ABSTRACT
Since the bureaucracy—particularly its upper and middle echelons—played a crucial role in the social and political structures of these societies, its political orientations, goals, and activities, and the conditions that determined them, demand special attention. However, under certain conditions, the bureaucracy could, through its attempts to maximize its own autonomy and power, undermine the foundations of the bureaucratic policies and generate processes of change within them. In order to analyze the major types of political orientations of the bureaucracy, and the conditions conducive to their development, we must briefly recapitulate some of the principal characteristics of the bureaucracy's development and organization. The bureaucracy had to provide them continuously with various services, and to regulate somewhat their relations with the rulers. Of course, the bureaucracy in each of the historical bureaucratic polities usually exhibited a mixture or overlapping of all these tenden-cies or orientations.
