The American governance system is a unique product of United States history. However, it does not mean that it works perfectly and satisfies all parties’ interests. An Iron Triangle phenomenon can be understood so argued to be both non-democratic and providing opportunities to the unheard voices of the U.S. society. Iron Triangles occur naturally between the decision-making actors, and there is a reasonable number of such examples in various realms.
To begin with, it is vital to understand the definition of an Iron Triangle. The notion under discussion describes policy-making dynamics between Congress, various governmental agencies, and special interested groups (Holzer & Schwester, 2016). Congress’ friendly legislation provides bureaucrats receive an opportunity to execute their policy more freely while special groups get lowered regulations and special favors (Adams, 2019). All these parties’ interrelations are symbiotic: they create a sub-governmental and sometimes non-democratic situation (Holzer & Schwester, 2016). Hence, an Iron Triangle is an unobvious product of the American administrative system of governance.
As for examples, several Iron Triangles occurred during Barack Obama and Donald Trump’s administrations. Firstly, one triangle was built around the Global Positioning System industry. Obama emphasized the importance of wireless spectrum availability, that is an unobvious decision. As a result, “LightSquared, encouraged by the Federal Communications Commission under both the Obama and Bush administrations, has spent billions building a new wireless broadband network on parts of the spectrum” American citizens legally own (Ahuja, 2012). Secondly, Trump’s administration is blamed for creating a Triangle in the context of America’s development of low-yield nuclear weapons (Brill, 2017). They are claimed to destabilize international security; however, the groups of interest involved in the production do benefit and Pentagon. Hence, such situations are a typical attribute of any presidency.
To conclude, an Iron Triangle is a peculiar phenomenon typical of the modern American governance system that contradicts its initial idea of democracy and transparency. Nevertheless, it stays as an a priori attribute of the recent administrations. Some groups of influence, such as nuclear weapons producers or special Commissions, benefit from this mechanism, and it is unobvious whether or not the U.S. needs to avoid this situation.
References
Adams, G. (2019). The politics of defense contracting: The iron triangle. Routledge.
Ahuja, S. (2012). Lost in D.C.’s ‘iron triangle’. Politico. Web.
Brill, S. (2017). Trump, Palantir, and the battle to clean up a huge army procurement swamp. Fortune. Web.
Holzer, M. & Schwester, R. (2016). Public administration: An introduction. Routledge.