ABSTRACT
Bureaucracy is frequently regarded as an endemic problem of modern industrial societies. Few observers nowadays accept the growth of bureaucratic forms of administration and government uncritically-indeed the term ‘bureaucracy’ frequently carries a perjorative connotation. Bureaucracy has been bitterly criticized by political activists on both the Right and the Left of the political spectrum, where on the one hand it is viewed as hindering the freedom of the individual in the market economy and on the other hand as being the key factor which has undermined attempts to create genuinely socialist societies. ‘Bureaucracy’ has thus become a widely used term of abuse for administration. Nevertheless, the form of organization and administration which the term conjures up seems to be a permanent feature of advanced industrial societies. Not surprisingly, therefore, there has been a great deal of discussion in sociology as to whether all such societies, whatever their formal political allegiance, are destined to become dominated by bureaucratic forms of decision-making.
