<Table> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This article needs additional citations for verification . Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . Unsourced material may be challenged and removed . (December 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) </Td> </Tr> </Table> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This article needs additional citations for verification . Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . Unsourced material may be challenged and removed . (December 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) </Td> </Tr> <P> In United States politics, the iron triangle comprises the policy - making relationship among the congressional committees, the bureaucracy, and interest groups . </P> <P> Central to the concept of an iron triangle is the assumption that bureaucratic agencies, as political entities, seek to create and consolidate their own power base . In this view an agency's power is determined by its constituency, not by its consumers . (For these purposes, "constituents" are politically active members sharing a common interest or goal; consumers are the expected recipients of goods or services provided by a governmental bureaucracy and are often identified in an agency's written goals or mission statement .) </P>

Political scientists use the term iron triangle to refer to the