red tape; bureaucratic bungling; officialism
Pejorative term for inefficient, rule-bound, or obstructive bureaucratic procedures, often implying unnecessary paperwork and delays.
It took a whole month to get the permit because of red tape.
That department is so bureaucratic that even simple procedures barely move forward.
Politer variant with honorific prefix お; otherwise identical in meaning and usage.
More formal term for 'bureaucratism'; 役所仕事 is a colloquial, critical expression focusing on inefficiency.
bureaucratic routine; red tape
Compound of 役所 (government office) and 仕事 (work), literally 'government office work'. The pejorative sense developed from the perception of bureaucratic inefficiency.