In Bureaucracy’s masters and minions: the politics of controlling the U.S. bureaucracy, the author argues that political control of the bureaucracy from the president and the Congress is largely contingent on an agency’s internal characteristics of workforce composition, workforce responsibilities, and workforce organization. Through a revised principal-agent framework, the author explores an agent-principal model to use the agent as the starting-point of analysis.

Bureaucracy as a whipping boy for politicians and citizens alike --A survey of bureaucratic control mechanisms -- The business of agency budgeting : incrementalism -- Reflecting, refining, and revising the principal-agent approach : an agent-principal model -- Using an agent-principal model to test who controls the U.S. bureaucracy -- Elites' influence on education policy : understanding the dynamics of K-12 educational policy changes -- Bureaucratic control, intransigence, and fortitude.