Encyclopedia Britannica

Bureaucracy
a professional corps of officials organized in a pyramidal hierarchy and functioning
under impersonal, uniform rules and procedures. In the social sciences, the term usually
does not carry the pejorative associations of popular usage.
Weber's theories.
The characteristics of bureaucracy were first formulated in a systematic manner by the
German sociologist Max Weber (18641920), whose definition and theories set the
foundations for all subsequent work on the subject. They refer to (1) the division of
labour in the organization, (2) its authority structure, (3) the position and role of the
individual member, and (4) the type of rules that regulate the relations between
organizational members.
A highly developed division of labour and specialization of tasks is one of the most
fundamental features of bureaucracy. This is achieved by a precise and detailed
definition of the duties and responsibilities of each position or office. The allocation of a
limited number of tasks to each office operates according to the principle of fixed
jurisdictional areas that are determined by administrative regulations.
The bureaucratic organization is characterized by a rational and impersonal regulation
of inferiorsuperior relationships. In traditional types of administration (feudal,
patrimonial), the inferiorsuperior relationship is personal, and the legitimation of
authority is based on a belief in the sacredness of tradition. In a bureaucracy, on the
other hand, authority is legitimized by a beliefin the correctness of the process by which
administrative rules were enacted; and the loyalty of the bureaucrat is oriented to an
impersonal order, to a superior position, not to the specific person who holds it.
When one shifts the focus of attention from the organization as a whole to the role and
status of the individual member, the following features characterize the bureaucrat's
position. Startingwith the mode of recruitment, the bureaucrat is not selected on the
basis of such considerations as family position or political loyalties. His recruitment is
based on formal qualifications (diplomas, university degrees) that testify that the
applicant has the necessary knowledge to accomplish effectively his specialized duties.
Once a candidate enters the bureaucratic organization, his office is his soleor at least
his primaryoccupation. It constitutes a career. That is to say, it is not accepted on an
honorary or short-term basis; it implies stability and continuity, a life's work.
Moreover, there is usually an elaborate system of promotion based on the principles of
both seniority and achievement.
Insofar as the mode of remuneration is concerned, the bureaucrat usually receives a
salary based not so much on his productivity performance as on the status of his
position. Contrary to some forms of traditional administration, in the bureaucratic case
the civil servant cannot sell his position or pass it on to his sons. There is a clear-cut
separation between the private and the public sphere of the bureaucrat's life. His private
property is sharply distinguished from the means of administration that do not belong
to him.

The most important and pervasive characteristic of bureaucracy (one that to some extent
explains all the others) is the existence of a system of control based on rational rules
that is, rules meant to design and regulate the whole organization on the basis of
technical knowledge and with the aim of achieving maximum efficiency. According to
Max Weber, Bureaucratic administration means fundamentally the exercise of control
on the basis of knowledge. This is the feature of it which makes it specifically rational
(The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, 1947,p. 339).
These are briefly the major features of Weber's ideal type of bureaucracy. The type is
ideal in the sense that the characteristics included in it are not to be found, in their
extreme form, in all concrete bureaucracies. Real organizations can be more or less
bureaucratic according to their degree of proximity to their ideal formulation.
Oligarchic theories
If for Weber bureaucracy was an efficient tool in the hands of whoever knows how to
control it, subsequent writers, impressedby the increasing bureaucratization of modern
society and by the rise of totalitarian regimes in the East and the West, have often seen
bureaucracy as an oligarchic system of political domination: bureaucracy ceases to be a
tool; it becomes the master, the politically dominant group in a new type of society that
is neither capitalist nor socialist. If for Weber the political domination of bureaucracy
was problematic, for the German sociologist Robert Michels (18761936) and other
writers having a similar orientation it became an inevitable outcome, inherent inthe
internal dynamics of bureaucracy.
Michels was one of the first theorists who tried systematically to link increasing
bureaucratization with the oligarchic tendencies in modern society. He focussed his
attention primarily on the internal political structure of large-scale organizations. His
main thesis, the famous iron law of oligarchy, postulates that with the increasing
complexity and bureaucratization of modern organizations all power is concentrated at
the top, in the hands ofan organizational elite that rules in a dictatorial manner. This is
so even if oligarchy, as in the German Socialist party, which he extensively studied, runs
against the ideals and intentions of both rulers and ruled.
In fact, the increasing size of modern organizations and the increasing complexity of the
problems with which they have to deal makes technically impossible the participation of
the rank and file in the making of decisions. Moreover, given the ensuing apathy of the
members and the increasing concentration of the means of communication at the top,
the power position of the leader becomes impregnable. Not only can the leader
manipulate information and use the communication network against any potential rival
but also, by the exercise of his functions, he acquires specialized knowledge and
political skills that make him almost irreplaceable to the organization. In this way both
the structural position of the rulers and the ruled lead to a political system that
perpetuates the leadership of the person in power and alienates the rank and file from
the political process.
Once in control, according to Michels, the organizational oligarchy always has as its
primary aim the consolidation of its own power position. Whenever this aim clashes
with the more general aims of the rank and file, the elite will sacrifice the latter rather

than jeopardize its own privileges. It is in this way that Michels explains the decline in
radicalism of the established Socialist parties whose bureaucratic conservatism serves
more the interests of the leaders and less the masses whose interests they are supposed
to represent.
Finally, for Michels, organizational oligarchy brings societal oligarchy. If the political
systems of such voluntary organizations as trade unions and political parties cannot
work democratically, then the democratic institutions of the whole society are
undermined at their very roots. Indeed, a society dominated by large-scale oligarchic
organizations eventually develops an oligarchic political regime. Organizational elites,
together with other social elites, having a common interest in the maintenanceof the
status quo, form a strong power group determined to oppose any demand for change
coming from the masses.
Michels' theory focussed mainly on the bureaucratization of voluntary organizations,
such as political parties. Other theorists,sharing his pessimism about the future of
democracy, point more to the increasing size and bureaucratization of the state
administration or of the capitalist enterprise as the main threats to the parliamentary
institutions of Western societies.
On the one hand, such liberal German economists as Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich
von Hayek have been alarmed at the proportions of the state bureaucracy and its
increasing intervention in the economic sphere. For them, it is the government's
levelling tendencies, its insatiable appetite for expansion that gradually destroys free
enterprise and undermines democratic institutions.
Bureaucratic collectivism
Whereas Lenin and other Soviet writers could not admit that bureaucracy had a
permanent and organic position in the Soviet system, other Marxists thought that it
was at its centre and that it defined more than anything else the very nature of the
regime. From their point of view, bureaucracy was not only a privileged oppressive
group but a new exploiting class, a class characterized by a new type of oligarchic
regime that was neither socialist nor capitalist and that was rapidly spreading both in the
East and in the West.
The first systematic elaboration of this position was attempted bythe Italian Marxist
Bruno Rizzi in The Bureaucratisation of the World (1939). For Rizzi the Soviet
bureaucracy constituted a new ruling class that exploited the proletariat as much as the
capitalists had in the past. It differed from capitalism only in that the new type of
domination was based not on individual but on group ownership of the means of
production. In fact, in the Soviet system the means of production represented not
socialism but stateism. They did not belong to the whole collectivity but to the state
and to the bureaucrats who control it. In the last analysis, it was these bureaucratsthe
technicians, directors, and specialists holding key positions in the party and state
administrationwho exploited the proletarians and stole the surplus value of work.
According to Rizzi this new type of regime, which he called bureaucratic collectivism,
was not limited to the Soviet Union. Similar tendencies could be discerned in fascist
countries and even in the welfare state type of capitalist democracies. The Yugoslav

Communist Milovan Djilas in The New Class (1957), a later criticism of the Yugoslav
Socialist regime, used arguments similar to Rizzi's.
The American philosopher and critic James Burnham proposed a theory of the
managerial revolution that was more or less an elaboration of Rizzi's ideas. According
to his theory, technologicalprogress and the growth of large-scale economic as well as
political bureaucracies deprived the old capitalist class of the control of the means of
production. The effective control of the economy and of political power had passed to
the managersthat is, to the production executives and to the administrators of the state
bureaucracy. He predicted that at a later stage of development, private ownership would
be abolished and the bureaucrats would appropriate collectively, through the state, the
means of production. Thus, according to Burnham, both in the East and the West the
managers would impose a new type of oligarchic order.
Dysfunctional aspects of bureaucracy
The American Robert K. Merton was among the first sociologiststo emphasize
systematically the now-familiar side of the bureaucratic pictureits red tape and
inefficiency. According to Merton, if, as Weber thought, the predominance of rational
rules and their close control of all actions favours the reliability and predictability of the
bureaucrat's behaviour, it also accounts for his lack of flexibility and his tendency to
turn means into ends. Indeed, the emphasis on conformity and strict observance of the
rules induces the individual to internalize them. Instead of simplymeans, procedural
rules become ends in themselves. Thus a kind of goal displacement occurs. The
instrumental and formalistic aspect of the bureaucratic role becomes more important
than the substantive one, the achievement of the main organizational goals. According
to Merton, when one leaves the sphere of the ideal and studies a real organization, one
can see that a certain bureaucratic characteristic (such as strict control by rules) can both
promote and hinder organizational efficiency; it can have both functional effects
(predictability, precision) and dysfunctional effects (rigidity).
Conflict theories
A group of theorists have rejected the functional approach and contended that
organizations must be seen as configurations of antagonistic groups that aim, through
various strategies, to promote their conflicting interests. Although these theorists do
view the organization as a whole, they see that the parts of the whole are not
institutional norms but instead are groups that, according to their power position, can
influence policies.
Thus the American sociologist Melville Dalton, in a book based on his long experience
as a participant and observer in six business firms (Men Who Manage, 1959), offered a
revealing picture of organizational structure in terms of conflicting cliques and their
interminable struggles for gaining more power and ensuring a greater share of
organizational rewards. Even if sometimes exaggerated, this analysis showed in a
striking way to what extent organizational members and groups can be primarily
interested in the pursuit of their narrow interests and theconsolidation and improvement
of their own power position, even at the expense of wider organizational interests.
Moreover, it showed the pervasiveness of the ensuing struggles and their impact on
every aspect of organizational life. It showed, too, how this intense political activity can

be scrupulously and skillfully camouflaged so that the resulting policies appear to be in

harmony with the official ideology.
The French sociologist Michel Crozier's study of two French government agencies (The
Bureaucratic Phenomenon, 1963) was another important step in the analysis of
organizational power and conflict. In Crozier's analysis, the social structure consists of
highly cohesive occupational groups, each presenting a unified and rather hostile front
toward the others. (Contrary to Dalton, Crozier ignores the existence of cliques within
and across these occupational groupings.) Each group's strategy consists in
manipulating the rules in order to enhance its own prerogatives and secure its
independence from every direct and arbitrary interference by those higher up. Because
rules obviously can never cover everything, areas of uncertainty always emerge that
constitute the focal points around which collective conflicts become acute and instances
of direct dominance and subordination develop. The group that, by its position in the
occupational structure, can control the unregulated area, has a great strategic
advantage that it naturallyuses in order to improve its power position and to ensure a
greater share of organizational rewards.
Conflict studies, as illustrated by the work of Dalton and Crozier, point to the central
importance of an organization's political structure and thus open a new perspective in
the analysis of bureaucracy. To the image of the organization man as a person of
sentiments seeking friendship and emotional security and to the image of the problem
solver and decision maker is added the new image of a political man primarily
interested in the collective and individual pursuit of power for the promotion of his own
interests. So long as it is not followed single-mindedly, this new dimension should
contribute to a more inclusive and realistic approach to the study of organizations.