ABSTRACT
Weber’s analysis commences with a discussion of the causal role played by patrimonial rulership. The Catholic Church of the Medieval epoch also contributed an influential predecessor to the rise of the modern bureaucracy, as did the decline of feudalism in the nineteenth century and the consequent “levelling of inequality.” Additionally, Weber stresses earthshaking developments that supported the growth of bureaucracies in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: the appearance of modern capitalism, Logical-formal law, and the modern state.
Indeed, as these developments acquired momentum, the growth of bureaucracies acquired, to a significant degree, “their own autonomy.” Nonetheless, a linear – or “autonomous” – development, he maintains, seldom occurs. Democratic forms of governance can at times circumscribe the growth of bureaucracies.
