POLS 1101 Chapter 13 The Bureaucracy Vocabulary

bureaucracy

An organization that administers or carries out a set of activities.

bureaucrats

Employees of a bureaucracy, usually meaning a government bureaucracy.

red tape

Rules and other constraints that democracies demand that restrict bureaucrats' behavior.

civil service

The system by which most appointments to the federal bureaucracy are made to ensure that government jobs are filled on the basis of merit and that employees are not fired for political reasons.

operators

Front-line bureaucrats who have the most direct contact with the daily work of their organization.

managers

Midlevel bureaucrats who lead parts of government bureaucracies by overseeing programs, budgets, and personnel.

executives

Top-level bureaucrats responsible for entire bureaucracies, or major parts of them, who make strategic decisions about the total collection of the organization's programs, financial resources, organizational arrangements, and personnel.

critical tasks

Concrete actions that bureaucrats need to perform to help the bureaucracy address the key issues for which it is designed.

organizational culture

How bureaucrats think about critical tasks and human relationships within their bureaucracy.

sense of mission

The condition of having agreement among bureaucrats about the critical tasks and key human relationships that should operate in a bureaucracy.

strategic triangle

An approach to leadership whereby managers and executives of bureaucracies articulate public value, secure external legitimacy, and maintain capabilities for their organizations to succeed.

departments

The biggest units of the executive branch, covering a broad area of government responsibility. The heads of the departments, or secretaries, are members of the president's cabinet.

independent agencies

Executive agencies that are not part of a cabinet department.

regulatory commissions

Agencies of the executive branch of government that control or direct some aspect of the economy.

government corporations

Government agencies that perform services that might be provided by the private sector but that either involve insufficient financial incentive or are better provided when they are somehow linked with government.

bureaucratic network

A collection of bureaucracies, which can include public or private organizations, working together to achieve a substantive goal.

satisficing

Making a decision that is acceptable and good enough to get a job done.

incrementalism

Policymaking characterized by a series of decisions, each typically instituting modest change.

representative bureaucracy

A theory explaining that government bureaucracies with bureaucrats who share personal characteristics with the communities they serve are more likely to represent the interests of those communities.

bureaucratic discretion

representative bureaucracy

coproduction

Individual people in communities whom government bureaucracies serve coming forward and working with bureaucrats to help them carry out their work.

agency advisory committee

A formal group of people drawn from communities that a government agency serves to help the agency solve problems and hold it accountable for its work.

rulemaking

The administrative process that results in the issuance of regulations by government agencies.

regulations

Administrative rules that guide the operation of a government program.

police patrol oversight

Congressional oversight of a bureaucracy that is proactive and direct.

fire alarm oversight

Congressional oversight of a bureaucracy that is reactive and indirect.

standing

The condition of having a direct interest in a case before a court.