Sample sentences for BUREAUCRACY

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Definition

nonelective government officials; or: an excessively complicated administrative system

Some say the real power is with the bureaucracy — not the elected officials.

You will never understand bureaucracies until you understand that for bureaucrats procedure is everything and outcomes are nothing.
Thomas Sowell
Good bureaucracies develop effective procedures; bad ones are so preoccupied with rigid procedure that they lose sight of ultimate goals.
Her request had been caught up in bureaucratic red tape for over a year.
Customers want a customer service rep who cares about them and solves their problem. Customers do not want to wait for an uncaring bureaucracy to tell them why their complaint was not sent to the right department or was not in the proper form.
A crippling bureaucracy is a natural symptom of excessive government.
The successful small business owner sold his company and moved into government service. He was unprepared for the level of patience and teamwork required of a professional bureaucrat.
The bureaucrat hands him another letter.
David Henry Hwang -- M. Butterfly

bureaucrat = a nonelective government official

Christopher, a graduate of Harvard Divinity School, was a poet, a philosopher, and a Unitarian minister, although he earned his keep as a bureaucrat in the California penal system.
Jon Krakauer -- Into the Wild

bureaucrat = worker in a large, complex organization

The new aristocracy was made up for the most part of bureaucrats, scientists, technicians, trade-union organizers, publicity experts, sociologists, teachers, journalists, and professional politicians.
George Orwell -- 1984

bureaucrats = nonelected government officials — especially clerks

Bureaucrat hands him another letter.
David Henry Hwang -- M. Butterfly
He discards the letter; bureaucrat hands him another.
David Henry Hwang -- M. Butterfly
(Marc continues acting as the bureaucrat, but he now speaks as himself)
David Henry Hwang -- M. Butterfly
Marc enters, dressed as a bureaucrat, holding a stack of papers.
David Henry Hwang -- M. Butterfly
We had a striking example of how poorly our large bureaucracies adapt to new challenges in the aftermath of Katrina. The images of suffering, death, and loss in New Orleans demonstrate that many of our bureaucracies are unable to adapt to the unplanned and the unexpected.
Newt Gingrich -- Status of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence -- http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.23345/pub_detail.asp (retrieved 06/29/06)
The intelligence agencies are largely a collection of large industrial style bureaucracies. Those bureaucracies, as effective as they once were, are not capable of dealing with the world of the 21st Century.
Newt Gingrich -- Status of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence -- http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.23345/pub_detail.asp (retrieved 06/29/06)
Americans do not like to be governed by a distant, impenetrable, monopolistic bureaucracy.
Michael S. Greve -- How to Think about Constitutional Change, Part II -- http://www.aei.org/publications/filter.all,pubID.22942/pub_detail.asp (retrieved 06/29/06)
It's now in the hands of the Federal bureaucracy.
...American businesses are using Europe's antitrust bureaucracy to battle other American firms.
Ronald Cass -- Antitrust Tourism -- http://www.aei-brookings.org/policy/page.php?id=256 (retrieved 06/29/06)
The welter of competing bureaucracies leads to confusion, gaps in enforcement, and numerous food safety absurdities.
Eric Schlosser -- Fast Food Nation

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