Bureaucracy: Its Benefits and Failures

International Journal of Public Sector Management, 2006

PurposeAn analysis of the way the bureaucratic management system responded to the Tsunami disaster of December 26, 2004 was repeated in handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in the USA at the end of 2005. This research note aims to follow up on the original paper “Bureaucracy meet catastrophe: analysis of the Tsunami disaster relief efforts and their implications for global emergency governance”, to be published in early 2006. It again highlights the severe shortcomings of the bureaucratic model as a paradigm for responding to situations in which the magnitude of the system's task is overwhelmingly complex and the timing process is bounded by urgency.Design/methodology/approachEvidence of the findings for this research is driven by primary references, namely news reports and web site information provided in the aftermath of the fall 2005 hurricane.FindingsLike in the Tsunami disaster, the reports from Hurricane Katrina highlight the key problems of bureaucratic manageme...

Studies in Comparative Communism, 1986

Constitutionale

The purpose of this paper is that the author tries to explain the concept of bureaucracy and government. In addition, the author also describes the differences between bureaucracy and government in terms of definition, theory, and task. This paper also aims to discuss the position of the bureaucracy in the trias politica system where there is a classification of power, namely the executive, legislative and judiciary. Then, this paper will lead to the administration and implementation of public services. The conclusion from this paper is that government and bureaucracy are two different things and bureaucracy can become its own entity outside of the executive, legislative and judiciary and those in charge of providing public services are the bureaucrats, not the government, although actually bureaucrats and government have different roles in responsibility to deliver public service.

The first half of the paper defines the concept of bureaucracy, its evolution over the time and the current academic debates. A short review of the most debatable theories written by Lowi, Niskanen, Dunleavy and Choudhury is included. The second half focuses on the three concepts of power put forward by Russel and the non-paid goals bureaucratic offices pursue on a daily basis. The paper also analyses the issue of monitoring the output of bureaucratic offices.

Bureaucracy as a concept has created a lot of controversies and tension among politician, academician, authors and even administrators alike, this paper attempts to critically evaluate and analyze the strength and weakness of bureaucracy. This researcher has identified two categories—the pessimist and optimist of bureaucracy. All of whom has shown sufficient reason to back their claims which this paper seeks to explore. The research also seeks to investigate Weber's ideal model and his dilemma on authority. It appears that Weber is more concerned with position and not the person who hold position and this has created a contradiction as some civil servant are promoted in to position based on their seniority and experience, and not competence. The issue here is, where does authority lies-in positions or in competency?

The term " bureaucracy " is of recent origin. Initially referring to a cloth covering the desks of French government officials in the eighteenth century, the term " bureau " came to be linked with a suffix signifying rule of government (as in " aristocracy " or " democracy "), probably during the struggles against absolutism preceding the French Revolution. During the nineteenth century the pejorative use of the term spread to many European countries, where liberal critics of absolutist regimes typically employed it to decry the tortuous procedures, narrow outlook, and highhanded manner of autocratic government officials (Heinzen 1845). Since then this pejorative meaning has become general in the sense that any critic of complicated organizations that fail to allocate responsibility clearly, or any critic of rigid rules and routines that are applied with little consideration of the specific case, of blundering officials, of slow operation and buck-passing, of conflicting directives and duplication of effort, of empire building, and of concentration of control in the hands of a few will use this term regardless of party or political persuasion (Watson 1945). During the years following World War ii this common stereotype was given a new twist by the witty, mock-scientific formulations of Parkinson " s Law, which derided empire building, waste of resources, and inertia by implying that official staffs expand in inverse proportion to the work to be done. Introduction This popular, pejorative usage must be distinguished from ―bureaucracy‖ used in a technical sense. Although the distinction is beset with difficulties, social scientists have employed the term because it points to the special, modern variant of age-old problems of administration, just as terms like ―ideology‖ and ―class‖ point to modern aspects of intellectual life and social stratification. The analytic task is to conceptualize this modern variant. At the macroscopic level, Max Weber's definition of bureaucracy under the rule of law provides the best available solution to this problem; none of the critics of Weber's analysis has as yet dispensed with his definition. According to Weber, a bureaucracy establishes a relation between legally instated authorities and their subordinate officials which is characterized by defined rights and duties, prescribed in written regulations; authority relations between positions, which are ordered systematically; appointment and promotion based on contractual agreements and regulated accordingly; technical training or experience as a formal condition of employment; fixed monetary salaries; a strict separation of office and incumbent in the sense that the official. A government administration so defined must be understood, according to Weber, as part of a legal order that is sustained by a common belief in its legitimacy. That order is reflected in written regulations, such as enacted laws, administrative rules, court precedents, etc., which govern the employment of officials and guide their administrative behavior. Such authoritative ordering of the

2015

In Iran, we hear repeatedly this sentence informed by conscious experts that "Iran suffers from bureaucracy weaknesses."What does this topic mean? Because if the bureaucracy is harmful why does its weakness worry us. This issue may take us into thinking that the meaning of bureaucracy in our society is still not fully known, and different interpretations of the term is in the sight of the Commons and the particulars. We all have a consensus about this issue weakness of bureaucracy is available in all threads of our life in: 1. Administrative system. 2. Industry. 3. Agriculture. 4. Art. 5. Business space and ... Even with the recent water crisis in Iran many certified experts believe that the weakness of the bureaucracy is one of major reasons of this problem. In this article we have attempted to introduce the bureaucracy in the correct form and discuss the problems as well as solutions to overcome the problems.

Administration & Society, 2003