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Bureaucracy:
The complex structure of offices, tasks, rules, and principles of organization that are employed by all large-scale institutions to coordinate the work of their personnel.
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Implementation:
The efforts of departments and agencies to translate laws into specific bureaucratic routines.
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Rule Making:
A quasi-legislative administrative process by which government agencies produce regulations.
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Administrative Adjudication:
Applying rules and precedents to specific cases to settle disputes between regulated parties.
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Merit System:
A product of civil service reform, in which appointees to positions in public bureaucracies must objectively be deemed qualified for those positions.
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Department:
The largest subunit of the executive branch. The secretaries of the fifteen departments form the Cabinet.
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Independent Agency:
An agency that is not part of a Cabinet department.
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Government corporation:
A government agency that performs a service normally provided by the private sector.
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Regulatory Agencies:
Departments, bureaus, or independent agencies whose primary mission is to impose limits, restrictions, or other obligations on the conduct of individuals or companies in the private sector.
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Iron Triangle:
The stable, cooperative relationship that often develops among a congressional committee, an administrative agency, and one or more supportive interest groups. Not all of these relationships are triangular, but the iron triangle is the most typical.
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Fiscal Policy:
The government's use of taxing, monetary, and spending powers to manipulate the economy.
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Federal Reserve System:
A system of twelve Federal Reserve Banks that facilitates exchanges of cash, checks, and credit; regulates member banks; and uses monetary policies to fight inflation and deflation.
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Revenue Agencies:
Agencies responsible for collecting taxes. Examples include the Internal Revenue Service for income taxes, the U.S. Customs Service for tariffs and other taxes on imported goods, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms for collection of taxes on the sales of those particular products.
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Deregulation:
A policy of reducing or eliminating regulatory restraints on the conduct of individuals or private institutions.
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Devolution:
A policy to remove a program from one level of government by delegating it or passing it down to a lower level of government, such as from the national government to the state and local governments.
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Privatization:
Removing all or part of a program from the public sector to the private sector.
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Executive Privilege:
The claim that confidential communications between a president and close advisers should not be revealed without the consent of the president.
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Oversight:
The effort by Congress, through hearings, investigations, and other techniques, to exercise control over the activities of executive agencies.
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