Term
|
Definition
| A complex structure of offices, tasks, and rules in which employees have specific responsibilities and work within a hierarchy of authority. Government bureaucracies are charged with implementing policies. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The practice of citizens serving in public office for a limited term and then returning to private life. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A system in which newly elected office-holders award government jobs to political supporters and members of the same political party. The term originated in the saying "to the victor go the spoils". |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Excessive paperwork leading to bureaucratic delay. The term originated in the seventeenth century, when English legal and governmental documents were bound with red-colored tape. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The category or groups of people served by a bureaucratic agency. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A governmental publication listing all proposed federal regulations. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The norms and regular patterns of behavior found within a bureaucratic organization. Different agencies often develop their own norms, which shape the behavior of those who work in the agency. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Meetings in which bureaucrats are called before subcommittees ti explain and defend their decisions, and outsiders are sometimes invited to criticize them. Most agencies must testify annually about their activities before the house of appropriations subcommittee that has jurisdiction over their budget. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Method by which Congress keeps its bureaucratic agencies in lone, in this case requiring executive agencies, even the president, to report on programs. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A procedure that allows one or both houses of Congress to reject an action taken by the president or an executive agency. In 1983 the Supreme Court declared legislative vetoes unconstitutional, but Congress continues to enact legislation incorporating the veto. |
|
|
Term
| Committee and Conference Reports |
|
Definition
| Documents submitted by comittees that often instruct agencies how Congress expects them to use their 'discretion.' though not legally binding, bureaucracies ignore such instructions at their peril. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Positions with independent offices in virtually every government agency, who audit agency books and investigate activities on Congress' behalf. |
|
|
Term
| Government Accountability Office |
|
Definition
| Office with a staff of more than five thousand that audits programs and agencies and reports to Congress on their performance. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The right to bring legal action. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A stable, mutually beneficial political relationship among a congressional committee, administrative agency, and organized interests concerned with a particular policy domain. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A loose, informal, and highly variable web of among representatives of various interests who are involved in a particular area of public policy. |
|
|
