Bureaucracy Flashcards
(52 cards)
Bureaucracy
a hierarchical authority structure that uses task specialization, operates on the merit principle, and behaves with impersonality.
Patronage
A system in which jobs and promotions are awarded for political reasons rather than for merit or competence.
Pendleton Civil Service Act
Passed in 1883, an act that created a federal civil service so that hiring and promotion would be based on merit rather than patronage.
Civil Service
A system of hiring and promotion based on the merit principle and the desire to create nonpartisan government service.
Merit Principle
The idea that hiring should be based on entrance exams and promotion ratings to produce administration by people with talent and skill.
Hatch Act
A federal law prohibiting government employees from active participation in partisan politics while on duty or for employees in sensitive positions at any time.
Office of Personnel Management (OPM)
The office in charge of hiring for most agencies of the federal government, using elaborate rules in the process.
GS (General Schedule) Rating
A schedule for federal employees, ranging from GS 1 to GS 18, by which salaries can be keyed to rating and experience.
Senior Executive Service
An elite cadre of about 9,000 federal government managers at the top of the civil service system.
Independent Regulatory Commission
A government agency with responsibility for making and enforcing rules to protect the public interest in some sector of the economy and for judging disputes over these rules.
Governmental Corporation
like business corporations, provides a service that could be delivered by the private sector and typically
Independent Executive Agency
The government agencies not accounted for by cabinet departments, independent regulatory commissions, and government corporations. Administrators are typically appointed by the president
NASA is an example.
Policy Implementation
establishment of a policy and the consequences of the people affected. Implementation involves translating the goals and objectives of a policy into an operating, ongoing program.
Standard Operating Procedures
Better known as SOPS, these procedures for everyday decisions making enable bureaucrats to bring efficiency and uniformity to the running of complex organizations.
Administrative Discretion
The authority of administrative actors to select among various responses to a given problem. Discretion is greatest when routines, or standard operating procedures, do not fit a case.
Street-level Bureaucrats
A phrase coined by Michael Lipsky, referring to those bureaucrats who are in constant contact with the public and have considerable administrative discretion.
Regulation
The use of governmental authority to control or change some practice in the private sector.
Deregulation
The lifting of government restrictions on business, industry, and professional activities.
Command-and-Control Policy
The typical system of regulation whereby government tells business how to reach certain goals, checks that these commands are followed, and punishes offenders.
Incentive System
An alternative to command-and-control, with market like strategies such as rewards used to manage public policy.
Executive Orders
Regulations originating with the executive branch. Executive orders are one method presidents can use to control the bureaucracy.
Iron Triangles
Also known as subgovernments, a mutually dependent, mutually advantageous relationship between bureaucratic agencies, interest groups, and congressional committees or subcommittees.
Who helped end the pArtonage sys
Charles guiteau
Omp is in charge of
Hiring most federal agencies heads
They create the test and give the names to different agencies of those who passed it
