POLS 2302 MAIN EXAMINATION SETS UPDATED
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS GRADED A+
✔✔veto power - ✔✔The formal, constitutional authority of the president to reject bills
passed by both houses of Congress, thus preventing them from becoming law without
further congressional action. A two-thirds supermajority in both houses of Congress
could override a veto
✔✔cabinet - ✔✔Among the president-elect's more important tasks is the selection of a
cabinet. George Washington's cabinet was made up of only four people, the attorney
general and the secretaries of the Departments of War, State, and the Treasury.
Currently, however, there are fifteen members of the cabinet, including the Secretaries
of Labor, Agriculture, Education, and others (Figure 12.9). The most important
members—the heads of the Departments of Defense, Justice, State, and the Treasury
(echoing Washington's original cabinet)—receive the most attention from the president,
the Congress, and the media. These four departments have been referred to as the
inner cabinet, while the others are called the outer cabinet. When selecting a cabinet,
presidents consider ability, expertise, influence, and reputation. More recently,
presidents have also tried to balance political and demographic representation (gender,
race, religion, and other considerations) to produce a cabinet that is capable as well as
descriptively representative, meaning that those in the cabinet look like the U.S.
population (see the chapter on bureaucracy and the term "representative bureaucracy").
A recent president who explicitly stated this as his goal was Bill Clinton, who talked
about an "E.G.G. strategy" for senior-level appointments, where the E stands for
ethnicity, G for gender, and the second G for geography.
✔✔"spoils system" - ✔✔in which political appointments were transformed into political
patronage doled out by the president on the basis of party loyalty. Political patronage is
the use of state resources to reward individuals for their political support. The term
"spoils" here refers to paid positions in the U.S. government. As the saying goes, "to the
victor," in this case the incoming president, "go the spoils." It was assumed that
government would work far more efficiently if the key federal posts were occupied by
those already supportive of the president and his policies. This system served to
enforce party loyalty by tying the livelihoods of the party faithful to the success or failure
of the party. The number of federal posts the president sought to use as appropriate
rewards for supporters swelled over the following decades.
✔✔Pendleton Act - ✔✔As the negative aspects of political patronage continued to infect
bureaucracy in the late nineteenth century, calls for civil service reform grew louder.
Those supporting the patronage system held that their positions were well earned;
those who condemned it argued that federal legislation was needed to ensure jobs were
awarded on the basis of merit. Eventually, after President James Garfield had been
assassinated by a disappointed office seeker, Congress responded to cries for reform
with the Pendleton Act, also called the Civil Service Reform Act of 1883. The act
established the Civil Service Commission, a centralized agency charged with ensuring
that the federal government's selection, retention, and promotion practices were based
, on open, competitive examinations in a merit system.6 The passage of this law sparked
a period of social activism and political reform that continued well into the twentieth
century.
✔✔Weberian Model - ✔✔The classic model of bureaucracy is typically called the ideal
Weberian model, and it was developed by Max Weber, an early German sociologist.
Weber argued that the increasing complexity of life would simultaneously increase the
demands of citizens for government services. Therefore, the ideal type of bureaucracy,
the Weberian model, was one in which agencies are apolitical, hierarchically organized,
and governed by formal procedures. Furthermore, specialized bureaucrats would be
better able to solve problems through logical reasoning. Such efforts would eliminate
entrenched patronage, stop problematic decision-making by those in charge, provide a
system for managing and performing repetitive tasks that required little or no discretion,
impose order and efficiency, create a clear understanding of the service provided,
reduce arbitrariness, ensure accountability, and limit discretion.19
✔✔Acquisitive Model - ✔✔For Weber, as his ideal type suggests, the bureaucracy was
not only necessary but also a positive human development. Later sociologists have not
always looked so favorably upon bureaucracies, and they have developed alternate
models to explain how and why bureaucracies function. One such model is called the
acquisitive model of bureaucracy. The acquisitive model proposes that bureaucracies
are naturally competitive and power-hungry. This means bureaucrats, especially at the
highest levels, recognize that limited resources are available to feed bureaucracies, so
they will work to enhance the status of their own bureaucracy to the detriment of others.
This effort can sometimes take the form of merely emphasizing to Congress the value of
their bureaucratic task, but it also means the bureaucracy will attempt to maximize its
budget by depleting all its allotted resources each year. This ploy makes it more difficult
for legislators to cut the bureaucracy's future budget, a strategy that succeeds at the
expense of thrift. In this way, the bureaucracy will eventually grow far beyond what is
necessary and create bureaucratic waste that would otherwise be spent more efficiently
among the other bureaucracies.
✔✔Monopolistic Model - ✔✔Other theorists have come to the conclusion that the extent
to which bureaucracies compete for scarce resources is not what provides the greatest
insight into how a bureaucracy functions. Rather, it is the absence of competition. The
model that emerged from this observation is the monopolistic model.
Proponents of the monopolistic model recognize the similarities between a bureaucracy
like the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and a private monopoly like a regional power
company or internet service provider that has no competitors. Such organizations are
frequently criticized for waste, poor service, and a low level of client responsiveness.
Consider, for example, the Bureau of Consular Affairs (BCA), the federal bureaucracy
charged with issuing passports to citizens. There is no other organization from which a
U.S. citizen can legitimately request and receive a passport, a process that normally
takes several weeks. Thus there is no reason for the BCA to become more efficient or
more responsive or to issue passports any faster.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS GRADED A+
✔✔veto power - ✔✔The formal, constitutional authority of the president to reject bills
passed by both houses of Congress, thus preventing them from becoming law without
further congressional action. A two-thirds supermajority in both houses of Congress
could override a veto
✔✔cabinet - ✔✔Among the president-elect's more important tasks is the selection of a
cabinet. George Washington's cabinet was made up of only four people, the attorney
general and the secretaries of the Departments of War, State, and the Treasury.
Currently, however, there are fifteen members of the cabinet, including the Secretaries
of Labor, Agriculture, Education, and others (Figure 12.9). The most important
members—the heads of the Departments of Defense, Justice, State, and the Treasury
(echoing Washington's original cabinet)—receive the most attention from the president,
the Congress, and the media. These four departments have been referred to as the
inner cabinet, while the others are called the outer cabinet. When selecting a cabinet,
presidents consider ability, expertise, influence, and reputation. More recently,
presidents have also tried to balance political and demographic representation (gender,
race, religion, and other considerations) to produce a cabinet that is capable as well as
descriptively representative, meaning that those in the cabinet look like the U.S.
population (see the chapter on bureaucracy and the term "representative bureaucracy").
A recent president who explicitly stated this as his goal was Bill Clinton, who talked
about an "E.G.G. strategy" for senior-level appointments, where the E stands for
ethnicity, G for gender, and the second G for geography.
✔✔"spoils system" - ✔✔in which political appointments were transformed into political
patronage doled out by the president on the basis of party loyalty. Political patronage is
the use of state resources to reward individuals for their political support. The term
"spoils" here refers to paid positions in the U.S. government. As the saying goes, "to the
victor," in this case the incoming president, "go the spoils." It was assumed that
government would work far more efficiently if the key federal posts were occupied by
those already supportive of the president and his policies. This system served to
enforce party loyalty by tying the livelihoods of the party faithful to the success or failure
of the party. The number of federal posts the president sought to use as appropriate
rewards for supporters swelled over the following decades.
✔✔Pendleton Act - ✔✔As the negative aspects of political patronage continued to infect
bureaucracy in the late nineteenth century, calls for civil service reform grew louder.
Those supporting the patronage system held that their positions were well earned;
those who condemned it argued that federal legislation was needed to ensure jobs were
awarded on the basis of merit. Eventually, after President James Garfield had been
assassinated by a disappointed office seeker, Congress responded to cries for reform
with the Pendleton Act, also called the Civil Service Reform Act of 1883. The act
established the Civil Service Commission, a centralized agency charged with ensuring
that the federal government's selection, retention, and promotion practices were based
, on open, competitive examinations in a merit system.6 The passage of this law sparked
a period of social activism and political reform that continued well into the twentieth
century.
✔✔Weberian Model - ✔✔The classic model of bureaucracy is typically called the ideal
Weberian model, and it was developed by Max Weber, an early German sociologist.
Weber argued that the increasing complexity of life would simultaneously increase the
demands of citizens for government services. Therefore, the ideal type of bureaucracy,
the Weberian model, was one in which agencies are apolitical, hierarchically organized,
and governed by formal procedures. Furthermore, specialized bureaucrats would be
better able to solve problems through logical reasoning. Such efforts would eliminate
entrenched patronage, stop problematic decision-making by those in charge, provide a
system for managing and performing repetitive tasks that required little or no discretion,
impose order and efficiency, create a clear understanding of the service provided,
reduce arbitrariness, ensure accountability, and limit discretion.19
✔✔Acquisitive Model - ✔✔For Weber, as his ideal type suggests, the bureaucracy was
not only necessary but also a positive human development. Later sociologists have not
always looked so favorably upon bureaucracies, and they have developed alternate
models to explain how and why bureaucracies function. One such model is called the
acquisitive model of bureaucracy. The acquisitive model proposes that bureaucracies
are naturally competitive and power-hungry. This means bureaucrats, especially at the
highest levels, recognize that limited resources are available to feed bureaucracies, so
they will work to enhance the status of their own bureaucracy to the detriment of others.
This effort can sometimes take the form of merely emphasizing to Congress the value of
their bureaucratic task, but it also means the bureaucracy will attempt to maximize its
budget by depleting all its allotted resources each year. This ploy makes it more difficult
for legislators to cut the bureaucracy's future budget, a strategy that succeeds at the
expense of thrift. In this way, the bureaucracy will eventually grow far beyond what is
necessary and create bureaucratic waste that would otherwise be spent more efficiently
among the other bureaucracies.
✔✔Monopolistic Model - ✔✔Other theorists have come to the conclusion that the extent
to which bureaucracies compete for scarce resources is not what provides the greatest
insight into how a bureaucracy functions. Rather, it is the absence of competition. The
model that emerged from this observation is the monopolistic model.
Proponents of the monopolistic model recognize the similarities between a bureaucracy
like the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and a private monopoly like a regional power
company or internet service provider that has no competitors. Such organizations are
frequently criticized for waste, poor service, and a low level of client responsiveness.
Consider, for example, the Bureau of Consular Affairs (BCA), the federal bureaucracy
charged with issuing passports to citizens. There is no other organization from which a
U.S. citizen can legitimately request and receive a passport, a process that normally
takes several weeks. Thus there is no reason for the BCA to become more efficient or
more responsive or to issue passports any faster.
