bureaucracy

Plural: bureaucracies

Noun

• nonelective government officials
• a government that is administered primarily by bureaus that are staffed with nonelective officials
• any organization in which action is obstructed by insistence on unnecessary procedures and red tape
• Government by bureaus or their administrators or officers.
• A system of administration based upon organisation into bureaus, division of labour, a hierarchy of authority, etc., designed to dispose of a large body of work in a routine manner.
• The body of officers and administrators, especially of a government.
• Excessive red tape and routine in any administration, body or behaviour.

Examples

• At that time the administration replaced the system of patronage in the civil service with a bureaucracy.
• The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy. (apocryphal quip)
• The head of the civil service promised to clamp down on bureaucracy.

Synonyms

bureaucratism, papyrocracy

Related Words

adhocracy