Understanding Government Bureaucracy and Civil Service

Bureaucracy and Government Administration

Bureaucracy: In general usage, the set of government agencies that carries out government policies. The bureaucracy is characterized by formalized structures, specialized duties, a hierarchical system of authority, routine record-keeping, and a permanent staff.

Key Personnel and Roles

Bureaucrats: A term used generally to identify anyone who works within a large, formal organization. More specifically, it refers to career civil service employees of the government.

Cabinet: An informal designation that refers to the collective body of individuals appointed by the president to head the executive departments. The cabinet can, but rarely does, function as an advisory body to the president.

Civil Service and Employment Systems

Civil Service: The method by which most government employees have been hired, promoted, and fired since the 1880s. Personnel decisions are based on merit, or the competence of the individual to do the job, rather than the individual’s political loyalties.

Patronage: The practice of rewarding partisan supporters with government jobs (also known as the spoils system).

Spoils System: The method used to hire and fire government employees during most of the 1800s. Government employees of the new president’s choosing would replace those a previous president had appointed. Government jobs were the “spoils” (or rewards) of the electoral “wars.” This system was also known as patronage.

Policy and Administrative Functions

Iron Triangles: In United States politics, the iron triangle is a term used by political scientists to describe the policy-making relationship among three partners: congressional committees, the bureaucracy, and interest groups.

Rule Administration: The core function of the bureaucracy—to carry out the decisions of Congress, the president, or the courts.

Rule Making: Formulating the rules for carrying out the programs a bureaucratic agency administers.

Key Agencies and Organizations

• EOP: Executive Office of the President
• NSC: National Security Council
• NSA: National Security Agency
• FDA: Food and Drug Act and Food and Drug Administration