Deck 15: Bureaucracy

Question 1

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

A) A very high opinion
B) A very low opinion
C) An opinion that varies with circumstances
D) No opinion

Answer 1

B

Question 2

What makes the government run?

A) The bureaucracy
B) The president
C) Congress
D) The people

Answer 2

A

Question 3

Approximately how many people are on the American government payroll?

A) 2 million
B) 5 million
C) 23 million
D) 50 million

Answer 3

C

Question 4

The bureaucracy, compared with Congress,

A) is older.
B) is younger.
C) is much more diverse.
D) is more educated.

Question 5

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

A) the spoils system.
B) pandering.
C) pay-for-play.
D) the nepotism system.

Question 6

Bureaucracies are characterized by all of the following except

A) hierarchy.
B) division of labor.
C) flexible goals.
D) fixed routines.

Question 7

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

A) the Hatch Act.
B) the Hire Qualified Government Workers Act of 1883.
C) the McCain-Feingold Act.
D) the Pendleton Civil Service Act.

Question 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

A) hierarchy.
B) merit-based system.
C) spoils system.
D) patronage system.

Question 9

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

A) give jobs to friends.
B) hire well-qualified individuals.
C) win elections.
D) hire party members.

Question 10

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

A) World War I.
B) passage of the Pendleton Act.
C) World War II.
D) the Spanish-American War of 1898.

Question 11

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

A) Department of Defense.
B) Department of the Interior.
C) Federal Bureau of Investigation.
D) Department of the Treasury.

Question 12

The Federal Reserve was created

A) to stabilize banking.
B) to save money.
C) to prepare for World War I.
D) to build Fort Knox.

Question 13

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

A) job security.
B) expertise.
C) ties to politicians.
D) presidential connections.

Question 14

Agencies are hesitant to share information due to

A) turf wars.
B) imperialism.
C) clientelism.
D) iron triangles.

Question 15

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

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.

Question 16

According to the text, bureaucracies run on

A) money.
B) paperwork.
C) expertise.
D) political spoils.

Question 17

Laws written by Congress are typically

A) very precise.
B) consensual.
C) detailed.
D) vague.

Question 18

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

A) rulemaking and implementation.
B) rulemaking and adjudication.
C) agenda setting and evaluation.
D) printing and dissemination.

Question 19

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

A) Office of Rule Enforcement.
B) General Accounting Office.
C) Federal Register.
D) Office of Management and Budget.

Question 20

The daily journal of the federal government is

A) the Federal Register.
B) the New York Times.
C) the Journal of Rules.
D) the Hill.

Question 21

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

A) the Federal Rule.
B) the Complete Rule.
C) the Final Rule.
D) the Federal Register Rule.

Question 22

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

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

Question 23

Bureaucracies exist

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.

Question 24

Sunshine laws open up bureaucratic debates to

A) elected officials in committee meetings.
B) public view.
C) invited media.
D) those in private meetings at the White House.

Question 25

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

A) problem definition.
B) presidential signature.
C) implementation.
D) formulation.

Question 26

The final rule is published in the

A) Federal Rule Book.
B) Federal Guidelines.
C) Federal Bureaucracy Guidelines.
D) Federal Register.

Question 27

Bureaucracies touch

A) every aspect of our lives.
B) very little of our day-to-day lives.
C) the economy, mainly.
D) social issues, mainly.

Question 28

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

A) None of them
B) All of them
C) The agenda-setting stage
D) The implementation stage

Question 29

Civil servants speak

A) Latin.
B) legalese.
C) bureaucratese.
D) French, the language of bureaucrats.

Question 30

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

A) State Department
B) Department of Justice
C) Department of Homeland Security
D) Department of Agriculture

Question 31

President George Washington's administration had all of the following cabinet departments except

A) Interior.
B) War.
C) State.
D) Treasury.

Question 32

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

A) the terrorist attacks of 9/11.
B) the Emancipation Proclamation.
C) World War II.
D) the Great Depression.

Question 33

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

A) Secretary of Defense.
B) Secretary of the Treasury.
C) Secretary of Homeland Security.
D) Secretary of State.

Question 34

The cabinet department with the most employees is the

A) Department of Education.
B) Department of Veterans Affairs.
C) Department of Labor.
D) Department of Defense.

Question 35

All of the following institutions can bottleneck a presidential nominee except

A) the EPA.
B) the FBI.
C) the White House.
D) Congress.

Question 36

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

A) easier.
B) more difficult.
C) tied to campaign contributions.
D) less deferential to governors' preferences.

Question 37

The Constitution bars members of Congress from taking

A) tax breaks.
B) campaign contributions.
C) any civil office.
D) trips to their districts while Congress is in session.

Question 38

The average length of time a presidential appointee serves is

A) the length of time the president is in office.
B) eight years.
C) under one year.
D) three years or less.

Question 39

The bureaucracy is discussed in which article of the Constitution?

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.

Question 40

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

A) Autonomous bureaus
B) Independent regulatory agencies
C) Citizen advisory councils
D) Cabinet departments

Question 41

How many cabinet departments are there today?

A) Four
B) Seven
C) Eleven
D) Fifteen

Question 42

How many cabinet departments did George Washington have?

A) Four
B) Seven
C) Eleven
D) Fifteen

Question 43

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

A) 15 percent
B) 23.6 percent
C) 33.2 percent
D) 56.8 percent

Question 44

How many women have headed cabinet-level departments?

A) Fifteen
B) Twenty-three
C) Thirty-one
D) Thirty-six

Question 45

The cabinet agency charged with supervising Indian affairs is

A) the Department of the Interior.
B) the U.S. Geological Survey.
C) the Environmental Protection Agency.
D) the Department of Energy.

Question 46

All of the following are independent executive agencies except

A) the CIA.
B) the State Department.
C) NASA.
D) the U.S. Postal Service.

Question 47

Bureaus of the federal government that regulate business are dubbed

A) cabinet departments.
B) government corporations.
C) independent regulatory agencies.
D) market watchers.

Question 48

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

A) farming subsidies.
B) railroad freight expense.
C) space travel.
D) regulatory capture.

Question 49

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

A) regulatory capture.
B) interest group acquisition.
C) going native.
D) moral hazard.

Question 50

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

A) Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
B) Interstate Commerce Commission
C) National Labor Relations Board
D) Federal Election Commission

Question 51

An example of a central service agency is the

A) Environmental Protection Agency.
B) Executive Office of the President.
C) Food and Drug Administration.
D) Office of Personnel Management.

Question 52

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

A) The Civil Aeronautics Board
B) The Interstate Commerce Commission
C) The Civilian Air patrol
D) The National Transportation Safety Board

Question 53

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

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.

Question 54

The logic of having presidential appointees head government agencies is

A) neutral competence.
B) a remnant of the responsible party model.
C) to provide political direction to bureaucracies.
D) to ensure agency independence.

Question 55

A key challenge for a smoothly run federal bureaucracy is

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.

Question 56

In theory, who controls the bureaucracy?

A) The president
B) Congress
C) The people
D) Interest groups

Question 57

Congress controls the bureaucracy through all of the following except

A) funding.
B) personal contributions.
C) oversight.
D) authorization.

Question 58

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

A) micromanagement.
B) macromanagement.
C) principal-agent theory.
D) oversight.

Question 59

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

A) load shedding.
B) pork barreling.
C) integrity.
D) micromanagement.

Question 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

A) information asymmetry.
B) moral hazard.
C) rent seeking.
D) the market model.

Question 61

Public officials who deal directly with the public are called

A) grunts.
B) street-level bureaucrats.
C) political appointees.
D) policy entrepreneurs.

Question 62

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

A) issue advocacy.
B) groupthink.
C) bureaucratic judgment.
D) issue entrepreneurialism.

Question 63

All of the following exert some control over the bureaucracy except

A) the president.
B) the Congress.
C) interest groups.
D) nonvoters.

Question 64

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

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.

Question 65

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

A) bureaucrat.
B) whistle-blower.
C) fraudster.
D) congressional aide.

Question 66

The officials who implement programs are

A) secretaries.
B) aides.
C) street-level bureaucrats.
D) appointees.

Question 67

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

A) decreased dramatically.
B) increased dramatically.
C) remained generally steady.
D) fluctuated between increases and decreases.

Question 68

Why do NASA flights always take off from Florida?

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.

Question 69

Civil service pay scales

A) have only inched up.
B) increase yearly.
C) decrease yearly.
D) are unstable.

Question 70

What period saw the public's faith in government tumble?

A) Late 1930s
B) Late 1940s
C) Late 1950s
D) Late 1960s

Question 71

Politicians from _______ routinely bash the bureaucracy.

A) the Republican Party
B) the Democratic Party
C) both political parties
D) the civil service unions

Question 72

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

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.

Question 73

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

A) Freedom of Information Act
B) Full Disclosure Act
C) Campaign Finance Reform Act
D) Civil Rights Act

Question 74

In the early 1990s, Vice President Al Gore spearheaded the "reinventing government" project, designed to

A) eliminate wasteful bureaucratic agencies.
B) cut bureaucratic delays.
C) deregulate the financial sector.
D) deregulate the airline industry.

Question 75

Bureaucratic agencies have

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.

Question 76

A critical dimension of making privatization of government services work is

A) codes of ethics.
B) noncompetitive bidding.
C) cheap labor.
D) careful oversight.

Question 77

The bureaucracy

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.

Question 78

How many cabinet departments did Theodore Roosevelt have?

A) Seven
B) Fifteen
C) Four
D) Twenty

Question 79

Senator Ted Cruz compared bureaucracy to a

A) group of villains.
B) plague of locusts.
C) army of armadillos.
D) bus of Spring Break students.

Question 80

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

A) earned by merit.
B) for professionals only.
C) political prizes.
D) bought.