The Iron Triangle is an academic concept used to describe the self-serving nature of bureaucracies and the organizations or institutions that interface with and rely on them.
The Iron Triangle charts how Congress lays out funding and political support, which in turn favors the bureaucracy; the Bureaucracy lowers regulations and grants special favors to various interest groups who achieve gain because of the perks; the interest groups work to increase electoral support among voters for various bureaucracies, which in turn enables Congress to protect the bureaucracies indefinitely.
In this way, bureaucracy can on its own be self sustaining in its influence by guiding Congress on policy choices and execution; Congress can curry favor with interest groups by offering oversight or friendly legislation; the interest groups in turn provide congressional support via their lobbyists, which in turn guides Congress, through the bureaucracy, on policy choices and execution.
It is often times associated with the Military-industrial complex,[1] however, the triangle accurately describes any administrative organization, including those such as the Department of Education.[2]
The Iron Triangle is similar in some ways to Jerry Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy, which states:
In any bureaucracy, the people devoted to the benefit of the bureaucracy itself always get in control, and those dedicated to the goals the bureaucracy is supposed to accomplish have less and less influence, and sometimes are eliminated entirely.[3]