BUREAUCRACY

Bureaucracy

Bureaucracy

Introduction

The period bureaucracy is one of those political concepts that have become part of our every day speech. Bureaucracy carries powerful emotive overtones and vague connotations that in everyday parlance remind contradictory pictures of red strip, exorbitant administrative inefficiencies, cumbersome methods, and unresponsive public agents who are oblivious and unresponsive to the desires and likes of citizens. The very passions that the period raises in us, although, obscure a more specific and meaningful understanding of the sense in which it has been or should be used.

Turning to the social sciences in wish for terminological clarification can make farther frustration and bewilderment because over time and over disciplines a large numerous authors have supplemented to the broad array of—sometimes incompatible—concepts of bureaucracy. Although in some writings bureaucracy is utilized interchangeably with “public sector” or “public administration,” in other contexts the period denotes a procedure of social coordination (as are against to markets or networks). Still other authors glimpse it as a specific mode of conduct founded on the application of general directions to specific cases. Also, bureaucracy can mention to a social group—those who work in an agency, be it a personal or public one. In numerous respects, the concept of bureaucracy is irrevocably connected to the workout of political power and authority.

The semantic origins of the period can be traced back to the phrase bureau—signifying a location where agents work—and the Greek phrase for rule. In eighteenth-century France, the economist Vincent de Gournay (1712-1759) popularized the usage of the period as a conceptual addition to the academic Greek typology of systems of government. Seen from this bend, bureaucracy is a system of direct in which agents dominate.

Without a question, the single most influential contribution to the argument on bureaucracy was made by the German social researcher Max Weber (1864-1920). He is usually accepted to have evolved the most comprehensive classic formulation of the characteristics of bureaucracy. What pursues is an attempt to put his complicated conception of bureaucracy in its political and chronicled context and to discover the relevance of the Weberian bureaucratic state for contemporary public management.

 

Systems of Rule, Authority, and Bureaucracy

In his wide-ranging comparative and chronicled set about, Weber does not confine himself to the more narrowly characterized area of organizational investigation but encompasses a broad spectrum of political, economic, and social thought. Although his converted work was mostly seen as part of the administration research and organizational sociology publications, his overarching topic was no less determined than the evolution of civilization from the primitive and mystical to the rational and complex. Within this structure, his prime concern was with the workout of domination founded on political authority. (Lowi 2009)

As the evolution of human society progresses—driven by the method of rationalization, for Weber the most significant of all social processes—the causes of legitimacy furthermore are inclined to change in their relation importance.

The established conviction in the sanctity of tradition types the cornerstone of traditional ...