BS2032 Public Sector Management

 

Lecture 1.          Weber’s ideal type of bureaucracy

 

1.   Conceptions of bureaucracy

 

1. Perjorative use of the term bureaucracy – write down typical phrases!
   
   
2. Consider the case of  a lack of bureaucracy (early ‘Apple’ for the Beatles would employ anybody/everybody and the whole imploded)
   
   
3. Military bureaucracies highly efficient (Roman army deployed a ‘tortuga’ or ‘tortoise’)
   
   

2.   Ideal type used by Weber as a ‘measuring instrument’ i.e. a theoretical concept

 

3.  Characteristics of bureaucracy (read Weber’s definition)      

 

4.   A more extended account can be found in Max Weber: On Bureaucracy.

 

5.   Schematically, Weber’s view (with some criticisms and developments can be found in the Britannica excerpt ‘Bureaucracy’           

 

6.   Modern day application of Weber can be found in the concept of McDonaldisation