Bureaucracy and Democracy

Publication Type

Journal Article

Publication Date

1-1995

Abstract

This essay is a response to Alvin Gouldner's study, Patterns of Industrial Bureaucracy. This essay intends to examine Gouldner's criticism of Weber's theory as well as Gouldner's modification of it. Weber does not clarify who gains from the bureaucratic rules, if bureaucratic authority proves to be efficient. Moreover, he fails to answer in whose sense rules are rational and whose aims are realized in a bureaucracy, if bureaucracy works efficiently. Weber uses the term bureaucracy very differently from today's usual application. By bureaucracy he means a certain group of individuals-an administrative staff. Today, bureaucratization is mostly understood as an introduction of formalism into spheres of daily-life. The terms bureaucracy and bureaucratization are frequently used to express negative sentiments against powerful organizations and their inaccessibility to the individual. Weber defines rational authority as resting on a belief in the legalism of formal regulations and orders given by the administrative staff which represent the power holder.

Discipline

Politics and Social Change | Sociology

Research Areas

Sociology

Publication

European Journal of Sociology

Volume

36

Issue

2

First Page

358

Last Page

373

ISSN

0003-9756

Identifier

10.1017/S0003975600007591

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003975600007591

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