WEBER'S THEORY OF BUREAUCRACY

This research paper summarizes Max Weber's theory of bureaucracy and discusses the validity of the proposition: Weber's Theory of Bureaucracy Is More Appropriate for Public Management in the Steam Age than in the Information Age.

Weber (1864-1920) believed that the requirements of the Industrial Age necessitated the use in public sector management of bureaucratic or highly centralized, rule bound, expert-driven hierarchist systems. That system as it has evolved lent itself to excesses and has proved to be inadequate to meet the needs of the Information Age. Various experiments are underway to reorient public administration to make it more flexible, efficient and responsive so that it may better serve the public interest in the Information Age. However, it is by no means clear that this process of reform will lead to more enlightened or effective government. On the contrary, it may produce a system of public management which represents a more pervasively intrusive, impersonal and oppressive form of government than anything Weber contemplated. Weber feared such a development. In that sense his insights were prophetic and are relevant today.

Weber's writings on power relationships in society, the sources of legitimacy of state power and its organization and administration do not fit neatly within the epistemology of modern cultural theorists. The latter posit that societies are or

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w Deal administration of Franklin Roosevelt. Such reforms as were made in public administration were initiated by Progressives who believed that the key to improving the honesty and efficiency of public officials was to remove them from the control of politicians through such mechanisms as a merit-based civil service. Many of these well-intended reforms had as one of their effects strengthening the power base of the bureaucracy and making it less accountable to political control. Osborn & Gaebler (1992) said that "in making it difficult to steal the public's money, we made it virtually impossible to manage the people's money" (p. 14). During the 1930s and 1940s, management theorists generally accepted the need for centralized command and control structures, but sought to make them more efficient. Luther Gulick urged that the "simple concept of hierarchy [be] replaced by a complex 'fabric of organizational interrelationships;" (Ostrim, 1993, p. 41). Herbert Simon rejected the idea that "perfection in hierarchical organization is synonymous with efficiency" and said that a well-managed organization should reflect "a composite of command networks" and "an equilibrium model of organization" (Ostrim, 1993, pp. 41 and 45). In his
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Approximate Word count = 2952
Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page)