ABSTRACT
This chapter considers some of the conventional approaches to 'organisations' associated with the famous account of bureaucracies offered by Max Weber. It considers how metaphors are used in the policy process. Drawing on the work of writers like Schon, Ian Hacking and George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, the chapter considers the role of metaphor in policy-making, asking in particular how they are used to influence the way people think about social issues, and about particular groups-or 'types'-of people. It explains by considering some of the more traditional ways writers thought about organisations, and particularly bureaucracies. The heuristic value of such a metaphor lies in the way it invites us to visualise something familiar to us (a market) in order to know the object of policy—whether that be a university, an apprenticeship system or even a social security or public health system. The chapter focuses on the central role that talk plays in organisations and policy-making communities more generally.
