1. Administration of a government chiefly through departments which are staffed with non-elected officials: The entrenched bureaucracies in the government have caused many delays in processing important payments to those who are entitled to tax refunds.
2. The management or administration which is marked by hierarchical authority among numerous offices and by fixed procedures: Some government offices are accused of being a rigid bureaucracy and thus impeding or slowing down actions because of their overly strict adherence to rules or regulations.

To satisfy the government bureaucracy, James and Jane had to fill out several different forms and then they had to wait for some weeks before they obtained the payment that they had coming to them.

3. An administrative system in which the need or inclination to follow rigid or complex procedures interferes with efficient and effective actions: Innovative or new ideas too often get bogged down in red tape in a bureaucracy.

Too often bureaucracies insist on going through rigid routines, resulting in delays in making decisions or in carrying out requests. This is also known as "red tape" which comes from the former use of red or pink tape to tie up or to seal official documents for security reasons.

Too often a bureaucracy is where more is said than is actually done.

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