Lentis/Iron Triangles in the U.S. Federal Government

Introduction

A visualization of the relationships within an Iron Triangle

Iron triangles are substructures within the U.S. Federal Government composed of congressional subcommittees, interest groups, and the bureaucracy. Each of these groups have needs and functions that feed naturally into each other, leading to a self sustaining cycle cementing these relationships. Iron triangles were first mentioned in 1956 in the Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report but were first popularized by Gordon Adams with his 1981 book The Politics of Defense Contracting: The Iron Triangle. Notably, in 1961, in Eisenhower’s farewell address he warned “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.” He is alerting the public to the dangerous relationship between the tremendous power of the bureaucracy and congress’ relationship with it. While not directly mentioning Iron Triangles, he highlights the risks of one of its essential relationships.

Definitions and Elements

The iron triangle is a description of the tight relationship between the U.S. Congress, Special Interest Groups, and the governmental bureaucracies. These structures exist as a result of each element of the triangle working to satisfy the needs of the other two, resulting in a closed system.

Congress

The United States Congress is the most well-known element of the iron triangle. This group comprises the House of Representatives and the Senate. Within the U.S. Federal Government, only the Congress has the ability to write laws, giving this piece of the government significant power over what laws are passed and what those laws do. In addition to writing laws, each of its 535 members must be elected by the people of the state or district they represent and can be reelected as many times as the people they represent decide. This constant cycle of reelections can cause significant stain on the politician as running campaigns are a costly and time-consuming process. In addition, it is important for the politician to stay popular with their constituency so that they can keep their position.

Special Interest Groups

Special Interest groups are non-governmental groups that have important effects on the United States government. These groups are not elected, but rather are made up of individuals and corporations who feel strongly about the issue their group focuses on. Good examples of this are the National Rifle Association being dedicated to limiting gun regulation and the League of Conservation Voters wanting to ensure environmental policy is passed. One important way these groups influence the government is through the use of legislation scorecards, where the group will rate the legislator’s actions on the issues that are important to the group and distribute the information to voters. They will also endorse, and more importantly help finance, the candidates that will help protect their interests.

Government Bureaucracies

Bureaucracies play an important role in both the United States government and in the iron triangles. These groups are created to ensure the laws written by Congress are carried out. To a certain extent, these groups can also control how those laws are enforced through creating regulations or through deciding how grants are distributed. However, these groups must also rely on the funding given to them by Congress and can face hearings to review their performance. Additionally, while the heads of each bureaucracy are selected by the executive branch, these heads must be approved by Congress before they are given power.

Examples in the U.S. Government

AARP

There are multiple examples of the iron triangle in the U.S. government.  First, the AARP, an active lobbying organization representing the interests of elderly and retired people, helped influence the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.  This act was signed on November 15th, 2021 and allocated $283 billion to transportation (roads and bridges, electric buses, and rail).  Increased allocation of funds to internet infrastructure and public transportation options helps represent the interest of the AARP members because it facilitates the movement and travel of those who cannot do so easily without help.  By influencing congress members to support the passing of such legislation in return for supporting that congress member by distributing funds during their election campaigns, they are able to leverage their power and attain what they want at the expense of those who do not share the same interests.  

NRA

Additionally, the National Rifle Association (NRA) is known for contributing campaign money to Senate races in return for their vote against gun policies such as background checks.  Among the 46 senators who voted to prevent any expansion of background checks in 2013, 43 received help from pro-gun interests since 2000.  In aggregate, this amount is $8.5 million.  Lee Drutman, who has studied the role of gun money in politics for the Sunlight Foundation, stated “Members of Congress pay attention to these numbers, and they know that in the election cycle the NRA spent $18.6 million on various campaigns.  They know what the NRA is capable of doing and the kinds of ads they’re capable of running, and especially if you’re someone facing a close election, you don’t want hundreds of thousands and potentially millions of dollars in advertising to go against you.”  

F-35

The iron triangle has had negative effects on U.S. Defense Programs and there are three eminent examples of the results of iron triangles – the F-35, the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, and the M-1 Abram tank.  These programs are often characterized as “unnecessary and overly expensive programs that exist due to interest groups.”  The U.S. is known for its relatively large military industrial complex and the F-35 program specifically has come under fire for its poor performance and cost overruns.  This extremely expensive project costs $7000 per taxpayer.  Despite its downfalls, the F-35 program is a “too big to fail” program because of its role in the military industrial complex, which is facilitated by the Iron Triangle.  The project provides business to a large “global network of contractors” including Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin.  This network ranges 1,000 suppliers in 45 states and provides 133,000 jobs.  This economic integration makes it difficult to call off the project midway without significant pushback from workers and contractors.  When these large defense companies band together to work on such projects, they obtain the power needed to influence Congress to act in their interests, in this case, seeing the project to fruition despite its failure to arrive on time and on budget. This is often at the expense of taxpayers who would like to see their money being allocated elsewhere.  

Effect of Iron Triangles on American Democracy

Because of the strength of these relationships and the inherent resistance to change of the bureaucracy and congress, iron triangles are well entrenched in the process of creating and enforcing federal laws. Since their direction is governed by the values of the interest groups that drive them, there is disproportionate influence by a select few people that control the interest groups. American democracy, at its most fundamental, is intended to give every individual equal power, primarily through voting those who represent their interests into elected office. However, in the face of the strength of iron triangles, elected officials can easily be more beholden to the funding from interest groups rather than their own constituents. Iron triangles are slowly shuffling the federal government from a representative democracy to a corpo-oligarchy, where a select few groups have all the power and non-elected corporations have significant influence.

Sociological Implications

Iron Law of Oligarchy

Darcy K. Leach says that “Bureaucracy happens. If bureaucracy happens, power rises. Power corrupts.” This statement, if true, dooms every large organization to collapse into an oligarchy. Unwieldy entities, like the U.S. Federal Government, have to implement bureaucracies to properly function. This structure, because of the “incompetence” of the populace, leads to power being consolidated solely in the bureaucracy’s leadership. This power will then inherently be used to maintain the power of the leadership. In the context of iron triangles, large federal agencies, although they are supposed to be apolitical, fundamentally are not leading them to naturally form relationships with congress and interest groups.

Corporatocracy

A corporation’s sole focus is to make money for its shareholders, and as governments have significant influence over that goal, it is in the best interest of the corporation to have counter-influence back over the government. If the corporations have something that elements of the government need, such as money, then that counter-influence is completely doable. With too much corporate influence a government can tend towards corporatocracy, where the government is completely controlled by corporations, and can neglect the people it is supposed to represent. Iron triangles optimize this process by cementing the influence in a way that cannot be easily disrupted.

Conclusion

In a democratic government, it is assumed that the power to make changes lies with the voters. However, when interest groups and bureaucracies have so much power these organizations can make changes against the interests of the voters. The unique case of the iron triangle shows the necessity of power balances and oversight in the federal government.

Areas in this topic that would require further research include the presence of iron triangles in foreign governments, as well as the actions being taken to combat these inherently undemocratic power structures.