Life Cycle Models of Organizations

The executive branch departments and agencies of the national government have the key role in the implementation stage of the policy process. In the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA), the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) was assigned the task of providing an annual report on the condition of the nation’s environment, assessing the effects of national, state, and local governments’ efforts to protect the environment, and developing recommendations to improve environmental quality. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was given the primary responsibility for implementing the pollution control laws Congress created between 1970 and 1980, amendments to those laws, and new laws enacted during the next three decades. Some scholars have maintained that the process of implementing a public law is “removed from the hurry and strife of politics,” since the important political and substantive matters have been decided in the law itself. Other scholars, however, describe the implementation stage of the policy process as a continuation of the political struggle that occurred over the creation of the law. The competition between these two views of policy implementation is one factor that makes the study of the “life cycles” of executive branch departments and agencies so important. If the first view is correct, the implementation of a public law should be a relatively smooth process in which the leadership, managers, and professionals in agencies like the CEQ and the EPA carry out their assigned statutory duties. Likewise, the life cycle of the executive branch agency should be relatively stable and long. Finally, absent serious flaws in the design of the policy itself, the prospects for successful implementation of the law might seem to be relatively high. If the alternative view of policy implementation is correct, however, the extent to which implementation of a public law actually occurs is likely to depend heavily on the health, vitality, and even survival of the implementing agency. In turn, the health and vitality of the executive branch agency is likely to depend on the leadership of the agency and the resources that Congress and the president appropriate for it.