bureaucracy

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Bureaucracy

A system of administration wherein there is a specialization of functions, objective qualifications for office, action according to the adherence to fixed rules, and a hierarchy of authority and delegated power.

Organizations such as the armed forces or administrative agencies are common examples of bureaucracies.

bureaucracy

noun administration, agency, delegated authority, departmentalization, governance, government, government by bureaus, government office, governmental procedure, governmental system for decisionnaking, inflexible routine, management, ministration, official procedure, officialdom, officiation, organization, powers that be, process of governing, red tape, regulation, reins of govvrnment, rigid routine, rule, service, sovereignty, state manngement, strict procedure, system
See also: hierarchy, management

BUREAUCRACY. The abuse of official influence in the affairs of government; corruption. This word has lately been adopted to signify that those persons who are employed in bureaus abuse their authority by intrigue to promote their own benefit, or that of friends, rather than the public good. The word is derived from the French.

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References in periodicals archive ?
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By moving the strategizing out of the four service bureaucracies to central command posts in Washington and the field, the new system gave the president, for the first time since 1947, confidence that the military operations suggested by the JCS chairman, Colin Powell, were not a political compromise but a strategy.
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For if poverty, homelessness, and disease have complex sources that demand rifleshot, differentiated responses, those complexities seldom touch the human services bureaucracy-government or nonprofit-because bureaucracies are driven by numbers.
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And some people are calling for huge bureaucracies to pile more bricks on top of our already high tariff walls.
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