Test Bank Bureaucracy Chapter 15

Chapter 15: Bureaucracy

Test Bank

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 01

1) Most Americans hold which kind of opinion of the federal government?

Feedback: factual

a. A very high opinion

b. A very low opinion

c. An opinion that varies with circumstances

d. No opinion

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 02

2) What makes the government run?

Feedback: applied

a. The bureaucracy

b. The president

c. Congress

d. The people

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 03

3) Approximately how many people are on the American government payroll?

Feedback: factual

a. 2 million

b. 5 million

c. 23 million

d. 50 million

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 04

4) The bureaucracy, compared with Congress,

Feedback: factual

a. is older.

b. is younger.

c. is much more diverse.

d. is more educated.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 05

5) The practice by which political winners reward their supporters with government jobs and contracts is known as

Feedback: factual

a. the spoils system.

b. pandering.

c. pay-for-play.

d. the nepotism system.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 06

6) Bureaucracies are characterized by all of the following except

Feedback: conceptual

a. hierarchy.

b. division of labor.

c. flexible goals.

d. fixed routines.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 07

7) The 1883 act of Congress requiring the federal government to hire well-qualified public servants was

Feedback: factual

a. the Hatch Act.

b. the Hire Qualified Government Workers Act of 1883.

c. the McCain-Feingold Act.

d. the Pendleton Civil Service Act.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 08

8) A clear chain of command, in which all employees know who their supervisors are as well as who reports to them, is a characteristic of a

Feedback: factual

a. hierarchy.

b. merit-based system.

c. spoils system.

d. patronage system.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 09

9) The ultimate purpose of creating a professional merit-based civil service system is to

Feedback: applied

a. give jobs to friends.

b. hire well-qualified individuals.

c. win elections.

d. hire party members.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 10

10) The historical event most responsible for the large bureaucracy we have today was

Feedback: conceptual

a. World War I.

b. passage of the Pendleton Act.

c. World War II.

d. the Spanish-American War of 1898.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 11

11) The effort to outlaw all liquor under Prohibition created a new law enforcement agency in the

Feedback: conceptual

a. Department of Defense.

b. Department of the Interior.

c. Federal Bureau of Investigation.

d. Department of the Treasury.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 12

12) The Federal Reserve was created

Feedback: conceptual

a. to stabilize banking.

b. to save money.

c. to prepare for World War I.

d. to build Fort Knox.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 13

13) The primary source of power for a member of a bureaucracy is

Feedback: applied

a. job security.

b. expertise.

c. ties to politicians.

d. presidential connections.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 14

14) Agencies are hesitant to share information due to

Feedback: conceptual

a. turf wars.

b. imperialism.

c. clientelism.

d. iron triangles.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 15

15) When one agency does not communicate with another, to the detriment of citizens,

Feedback: applied

a. it is suffering from clientelism.

b. it is suffering from a lack of coordination.

c. it is suffering from too much coordination.

d. it needs a budgetary increase.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 16

16) According to the text, bureaucracies run on

Feedback: factual

a. money.

b. paperwork.

c. expertise.

d. political spoils.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 17

17) Laws written by Congress are typically

Feedback: conceptual

a. very precise.

b. consensual.

c. detailed.

d. vague.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 18

18) There are two steps in the bureaucratic process of putting a law into practice:

Feedback: factual

a. rulemaking and implementation.

b. rulemaking and adjudication.

c. agenda setting and evaluation.

d. printing and dissemination.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 19

19) After an agency has drafted a rule, it sends the rule to the _______ for approval.

Feedback: factual

a. Office of Rule Enforcement.

b. General Accounting Office.

c. Federal Register.

d. Office of Management and Budget.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 20

20) The daily journal of the federal government is

Feedback: factual

a. the Federal Register.

b. the New York Times.

c. the Journal of Rules.

d. the Hill.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 21

21) The rule that stipulates how a government program will actually operate is known as

Feedback: factual

a. the Federal Rule.

b. the Complete Rule.

c. the Final Rule.

d. the Federal Register Rule.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 22

22) Which of the following rules were in the Federal Register on one day?

Feedback: applied

a. Rules on pesticide use

b. Regulating the safety of Boeing’s 737 jetliners

c. Disposing of spent nuclear fuel

d. All of the above

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 23

23) Bureaucracies exist

Feedback: conceptual

a. in both the private and the public sector.

b. only in government.

c. at the federal level.

d. in Europe, for the most part.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 24

24) Sunshine laws open up bureaucratic debates to

Feedback: conceptual

a. elected officials in committee meetings.

b. public view.

c. invited media.

d. those in private meetings at the White House.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 25

25) The last step in the long bureaucratic process of creating a rule is

Feedback: applied

a. problem definition.

b. presidential signature.

c. implementation.

d. formulation.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 26

26) The final rule is published in the

Feedback: factual

a. Federal Rule Book.

b. Federal Guidelines.

c. Federal Bureaucracy Guidelines.

d. Federal Register.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 27

27) Bureaucracies touch

Feedback: conceptual

a. every aspect of our lives.

b. very little of our day-to-day lives.

c. the economy, mainly.

d. social issues, mainly.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 28

28) Bureaucratic officials participate in which steps in the policy-making process?

Feedback: conceptual

a. None of them

b. All of them

c. The agenda-setting stage

d. The implementation stage

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 29

29) Civil servants speak

Feedback: factual

a. Latin.

b. legalese.

c. bureaucratese.

d. French, the language of bureaucrats.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 30

30) Which of the following is an example of a federal agency designed to serve a clientele group?

Feedback: applied

a. State Department

b. Department of Justice

c. Department of Homeland Security

d. Department of Agriculture

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 31

31) President George Washington’s administration had all of the following cabinet departments except

Feedback: factual

a. Interior.

b. War.

c. State.

d. Treasury.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 32

32) All of the following are events that led to growth in the federal bureaucracy except

Feedback: conceptual

a. the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

b. the Emancipation Proclamation.

c. World War II.

d. the Great Depression.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 33

33) The cabinet secretary who sits farthest away from the president at cabinet meetings is the

Feedback: factual

a. Secretary of Defense.

b. Secretary of the Treasury.

c. Secretary of Homeland Security.

d. Secretary of State.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 34

34) The cabinet department with the most employees is the

Feedback: factual

a. Department of Education.

b. Department of Veterans Affairs.

c. Department of Labor.

d. Department of Defense.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 35

35) All of the following institutions can bottleneck a presidential nominee except

Feedback: conceptual

a. the EPA.

b. the FBI.

c. the White House.

d. Congress.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 36

36) In recent years, the confirmation process for presidential appointees has become

Feedback: applied

a. easier.

b. more difficult.

c. tied to campaign contributions.

d. less deferential to governors’ preferences.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 37

37) The Constitution bars members of Congress from taking

Feedback: factual

a. tax breaks.

b. campaign contributions.

c. any civil office.

d. trips to their districts while Congress is in session.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 38

38) The average length of time a presidential appointee serves is

Feedback: factual

a. the length of time the president is in office.

b. eight years.

c. under one year.

d. three years or less.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 39

39) The bureaucracy is discussed in which article of the Constitution?

Feedback: conceptual

a. The bureaucracy is not mentioned in the Constitution.

b. It is discussed in Article 1.

c. It is discussed in Article 2.

d. It is discussed in Article 3.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 40

40) Which of the following are not organizations in the federal bureaucracy?

Feedback: factual

a. Autonomous bureaus

b. Independent regulatory agencies

c. Citizen advisory councils

d. Cabinet departments

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 41

41) How many cabinet departments are there today?

Feedback: factual

a. Four

b. Seven

c. Eleven

d. Fifteen

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 42

42) How many cabinet departments did George Washington have?

Feedback: conceptual

a. Four

b. Seven

c. Eleven

d. Fifteen

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 43

43) What percentage of the federal bureaucracy is active-duty military?

Feedback: factual

a. 15 percent

b. 23.6 percent

c. 33.2 percent

d. 56.8 percent

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 44

44) How many women have headed cabinet-level departments?

Feedback: factual

a. Fifteen

b. Twenty-three

c. Thirty-one

d. Thirty-six

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 45

45) The cabinet agency charged with supervising Indian affairs is

Feedback: factual

a. the Department of the Interior.

b. the U.S. Geological Survey.

c. the Environmental Protection Agency.

d. the Department of Energy.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 46

46) All of the following are independent executive agencies except

Feedback: conceptual

a. the CIA.

b. the State Department.

c. NASA.

d. the U.S. Postal Service.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 47

47) Bureaus of the federal government that regulate business are dubbed

Feedback: conceptual

a. cabinet departments.

b. government corporations.

c. independent regulatory agencies.

d. market watchers.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 48

48) The theory that industries dominate the agencies that regulate them is known as

Feedback: factual

a. farming subsidies.

b. railroad freight expense.

c. space travel.

d. regulatory capture.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 49

49) When a regulatory agency does the bidding of the industry it is supposed to be regulating, it is exhibiting the effects of

Feedback: conceptual

a. regulatory capture.

b. interest group acquisition.

c. going native.

d. moral hazard.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 50

50) Created in 1887, the _______ was the first independent regulatory agency.

Feedback: conceptual

a. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

b. Interstate Commerce Commission

c. National Labor Relations Board

d. Federal Election Commission

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 51

51) An example of a central service agency is the

Feedback: factual

a. Environmental Protection Agency.

b. Executive Office of the President.

c. Food and Drug Administration.

d. Office of Personnel Management.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 52

52) Which agency, abolished in 1985, regulated competition in the airline industry?

Feedback: applied

a. The Civil Aeronautics Board

b. The Interstate Commerce Commission

c. The Civilian Air patrol

d. The National Transportation Safety Board

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 53

53) One of the principal arguments for contracting out government services to private companies is that

Feedback: conceptual

a. private companies are less efficient than government agencies.

b. private companies are more efficient than government agencies.

c. private company personnel have less expertise and will therefore do less damage.

d. private companies are more concerned about the public good than government agencies.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 54

54) The logic of having presidential appointees head government agencies is

Feedback: conceptual

a. neutral competence.

b. a remnant of the responsible party model.

c. to provide political direction to bureaucracies.

d. to ensure agency independence.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 55

55) A key challenge for a smoothly run federal bureaucracy is

Feedback: applied

a. a civil service system based on merit and neutral competence.

b. the lifetime tenure requirement for bureaucrats.

c. the lack of citizen demand for government services.

d. the time—more than a year—that it takes a new administration to get its leadership team in place.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 56

56) In theory, who controls the bureaucracy?

Feedback: conceptual

a. The president

b. Congress

c. The people

d. Interest groups

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 57

57) Congress controls the bureaucracy through all of the following except

Feedback: conceptual

a. funding.

b. personal contributions.

c. oversight.

d. authorization.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 58

58) The details of how policymakers control those working for them, despite the knowledge difference, is governed by

Feedback: applied

a. micromanagement.

b. macromanagement.

c. principal-agent theory.

d. oversight.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 59

59) While agency leaders frequently lobby Congress on behalf of their agencies, they also frequently complain about congressional

Feedback: conceptual

a. load shedding.

b. pork barreling.

c. integrity.

d. micromanagement.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 60

60) In the relationship between Congress and the bureaucracy, bureaucrats often have more, and better, information than the politicians who pass laws. This imbalance is called

Feedback: factual

a. information asymmetry.

b. moral hazard.

c. rent seeking.

d. the market model.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 61

61) Public officials who deal directly with the public are called

Feedback: factual

a. grunts.

b. street-level bureaucrats.

c. political appointees.

d. policy entrepreneurs.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 62

62) The ability of street-level bureaucrats to decide how to implement a program is referred to as

Feedback: conceptual

a. issue advocacy.

b. groupthink.

c. bureaucratic judgment.

d. issue entrepreneurialism.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 63

63) All of the following exert some control over the bureaucracy except

Feedback: conceptual

a. the president.

b. the Congress.

c. interest groups.

d. nonvoters.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 64

64) While bureaucracies have multiple principals who monitor their actions and create policies, bureaucrats still

Feedback: conceptual

a. operate with considerable autonomy.

b. must face the voters.

c. have to be recertified every three years.

d. are required to justify their entire budgets every year.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 65

65) A federal worker who reports corruption or fraud is known as a

Feedback: factual

a. bureaucrat.

b. whistle-blower.

c. fraudster.

d. congressional aide.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 66

66) The officials who implement programs are

Feedback: conceptual

a. secretaries.

b. aides.

c. street-level bureaucrats.

d. appointees.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 67

67) As a total proportion of America’s gross national product over the last forty years, the cost of the federal bureaucracy has

Feedback: conceptual

a. decreased dramatically.

b. increased dramatically.

c. remained generally steady.

d. fluctuated between increases and decreases.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 68

68) Why do NASA flights always take off from Florida?

Feedback: factual

a. Florida has twenty-nine votes in the Electoral College.

b. Florida has an exclusive government contract from NASA.

c. Florida is at sea level.

d. An obscure 1950s rule prohibited the flight of test aircraft west of the Mississippi River.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 69

69) Civil service pay scales

Feedback: factual

a. have only inched up.

b. increase yearly.

c. decrease yearly.

d. are unstable.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 70

70) What period saw the public’s faith in government tumble?

Feedback: applied

a. Late 1930s

b. Late 1940s

c. Late 1950s

d. Late 1960s

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 71

71) Politicians from _______ routinely bash the bureaucracy.

Feedback: conceptual

a. the Republican Party

b. the Democratic Party

c. both political parties

d. the civil service unions

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 72

72) The primary effect of sunshine laws has been to open up the

Feedback: applied

a. policy-making process to the public.

b. White House decision process to outside review.

c. federal judiciary’s closed-conference proceedings to the people.

d. political appointment process to outside influence.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 73

73) The 1966 _______ facilitates full or partial disclosure of government documents and information.

Feedback: factual

a. Freedom of Information Act

b. Full Disclosure Act

c. Campaign Finance Reform Act

d. Civil Rights Act

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 74

74) In the early 1990s, Vice President Al Gore spearheaded the “reinventing government” project, designed to

Feedback: factual

a. eliminate wasteful bureaucratic agencies.

b. cut bureaucratic delays.

c. deregulate the financial sector.

d. deregulate the airline industry.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 75

75) Bureaucratic agencies have

Feedback: conceptual

a. little reason to perform efficiently.

b. no incentive to serve the public.

c. multiple constituencies with multiple goals.

d. a strong incentive to please their shareholders.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 76

76) A critical dimension of making privatization of government services work is

Feedback: conceptual

a. codes of ethics.

b. noncompetitive bidding.

c. cheap labor.

d. careful oversight.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 77

77) The bureaucracy

Feedback: conceptual

a. is unnecessary in the twenty-first century.

b. performs many jobs we need and value in our society.

c. is not subject to checks or balances.

d. has no ties to our elected branches of government.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 78

78) How many cabinet departments did Theodore Roosevelt have?

Feedback: factual

a. Seven

b. Fifteen

c. Four

d. Twenty

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 79

79) Senator Ted Cruz compared bureaucracy to a

Feedback: factual

a. group of villains.

b. plague of locusts.

c. army of armadillos.

d. bus of Spring Break students.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 80

80) In the nineteenth century, U.S. government jobs were considered to be

Feedback: factual

a. earned by merit.

b. for professionals only.

c. political prizes.

d. bought.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 81

81) A government running according to transparent rules that are impartially applied is using

Feedback: factual

a. commercial politics.

b. business politics.

c. the spoils system.

d. universalistic politics.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 82

82) The presidential assassination that led to civil service reform was that of

Feedback: factual

a. James Garfield.

b. Abraham Lincoln.

c. John Kennedy.

d. William McKinley.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 83

83) After the passage of the Pendleton Civil Service Act, how did civil servants get their jobs?

Feedback: factual

a. Spoils system

b. Exams

c. Payoffs

d. Appointment

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 84

84) Those who wanted to reform the civil service had which advantage?

Feedback: factual

a. They had more money.

b. They had the support of the president.

c. Jobs needed to be done.

d. The civil service system was shrinking.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 85

85) During World War I, the number of civilian employees

Feedback: factual

a. stayed constant.

b. quadrupled.

c. tripled.

d. doubled.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 86

86) The problems that develop in bureaucratic systems are generally known as

Feedback: factual

a. bureaucratic pathologies.

b. bureaucratic issues.

c. government problems.

d. government pathologies.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 87

87) How many intelligence agencies are there in the federal government?

Feedback: factual

a. Seventeen

b. Nineteen

c. Twenty-one

d. Twenty-three

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 88

88) Which of the following is not a characteristic of bureaucracy?

Feedback: factual

a. Hierarchy

b. Division of labor

c. Varied routines

d. Equal rules for all

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 89

89) When Congress appropriates funds for Social Security checks, bureaucratic workers then

Feedback: conceptual

a. decide which programs the money goes to.

b. buy bonds to increase the money.

c. determine where to send the money.

d. issue checks.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 90

90) Bureaucratic steps are

Feedback: factual

a. always carried out in the same way.

b. carried out in varying ways.

c. open to discussion.

d. just suggestions.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 91

91) Who can comment on a proposed rule in the Federal Register?

Feedback: factual

a. Only relevant business leaders

b. Any interested party

c. Only federal employees

d. Only members of the relevant bureaucracy

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 92

92) A draft of an administrative regulation is known as a

Feedback: factual

a. new rule.

b. final rule.

c. proposed rule.

d. temporary rule.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 93

93) When is the analysis of the likely impact of a new rule published?

Feedback: factual

a. With the proposed rule

b. When the debates on the rule are published

c. Never

d. With the final rule

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 94

94) Where does rule making take place?

Feedback: factual

a. Far from the public eye

b. In public hearings

c. In Congressional hearings

d. During presidential press conferences

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 95

95) After all the rules are in place, who implements the new policies?

Feedback: factual

a. Congress

b. The bureaucracy

c. The president

d. The states

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 96

96) The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is likely to make connections with

Feedback: conceptual

a. anti-gun advocates.

b. Supreme Court justices.

c. congressional members who care about guns.

d. military leaders.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 97

97) Appointed agency leaders are tasked with steering their agencies in the direction

Feedback: factual

a. they think best.

b. the workers want to go.

c. charted by Congress.

d. charted by the president.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 98

98) How many civil servants remain in their jobs regardless of the party in the White House?

Feedback: factual

a. 2.8 million

b. 3.4 million

c. 4.2 million

d. 5.7 million

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 99

99) What is really meant when a bureaucrat says, “We need to syndicate this decision”?

Feedback: factual

a. You should have protected me from myself.

b. We need to spread the blame if it backfires.

c. I want to be able to blame you for my mistakes.

d. The proposal will be expensive.

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 100

100) What is the spoils system?

Feedback:

System in which government jobs are given out as political favors.

Dominant in the United States in the early nineteenth century.

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 101

101) What did the Pendleton Civil Service Act accomplish?

Feedback:

Shifted American government toward a merit-based public system.

Reduced use of the spoils system.

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 102

102) Why did war lead to increased bureaucracy?

Feedback:

Need for administrators and well-organized offices in mobilization.

Matters of life and death.

After war, government maintained some of the new jobs.

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 103

103) The war against liquor led to the development of a new bureaucracy. What was that bureaucracy?

Feedback:

Department of the Treasury.

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 104

104) What activities helped bureaucracies grow as a result of the geography of the United States?

Feedback:

Postal service.

Transportation.

Distribution of public lands.

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 105

105) How are thousands of people coordinated in a bureaucracy?

Feedback:

Hierarchical chain of command.

Throughout the chain, each person reports to the person directly above.

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 106

106) What are SOPs?

Feedback:

Standard operating procedures.

Well-specified codes of conduct for how bureaucracies will perform.

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 107

107) What are bureaucratic pathologies?

Feedback:

The problems that tend to develop in bureaucratic systems.

Rote.

Imperialism.

Turf war.

Lack of coordination.

Clientelism.

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 108

108) What is the difference in how democracy runs and how bureaucracies run?

Feedback:

Democracy derives authority from the people.

Bureaucracy runs on expertise.

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 109

109) What do bureaucracies do?

Feedback:

Put into effect laws or executive orders.

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 110

110) What is the importance of the final rule?

Feedback:

Specifies how a program will actually operate.

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 111

111) What are the bureaucrats who work directly with the public called? Give three examples.

Feedback:

Street-level bureaucrats.

Examples will vary.

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 112

112) How do the heads of government bureaucracy obtain their positions?

Feedback:

President appoints.

Senate approves highest-ranking appointees.

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 113

113) Who are the members of the permanent executive-branch bureaucracy? How are they hired?

Feedback:

Civil servants.

Hired on the basis of competitive exams.

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 114

114) What is the protocol for seating and entering the room for the cabinet posts?

Feedback:

The younger the agency, the farther way from the president the secretary sits.

Secretaries of oldest departments enter the room first for formal events.

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 115

115) What happens after a cabinet secretary is nominated?

Feedback:

Goes before the Senate for confirmation.

Selects staff.

Manages the bureaucracy.

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 116

116) Difficulty with the railroads in the 1880s led to the formation of what bureaucracy? Why did Congress take this path to solving the problems?

Feedback:

Interstate Commerce Commission.

Wealthy railroad owners dominated state legislatures and Congress.

Congress passed the law largely in response to public demand that railroads be regulated.

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 117

117) How does regulatory capture relate to bureaucracy?

Feedback:

Industries dominate the agencies that regulate them.

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 118

118) Where does the president get the authority to control the bureaucracy?

Feedback:

Constitution: executive power vested in the president.

People elect the president, who appoints bureaucratic leaders.

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 119

119) What controls does Congress have over the bureaucracy?

Feedback:

Funding.

Oversight.

Authorization.

Reorganization.

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 120

120) Who makes the final decision on how to apply bureaucratic rules?

Feedback:

Street-level bureaucrats.

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 121

121) What are three actors who have influence on the bureaucracy?

Feedback:

President.

Congress.

Interest groups.

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 122

122) What are the major sources of disapproval of the bureaucracy?

Feedback:

Cost.

Inertia.

Public mistrust.

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 123

123) What are three reforms of bureaucracy discussed in the text?

Feedback:

Open up the system.

Reinvent government.

Privatization.

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 124

124) In what sense do the people control the bureaucracy?

Feedback:

People elect the president.

President appoints the heads of the bureaucratic agencies.

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 125

125) Compare and contrast merit-based and spoils-based bureaucratic systems.

Feedback:

Spoils system based on patronage.

Spoils system often produces unqualified and partisan civil servants.

Merit system based on neutral competence.

Merit systems more prone to red tape.

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 126

126) How representative is the bureaucracy?

Feedback:

Generally, the bureaucracy looks like the population.

Much more representative in terms of race and gender than our elected branches.

Civil servants tend to be better educated than the general population.

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 127

127) Discuss the key problems and issues associated with the value of “representation” in governmental decision making, including the need for efficient, rational, and neutral policy making by agency officials.

Feedback:

Balance between political responsiveness and neutral competence.

Street-level bureaucrats.

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 128

128) What are the categories of bureaucracy outside of the cabinet departments and what do they do?

Feedback:

Executive Agencies: specific assignments.

Independent Regulatory Commissions: regulate industry.

Private Contractors: perform jobs once handled by government employees.

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 129

129) Identify and define the characteristics of a bureaucracy. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of making and administering policy through bureaucratic agencies.

Feedback:

Hierarchy, specialization, explicit rules, merit.

Depoliticizing decisions and providing neutral competence and expertise.

Bureaucracies can organize and perform large tasks.

Advancement by merit rewards good work.

Hard to hold bureaucrats responsible.

Rules create a rigid process that can have unintended and undesirable consequences.

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 130

130) Why do presidents become frustrated with the bureaucratic agencies that they head?

Feedback:

Civil servants are protected from political pressures and are hard to fire.

Iron triangles are hard to break.

Presidents have some budget control over agencies but must work with Congress.

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 131

131) What are the consequences of a rule-based system in the federal bureaucracy?

Feedback:

Rules provide fairness and accountability.

Rules are central to neutral competence.

Rules bring red tape.

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 132

132) When does Congress rein in the bureaucracy?

Feedback:

Congress does not have the resources, or incentive, to monitor all agencies at once.

Congress can, however, use its oversight powers to pull an agency back to Congress’s idea of where the agency belongs.

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 133

133) Discuss the spoils system in detail, including the legislation to eliminate the spoils system.

Feedback:

System in which government jobs were handed out as political favors.

Men got their posts by helping politicians win elections.

President Garfield was assassinated by a dissatisfied office seeker.

Pendleton Civil Service Act required government to use exams to hire qualified workers.

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 134

134) How did race and ethnicity contribute to the growth of the bureaucracy?

Feedback:

Reconstruction required bureaucracy for occupation of southern lands.

Immigration policies required bureaucracy for enforcement.

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 135

135) What are the characteristics of bureaucracy discussed by Max Weber? How do they work?

Feedback:

Hierarchy: chain of command.

Division of labor: each piece of a program assigned to an individual or group.

Fixed routines: standard operating procedures.

Equal rules for all: rules apply equally to everyone.

Technical qualifications: people get their jobs on the basis of qualifications.

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 136

136) What term is used to describe the problems in bureaucracy? What are some common problems?

Feedback:

Bureaucratic pathologies.

Rote: follow standardized routines despite new developments.

Imperialism: want bigger budgets and better staffs.

Turf war: who is responsible for what.

Lack of coordination: no cooperation among agencies.

Clientelism: favor some constituents over others.

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 137

137) What do bureaucracies do?

Feedback:

Rulemaking: fixed process with multiple steps, always carried out the same way.

Implementation: put new policies in place.

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 138

138) What is the process by which a rule goes through the bureaucracy?

Feedback:

Congress proposes law.

Congress passes law.

Law upheld in courts.

Bureaucratic agency drafts rules, gathers comments, publishes final rule.

Implementation.

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 139

139) What is the rotating bureaucracy? Is this an efficient way to run the bureaucracy?

Feedback:

Turnover at top rung of U.S. bureaucracy is unique.

Can be unstable.

FEMA showed this practice is not efficient.

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 140

140) What are executive agencies? Give some examples, including what those agencies are responsible for.

Feedback:

Assignments more specific than those of cabinet departments.

Examples will vary.

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 141

141) What are independent regulatory commissions? How did they come about? Give examples of commissions and what they do.

Feedback:

Regulate business.

Came about when farmers and small businesses found themselves at the mercy of railroads and protested.

Wealthy railroad owners dominated Congress.

Other examples can be provided.

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 142

142) How does regulation lead to deregulation?

Feedback:

Industries dominate agencies that regulate them.

Deregulation leads to abolishing the agencies and letting free-market competition protect consumers.

Back to the railroads and setting freight rates.

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 143

143) Is privatization the way to reduce bureaucracy? Who is responsible when a private contractor causes a problem or does not meet regulations?

Feedback:

Answers will vary.

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 15 Question 144

144) How can Congress control the bureaucracy of the executive branch?

Feedback:

Limit funding.

Provide oversight.

Refuse reauthorization.

Change the structure of the executive branch organizations.