What is Discretionary Authority?

Bureaucracy often becomes a focal point of discontent. Because they are not subject to direct political controls, there is a perception that bureaucracies mismanage scarce resources and decisions are not transparent. Discretionary authority power is defined as the ability of individual administrators in a bureaucracy to make significant choices for programs they oversee. This authority is particularly evident in systems with separation of powers

Attitudes toward both public and private bureaucracies have been affected by larger complex reactions toward corporations, governments, and other major institutions in American society, such as business, labor and the media. Public confidence is often adversely affected when governmental activity directed toward dealing with these problems is perceived by the public to be ineffective. By contrast, support for selected federal agencies, such as the U.S. Coast Guard and the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, has improved dramatically.

Fluctuations in public confidence, respect, and trust appear to be associated more closely with the strength or weakness of the national economy than the political party in power. Whether public attitudes toward government bureaucracy in general and bureaucrats in particular have followed broader opinion patterns exactly is unclear. However, the public’s regard for public administrators has decreased in recent years.

Variations in bureaucracy’s public standing have coincided with greater demands for public services, the increasing complexity of the nation’s problems, and much higher levels of competence and professionalism among government workers. The more complex the problems, the greater the discretionary authority vested in bureaucracies to attempt to deal with them.