You are on page 1of 4

BUREAUCRACY

• a normative ideal model; denotes integrated


hierarchy of specialized offices defined by
systematic rules
• an impersonalized routinized structure wherein
legitimate authority rests in the office and not in
the person of the incumbent
• inescapable if systems of human collaboration
are developed beyond a certain size (Lyndall
Urwick); “complexity produces bureaucracy”
( Dimock)
• “In its conceptual purity, the mutual construct [b]
cannot be found anywhere in reality. It is a
utopia.” (Weber)
ELEMENTAL FUNCTIONS DYSFUNCTIONS (unintended
CONCEPTS consequences)

Hierarchy Structure & positions are Displacement of goals/ objectives;


defined; leads to leads to bifurcation of interest
`competence, authority, (Gordon)
responsibility & order
Division of Labor Specialization; leads to Narrow-perspectiveness & over-
increased productivity specialization; may lead to Veblen’s
trained incapacity; Dewey’s
occupational psychosis; Warnotte’s
professional deformation; Peter
principle; “people may be unfitted by
being fit in an unfit fitness” (Kenneth
Burke: Permanence & Change)
Career Aspects (tenure, Partial democracy; Empire-building; self-perpetuation;
pension rights, free selection opportunity for job is open bureaucrats’ expertise/ understanding
based on ability, individual to all; top positions may be make it difficult for them to be
is subject to authority, fixed filled based on non- replaced; often, changes in top
pay based on job demands) democratic grounds administration have minimal effect on
lower levels of bureaucracy
ELEMENTAL CONCEPTS FUNCTIONS DYSFUNCTIONS
(unintended
consequences)

Rules, Regulations, Stability, predictability, Rigidity, inertia, red tape;


Procedures (records, files, discipline & control responsibility avoidance;
routine) innovations are seen as
disturbances; G and C

Legal Basis Rationality; judgments & Highly impersonal;


decisions are made according bureaupathology (bureautic &
to objectives & agreed upon bureaupathic behavior); anxiety;
criteria, and not by caprice, changes in personality
whims or patronage

You might also like