Getting Involved:
Bureaucracy
Participation Activity 1 ::
Participation Activity 2
Participation Activity 1
All governments have bureaucracies that implement policies. You will interact with bureaucracies for the rest of your life.
Apply some careful thought to the role and function of a specific bureaucratic agency at the federal, state, or local level of government. Initiate the process by deciding what you want to investigate. You can choose something you have to do anyway (like register a car or take a driver’s license test at your state department of motor vehicles) or find out what a person would have to do to qualify for welfare or state-funded health care. Pick any issue you want.
1. What is the process you are investigating?
2. What are the various steps necessary to meet the requirements of the process?
3. How long does it take to meet these requirements, both in actual hours spent by an applicant, and in hours, day, weeks, or months on the part of the bureaucracy?
4. If this is something you are actually doing for yourself, what final result did you obtain? Are you pleased with that result? How were you treated by workers at the agency? If this is something you are just researching, what are typical outcomes for applicants?
5. Do you think the program/process you investigated is something government should do? Why or why not?
6. How would you change this policy, if you could? Examine both the nature of the policy and how it is implemented.
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