Synopses & Reviews
This collection of essays represents a comprehensive socio-political analysis of public and private bureaucracy, emphasizing its dangerous ramifications for democracy and individualism. The contributors analyze a variety of bureaucratic systems, providing a combination of theory, case studies, and proposed solutions, in an effort to enable the reader to confront the real problems of bureaucracy. Emphasis is on programs and principles directed to the maintenance of democracy and freedom within the limits and conditions of modernity. Bureaucracy Against Democracy and Socialism offers valuable implications for anyone interested in organizational theory and behavior.
Review
This is a marvelous collection of fourteen essays brilliantly organized around an introduction by all three editors and epilogue by Swatos. The problem of bureaucracy is its built-in tendencies to supplant democracy. The editors demonstrate Max Weber's considerable concern about this. Weber argued that socialism would not fare better than capitalism in tempering bureaucracy's antidemocratic characteristics. . . . This significant and timely collection will be appreciated by graduate students, academics, enlightenable bureaucrats, and defenders of democracy. It is clearly written, high-level scholarship, with extensive notes and bibliography to direct the reader back to Weber and forward to current supporting literature.Contemporary Sociology
About the Author
RONALD M. GLASSMAN is Associate Professor of Sociology at William Paterson College.WILLIAM H. SWATOS JR. is Professor of Sociology at Northern Illinois University at DeKalb.PAUL L. ROSEN teaches Political Science at Carleton University Ottawa, Canada.
Table of Contents
Introduction by Ronald M. Glassman, William H. Swatos, Jr., and Paul L. Rosen
Part I: The Problem
From Government over Persons to the Administration of Things: Marx and Engels on Bureaucracy by Wolfgang Schluchter
Max Weber and the Possibilities for Socialism by Ernest Kilker
Max Weber and the Crisis of Liberal Democracy by Wolfgang J. Mommsen
Conflicts Between Legal and Bureaucratic Systems of Authority by Ronald M. Glassman
Part II: Authoritarian Tendencies in Modern Bureaucracies
Social Rights in the Welfare State: The Contrast Between Adjudication and Administration in the United States by Kathi V. Friedman
The Patient at Peril: Hospital Bureaucracy and Medical Records by Paul L. Rosen
The Moral Ethos of Bureaucracy by Robert Jackall
Bureaucracy and Civil Liberties: The FBI Story by Kenneth O'Reilly
Bureaucracy and Rationalization in the Soviet Police by William M. Jones
Part III: Some Proposed Solutions in Service to Democracy
Power versus Liberty in the Welfare State: A Bill of Rights for Social Service Beneficiaries by Ira Glasser
"Constitutionalizing" Corporations: An Employee Bill of Rights by Ralph Nader, Mark Green, and Joel Seligman
Industrial Democracy in the Era of the Corporate Leviathan by Robert Dahl
The Need for a Legislative Ombudsman by Donald C. Rowat
Quality Circles: Implications for American management by Lisa K. Armour
Epilogue: Bureaucracy and Its Discontents by William H. Swatos, Jr.
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the Contributors