The executive branch carries out and enforces laws. It includes the president, vice president, the Cabinet, executive departments, independent agencies, and other boards, commissions, and committees.

Congressional oversight refers to the review, monitoring, and supervision of federal agencies, programs and policy implementation, and it provides the legislative branch with an opportunity to inspect, examine, review and check the executive branch and its agencies.

Congress conducts much of its oversight through committees, with the support of a number of federal agencies and offices that investigate, audit, and provide information and analysis on executive branch activities.

Under Article II of the Constitution, the President is responsible for the execution and enforcement of the laws created by Congress. Fifteen executive departments — each led by an appointed member of the President’s Cabinet — carry out the day-to-day administration of the federal government.

The executive branch controls the bureaucracy by appointing all federal employees. c. There is very little control over the bureaucracy because agencies make regulations that have the force of law. You just studied 38 terms!

They derive that power from variety of sources: external support, expertise, bureaucratic discretion, longevity, skill, and leadership. Limits to bureaucratic power come from the legal and political controls exercised by the presidency, Congress, courts, and various groups.

president

The federal bureaucracy is a creature of Congress and the president. But agencies independently make policy and exert power: legislating by rulemaking; executing by implementation; and adjudicating by hearing complaints, prosecuting cases, and judging disputes.

Most directly, the president controls the bureaucracies by appointing the heads of the fifteen cabinet departments and of many independent executive agencies, such as the CIA, the EPA, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Bureaucratic Pathologies There are five major problems with bureaucracies: red tape, conflict, duplication, imperialism, and waste.

The federal bureaucracy performs three primary tasks in government: implementation, administration, and regulation. When Congress passes a law, it sets down guidelines to carry out the new policies. Actually putting these policies into practice is known as implementation.

Bureaucracies have four key characteristics: a clear hierarchy, specialization, a division of labor, and a set of formal rules, or standard operating procedures. America’s bureaucracy performs three primary functions to help the government run smoothly.

Bureaucracy, specific form of organization defined by complexity, division of labour, permanence, professional management, hierarchical coordination and control, strict chain of command, and legal authority.

What is a bureaucracy? This is a system of organization and control that is based on three principles: hierarchical authority, job specialization, and formalized rules.

Impersonality is an attempt by large formal organizations to protect their members. Large business organizations like Walmart often situate themselves as bureaucracies. This allows them to effectively and efficiently serve volumes of customers quickly and with affordable products.

The German sociologist Max Weber (1864-1920) argued that bureaucracy constitutes the most efficient and rational way in which human activity can be organized and that systematic processes and organized hierarchies are necessary to maintain order, to maximize efficiency, and to eliminate favoritism.

Although the executive branch controls the majority of the federal bureaucracy, the legislative and judiciary branches also have some influence. Congress, for example, controls the Library of Congress, the Congressional Research Service, and the Government Accountability Office, among other bureaucracies.

Congress

Bureaucrats are government officials subject to legislative regulations and procedural guidelines. Because they play a vital role in modern society, they hold managerial and functional positions in government; they form the core of most administrative agencies.

administrative state

Most federal employees work in the executive branch. And almost all of them work in the United States.

All of the approximately 2,000 federal government agencies, divisions, departments, and commissions are examples of bureaucracies. The most visible of those bureaucracies include the Social Security Administration, the Internal Revenue Service, and the Veterans Benefits Administration.

The federal bureaucracy consists of the Cabinet departments, independent agencies, government corporations, and independent regulatory commissions.

What Are the Disadvantages of Bureaucracy?

• There is no emphasis on creating additional competencies.
• It fosters a structure that doesn’t create true productivity.
• Expenditures dictate actions.
• It is a battery for boredom.
• There is less freedom to act within a bureaucracy.

There is a severe lack of empathy or rationality. The origination is highly regulated by set rules and regulations. Bureaucratic organizational step up is not suitable for industry or companies which are under great pressure to perform and compete in the market.