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Bureaucracy 1 (Weber?s Contribution to?)
Organizations play a central role in our lives in the present day. An organization can be defined as a large association of people, set up to achieve specific objectives. Examples of organizations include business corporations, government agencies, schools, universities, hospitals and prisons.
The term bureaucracy is a pejorative term.
Weber at the same time ?
admires bureaucracy for its intellectual accomplishment, when compared to non-
mechanical methods of production ?
views its advance as inevitable and ?
fears for the encroachment of bureaucracy on individual and national freedom.
Weber describes bureaucracy as ?formally the most rational means of exercising authority over human beings.? (Weber 1968. P. 223)
To argue that because Weber feels it is ?rational? and therefore the most ?efficient? is incorrect. (Lee & Newby, 1995)
Weber argues that bureaucracy is based on formal rationality, not substantive rationality.
?Formal rationality? refers to the extent of quantitative calculation or accounting which is actually applied in reaching decisions.
?Substantive Rationality? is full of ambiguities and relates to social action guided by some criterion of values.
Questions in Section D are all about Power.
Formal arrangements are sometimes taken over by informal arrangements. (Blau)
The word ?contribution? often appears in exam questions on Bureaucracy.
Of vital importance to this essay question is the work of Beetham 1986 and his Three Models of Bureaucracy.
Definitional
Normative
Explanatory
Definitional ? what is and what is not a bureaucracy.
Normative ? prescribe the necessary conditions for organizational efficiency and effectiveness.
Explanatory ? it can discuss how they actually work in practice.
So which function do the various sociologists fulfill?
Marxists according to Beetham approach bureaucracy as taking second place as an object of study. Marxists are concerned with class relations not bureaucracy.
Bureaucracy 1 continued
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