The Bureaucracy

flashcards on bureaucracy.

Bureaucracy

The complex structure of offices, tasks, rules, and principles of organization used by large-scale institutions to coordinate personnel work.

Implementation

The efforts of departments and agencies to translate laws into specific bureaucratic rules and actions.

Innovate

To devise new ways of doing things.

Enabling legislation

Law passed by Congress that creates a particular entity, establishes its purposes, and defines the scope of its power and responsibilities

Principal-agent problem

A conflict in priorities between an actor (Congress) and the representative authorized to act on the actor’s behalf (the bureaucracy).

Quasi-legislative power

The bureaucracy makes rules and regulations

Quasi-executive

Bureaucrats implement and enforce their own rules and regulations

Quasi-judicial power

The bureaucracy implements and enforces its rules and regulations and has the ability to adjudicate administrative conflicts

Independent agencies

Agencies that are not part of executive departments but have independent authority to implement policy and design regulations.

Independent regulatory commissions

Rule-making bodies outside the executive department, usually headed by commissioners.

Government corporation

A government agency that performs a market-oriented public service and raises revenues to fund its activities.

Treasury Department

Collects taxes, manages national debt, prints currency, and performs economic policy analysis

Federal Reserve System (the Fed)

The nation’s major monetary agency with authority over interest rates and lending activities.

Merit system

Hiring system for bureaucracy based on merit, requiring appointees to be objectively qualified.

Spoils system

Awarding jobs based on political connections.

Political appointees

The presidentially appointed layer of the bureaucracy on top of the civil service.

Senior Executive Services (SES)

The top, presidentially appointed management rank for career civil servants.

Privatization

The process by which a formerly public service becomes a service provided by a private company but paid for by the government.

Oversight

The effort by Congress to exercise control over the activities of executive agencies through hearings, investigations, and other techniques.

Police patrol oversight

Regular or preemptive hearings by congress to control the bureaucracy

Fire alarm oversight

Oversight from congress that is prompted by media attention or group complaints.

Inspectors general (IGs)

Independent audit organizations located in most federal agencies that can audit agency operations to uncover waste, fraud, or misconduct.

Regulatory capture

A form of government failure in which an agency becomes more concerned with serving interest groups and businesses than with regulating them.