8.

Regulatory Agency Governance: A Summing Up

Two final tasks remain to be executed in this exploration of regulatory agency governance. One is to draw
together in summary fashion patterns in agency governance and their underpinnings. The other is to examine
the implications of patterns of governance in public policy perspective.

Patterns
In the seven agencies, agency governance may be described in terms of chairman-centered collegia. Staff and
members are not without influence by any means. In important respects, however, the influence of staff on
major matters is closely attached to the position of chairmen. Chairmen stand apart from other regulators in
scope of activity, engagement in regulatory processes, and in imprint on regulatory determinations. In the
discussion of administrative functions, chairmen were described as preeminent. That characterization might well
be applied across the whole spectrum of agency enterprise, in which, as one chairman asserted, "The chairman
is the key." The domain of chairmen is extensive. They have substantial influence on critical aspects of staff
activity. At the commission level, they have considerable opportunity for independent action and considerable
influence in collective decision-making. Their capacity to affect regulatory values and objectives--the basic
stakes in agency government-is much greater than others in the commissions.

All in all, the influence of chairmen in regulatory processes may be characterized as extraordinary, placing them
in a leadership

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position. Consequently, the commissions are not true plural executive systems. Perhaps anticipating and
certainly following statutory revisions, a significant measure of integration of executive responsibility and
capacity has occurred in the chairmanship. The executive dimension of chairmanships has, in fact,
developed to a form much richer and more impressive than the statute-based charters imply, much less
specify. Complexity and attendant necessity--especially related to increasingly hostile environments and
crafting regulatory responses which are coherent in policy and program terms--have combined with the
ambitions and skills of particular chairmen often enjoying presidential support in leading to the present role
configuration.The role of chairmen has two major components. One is participant in formal collective
decision-making, which not uncommonly involves leadership. The other component may be designated the
executive. It includes important functions in agency administration or management narrowly defined. But it
also includes functions associated with overall agency management and having major substantive import,
functions which fall in the gray areas which are not dealt with in formal specifications of authority and
responsibility. The executive component of the chairman's role generally includes the following essential
parts:
1. To decide on administrative matters.
2. To guide agency activity in an integrated fashion.
3. To direct the work of staff in behalf of the collegium.
4. To provide leadership in framing agendas and priorities.
5. To initiate and legitimize departures from the routine or established approaches to regulatory
problems, and especially the formulation of underlying regulatory concepts.
6. To represent the agency to its environment and to interpret the environment to the agency.
7. To create and maintain a context and circumstances in which member roles as participants in collective
decision-making can be executed successfully.

In contrast, the role component that dominates the position of member is participant in collective decision-
making in formal proceedings. The executive component of the role of members is marked by some
ambiguity but may be described basically in terms of ratification of decisions, advice-giving, and providing
support for the initiatives and efforts of chairmen.

There are some differences in the places of chairmen in agency governance when examined comparatively.
 The most important and interesting ones distinguish the Federal Communications Commission

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and the Interstate Commerce Commission from the rest. The basis of the differences may be understood best in
terms of tradition and political circumstance which have placed them at a different stage of structural
development. The foundation for the emergence of a "modern" chairmanship was only laid in the Interstate
Commerce Commission by the 1969 reorganization which did away with the rotational arrangement. It has yet
to be laid formally in the Federal Communications Commission. More remarkable than the comparatively
restrictive environment in which the chairmen of the two agencies are placed, however, is their importance and
substantial influence. Despite a lag in formal redefinition, the roles of chairmen and members are not
fundamentally different from those characteristic of the other agencies, and there are indications that the
chairmanship is becoming more important in them. The pressures exerted on the agencies require mobilization
of agency resources and development of viable policy and program responses which, in turn, require increasing
measures of centralized activity. Despite the traditional constraints, chairmen in both agencies can take
initiatives and adjust circumstances in order to meet the imperatives of situations, consequently adding to the
importance of their positions.

The analysis has indicated that the impressive place of chairmen in agency governance rests upon several
elements. One consists of the formal prerogatives of their position as spelled out in legislation, reinforced by the
willingness of colleagues to accept the differential which is found in law, their perception of the chairman as the
president's man, and their association of a measure of centralized authority and responsibility with
administrative effectiveness. Such elements combine with the behavior of colleagues and chairmen which
members experience when they join commissions to produce expectations regarding the chairmanship which are
generous, though perhaps differing in particulars. The potency of the position of chairman is reinforced further
by the strategic resources associated with it, especially in regard to knowledge, processes, and the products of
staff activity. These resources are accentuated in importance by the complexity within and surrounding
regulatory activity. All of these elements combine with the interests of members and staff to produce a high
degree of receptivity to leadership emanating from the chair. On the other side, the expectations and interests
of chairmen usually go in the same direction.

Thus the role of regulatory agency chairmen is complex and inclusive regarding the regulatory and support
functions which occupy the agencies. The role of their colleagues is substantially less complex and more limited.
The chairman's role is one in which leadership in relation to colleagues and staff is an important part and in

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which a considerable capacity for independent initiatives is sanctioned. A generous sense of the
chairmanship, broadly shared, has for the most part become a part of the institutional fabrics of the various
agencies. The impressive place of chairmen in agency governance may be characterized further as secure in
its underpinnings, stable in at least broad outline, and typically free of substantial, overt conflict. The uses of
the chair may vary with the orientations and backgrounds of incumbents, but the essential characteristics of
the position do not depend on these.

One limited circumstance in which conflict over agency governance may arise is when formal proposals for
extensive changes in systems of governance highlight and force attention to basic questions of roles,
relationships, relative influence, and the concepts underlying the structure and form of regulatory activity.
Frontal attacks and suggestions for comprehensive alterations tap uncertainties and strain the delicate and
sensitive arrangements concerning the place of members in the agencies. Adjustments that might be
allowed to take place, even approvingly, in evolutionary and incremental fashion may generate heat in other
forms. Particularly, members will tend to resist changes perceived as diminishing their place in the agency.
That resistance may be overcome, as it was in certain of the 1950 and 1961 reorganization proposals, but
even there some compromises were caused by opposition. 1 Resistance may be successful, as the Federal
Communications Commission and Interstate Commerce Commission cases indicate. The more recent
reorganization efforts in the Securities and Exchange Commission and, again, in the Federal
Communications Commission, discussed in chapter 5, are further illustrations.
The members' sensitivity regarding their place in the scheme of things, a matter which is typically central
when extensive changes are proposed, does not relate just to the role of the chairman. Indeed, more
important in this context may be relative influence of the commission level and the staff level. Members
often appear to be more fearful of enlarging the role of staff in agency governance than of extending the
role of the chairman. The major reason does not involve the special relationship between chairmen and
staffs, although that may be a part. Chairmen, though different, are a part of the collegium. Their activities
may be viewed as representative of the interests of their colleagues in relation to the staff and in other
respects. The real rivals of members are the staff. Changes, such as the creation of a managing director
with responsibility for directing substantive staff activities, threaten a diminution of the role of members
much more than staff direction from the office of the chairman. Ironically, then, members may prefer
systems of agency governance which accentuate the position of chairmen in relation to the staff because
rightly or