bureaucratic
/ˌbjɔːrəˈkratɪk/ /ˌbjʊərəˈkratɪk
/adjective
1Relating to a system of government in which most of the important decisions are taken by state officials rather than by elected representatives: well-established bureaucratic procedures...
- The sheer size of the project speaks volumes about the overly bureaucratic weight of Tokyo's government.
- In short, both nations must sharply reduce their traditional bureaucratic power.
- The State Department is actually something of a bureaucratic minnow.
Synonyms
administrative, official, procedural, red-tape, governmental, ministerial, state, civic, constitutional, political
rule-bound, rigid, inflexible, complicated;
by the book
1.1Over-concerned with procedure at the expense of efficiency or common sense: the scheme is overly bureaucratic and complex...
- Department of Motor Vehicles now strangled with bureaucratic red tape.
- The strength of the poem comes from the bureaucratic sterility with which a Vietnam veteran sees the memorial.
- The new philanthropy consciously challenges the cautious, bureaucratic style of many of today's foundations.
Derivatives
bureaucratically
/ adverb ...- Indeed, such reductions would be needed to avoid creating a colossal institution that would be bureaucratically hide-bound and too sluggish to respond to the post-Cold War world.
- Also, it is larger, more bureaucratically active, more political, more partisan, more purposeful, and more influential than anything similar in American history.
- At the same time, academic freedom (that is, some lack of standardization and bureaucratically imposed structure) is essential to teach students to think.