Chapter 13 Terms

Front 1

Administrative Procedure Act (1946)

Back 1

1. Def - Before adopting a new rule or policy, an agency must give notice, solicit comments, and (often) hold hearings.
2. Personal - To adopt new rules/policy, agencies have to hold hearings and undergo a procedure to do so.
3. Example - Government agencies have considerably more constraints put upon them than private organizations

Front 2

annual authorization

Back 2

1. Def - Permission to begin or continue a government program/agency, in this case, annually.
2. Personal - Annually authorizing the continuation of a program.
3. Example - Along with authorization, funds must be appropriated in order to take action.

Front 3

appropriation

Back 3

1. Def - A legislative grant of money to finance a gov't program.
2. Personal - Grant of funds for something.
3. Example - After a program is authorized and given permission to begin, it must first also get appropriated funds.

Front 4

authorization legislation

Back 4

1. Def - Legislative permission to begin or continue a gov't program or agency.
2. Personal - The green light to go forward with a program.
3. Example - An authorization bill may g rant permission to spend a certain sum of money, but that money does not ordinarily become available unless it is also appropriated.

Front 5

buddy system

Back 5

1. Def - A process used by the bureaucracy to hire a person, in which they circumvent an elaborate search by either naming a specific person to appoint, or describing the job in a way that only one person can qualify for it.
2. Personal - being a "buddy" with someone in the system, and being hired specifically as an individual for a job
3. Example - The buddy system doesn't necessarily produce poor employees, since the agency often knows that the person is actually competent.

Front 6

bureaucracy

Back 6

1. Def - A large, complex organization composed of appointed officials.
2. Personal - Organization of appointed officials.
3. Example - The department and agencies of the US Gov't make up the federal bureaucracy.

Front 7

bureaucratic culture

Back 7

1. Def - The laws, rules, and routines of an agency as well as informal understandings among fellow employees of accepted behavior.
2. Personal - The culture of a specific agency.
3. Example - Aspects of the culture of an agency include the types of jobs that one should take in order to further their career.

Front 8

committee clearance

Back 8

1. Def - The ability of a Congressional committee to review and approve certain agency decisions in advance and without passing a law.
2. Personal - Congressional ability to make unofficial rulings on agency decisions.
3. Example - Such approval is not legally binding on the agency, but few agency heads will ignore the expressed wishes of committees.

Front 9

competitive service

Back 9

1. Def - The gov't offices to which people are appointed on grounds of merit as ascertained by a written exam or by having met certain selection criteria (like training, educational attainments, or prior experience).
2. Peresonal - being hired for merit
3. Example - The Civil Service was established to ensure that people who were competent for a job were hired, rather than simple patronage.

Front 10

conflict

Back 10

1. Def - Government agencies working at cross-purposes with other agencies.
2. Personal - Agencies working in contradiction to each other.
3. Example - An example of this happening is one agency showing a farmer how to grow crops more efficiently, and another agency telling the farmer to grow fewer crops.

Front 11

discretionary authority

Back 11

1. Def - The extent to which appointed bureaucrats can choose courses of action and make policies that are not spelled out in advance by laws.
2. Personal - Agencies using "discretion" when following laws, meaning they have several courses of action.
3. Example - Discretionary authority is possible because of the watered-down, loophole-ridden legislation that comes out of Congress.

Front 12

duplication

Back 12

1. Def - "wasteful duplication"; when two gov't agencies seem to be doing the same thing.
2. Personal - having "duplicate" agencies.
3. Example - The Customs Service and the Drug Enforcement Administration both attempt to intercept illegal drugs being smuggled into the country.

Front 13

Freedom of Information Act (1966)

Back 13

1. Def - Citizens have the right to inspect all government records except those containing military, intelligence, or trade secrets or revealing private personnel actions.
2. Personal - Citizens have right to know info, unless it deals with subjects that threaten national security.
3. Example - The Freedom of Information Act is another constraint placed upon the bureaucracy.

Front 14

imperialism

Back 14

1. Def - the tendency of agencies to grow without regard to the benefits that their programs confer or the costs that they entail.
2. Personal - Agencies growing without thinking of the costs or consequence.
3. Example - Imperialism results in large measure from gov't agencies' seeking goals that are so vague and difficult to measure that it's hard to tell when they've been attained.

Front 15

Iron Triangle

Back 15

1. Def - A close relationship between an agency, a congressional committee, and an interest group that often becomes a mutually advantageous alliance.
2. Personal - relationship between committee, agency, and an interest group.
3. Example - Iron triangles are examples of what are called client politics.

Front 16

Issue Network

Back 16

1. Def - A network of people in Washington-based interest groups, on congressional staffs, in universities and think tanks, and in the mass media who regularly discuss and advocate public policies (ex. health care or auto safety).
2. Personal - Network of politically intelligent/active people who discuss and advocate certain public policies.
3. Example - Such networks are split along political, ideological, and economic lines.

Front 17

laissez-faire

Back 17

1. Def - An economic theory that gov't should not regulate or interfere with commerce.
2. Personal - "Hands-off" policy of gov't in regards to economics
3. Example - Laissez-faire economics was favored until the Great Depression, where gov't was urged to get involved in order to save the economy.

Front 18

legislative veto

Back 18

1. Def - The rejection of a presidential or administrative-agency action by a vote of one or both houses of Congress without the consent of the president.
2. Personal - veto of a presidential or administrative-agency action by one or both houses of Congress.
3. Example - the legislative veto was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1983.

Front 19

name-request job

Back 19

1. Def - A job to be filled by a person whom a government agency has identified by name.
2. Personal - getting specifically chosen by name for a job.
3. Example - Government agencies do this in order to avoid an elaborate and time consuming search for employees.

Front 20

National Environmental Policy Act (1969)

Back 20

1. Def - Before undertaking any major action affecting the environment, an agency must issue an environmental impact statement.
2. Personal - an agency must make a statement if an action will affect the environment.
3. Example - This is one of the constraints placed upon government agencies.

Front 21

noncareer executive assignments

Back 21

1. Def - Jobs that do not enhance one's career in a government agency.
2. Personal - Jobs that don't further your career.
3. Example - Knowing what type of jobs one should take to further one's career is part of the culture of an agency.

Front 22

Open Meeting Law (1976)

Back 22

1. Def - Every part of every agency meeting must be open to the public unless certain matters (like military or trade secrets) are being discussed.
2. Personal - requirement of open meetings.
3. Example - This is one of the constraints placed upon government agencies.

Front 23

oversight

Back 23

1. Def - Hearing and other methods of checking the actions of the executive branch
2. Personal - Congress overlooking the actions of agencies.
3. Example - As the government grows, oversight grows as well.

Front 24

patronage

Back 24

1. Def - Tangible incentives such as money, and political jobs. In regards to the bureaucracy, it's mostly the latter.
2. Personal - Giving government jobs to people for their loyalty.
3. Example - The use of patronage has been diminished by the establishment of the Civil Service System.

Front 25

Pendleton Act

Back 25

1. Def - An act that eliminated the spoils system and made federal employees be hired based on merit.
2. Personal - Civil Service System
3. Example - The Pendleton Act was easy to pass due to public outrage over the abuses of the spoils system, as well as the assassination of President Garfield.

Front 26

Privacy Act (1974)

Back 26

1. Def - Government files about individuals, such as Social Security and tax records, must be kept confidential.
2. Personal - Keeping individual profiles private.
3. Example - This is one of the constraints placed upon government agencies.

Front 27

red tape

Back 27

1. Def - Complex bureaucratic rules and procedures that must be followed to get something done.
2. Personal - Rules/necessary steps to get things done in an agency.
3. Example - People complain about excessive red tape, but red tape forces bureaucracies to treat all people the same and equally.

Front 28

Schedule C job

Back 28

1. Def - jobs having a confidential or policy-determining character, below the level of cabinet or subcabinet posts.
2. Personal - A semi-important sort of government job.
3. Example - There are some excepted employees that are appointed on grounds other than or in addition to merit, mainly so the President can have people who will agree with his policies. Schedule C jobs are among these excepted employees.

Front 29

Senior Executive Service

Back 29

1. Def - About 8000 on top federal managers who can (in theory) be hired, fired, and transferred more easily than ordinary civil servants.
2. Personal - group of top federal managers who SHOULD be easier to get rid of than normal civil servants.
3. Example - This didn't turn about to be much the case -- hardly any SES members have ended up being fired.

Front 30

spoils system

Back 30

1. Def - Another phrase for political patronage -- that is, the practice of giving the fruits of a party's victory, such as jobs and contracts, to the loyal members of that party.
2. Personal - Giving jobs to loyal members of a party
3. Example - The spoils system was getting heavy criticism during the 19th century, and the response to this criticism was the establishment of the Civil Service System.

Front 31

trust fund

Back 31

1. Def. - Funds for government programs that are collected and spent outside the regular government budget; the amounts are determined by preexisting law rather than by annual appropriations.
2. Personal - Money saved for government programs.
3. Example - The Social Security trust fund is the largest of these.

Front 32

waste

Back 32

1. Def - Spending more than is necessary to buy some product or service.
2. Personal - Spending more than necessary.
3. Example - Waste is one of the biggest criticisms of the bureaucracy.

Front 33

Whistle Blower Protection Act (1989)

Back 33

1. Def - created an Office of Special Counselcharged with investigating complaints sfrom bureaucrats that they were punished after reporting to Congress about waste, fraud, or abuse in their agencies.
2. Personal - protected "whistleblowers" (people who call agencies out on their bullshit) from being fired/punished unfairly.
3. Example - Bureaucrats have the ability to leak info or tell others of the abuses within an agency, and the Whistle Blower Protection Act protects these sorts of actions.