bureaucracy

1. Government by bureaus or their administrators or officers. (countable, uncountable)
2. A system of administration based upon organisation into bureaus, division of labour, a hierarchy of authority, etc., designed to dispose of a large body of work in a routine manner. (countable, uncountable) · At that time the administration replaced the system of patronage in the civil service with a bureaucracy.
3. The body of officers and administrators, especially of a government. (countable, uncountable) · The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy. (apocryphal quip)
4. Excessive red tape and routine in any administration, body or behaviour. (countable, uncountable) · The head of the civil service promised to clamp down on bureaucracy.

Plural bureaucracies