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Throughout his work, Weber created and used many “ideal types” as methodological tools with which to study the real world and conduct historical-comparative analysis (see Chapter 2). An ideal type greatly exaggerates the characteristics of a social phenomenon such as a bureaucracy. It is a model of how the social phenomenon is supposed to operate in some optimal sense but rarely does. Once the model has been created, we can compare it to the characteristics of any specific example of the social phenomenon anywhere in the world. It serves to identify the ways in which the ideal type differs from the way in which the social phenomenon actually operates.

One of Weber’s most famous ideal types was the bureaucracy. The ideal type of bureaucracy is primarily a methodological tool used to study real-life bureaucracies. However, it also gives us a good sense of the advantages of bureaucracies over other types of organizations. The ideal-typical bureaucracy is a model of what most large-scale organizations throughout much of the twentieth century looked like or at least tried to resemble. Figure 5.1 is an organization chart for a typical bureaucracy. A bureaucracy has the following characteristics:

 A continuous series of offices, or positions, exist within the organization. Each office has official functions and is bound by a set of rules.

 Each office has a specified sphere of competence. Those who occupy the positions are responsible for specific tasks and have the authority to handle them. Those in other relevant offices are obligated to help with those tasks.

 The offices exist in a vertical hierarchy.

 The positions have technical requirements, and those who hold those offices must undergo the needed training.

 Those who occupy the positions do not own the things needed to do the job (computers, desks, and so on). The organization provides officeholders with what they need to get the job done.

 Those who occupy particular offices—chief executive officers, for example—cannot take the offices as their own; these remain part of the organization.

 Everything of formal importance—administrative acts, decisions, rules—is documented in writing.

Description

Figure 5.1 Organization Chart for a Typical Bureaucracy

Source: Organization Chart for a Typical Bureaucracy, U.S. Department of Transportation.

The development of the bureaucracy is one of the defining characteristics of Western society. In Weber’s view, it was a key source of the superiority of the West over other civilizations in the operation of society as a whole as well as of its major components, such as the military. Weber felt that in meeting the needs of large societies for mass administration, there is no better organizational form than, and no alternative to, the bureaucracy.

Ask Yourself

Have you ever been a member of a bureaucracy? How many of Weber’s characteristics did it have? How well or poorly did it meet the needs of the society it was designed to serve? Why?