The operations of democratic institutions define the bureaucratic aspect of the state in the pluralist perspective. Programs, funding, and leadership of state agencies are subject to shifting currents of public opinion and electoral choice. Bureaucrats are vulnerable to removal; programs are subject to cuts. Within the state, bureaucracies compete with each other for support and resources, like any other interest group. Even the internal operations of such organizations are not “bureaucratic” in the usual pejorative sense of being rule-bound and inflexible. Rather, bureaucracies are seen as coalitions of individuals maximizing their own benefits. Bureaucracies are highly political, shot through with personal communications and favors, and possess cultures just like communities and ethnic groups. Bureaucracies are established as a result of a collective choice to implement social values and ultimately arise from the diverse perceptions and needs of individuals. Bureaucratic centralization is not seen as a structural imperative but is an impermanent social choice. A continuous tension exists between the possibilities of centralizing decisions to serve the public interest or decentralizing them to serve the preferences of particular constituencies.

Bureaucracies themselves reflect the pluralism of governing institutions. Each has its own history, surviving crises of leadership succession by virtue of having become identified with values of the population and becoming institutionalized. Bureaucratic organizations are natural social organisms, with a life history of growth, development, and decline.