 hearings and more than 33,000 testimonies. Given the count nature of the dependent variable (a count of bureaucrats testifying at a given hearing), I employ negative binomial regressions to examine the factors influencing the prevalence of bureaucrats among witnesses, such as the type of committee and the agenda of the committee.  

The findings reveal that bureaucrats are more likely to be called as witnesses when committees face limited access to alternative expert sources and when the information bureaucrats provide is directly relevant to the committee’s legislative goals. As indicated in the figure below, I find a higher reliance on bureaucratic testimony when committees address a broader scope of issues, which implies that bureaucrats’ ability to process information is valued in diverse legislative environments. 

Figure 5. Predicted number of careerist bureaucrats testifying at constituency, policy, and power committees as agenda diversity increases, 1995-2010

Additionally, the findings show that bureaucratic testimony is more prevalent in policy areas characterized by lower public engagement and high technical complexity, such as energy policy. Conversely, in domestic commerce, where multiple stakeholders are involved and information is abundant, bureaucrats are less likely to dominate the testimony. This study enhances our understanding of bureaucratic expertise and knowledge in the legislative process. Bureaucrats do more than implement policy–they actively shape it through information provision in policy debates. 

You can read the original article in Policy Studies Journal at

Shafran, JoBeth S. 2022. “More than Agents: Federal Bureaucrats as Information Suppliers in Policymaking.” Policy Studies Journal, 50(4): 921–943. https://doi.org/10.1111/psj.12455

About the Author

JoBeth S. Shafran is an assistant professor at Western Carolina University, where she teaches public policy courses for both the Political Science and Master of Public Affairs programs. Her research focuses on information processing in Congress and the federal bureaucracy. Her work has been published in Policy Studies Journal and Cognitive Systems Research, among others.