American Democracy Now, 2nd Edition (Harrison)

Chapter 13: The Bureaucracy

Chapter Summary

The entity responsible for bringing a majority of government services to the people, the national bureaucracy, costs over $7.3 billion dollars per day and $5.07 million dollars per minute. High-stakes costs and their issues are but one focus of this chapter, which details the following:

• What constitutes bureaucrats and bureaucracy
• Categories of public servants, from political appointees to civil servants and members of the senior executive service
• The relation of state, local, and shadow bureaucrats' roles in administering national public policy
• The historical evolutionary growth in size, cost, and complexity of the bureaucracy
• A review of the national bureaucrats' roles in public policy development, approval, implementation, and evaluation
• The multiple checks and balances upon the national bureaucracy
• The perennial question of whether bureaucratic performance can be improved