Zoe D. Pd: 4 Extra Credit
What is bureaucracy and how does the president play a role in it?
Bureaucracy, a system of government in which most of the important decisions are made by state officials rather than by elected representatives. Bureaucracy is the way the government appoints large numbers of skilled people who must work together to decide how the daily government activates and decisions must be made. The word bureaucracy means “rule by desks or offices”. Many people see bureaucracy as pointless, but without a bureaucracy many people would not be able to begin to understand how to work together to actually accomplish goals. The president also plays a role in bureaucracy. The president is the head of the executive branch, and bureaucracy allows
…show more content…
When many people hear the world bureaucrat, we associate it with government and imagine a bunch of people at a round table talking, discussing US issues and signing a bunch of paperwork with the public’s demands written on them. What we don’t know is that bureaucrats actually play a larger role in government operations, such as solving minor technical errors, and monitoring how federal candidates raise their money by making sure it is all done fairly, legally, and no embezzling of federal grants.
The main job of our bureaucracy is to implement all government policies, to use the laws and decisions made by the rightful elected officials and put them into practice. Some bureaucrats implement policy by writing rules and regulations on formal documents, whereas others try to directly please the public’s people by giving business loans in exchange for positive campaign supporters or by honoring veterans to gain popularity points with the public. This particular tactic of bureaucracy is called public
Often, when the discussion of American bureaucracy is broached in conversation, those holding these conversations often think of the many men and women who operate behind the scenes within the government. This same cross section of Americans is looked upon as the real power within the federal government and unlike the other branches of government, has little to no oversight. A search of EBSCO resulted in the following definition, an organization “structure with a rigid hierarchy of personnel, regulated by set rules and procedures” (Bureaucracy, 2007). Max Weber believed that a bureaucracy was technically the most efficient form of organization, one structured around official functions that are bound by rules, each function having its own specified competence (2007). This wide ranging group of Americans has operated within the gaps, behind the scenes, all under the three core branches of government: the legislative, executive, and judicial branches. The division of government into three branches and separate powers gives each branch both exclusive powers and some additional power...
Hall, Daniel E. Administrative Law: Bureaucracy in a Democracy. 5th ed. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2012. Print.
The bureaucracy consists primarily of the executive branch of government, and its components. These include cabinet departments, independent agencies, regulatory commissions, and government corporations. Through the constitution, Congress is tasked with the responsibility of organizing and funding the bureaucracy. This gives Congress the inherent rights, among others, to enact statutes to establish or abolish executive agencies or departments, call for reorganization of
Modern Bureaucracy in the United States serves to administer, gather information, conduct investigations, regulate, and license. Once set up, a bureaucracy is inherently conservative. The reason the bureaucracy was initiated may not continue to exist as a need in the future. The need or reason may change with a change in the times and the culture needs. A bureaucracy tends to make decisions that protect it and further it’s own existence, possibly apart from the wishes of the populace. It may not consistently reflect what might be optimal in terms of the needs and wants of the people. Local governments employ most of the United States civil servants. The 14 cabinet departments in the U.S. are run day-to-day by career civil servants, which have a great deal of discretionary authority.
Over the years it has clearly been seen that the Bureaucracy has slowly, but surely, gained more and more power. This power gain is the result of the President and Congress disputing and refusing to compromise with each other. With that in mind, it has been found that the president uses his ability to appoint and remove bureaucrats to get the things he wants accomplished. On the other hand, Congress uses fire alarms, police patrols, and money flow to get their way if the president disagrees with their wishes. With bureaucracies being sandwiched in the middle they benefit the most because both sides of the “bread” offer them things to get what they want done their way. With that being understood the President has a role in bureaucracies, as well as, the federal
8. World Bank. 1995. “Bureaucrats in Business.” The World Bank Report 1995, (Accessed 21 December 2013), .
The federal bureaucracy of the U.S. is necessary. These government agencies help society understand the laws of our nation clearly. In other words, the federal bureaucracy implements regulate and administer policies to be executed by their citizens. The different federal agencies help with unity and organization. Therefore, without the federal bureaucracy we would all be clueless. There is a lot of responsibilities that the federal government must accomplish, and these federal organizations help with keeping America organized by dividing specific jobs of the security. Organizations like the Social Security Administration and the Internal Revenue Service are focused on the rules passed down from legislation to help the general welfare. Furthermore,
The classical model of Public administration so far has been influenced by two major figures, Max Weber and Frederic Taylor. The classical model emphasized on how the superior role in bureaucratic system is indispensable. As Weber stated, "a system of control in which policy is set at the top and carried out through a series of offices with each manager and worker reporting to one superior and held to account by that person”(Weber: Pfiffner 2004 p. 1).
Bureaucracy is an organizational design based on the concept of standardization. “It is characterized by highly routine operating tasks achieved through specialization, very formalized rules and regulations, tasks that are grouped into functional departments, centralized authority, narrow spans of control, and decision making that follows the chain of command” (Judge & Robbins, 2007, p.
Public Administration involves the development, implementation and management of policies for the attainment of set goals and objectives that will be to the benefit of the general public. Since Public Administration involves taking decisions that affect the use of public resources there is often the question of how to utilize public resources for maximum public good. The National Association of Public Administration has identified four pillars of public administration: economy, efficiency, effectiveness and social equity. These pillars are equally important in the practice of public administration and to its success. This paper seeks to explain the role of each of the pillars in the practice of public administration.
According to Sapru R.K. (2008) p370-371 the traditional ideal of public administration which inclined to be firm and bureaucratic was based on processes instead of outcomes and on setting procedures to follow instead of focusing on results. This paradigm can be regarded as an administration under formal control of the political control, constructed on a firmly ranked model of bureaucracy, run by permanent and neutral public servants, driven only by public concern. In emerging nations the administration was true bureaucracy meaning government by officers. In this perspective Smith (1996) p235-6 perceived that“the bureaucracy controls and manages the means of production through the government. It increases chances for bureaucratic careers by the creation of public figures,demanding public managers, marketing boards.
Post bureaucracy does constitute and advance on bureaucratic organization because it is the answer to the flaws of the bureaucratic system. Post-bureaucracy was aimed to fix the issues with the bureaucratic system. An important feature of post bureaucracy is Trust because it has a lot of advantages. Though it can be costly for the business. Trust refers to a lack of discipline as employees are motivated to do well for the organization. By implying rules it could prove negative for the organizations relationship with its employees and customers. Trust in post bureaucracy is designed so that stakeholders of the organization feel as if they are a vital part and essential to that organizations function. Trust is used to the ensure happiness of all the people related to the organization. A successful occurrence of this is at Homebase where the managers allow staff to issue discounts to customers when appropriate. This trust could easily be betrayed and could be misused and cause Homebase a lot of financial loss if the staff used this to their own advantage. A decline that has been largely attributed to piracy is websites that have illegal movie downloading which lead to a decrease in sales mention veronica mars movie. It is evident from these figures that the ability to download copyrighted material is being abused, and the confidence of organizations has been broken. This conveys that the trust aspect of post bureaucracy is inconsistent.
Traditional public administration is traced back to the works of scholars like Max Weber, Woodrow Wilson and Fredrick Taylor. This form of administration was mostly influenced by Max Weber with his bureaucratic model and theory. Max Weber was a well-known sociologist born in Germany in the year 1864. He came up with his bureaucratic model as a way to try to improve management in organizations. ‘Weber emphasized on top-down control in the form of monocratic hierarchy that is a system of control in which policy is set at the top and carried out through a series of offices, whereby every manager and employee are to report to one person in top management and held accountable by that manager’ (Pfiffner, 2004, p. 1).
Public policy can be defined as “What ever governments choose to do or not do” (Dye, 2008, p 2). In the context of this essay, public policies are a set of actors by the government in order to reach out to the masses. The ministries and departments are mandated to deliver specific mandates in the form of public goods and services.
...ot function properly. Politics and administration should be seen as very interconnected. It is worth reiterating just as the structure of governments has changed over the years, the structure and role of public administration have also changes dramatically. Furthermore, it is important to state that public administration has grown from its traditional role of merely implementing policies adopted by the “political” branches of government to playing very significant role in the formation of public policies. This is definitely more evident in regards to professional expertise bureaucratic officials provide during problem identification, agenda setting, policy formulation, and evaluation that shape the content of public policy today. Overall, the idea that Wilson has proposed gives an accurate idea of what the relationship should be between politics and administration.