Bureaucracy refers to the administrative structure of any
large organization, public or private. Ideally bureaucracy is characterized by
hierarchical authority relations, defined spheres of competence subject to
impersonal rules, recruitment by competence, and fixed salaries. Its goal is to
be rational, efficient, and professional. Max Weber, the most important student
of bureaucracy, described it as technically superior to all other forms of
organization and hence indispensable to large, complex enterprises. However,
because of the shortcomings that have in practice afflicted large
administrative structures, the terms bureaucracy and bureaucrat
in popular usage usually carry a suggestion of disapproval and imply
incompetence, a narrow outlook, duplication of effort, and application of a
rigid rule without due consideration of specific cases.
Max Weber considered them to be efficient, rational and honest, a
big improvement over the haphazard administration that they replaced. The
German government was better developed than those in the United States
and Britain
and was nearly equal to that of France .
Weber saw that modern officialdom functioned according to six principles: (1)
Fixed and official jurisdictional areas which are ordered by rules, that is
laws and administrative regulations. (2) Hierarchy and levels of graded
authority where the lower offices are supervised by the higher ones. (3)
Management is based on official documents (the files). (4) The officials have
thorough and expert training. (5) It requires the full time work of the
official. (6) Management follows rules. While these principles seem obvious
today, German government agencies were pioneering modern administration to
replace practices dating back to the Middle Ages owing loyalty to the king,
dukes and the church. Max Weber was the first to observe and write on bureaucracies which
developed in Germany
during the 19th century. (APA style paper of 10 pages with 30 Sources)