In praise of bureaucracy: Weber, organization, ethics PDF
Preview In praise of bureaucracy: Weber, organization, ethics
In Praise of Bureaucracy In Praise of Bureaucracy Weber · Organization · Ethics Paul du Gay SAGE Publications London · Thousand Oaks · New Delhi © Paul du Gay 2000 First published 2000 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted or utilised in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without permission in writing from the Publishers. SAGE Publications Ltd 6 Bonhill Street London EC2A 4PU SAGE Publications Inc 2455 Teller Road Thousand Oaks, California 91320 SAGE Publications India Pvt Ltd 32, M-Block Market Greater Kailash -1 New Delhi 110 048 British Library Cataloguing in Publication data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 0-7619-5503-8 ISBN 0-7619-5504-6 (pbk) Library of Congress catalog card number 00-131348 For my parents, Pot and Peter du Gay Contents Preface ix Acknowledgements xi Introduction: Bureaucratic Morality 1 Part I: The Religious and Romantic Origins of 'Bureau Critique' 1 Alasdair Maclntyre and the Christian Genealogy of 'Bureau Critique' 14 2 Bauman's Bureau: 'Modernity', Identity, Ethics 35 3 The Anti-Bureaucrats: Contemporary Managerial Discourse and Charismatic Authority 61 Part II: Entrepreneurial Governance and the Bureaucratic Ethos 4 Office as a Vocation? Entrepreneurial Governance and Bureaucracy Critique 81 5 'Vitalizing' State Bureaux: Some Ethico-political Consequences of Reinventing Government 96 6 Separate and Distinct Personae: Bureaucrats and Politicians 114 Conclusion: The Ethos of Office and State Interest 136 References 148 Index 155 P r e f a ce This is a book about bureaucracy and ethics. More specifically , it is a book about the ethos of bureaucratic office. It represents an attempt to recover a certain ethical dignity for a particular form of institution - the bureau - and category of person - the bureaucrat - that have been the target of consid- erable critical denigration in recent years. This exercise in recovery is necessary for two reasons. First, because bureaucratic conduct is frequently represented by its critics as inherently unethical. Indeed, talk of bureaucratic ethics' is often considered a con- tradiction in terms. Secondly, because even when bureaucracy is regarded as furnishing an ethos, it is one that is increasingly regarded as outmoded, anachronistic and irrelevant. In an 'external environment' characterized , it is said, by extreme uncertainty, where the capacity to be flexible, innovative and entrepreneurial is at a premium, 'rule-bound' bureaucracy has no future as an organizational form. The argument of this book is that on both counts, criticism of the bureau is misplaced. In undertaking this exercise in recovery it is important, how- ever, not to imply that bureaucracies are somehow infallible or the best of all possible organizational forms for all circumstances. Adopting such a line would be as ludicrous as suggesting that all bureaux are unethical and inefficient regardless of context. My aims here are more limited. First, to indicate that 'bureaucracies' do not fail in the manner alleged by both their humanist critics in the academy nor in the manner alleged by the advo- cates of 'entrepreneurial governance' or 'new managerialism' - that is, fail to realize ultimate moral ends, whether these are identified with 'human- ity', 'liberty', 'economy', 'community' or any number of other rationales . Secondly, to suggest that while there are undoubted similarities between forms of managerial and other non-manual work in public bureaux and commercial enterprises, there are also significant differences in what we might term their respective 'regime values' - mainly imposed by the con- stitutional and political environment in which public governmental work is conducted. These significant differences raise a number of important
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