Intro to Public Administration Quiz 2

Four functions of organization

1) managing money, including revenues, spending, and borrowing 2) maintaining internal law and order 3) keeping the country safe 4) managing the country's affairs

Clientele

Indians, children, veterans, the elderly

Humanist approach

Rooted in the dynamics of human relations, condemns the impersonality of bureaucratic hierarchies and pleads for the humanizing of organizations

Iron triangle

a closely linked network of interest groups, congressional committees, and public administrators that unite to protect their long-term relationships

Structure

a formal arrangement among the people engaged in the organization's mission

Lead agency formula

a method of cooperation wherein one agency is designated to lead and attempt to coordinate all agencies' activities in a particular area

Networks

a set of working relationships among actors such that any relationship has the potential both to elicit action and to communicate information in an efficient manner

Chain of command

a theory for the relationship of higher-level units to lower level units

Process

accounting, engineering, purchasing

Principal-Agent Theory

an approach that details the contacts between superiors and subordinates

Areal system

an approach to government that structures its organizations by a particular geographic region

National security council

an organization within the executive office of the president, established in 1947, to advise the president on matters of foreign and military policy

Office of management and budget

an organization within the executive office of the president, to advise the present on budgetary and management policies. Initially established in 1921 in the treasury department, it came under the purview of the executive office in 1939

Interagency committees

committees that exist to promote collaboration between jointly occupied areas at the cabinet, subcabinet, and bureau levels

Purpose

defense, education, police, fire

Classical theory

defining clear jurisdictions of authority and responsibility

Network analysis

distinguished from other approaches by two characteristics

Pluralist approach

emphasizing the realities of political life, focuses on a fundamentally political model of organizational interactions

Efficiency

focuses on creating specialized functions and coordinated responsibilities

Regulatory commissions

government organizations, typically independent agencies, whose function is to write and enforce rules governing private-sector behavior and whose policies are set by a multimember board

Independent agencies

governmental organizations that exist separately from the cabinet departments

Control staff

helps top officials secure leverage over the organization

Span of control

limit to how many subordinates any executive can oversee

Clearance procedure

links agencies horizontally by requiring that an agency's proposed decisions in a subject-matter area be reviewed, whether for comment or for formal approval or veto, by other interested agencies

Interagency agreements

mutual understandings reached by several organizations, which detail the contributions each organization will make to a common goal

Government-by-proxy approach

notes that government shares power with other governments, private organizations, and mixed public-private enterprises, as well as within its own organizational structure

Government corporations

organizations that perform public functions but that are organized and operate like private companies, with a profit-and loss bottom line (including amtrak and the federal deposit insurance corporation)

Auxiliary staff

provides a basic housekeeping function

Core staff

provides basic support to the agency's line activities

Charismatic authority

rests on personal devotion to an individual because of the exceptional sanctity, heroism of exemplary character of this person

Traditional authority

rests on the belief in the sacredness of traditions ("what actually, allegedly, or presumably has always existed.")

Formal approach

returns to a structural perspective, but adds a very different theoretical twist

Agents

the administrators charged with carrying out the law

Agencies

the agents established to do the principals work

Bureaus

the basic building blocks of governmental organizations

Cabinet

the collection of administrative departments, as well as those additional offices that the chief executive (such as the president) raised to that rank

Organizational cultures

the ethos and philosophy that shape the behavior of individuals within an organization

Transaction Costs

the expenses, in time and money, incurred in how an organization conducts in operations

Interweaving

the interconnection of the public, private, and nonprofit sectors in partnership to produce publicly funded services

Coordination

the process of orienting the activities of individuals and organizations so they are mutually supportive

Authority

the rightful power to make decisions with constitutionally defined limits, with the expectation of widespread compliance

Heirarchy

the top-down delegation of authority from higher officials to lower ones

Prefectoral system

to oversee all national field agents in the area, regardless of their departmental and bureau affiliations

Authority and hierarchy deal with the central issue of the politics of administration process:

who has it and how they use it