american bureaucracy definition
External forces influence agency decisions in the form of the so-called iron triangle-the informal policy network involving an agency, an interest group, and a congressional committee. Often, though, an agency will be faced with conflicting interest group demands. For other uses, see Bureaucracy (disambiguation) . A bureaucracy (/bjuːˈrɒkrəsi/) is a body of non-elective government officials and/or an administrative policy-making group. Historically, bureaucracy was government administration managed by departments staffed with nonelected officials. Congress has a forn-ddable array of powers to deal with the bureaucracy. First, congressional statutes establish the existence of an agency and occasionally specify in detail how agencies should behave. Lately, however, Congress has given broad discretion to agencies. A bureaucracy is a large organization composed of appointed officials in which authority is divided among several managers. Bureaucracy is an obvious feature of all modern societies, but American governmental bureaucracy is distinctive in three ways. First, political authority over the bureaucracy is shared among several institutions. The largest growth of the bureaucracy in American history came between 1933 and 1945. Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal meant bigger government, since agencies were needed to administer his many programs. Today, bureaucracy is the administrative system governing any large institution. Since being coined, the word bureaucracy has developed negative connotations. Bureaucracies have been criticized as being too complex, inefficient, or too inflexible. The late M. de Gournay...sometimes used to say: We have an illness in France which bids fair to play havoc with us; this illness is called bureaumania.. Sometimes he used to invent a fourth or fifth form of government under the heading of bureaucracy.. The bureaucracy as we know it today is the product of the New Deal (whose programs gave broad but vaguely defined powers to agencies) and of World War 11 (during which the government made use of the vastly increased revenues the income tax allowed). During the 1800s, while more and more federal employees were landing their jobs through patronage, the bureaucracy was growing rapidly as new demands were placed on government. As the country expanded westward new agencies were needed to manage the land and its settlement. He formed his own group of advisors from his friends and political allies, known as the Kitchen Cabinet, to support his goals for the nation. The original bureaucracy of the federal government consisted only of employees from three small departments — State, Treasury, and War.
A body of non-elective government officials and/or an administrative policy-making group.