Bureaucracy and Red Tape

Focusing on red tape, bureaucratic control, and accountability, this insightful and proactive guide combines original explanations of bureaucratic red tape with prescription and case examples--challenging readers to move beyond surface responses to bureaucracy and develop a more meaningful understanding of it as a set of trade-offs among politics, accountability and efficiency. Offers original theories on the causes of red tape and bureaucratic pathology, and objectively seeks to distinguish bureaucratic "normalities" from bureaucratic pathologies, i.e., which rules and regulations are reasonable accountability or coordination mechanisms, and which are red tape. Presents "Bureaucratic Encounters"-- examples of day-to-day operations of bureaucracy that relate directly to specific points raised in each chapter-plus many case studies, including one that focuses on air emissions and the requirements of the Clear Air Act Amendments. Concludes with specific prescriptions for confronting red tape. For those in organizational management, government, political science, public administration, and policy making.