StudentShare
Contact Us
Sign In / Sign Up for FREE
Search
Go to advanced search...
Free

The Character and Transformation of the American Bureaucracy - Research Paper Example

Cite this document
Summary
The objective of this paper is to explore the U.S. political system, its nature, and evolution. The U.S. political system, to begin with, is a context-specific entity. And the prevailing contexts that determine the performance and operation of the U.S. bureaucracy are political, economic and social. …
Download full paper File format: .doc, available for editing
GRAB THE BEST PAPER92.8% of users find it useful
The Character and Transformation of the American Bureaucracy
Read Text Preview

Extract of sample "The Character and Transformation of the American Bureaucracy"

I. Introduction The concept of ‘bureaucracy’ concerns modern administrative organizations, or those organizations producing goods and providing services. Peter Drucker’s The Age of Social Transformation and Jeremy Rifkin’s Work and the Future, illustrates how the features of bureaucracy have a dual foundation. On the one hand, they demonstrate the development of technical knowledge and the specialization that accompanies it; on the other hand, they develop from a definite set of culturally established and conveyed interaction and relationship between superior and subordinates. An organization that is bureaucratic is a specific form of controlled social system. Meanwhile, Mary Tripsas’s Staving off a Spiral toward Oblivion portrays the relation between structures of bureaucracy and continued innovation. There are several explanations for being interested with bureaucratic innovation at present. Some time ago, the process of innovation in society occurred mainly through the introduction of new organizations and the demise of traditional ones. With the capital demands of the current technology, this process appears to be quite uneconomical. We should hope that present organizations will acquire skills in innovation. The competence of contemporary credit management would have removed the obsolete capitalist even though the capital demands of advanced technology had not done so. A single letdown will cost his job. As a result, we should examine the performance of bureaucracy’s entrepreneurial operations; while failure for a traditional capitalist simply implied loss of profit, failure for the contemporary civil servant implies the loss of a part his/her identity. Innovation is more dangerous for the civil servant than for the capitalist. Loss of identity is much more critical than loss of profit. This argument will form a section of our analysis, particularly in the study of the relationship between bureaucracy and innovation. The objective of this paper is to explore the American political system, its nature and evolution. The American political system, to begin with, is a context-specific entity. And the three prevailing contexts that determine the performance and operation of the American bureaucracy are political, economy and social. Hence, the discussion will focus on the character and transformation of the American bureaucracy, both public and private, as it is significantly influenced by the three contexts. II. The American Political System A basic principle of democracy is that public policy should demonstrate a direct connection between the managers and the subordinates; specifically, public policy must be formulated by bureaucrats who are responsible to the people. Hence, a direct affiliation is required between unelected public servants, who could put into effect policy regulation, and the elected bureaucrats of the people. According to Kenneth Meier in his Bureaucracy and Politics the investigation of regulation of bureaucracies by political processes is a progressive industry. Thus, the United States is confronting a serious dilemma with the boundary between its electoral body and its bureaucracy. If only bureaucracy could be subjected to control, the budget could be balanced, poverty could be eradicated, and the educational institution could be strengthened. Absent in the political discussions is any critical evaluation of bureaucracy, its operations, its disadvantages, or its potentials. In relation to other developed democracies, though, the American bureaucracy seems to be significantly smaller and slimmer. It depends more on the private organizations to produce goods and provide services. Furthermore, Meier argues that the American bureaucracy is made up of technocrats rather than professional administrators. He also argues that it is both practically effectual and at the same time decidedly receptive to justifiable political claims. In Meier’s point of view, the setbacks in American government are not setbacks of bureaucracy but setbacks of governance. Quite the opposite to what is satisfactory performance by the bureaucracy, the electoral institutions’ performance has been bleak. Similarly, Philip Howard’s The Death of Common Sense asserted that a great deal of bureaucratic law is excessively inflexible and comprehensive; take for instance tax law, or workplace safety regulations. Legal particularity has the good qualities of allowing those involved become aware of their standing and maintaining official prudence within limits. Yet when taken farther it can have the reverse impact. The law turns out to be impenetrable and official unpredictability can become chronic amidst the uncertainty. Howard is particularly concerned with the fact that extremely inflexible control, by expelling human discretion, suppresses ‘trial and error—the key to all progress’ (Howard, 1995, 50). In order to mitigate the problems Howard illustrates, Americans would have to revisit several fundamental resolutions made in this point in time about federalism, regulation and the contract between the civil society and the state. Nonetheless, the performance and operations of the American bureaucracy is not only determined by the political processes discussed by Meier and Howard, but is also greatly influenced by the economy and the social dimension. Jeremy Rifkin in his Work and the Future attempted to discuss the transformation of industrial labor and the historical process underlying the creation of good jobs. His treatise is, therefore, a description of the bureaucratization of employment, for the reason that numerous of the qualities that identify good jobs, such as security, stability, rule-bound practices, and internal promotion, are traits of bureaucratic organization. The term bureaucracy is actually a loaded term; it bears multitudes of implications. For Tripsas, as indirectly argued in her article, the bureaucratic attributes of employment are indispensable and mechanical outcome of the technical requirements enforced by large and sophisticated organizations. In a similar note, Peter Drucker in his The Age of Social Transformation suggested that giant manufacturing industries were a widespread trait of the 1890’s industrial setting, but in several of them, blue-collar jobs did not gain bureaucratic traits until some decades later. Furthermore, medium-sized businesses were frequently among the foremost in abolishing the established scheme of factory labor management. Administration in these businesses utilized bureaucracy to resolve various problems, numerous of them not related to size. However management was not the only party to make use of bureaucracy and to gain from it. Workers aimed to bureaucratize employment through their unions in order to reinforce their bargaining power, protect themselves from tumultuous competition, and guarantee administrative stability and justice. III. Transformation of American Bureaucracies Peter Drucker takes precedence in the discussion of the evolution of American bureaucracy. He views bureaucratic employment traditions as the result of an extended struggle to surpass the uncertainty and discriminations generated by a market-focused employment structure. Each of the leading industrial nations all over the world underwent this struggle as a component of its shift to modernity, a transition defined by several remarkable evolutions: from the capitalist business to the great corporation, from the traditional to the emerging middle class; and from domestic resistances to countrywide labor parties and unions. These shifts all took place in the century following 1850, even though nations developed at various periods and at various tempos during this period. They varied also in the progression and the timing of the different transitions that constituted the shift. Within management, the disagreement between the established and the bureaucratic framework of employment was characterized by conflicts between the manufacturing department and the new personnel divisions that surfaced in the early twentieth century. The emergence of a personnel division indicated that employment procedure would now be carried out as an objective as such rather than as a way to the attainment of goals of the production department. Nonetheless, in spite of the adjustments in the employment relationship, a great deal of the structure in early part of the twentieth century remained intact. Even though it is popular to claim that throughout the last century we have evolved from agreement to rank back to agreement again, that unyielding bureaucracies have disappeared, a close examination of historical and current observations should remind us how dissimilar is the current century from the last one. References Drucker, P. (1994). The Age of Social Transformation. The Atlantic Monthly , 53-80. Howard, P. (1995). The Death of Common Sense: How Law is Suffocating America. Meier, K. & Bohte, J. (2006). Politics and the Bureaucracy. Wadsworth Publishing. Rifkin, J. (n.d.). Work and Future. http://www.jobsletter.org.nz/art/rifkin02.htm http://www.foet.org/global/EW/Utne%20Reader-%20May-June%201995.pdf, accessed 14 September 2009. Tripsas, M. (2009). Staving off a Spiral Toward Oblivion. New York Times , BU 3. Read More
Cite this document
  • APA
  • MLA
  • CHICAGO
(The Character and Transformation of the American Bureaucracy Research Paper, n.d.)
The Character and Transformation of the American Bureaucracy Research Paper. Retrieved from https://studentshare.org/politics/1729408-toolkit-for-public-management
(The Character and Transformation of the American Bureaucracy Research Paper)
The Character and Transformation of the American Bureaucracy Research Paper. https://studentshare.org/politics/1729408-toolkit-for-public-management.
“The Character and Transformation of the American Bureaucracy Research Paper”, n.d. https://studentshare.org/politics/1729408-toolkit-for-public-management.
  • Cited: 0 times

CHECK THESE SAMPLES OF The Character and Transformation of the American Bureaucracy

Teaching Math for a Better America

As a mathematics teacher in an inner city school in Hawaii, how can I be a change agent My answer is to change the way I motivate my students so they learn to love math and use that as a starting point to make a difference in their lives, families, and communities.... hellip; Many students hate math for the wrong reasons....
8 Pages (2000 words) Essay

Riesman, how does the rise of bureaucratic

Bellah and his colleagues used the american attitude towards community life to show that there is no isolation occurring between the individual and the community.... How is its socialization likely to be… David Riesman argued that the emergence of the bureaucracy and the mass society diminishes the importance of other social institutions such as the family on the individual level.... avid Riesman argued that the emergence of the bureaucracy and the mass society diminishes the importance of other social institutions such as the family on the individual level....
2 Pages (500 words) Essay

CHARACTER TRANSFORMATIONS IN FILM STORIES

Generally, the character is overly nerdy, unattractive, or some other undesirable trait.... As the film progresses, the character transforms into what is considered to be his or her “true… Geena Davis' character in The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996) falls directly into this genre.... Generally, the character is overly nerdy, unattractive, or some other undesirable trait.... As the film progresses, the character transforms into what is considered to be his or her “true identity” (‘Transformation movies 2002)....
1 Pages (250 words) Essay

Political Machines - Theodore Lowi

Theodore perceives that the sole purpose of political machines were to develop american cities equally.... The new and old political machines display similarities signifying that nothing has changed in the governance of american cities.... In the year 1967, Chicago reaffirmed and consolidated its old ways of doing political unlike New York, which ushered in political transformation (Lowi 85)....
4 Pages (1000 words) Essay

Bureaucracy

For instance in a of the Sociology of the Concerned 14 June Negative Consequences of bureaucracy bureaucracy is a top-down, hierarchical system of governance and management that has its negative consequences.... bureaucracy many a times stifles the ingenuity and creativity in organizations.... bureaucracy is a system of governance that is bound to turn counterproductive, if not backed by ample monitoring and sharing of power....
1 Pages (250 words) Book Report/Review

Arguments for and against Bureaucracy

the american bureaucracy: the core of modern government.... bureaucracy is an administrative system, especially in government that divides work in to specific categories and are performed by non-elected officials and special departments of the government (Meier & O'Toole, 2006).... bureaucracy is often referred as the ‘fourth' arm of… Proponents of bureaucracy assert that it should be equal to the other three arms of government while opponents assert that bureaucracy is not necessary and should not bureaucracy bureaucracy Introduction bureaucracy is an administrative system, especially in government that divides work in to specific categories and are performed by non-elected officials and special departments of the government (Meier & O'Toole, 2006)....
2 Pages (500 words) Essay

Evaluation of the Current Status of Alitalia

The author of this essay "Evaluation of the Current Status of Alitalia" comments on the financial prospects of working with the Italian struggling airline.... It is stated that over the last ten years, there has been a considerable increase in the number of alliances in the global airline industry....
6 Pages (1500 words) Essay

The Culture of Television

"The Culture of Television" paper attempts to establish that TV plays a pivotal role in the changing, developing, and creation of hybrid and contemporary culture in various social settings.... Television plays a vital role in shaping changing and even creating culture.... nbsp; … TV, on the other hand, transcends such boundaries, as it compels millions to focus on the same thing at the same time; this could be a program or news documentary or movie....
6 Pages (1500 words) Essay
sponsored ads
We use cookies to create the best experience for you. Keep on browsing if you are OK with that, or find out how to manage cookies.
Contact Us