The Paradox of Male Volent/Benevolent Bureaucracy

Ralph Hummel claims that bureaucracy is malevolent; Charles Goodsell says that it is benevolent (in the United States). Some scholars write that bureaucratization is the wave of the future while others insist that it is not. Both Hummel and Goodsell may be correct if the U.S. public sector has been substantially debureaucratized. A review and categorization of the literature provides partial support for this position. Much of the confusion arises from differing conceptions of "bureaucracy. " The paradox of bureaucracy could be substantially resolved if academics would substitute the term "organizational rationalization" for the concept of societal bureaucratization.