LBriones
Bureaucracy Study Guide
APGoPo
A. Read Bureaucracy reading and write 20 questions with answers (variety matters!).
B. Be familiar with the following concepts:
Federal Bureaucracy
Spoils system
Patronage
Merit System
Pendleton Act (1883)
Civil Service system
Independent Regulatory Agency (Commissions)
Hatch Act (1939, 1993)
Office of Personnel and Management (OPM)
Government Corporation
Rule making
Regulations
Administrative adjudication
Federal Register
Oversight
Implementation
Iron Triangles
Issue Networks
Policy Coordinating Committees
C: In-depth:
The Bureaucrats
1. Describe the spoils system, and explain how it changed to the system of many rules that
bureaucrats must follow today. Include the Pendleton Act and the Office of Personnel Management in
your discussion.
2. How many employees work in the federal executive branch? (check Office of Personnel
Management)
3. Explain the two basic procedures through which most federal bureaucrats obtain their jobs: OPM,
recruitment.
a. How are members of bur. recruited from the plum book?
b. What is the “rule of three”?
4. Hatch Act (1993) ~~ Federal employees may….Federal employees may not…
Go to Gov't Employment graph and identify 3 trends (be specific). Notice the overall growth of federal
gov’t employment marked by periods of decline.
5. What events may have caused these fluctuations?
Among the most significant trends in the US federal government have been the privatization,
deregulation, and devolution of the functions of the federal bureaucracy and an increasing amount of
power of interest groups and corporations in writing the rules of the bureaucracy.
6. Give 5 examples of Executive Departments & 5 of “larger Non-Cabinet Agencies” (pg. 470 text)
7. How can administrators (officials and agencies of executive branch) influence policy?
LBriones
Bureaucracy Study Guide
APGoPo
8. Complete the chart ~ THEORIES OF BUREACRACY
Theory
Weberian Model
Describe the functions & organization
Acquisitive
Monopolistic
“Garbage Can”
How Bureaucracies are Organized
9. Describe the functions of the four basic types of federal agencies:
cabinet department ~
regulatory agencies ~
government corporations ~
independent executive agencies ~
10. Identify the 15 Cabinet departments?
11. Regulatory agencies:
“Alphabet
Soup”
FRB
Full name
Responsibilities
NLRB
FCC
FTC
SEC
12. How responsive are regulatory agencies to 1) the president? 2) The Congress? 3) Interest Groups?
13. What is the “granddaddy” of government corporations?
14. What is an example of a “sick industry” that has been turned into a government corporation?
LBriones
Bureaucracy Study Guide
APGoPo
15. Independent executive agencies generally act like Cabinet departments but perform services
rather than regulatory functions. Identify the following:
NASA ~
GSA ~
EPA ~
NSF ~
16. Compare/contrast independent regulatory agency, independent executive agency, & gov’t
corporations.
Bureaucracies as Implementers
17. How are bureaucracies essentially implementers of policy & why does the process break down?
18. Use U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness graphic to answer the following questions:
a. How do the causes, goals, and solutions illustrated in the diagram show the need for
interagency cooperation to solve the problem of homelessness?
b. How does this diagram reveal some of the challenges of interagency cooperation?
19. Discuss the “iron triangle” relationship and explain how this can be applied to both defense and
agriculture. Must include the concept of the “revolving door.”
Toward Reform: Evaluate controls designed to make agencies more accountable
20. Discuss how each of the different branches of government have some oversight responsibilities over
the bureaucracies. Provide specific examples.
D. PRACTICE QUESTIONS
21. Which of the following is not a characteristic of a bureaucracy?
a. It bases its decisions on personal rules.
b. The organization is large and hierarchical.
c. Each employee is held accountable to a superior through a chain of command.
22. The Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Education, and Labor were all created in response to
interest group pressure making them _______ agencies.
a. Clientele
b. collaborative
c. collective
23. Which of the following is not an example of a government corporation?
a. AmeriCorps b. Federal Express c. Corporation for Public Broadcasting
LBriones
Bureaucracy Study Guide
APGoPo
24. The _________ is responsible for disease detection and prevention.
a. National Institutes of Health
b. Department of Health and Human Service
c. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
25. Which of the following statements is incorrect regarding the federal bureaucracy?
a. Only about 15 percent of the career civilian employees of the federal government work in
the Washington area.
b. Fewer than 10 percent of the bureaucrats work for welfare agencies.
c. The government spends much more on welfare and assistance for the poor than it does for
social security and defense.
26. Which of the following statements about the Office of Personnel Management is correct?
a. It certifies the top five applicants for an opening.
b. It does not advertise for new employees.
c. It delegates to the individual agencies the responsibility for hiring new personnel.
27. In 1987 the cooperation among the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
(NAACP), the National Organization for Women (NOW), and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to
defeat Robert Bork’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court was an example of
a. impeachment
d. the recall process
b. litigation
e. the initiative process
c. coalition building
28. Federal employees are prohibited from active participation in partisan politics through the
a. 25th amendment
c. Hatch Act
b. Pendleton Act
d. SCOTUS ruling in Democratic Nat’l Committee v. Hayes
29. The largest portion of the federal budget covers the costs of
a. national defense
d. entitlement programs
b. social welfare programs
e. tax collection
c. interest on the national debt
30. The rationale for all civil service systems is based on
a. the plum book
d. patronage
b. the merit principle
e. Voluntary service
c. the Hatch Act