Bureaucratic Administration in Modern Society

• Author: Goga Gina Livioara
• Position: Danubius University of Galati, Faculty of Law
• Pages: 127-136

Bureaucratic Administration in Modern Society

Goga Gina Livioara

Danubius University of Galati, Faculty of Law, ginagoga@univ-danubius.ro

Abstract: In the European states, a responsible administration, from a p olitical point of view,

coordinated by law, competent and professional and neutral from a public point of view, has been the

basis for the European state for a long time and a d ominant model of this type of administration is

represented by the Weberian bureaucratic model, wh ich emphasized the value of efficiency, consistency,

continuity and predictability. Bureaucracy is indispensable in any state and very important in the

democratic regimes. Weber asserted that the bureauc ratic organisation obtained power in virtue of the

decrease of the economical and social differences. The modern state depends on a bureaucratic basis,

but once established, bureaucracy is among the social structures that are most difficult to eliminate. The

emergence and development of the bureaucratic mechanisms has become a monster of the modern

society, because the bureaucracy works in the opposite direction from democracy.

Key-words: bureaucracy, bureaucratization, management, public administration reforms

Theoretic approaches on bureaucratic organization

The states cannot be durable without a power of constraint, the domination and authority being

considered the only ways to make the citizens obey.

At the same time, the states cannot survive for a long time only through the coercive power of the

states.

1

Thus, considering the states’ persistency as form of organization of the society, so far, Weber

asserted that large scale administration of modern states is bureaucratic. Although even in the pre

modern world there have been some large bureaucracies (Ancient Egypt and China) to Weber, the

modern dominance of bureaucratic organization is the result of a fully monetized market economy,

considering its simple technical superiority on every other form of organization.

2

“Bureaucracy is officially the most reasonable way of exerting power over human beings” and the

necessity of mass administration is indispensable. It shows its completion in the political and eclectic

communities in modern states, and in the economic scope, only in the developed institutions of

capitalism.

3

Karl Marx argued that bureaucratic state administration “even if it deals with problems with the best

intentions, the most profound humanity and the greatest intelligence, is not capable of fulfilling the

most specific tasks and replicates phenomena that in day to day life are called bureaucracy. The

universal spirit of bureaucracy is the secret feature, the mystery ensured internally by the hierarchy as

opposed to foreign groups, through its character of through a closed corporation”. Marx’s critic toward

the bureaucratic regime was that bureaucratic state administration “acts according to its own interests,

1 Christopher Pierson, The modern state, Ed. II , Ed. Routledge, London, 2004, p. 16;

2 Max Weber, Essays in sociology, coauthors Hans Heinrich Gerth, Charles Wright Mills, Bryan S. Turner, translated b y

Hans Heinrich Gerth, Charles Wright Mills, Ed. II, Ed. Routledge, London, 1970; Max Weber, Economy and Society. Ed. G.

Roth, C. Wit tich. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978, op.ci t. by Christopher Pierson, The modern state, Ed. II,

Ed. Routledge, London, 2004, p. 16;

3 Max Weber, Essays in sociology, coauthors Hans Heinrich Gerth, Charles Wright Mills, Bryan S. Turner, translated b y

Hans Heinrich Gerth, Charles Wright Mills, Ed II, Ed. Routledge, London, 1991, p. 196; Christopher Pierson, The modern

state, Ed II, Ed. Routledge, London, 2004, p. 16;

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