Thickening of Government: Federal Hierarchy and the Diffusion of Accountability.

• Author: Schaniel, William C.

In the final analysis this book is extremely disappointing. The author delivers quotable passages, but fails to make a constructive contribution because of the one dimensional nature of his analysis. Mr. Light presents "thickening" as an afunctional process, that is a process due to "hungry appointees looking for better plums" [p. 11] rather than any political ideology. With this as the deux ex machina, the basic conclusion that all departments must be thinned is both obvious, and pragmatically useless.

Mr. Light uses a rhetorical method, making each chapter title a question. Chapter One asks "How Thick is Government?" Thickening is the creation of "new agencies and units (which) widen government's base, while new management layers increased its height" [p. 1]. Three recent "growth industries" of thickening are detailed: title riders (the modifiers to the original statutory titles); chiefs of staff; and departmental lawyers and inspectors. The answer to Chapter Two's question, "Why Did Government Thicken?", the author attributes to the processes of both conscious expansion and government reform. The chapter opens with the 1937 Brownlow Committee, whose report initiated the modern thickening with the justification "The President needs help" [p. 37]. This report was followed in 1949 by Hoover and his Commission on the Organization of the Executive Branch of Government. The Hoover Commission began a process of "reforming" government, which occurred to greater or lesser extent with each change in administration. Each set of "reforms" were layered over previous reforms. Thus, "... the problem with government management is not that there has been too little reform over the years, but too much ..." [p. 34]. Superficially, the analysis would seem to be insightful. The problem is the analysis flattens the objectives of different administrations. The expansion of government by activist presidents such as Johnson - whose "Great Society" programs and civil fights legislation rapidly expanded the bureaucracy - are equated as "reform" to Nixon's "bypass layering" which sought to establish political control over the bureaucracy. The continuing question (and changing answer) about the role of the federal government is eliminated by referencing all changes as "reform."

Chapter 3 rhetorically asks "Does Thickening Matter?" The reason it matters is the "diffusion of accountability" [p. 64]. "Thickening increases the number of actors in any decision, thereby...