Relations in the Government

In Political Science, on the news, in the newspaper and online you hear about the intergovernmental relations and how they all must work together for a common goal.

I had a unique opportunity through Capital Scholars to go to the National Defense University to do a simulation regarding all head of the state and all of the government agencies and the office of the President of the United States. It is much more difficult than what people on the outside seem to think. Each agency and group has a specific goal and intention in mind when making a decision and each of them is different from the other. It is impossible for everyone to come to a consensus on what decision to make because it will affect every facet of the decision in different ways.

While I was at the Treasury, we had to deal with a lot of agency cohesion. In many cases though it was mostly negative and impossible to do. We had to deal with the State Department a lot and what they were more focused on in regards to a certain issue was not necessarily our concern and vice-versa. It made it difficult to make a decision on something that was time sensitive. When I arrived at my internship, there was a case given to me that they had been working on for at least a year but because it had to involve the State Department it involved a lot of people at different levels. 

I would have been very frustrated with the time response had I not had the opportunity to understand why and how it was so difficult to make a decision in regards to different agencies.