Weberian Bureaucracy and Contemporary Governance

Abstract Max Weber’s role as a founder of the study of administration is often in much dispute, but he is important for two things: he captured the essence of bureaucracy and he connected it to the role of business in the economy. Weber points us toward the argument that businesses seek profits, that the key to maximizing their profits is certainty in their environment, and that the “iron cage” of bureaucracy plays an important role in reducing uncertainty. Since his contribution to bureaucratic theory in 1922, however, the ground has shifted underneath his argument, especially in its deep connections to public administration. Although policymakers, the media, and the public still tend to view government organizations in Weberian terms, the actual operation of government, in the United States and around the world, has become distinctly less Weberian. The increasing gap between theory and practice raises profound problems for government’s expertise and accountability, and that poses one of the biggest challenges facing public administration in the twenty-first thinking. A fresh model incorporating the complexity of social problems, the complexity of governmental strategies, and the structures of public law provide a way forward in the second century of the grand Weberian tradition