What is administrative law?The body of law created by executive agencies with the purpose of refining general law passed in legislation.
What is bureaucratic capture?When regulatory agencies are beholden to the organizations or interests they are supposed to regulate.
What is bureaucratic drift?When government agencies depart from executive policy consistent with the ideological preferences of Congress or the president so as to execute policy consistent with their own ideological preferences.
What are cabinet departments?Departments within the executive branch that encompass many of the agencies that implement federal policy. Secretaries appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate are given the responsibility of leading these departments and providing advice to the president.


What is coalition drift?When an ideological shift in elected branches creates disparity between the way an agency executes policy and the way new members of the Congress or a new president believes the agency ought to execute policy.
What is fire-alarm oversight?Congressional oversight that relies on interest groups and citizens to inform representatives of unwarranted action.
What is a government agency?An individual unit of the government responsible for carrying out tasks delegated to it by Congress or the president in accordance with the law.
What are government assets?Anything of value that is the property of the government, ranging from federal land to office supplies.


What is government bureaucracy?The agencies and offices devoted to carrying out the tasks of government consistent with the law.
What is a government contract?An agreement whereby the government hires a company or an organization to carry out certain tasks on its behalf.
What is a government corporation?A federally owned corporation that generates revenue by providing a public service, operating much like a private business and with a higher degree of autonomy than a cabinet department or an independent agency.
What are government grants?Money that the government provides to individuals or organizations to perform tasks in the public's interest.


What are government volunteers?Privately funded organizations or individuals who operate independently to do work that is sanctioned by the government.
What is an independent agency?An agency that exists outside of the cabinet departments and is run with a larger degree of independence from presidential influence.
What is marketization?Government bureaucratic reform that emphasizes market-based principles of management that are common to the private sector.
What is police-patrol oversight?Congressional oversight that consists of actively monitoring agencies through routine inspection.


What is privatization?The contracting of private companies by the government to conduct work that was formerly done by government agencies.
What is the acquisitive model?A model of bureaucracy that views top-level bureaucrats as seeking to expand the size of their budgets and staffs to gain greater power.
What is an administrative agency?A federal, state, or local government unit established to perform a specific function. Administrative agencies are created and authorized by legislative bodies to administer and enforce specific laws.
What is a bureaucracy?A large organization that is structured hierarchically to carry out specific functions.


What is the Civil Service Commission?The initial central personnel agency of the national government, created in 1883.
What is enabling legislation?A statute enacted by Congress that authorizes the creation of an administrative agency and specifies the name, purpose, composition, functions, and powers of the agency being created.
What is the Government in the Sunshine Act?A law that requires all committee directed federal agencies to conduct their business regularly in public session.
What is an independent regulatory agency?An agency outside the major executive departments charged with making and implementing rules and regulations.


What is an iron triangle?The three-way alliance among legislators, bureaucrats, and interest groups to make or preserve policies that benefit their respective interests.
What is an issue network?A group of individuals or organizations
What is a line organization?In the federal government, an administrative unit that is directly accountable to the president.
What is the merit system?The selection, retention, and promotion of government employees on the basis of competitive examinations.


What is the monopolistic model?A model of bureaucracy that compares bureaucracies to monopolistic business firms. Lack of competition in either circumstance leads to inefficient and costly operations.
What is the Pendleton Act (Civil Service Reform Act)?An act that established the principle of employment on the basis of merit and created the Civil Service Commission to administer the personnel service.
What is the spoils system?The awarding of government jobs to political supporters and friends.
What is sunset legislation?Laws requiring that existing programs be reviewed regularly for their effectiveness and be terminated unless specifically extended as a result of these reviews.


What is the Weberian model?A model of bureaucracy developed by the German sociologist Max Weber, who viewed bureaucracies as rational, hierarchical organizations in which decisions are based on logical reasoning.
What is a whistleblower?Someone who brings to public attention gross governmental inefficiency or an illegal action.
What is bureaucratic culture?An informal understanding among fellow employees of an agency as to how they are supposed to act.
What is clientele?a group of customers or patrons


What is the Federal Register?An official document, published every weekday, which lists the new and proposed regulations of executive departments and regulatory agencies.
What is the Government Accountability Office?A federal legislative agency that audits (investigates) other agencies of the federal government and reports it's findings to Congress (makes sure they are not spending more money than the government has appropriated for them).
What are hearings and investigations?Meetings in which bureaucrats are called before subcommittees to explain and defend their decisions, and outsiders are sometimes invited to criticize them. Most agencies must testify annually about their activities before the House Appropriations subcommittee that has jurisdiction over their budgets.
What are inspectors general?positions with independent offices in virtually every government agency, who audit agency books and investigate activities on Congress's behalf.


What are legislative vetoes?A method to keep its bureaucratic agents in line. Allow one or both houses of Congress to veto by majority vote on agency's policy proposals.
What are limitation riders?Attached to appropriation bills, which forbid an agency to spend any of the money appropriated on activities specified by Congress in the rider (used to block agencies from issuing regulations opposed by Congress, among other things).
What are mandatory reports?Method by which Congress keeps its bureaucratic agents in line, in this case requiring executive agencies-even the president-to report on programs.
What is red tape?complex bureaucratic rules and procedures that must be followed to get something done.


What is rotation in office?President Andrew Jackson's system of periodically replacing officeholders to allow ordinary citizens to play a more prominent role in government
What is standing?a legal rule stating who is authorized to start a lawsuit