1st midterm vocab
Terms
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- Democracy
- A political system in which decision-making power is widely shared among members of the society.
- Equality
- The idea that all persons have an equal claim to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
- Individualism
- The idea that dignity and integrity of the individual is of supreme importance.
- Liberty
- The idea that individual citizens of a democracy should have a high degree of self-determination.
- Public administration
- The management of public programs.
- Agenda setting
- Phase in the public policy process when certain problems come to be seen as needing attention.
- Constituent policy
- Policy designed to benefit the public generally or serve the government.
- Distributive policy
- Policy involving the use of general tax fund to rpovide assistance and benefits to individuals or groups.
- Executive Order
- A presidential mandate directed to and governing, with effect of law, the actions of government officials and agencies.
- Legislative veto
- Statutory provision that gives Congress the authority to approve or disapprove certain executive actions.
- Policy
- Statement of goals and intention with respect to a particular problem or set of problems
- Redistributive policy
- Policy designed to take taxes from certain groups and give them to another group.
- Regulatory Policy
- Policy designed to limit actions of persons or groups to protect all or parts of the general public
- Block grants
- Grants in which the money can be used for nearly any purpose within a specific functional field
- Capital grants
- Grants for use in construction or renovation
- Categorical or project grants
- Grants requiring that the money may be spent for only a limited purpose; typically available on a competitive basis.
- Charter
- Local government's equivalent of a constitution
- Cross-cutting requirements
- rules that apply to most grant programs
- Dillon's Rule
- Municipalities have only those powers granted in their charters; cities are creatures of the state.
- Entitlement grants
- Grants that provide assistance to persons who meet certain criteria
- Formula grants
- Grants that employ a specific division rule to indicate how much money any given jurisdiction will receive.
- Home rule
- provision allowing cities greater autonomy over local activities
- Operating grants
- grants for use in development and operation of specific programs.
- Preemption
- Federal government efforts to preempt an area traditionally associated with state government.
- Privatization
- Use of nongovernmental agencies to provide goods and services previously provided by government
- Special Districts
- Local governments created for a specific purpose within a specific area
- Deontology
- Belief that broad principles of rightness and wrongness can be established and are not dependent on particular circumstances
- Ethical Relativism
- Belief that moral judgment can be made only be taking into account the context in which action occurs
- Ethics
- Process by which we clarify right and wrong and act on what we take to be right.
- Morality
- Practices and activities considered right or wrong and act on what we take to be right.
- Neutral competence
- The belief that a neutral public bureacracy following mandates of a legislative body will meet the requirement of democracy
- Utilitarianism
- Philosophy of the greatest good for the greatest number of people
- Benchmarking
- Targeting of specific goals based on previous performance levels, standards set by similar organizations, objectives created through a strategic planning process, or any combination of these and other relevant sources
- Cost-Benefit
- Identifying and quantifying both negative impacts (costs) and positive impacts (benefits) of a proposal, then subtracting one from the other to arrive at a net benefit
- Institutional Subsystem
- Responsible for adapting the organization to its environment
- Managerial subsystem
- Concerned with providing necessary resources for accomplishing a technical task and mediating between the technical and institutional subsystems
- Outcome evaluations
- Evaluations that focus on the results of program activity, the extent to which a program meets its objectives in terms of impact on the environment
- Performance indicators
- Specific, quantifiable goals that the agency strives for in pursuit of more substantive objectives
- Performance measurement
- careful and detailed measurement of the achievement of program objectives and outcomes by a program or agency
- policy analysis
- process of researching or analyzing public programs to provide policy makers with specific information about the range of available policy options and advantages and disadvantages of different approaches
- process evaluations
- seeking ways to improve program implementation so as to better meet program objectives
- Stakeholders
- the many different person who are involved in policy decision and are affected by the results
- Strategic planning
- matching organizational objectives and capabilities to the anticipated demands of the environment to produce a plan of action that will ensure achievement of objectives
- systems theory
- effort to identify the interactions of various internal and external elements that impinge on an organization's operations
- Technical subsystem
- Concerned with effective performance of an organization's actual work
- apportionment
- the process by which funds are allocated to agencies for specific portions of the year
- appropriation
- legislative action to set aside funds and create budget authority for their expenditures
- authorizing legislation
- legislative action that permits establishment or continuation of a particular program or agency
- capital expenditures
- spending for items that will be used over a period of several years
- Deferral
- decision by the president to withhold expenditure of funds for a brief period
- discretionary spending
- that portion of the budget still open to changes by the president and the congress
- entitlement programs
- programs that provide specified set of benefits to those who meet certain eligibility requirements
- excise tax
- tax applied to the sale of specific commodities
- fiscal policy
- public policy concerned with the impact of government taxation and spending on the economy
- item veto
- allows the executive to veto specific items in an appropriations bill
- line-item budget
- budget format for listing categories of expenditures along with amounts allocated to each
- outcome-based budgeting
- budgeting system that takes into account long-term effects or outcomes
- performance auditing
- analysis and evaluation of the effective performance of agencies in carrying out their objectives
- performance budget
- budget format organized around programs or activities, including various performance measurements that indicate the relationship between work actually done and its cost
- planning-programming-budgeting system(PPBS)
- effort to connect planning, systems analysis and budgeting in a single exercise
- progressive tax
- one that taxes those with higher incomes at a higher rate
- proportional tax
- one that taxes everyone at the same rate
- regressive tax
- one that taxes those with lower incomes at a proportionally higher rate than those with higher incomes
- zero-base budgeting
- budget format that presents information about the efficiency and effectiveness of existing programs and highlights possibilities for eliminating or reducing programs