Bureaucracy And Its Effects On The United States

There is a plethora of criticisms about the effectiveness of the Bureaucracy. Even during the 19th century, as Wilson writes, the Post Office “was an organization marred by inefficiency and corruption”. With an appointment standard such as the “spoils system”, where individuals or groups are granted high level positions based on political favors alone, corruption is almost a certainty. The political aspect of the Bureaucracy was prevalent in the military for over 100 years, as Wilson states “the size and deployment of the military establishment in this country was governed entirely by decisions made by political leaders on political grounds”. Political favors and factors plague our government, including the Bureaucracy. A by-product of these political favors and corruptions are stagnancy and mediocrity. An example of this, as

In his book, Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies do and why they do it, James Q. Wilson’s main objective is to better define the behavior of governmental bureaucracy, believing traditional organizational and economic theory does not adequately explain their actions. Wilson believes that government agencies are doomed to be perceived as inefficient entities by the public. He gives examples of commonly held perceptions of bureaucracies and reveals how these are mostly misconceptions. He points to the environment of bureaucracy, where rules and procedures, dictate goals, along with context, constraints, values, and norms.

When the framers of the Constitution developed our government, they gave Congress the authority to create the departments necessary to carry out the day-to-day responsibilities of governing - the federal bureaucracy. The vast majority of the departments, agencies, and commissions that make up the federal bureaucracy today were created by Congress through legislative acts. Congress is unable to act in a bubble though, due to the nature of the system’s built-in checks and balances, Congress must first get the president’s “buy off” which is represented by his signature. Although Congress has the authority to create these agencies (with the president’s agreement

s the head of the federal executive, the President is in charge of the vast federal bureaucracy. With the power to appoint department and agency leadership, dismiss Cabinet officials, issue executive orders, and control the budgeting process, the President can exercise considerable control over the federal bureaucracy. At the same time, the sheer size of the bureaucracy itself often undermines the ability of the President to influence and control it. By exercising bureaucratic discretion, agencies may mitigate the problems caused by the size of the bureaucracy.

For the common American citizen a major concern, as suggested by a recent Gallup poll, centers around the idea that the President, as Chief Executive of the nation, has too much power and influence in the shaping of the United States (Americans' Belief). In particular, there exist a strong belief that the bureaucracy is directly managed by presidential preference (Roff). In contrast, it is a rarely suggested opinion that the President does not have enough power, control, or influence over the bureaucracy. With these two opinions in mind, to what extent does the President have control of the bureaucracy?

What I read about reducing the cost of the national bureaucracy was Under the Hood: The Cost of Bureaucracy by Allison Gofman. The major points of her article are that there are many different agencies, departments, and groups of people who deal with the same things throughout the government. With having many different groups of people dealing with the same issues, there isn't one federal bureaucracy. Instead, its a bunch of different groups with their own interests and own opinions on one topic. The article also states that "public bureaucracies are not designed for efficiency" and I can see why. The bureaucracies just want to have power and influence over decisions that their agency gets to make at later dates.

Like many words in the English language, bureaucracy has been twisted over the years to mean something different; much like how awful went from meaning “full of awe” to “very bad or unpleasant”. In And the Band Played On, we see organizational practices that obstruct progress referred to as “bureaucratic”, when the official definition refers to a system of governance where state officials make important decisions instead of representatives. A complete switch in how we see our administration and governmental organizations occurs because people do not trust their leaders. This fear of the unknown is the central theme of the movie and relates back to the United States governance: of the people, by the people, for the people. When the public deems that they are not making the important decisions, then bureaucracy has turned on its head and the ironic use becomes the true pronouncement.

Bureaucrat is a dirty word to some people in modern society, so how can a bureaucracy be a good thing? Many Public Administration theorist, argue that bureaucracy is essential to the growth and expansion of the United States. Most of the criticism of the bureaucracy within the government is based on myth versus reality. Federal agencies play a critical and a valuable role within society and are indispensable to the operations of the federal government. Bureaucracy can be simply defined as the system in which decision are made by Public Administrators rather than elected officials (legislator) within the government. However, when the average citizen of just says the single word bureaucracy thoughts and images of evoked over how negative

The word “bureaucracy” has a negative connotation to many people. The fact is that our current system of government would not be able to survive without bureaucracies. The bureaucracy has become the “fourth branch” of the government, it has quasi-legislative and judicial powers and in it’s own field its authority is rarely challenged. The presence of these large, inefficient structures is necessary if the American people want to continue receiving the benefits that they expect.

Americans depend on government bureaucracies to accomplish most of what we expect from government, and we are oftentimes critical of a bureaucracy’s handling of its responsibilities. Bureaucracy is essential for carrying out the tasks of government. As government bureaucracies grew in the twentieth century, new management techniques sought to promote greater efficiency. The reorganization of the government to create the Department of Homeland Security and the Bush administration’s simultaneous push to contract out jobs to private employers raises the question as to whether the government or the private sector can best manage our national security. Ironically, the criticism of the bureaucracy may be a product

Bureaucracy was one of the most popular theories developed and is used in some modern organisations such as the NHS and the Police. Through the years bureaucracy has developed a bad reputation for de-humanizing jobs (Grey, 30) “In the ideal-type, people are no more than parts in a well-oiled machine –devoid of passion, prejudice and personality”, although some people prefer this structure (Handy, 22) “No one, it seems, approves of bureaucracy except, interestingly, lots of people in organisations who like to know where they stand.”

With the creation of new states and the intervention of government in everyday life of citizens necessitated the need for ideal-type of bureaucracy. Everywhere whether in developed or developing nations, bureaucratic structure is a common phenomenon.

Abstract: The theory of bureaucracy was proposed and published by Marx Weber (1947). Although there are some studies on this perspective were discussed before him, those theories did not form as systematic theory. After Weber, the issue of bureaucracy becomes a hot topic in the field of social organization. Almost all well-known scholars such as Martin and Henri have published their views on it. Bureaucracy adapted as the traditional organizational model during industrial society, essentially, bureaucracy could exist rational. This essay firstly will review the principle of bureaucracy in organization based on organizational design perspective. Secondly, it will analyze the strengths and weakness of

Max Weber, German sociologist, social theorist, and economist, explicated the theory of bureaucracy in which he details the monocratic bureaucracy “as an ideal form that maximized rationality” (Bolman & Deal, 2008, p. 48). He provided his most complete exposition of theory in his 1922 tome Economy and Society (Casey, 2004). This classic form of bureaucracy is characterized by the following (a) well-defined official functions; (b) specialization of function; (c) clearly defined hierarchy of offices; (d) rules governing performance, which require training to administer; (e) impersonal treatment of clients, in that all are treated equally; (f) merit as the basis of promotion or appointment; (g) compensation based on rank; (h) separation of

According to Max Weber, bureaucracy is the most rational known means of carrying out imperative control over human beings. He was right. Bureaucracy is the technology of control. It is ideologically and practically opposed to disorder and irregularity. Problem is, in an age of