Abstract
It is not possible to deny the huge advance in sophistication which distinguished Max Weber’s theory of bureaucracy from its nineteenth-century predecessors. As we saw in the first chapter, there were several distinct strands in nineteenth-century thinking on bureaucracy. It was Weber’s achievement to bring them together. To assess his work in this way appears to cast doubt upon its novelty. But, paradoxically, there was a major element of novelty in Weber’s theory which sprang from his neglect of one important aspect of earlier thought. Weber’s lack of concern for the problem of bureaucratic inefficiency was in striking contrast to much earlier writing, and has aroused a controversy which goes on today. This chapter will consider that controversy, and will, incidentally, provide an introduction to many of the most important themes in the modern study of bureaucracy.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes and References
For an account see A. Oberschall, Empirical Social Research in Germany, 1848–1914, pp. 134–6, where the author also refers to Weber’s non-ideal type of bureaucracy.
In II Pensiero Moderno, Vol. 1, 1912, pp. 310–16, cited by J. H. Meisel, op. cit.
From Max Weber, edited by H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, 1948, p. 232.
Ibid., p. 232. A good account of the careful consideration Weber gave to the problem of power and bureaucracy is A. Diamant’s “The Bureaucratic Model: Max Weber Rejected, Rediscovered, Reformed”, in Papers in Comparative Public Administration, edited by F. Heady and S. L. Stokes, 1962.
“Die Behördenorganisation und die allgemeine Staatsverwaltung Preussens im 18 Jahrhundert”, in Acta Borussica, Vol. 1 and “Der deutsche Beamtenstaat vom 16 bis 18 Jahrhundert”, in Umrisse und Untersuchungen zur Verfassungs-Verwaltungs-und Wirtschaftsgeschichte, 1898.
Schmoller, “Die Behördenorganisation”, p. 31 (this author’s translation).
Ibid., p. 32.
E. Strauss, The Ruling Servants, 1961, pp. 40–1.
Available in his Reader in Bureaucracy, 1952, pp. 361–71.
Ibid., p. 362.
The major statement of his theory is in TVA and the Grass Roots, 1949. An earlier version is contained in his “An Approach to a Theory of Bureaucracy”, in the American Sociological Review, 1943.
For a useful account of these see G. Friedman, Industrial Society, 1955.
Henderson and Parsons, op. cit., pp. 58–60.
Gouldner also mentions a third type, mock-bureaucracy, where the rules are not taken seriously by any of the participants.
In Verfassung und Verfassungsrecht, reprinted in Staats rechtliche Abhandlungen und andere Aufsätze, 1955, p. 30 (this author’s translation).
See “Bureaucracy: the Problem and its Setting”, in the American Sociological Review, 1947.
R. Bendix, Higher Civil Servants in American Society, p. 12.
“Some Observations on Weber’s Analysis of Bureaucracy”, in R. K. Merton, Reader in Bureaucracy, 1952, p. 31.
“Theoretical Limitations of Max Weber’s Systematic Analysis of Bureau-cracy”, in the Philippine Journal of Public Administration, 1957.
P. M. Blau, The Dynamics of Bureaucracy, p. 201.
“Bureaucratic and Craft Administration of Production: A Comparative Study”, Administrative Science Quarterly, 1959–60.
See G. Sjöberg, R. A. Brymer and B. Farris, “Bureaucracy and the Lower Class”, in Sociology and Social Research) 1966.
See E. Litwak and H. J. Meyer, “A Balance Theory of Co-ordination between Bureaucratic Organisations and Community Primary Groups”, in Administrative Science Quarterly, 1966–67.
In “Weberian v. Welfare Bureaucracy in Traditional Society”, Administrative Science Quarterly, 1961–62.
“The Development and Decline of Patrimonial and Bureaucratic Administrations”, Administrative Science Quarterly, 1962–63.
See his introduction to that volume, “An Overview of Bureaucracy and Political Development”.
“Metaphysical Pathos and the Theory of Bureaucracy”, American Political Science Review, 1955.
“Max Weber’s Two Conceptions of Bureaucracy”, American Journal of Sociology, 1957–58.
“Max Weber et La Russie”, Le Contrat Social, 1960. Similarly F. S. Burin has argued that Weber would not have been able to account for the Nazi party’s subversion of the German civil service (in “Bureaucracy and National Socialism: A Reconsideration of Weberian Theory”, in R. K. Merton’s Reader in Bureaucracy, 1952).
“The Beginnings of Bureaucracy in China: The Origin of the Hsicn”, Journal of Asian Studies, 1964.
“The Bureaucrat as Pro-Consul: The Restoration Prefect and the Police Generale”, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 1965.
M. Berger, Bureaucracy and Society in Modern Egypt, 1957 and C. Beck, “Bureaucracy and Political Development in Eastern Europe” in La Palombara, op. cit., 1963.
See above, note 18.
As examples of this point of view one may mention S. R. Udy, “Bureaucracy and Rationality in Weber’s Organisation Theory”, American Sociological Review, 1959; R. H. Hall, “The Concept of Bureaucracy—an Empirical Assessment”, American Journal of Sociology, 1963; C. R. Hinings et al., “An Approach to the Study of Bureaucracy”, Sociology, 1967.
Blau and Scott, op. cit., p. 534.
For a more recent restatement of this view see N. Mouzelis, Organisation and Bureaucracy, 1967.
March and Simon, op. cit., p. 36.
R. G. Francis and R. C. Stone, Service and Procedure in Bureaucracy, p. 7.
Mouzelis, op. cit., p. 51.
“Max Weber’s Ideal typus der Bürokratie und die Organisationssoziologie”, Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie, 1965.
“Rationality” or a cognate term appears on twenty-three occasions even in the briefest of Weber’s three essays on bureaucracy.
WuG, p. 124; Henderson and Parsons, op. cit., p. 328.
WuG, p. 125; Henderson and Parsons, op. cit., p. 329. This was the first of Weber’s five propositions on the basis of legal authority (see above p. 43). Weber used his two technical terms, Zweckrationalität (purposive rationality) and Wertrationalitat (value rationality), to express the difference between laws which were means to ends and laws which were the direct embodiment of values.
WuG, p. 125; Henderson and Parsons, op. cit., p. 330. This was the second of his five propositions.
WuG, p. 125; Henderson and Parsons, op. cit., p. 330. This was the fifth of the five propositions.
WuG, p. 126; Henderson and Parson, op. cit., 331. Parson notes that he finds this distinction unclarified by Weber. It is best understood as the institutional counterpart of Weber’s two types of rational action.
WuG, p. 126; Henderson and Parsons, op. cit., p. 331.
WuG, p. 129; Henderson and Parsons, op. cit., p. 339.
WuG, p. 141; Henderson and Parsons, op. cit., p. 361.
This was especially true of the Germany of Weber’s time. Even today the majority of higher civil servants in Germany are trained lawyers. But, of course, even in countries without systems of administrative law the interpretation of laws and regulations is an important part of administrative activity.
Weber sometimes termed this the ‘paradox of consequences’ (Paradoxic der Folgen). Merton’s “Bureaucratic Structure and Personality” does at least acknowledge the importance of this idea and Weber’s emphasis on it. It is ironic that it should have been used in criticism of Weber.
See E. Baumgarten, Max Weber: Werk und Person, 1964, p. 514.
Ibid., p. 516.
It is. therefore, not without significance that Mayntz (see above, note 40), finds it necessary to attribute to Weber a concern for ‘Effizienz’, a word he did not use.
A good example of the over-eagerness of writers in English to make an issue out of Weber’s supposed concern for efficiency is provided by Gouldner in the introduction to Patterns of Industrial Bureaucracy, pp. 19–21. He assumes Weber was discussing what made bureaucracy effective. But the quotation he takes for criticism involves an altogether unwarranted insertion of the idea of effectiveness by the translator.
For a discussion of the difficulties see the entry on ‘efficiency’ in A Dictionary of the Social Sciences, edited by J. Gould and W. L. Kolb, 1964.
Implicit in Weber’s distinction was the difference between the rationality of thought and the rationality of conduct. A similar distinction in a different context has recently been made by I. C. Jarvie and J. Agassi, “The Problem of the Rationality of Magic” in the British Journal of Sociology, 1967.
See above, p. 6x.
Thus Weber viewed the Taylor theories of management as a contribution to rationalizing production. See Henderson and Parsons, op. cit., p. 261.
See “Der Beamte”, an essay reprinted in Ideen zur Stats-und Kulturzoziologie, 1927.
The best statement of Weber’s position is contained in Herbert Sultan’s essay “Bürokratie und Politische Machtbildung”, 1955. He makes a point of explaining the small part the problem of inefficiency played in Weber’s conceptualization of bureaucracy.
Copyright information
© 1970 Pall Mall Press Ltd
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Albrow, M. (1970). The Debate with Weber. In: Bureaucracy. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-00916-9_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-00916-9_4
Publisher Name: Palgrave, London
Print ISBN: 978-0-333-11262-5
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-00916-9
eBook Packages: Palgrave Political & Intern. Studies CollectionPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)