In praise of bureaucracy: Weber, organization, ethics

175 Pages·2000·9.89 MB·English

by  Du Gay, Paul;Weber, Max

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
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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