Iron Triangle

 So this may all look like total gibberish and like someone decided to just stick a bunch of words  onto a triangular shaped flow chart…but this confusing figure represents the ever confusing workings and relationships of our large bureaucracy. Political scientists like to call this mumbo jumbo, the iron triangle.

Because the bureaucracy has grown to about roughly 21 million people, the President nowadays has little or no contact with the bureaucratic workers that assist in running the country. As a nation that was originally founded on anti-bureaucratic ideas, the Founding Fathers could have never even began to imagine how intricate the formation of the government would get. Surpassing original expectations, the bureaucracy was forced to unofficially adapt an iron triangle model in order to have things run smoothly and almost in a sense of checks and balances, like the branches of the government. Ironically, the bureaucracy, due to it's independence from the executive cabinet due to lack of interaction, is often referred to as the "fourth branch" of the United States government, after the official branches of the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial of course. 

But the way the iron triangle works is simple. But let me break down first what each part really means….

BELOW IS AN INFO-GRAPHIC I MADE. ORIGINALLY IT WAS ALL TEXT BUT BLOGGER KEPT MESSING IT UP AND IT LOOKED LIKE THIS… (ALL MESSED UP AND OUT OF ORDER...

IT WAS TOO PRETTY AND I SPENT 2 HOURS WORKING ON IT, SO I WASN'T JUST GOING TO DELETE IT BECAUSE BLOGGER CAN'T FORMAT THINGS RIGHT, SO I SCREENSHOTTED IT AND MADE IT INTO A PICTURE…. SO I 100% TAKE FULL CREDIT FOR MAKING THIS, DID NOT STEAL THIS FROM ANY SITE… I EVEN USED MATCHING FONTS TO TRY TO MATCH TO THE GRAPHIC (THAT I FOUND ONLINE) THAT IS AT THE TOP OF THE PAGE…. ENJOY MY INFO-GRAPHIC BREAKING DOWN THE IRON TRIANGLE~ woo!

Although the relationships between the groups may seem more complex than a Spanish telenovela, the overall concept is as simple as the famous saying "I scratch your back, you'll scratch mine", in the sense that everyone in this arrangement benefits. 

But, the book states that iron triangles no longer dominate policy processes, but that they do in fact persist. The example the book gives is the relationship between the Department of Veterans Affairs, the House Commit

tee on Veterans Affairs and the American Legion and the Veterans of the Foreign Wars. This example proves that even if this model isn't as strong and prevalent as it once was, the fundamental principles of it continue to exist.

So this entry was supposed to be serious until my computer decided to hate me, but I hope my graphic (that was originally a blog written post) shows my proficiency in the "Iron Triangle"!

….but this is me after Blogger decided to hate me