Definition of "bureaucracy" []

• Administration of a government chiefly through bureaus or departments staffed with nonelected officials. (noun)
• The departments and their officials as a group: promised to reorganize the federal bureaucracy. (noun)
• Management or administration marked by hierarchical authority among numerous offices and by fixed procedures: The new department head did not know much about bureaucracy. (noun)
• The administrative structure of a large or complex organization: a midlevel manager in a corporate bureaucracy. (noun)
• An administrative system in which the need or inclination to follow rigid or complex procedures impedes effective action: innovative ideas that get bogged down in red tape and bureaucracy. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "‡ Today, the term bureaucracy suggests a lack of initiative, excessive adherence to rules and routine, red tape, inefficiency, or, even more serious, an impersonal force dominating the lives of individuals."
• "Political scientists have coined the term "bureaucracy bashing" to connote the temptation now rife among national politicians to beat up on the civil service for reasons that have nothing to do with reality."
• "The opprobrious connotation of the term bureaucracy"