Summary
Contents
Subject index
In this provocative new study, Paul du Gay makes a compelling case for the continuing importance of bureaucracy. Taking inspiration from the work of Max Weber, du Gay launches a staunch defence of `the bureaucratic ethos' and highlights its continuing relevance to the achievement of social order and good government in liberal democratic societies. Through a comprehensive engagement with both historical and contemporary critiques of bureaucracy and a careful examination of the policies of organizational change within the public services today, du Gay develops a major reappraisal of the so-called `traditional' ethic of office. In doing so he highlights the ways in which many of the key features of bureaucratic conduct that ca
‘Vitalizing’ State Bureaux: Some Ethico-Political Consequences of Reinventing Government
‘Vitalizing’ State Bureaux: Some Ethico-Political Consequences of Reinventing Government
Sociologically speaking, the modern state is an ‘enterprise’ (Betrieb) just like a factory. This is its historical peculiarity.
We are building for the State, not for any one party.
Debates about contemporary administrative reform in the public sector are often hampered by the terms in which they are cast. Simple dichotomies between the ‘state’ and the ‘market’, which both reformers and their critics deploy with alarming frequency, are apt to obscure more than they enlighten. After all, as has been pointed out countless times, ‘markets’ are constructed institutions, and actually existing market societies are in very large part the products of continuous, centrally organized and regulated interventionism, interventionism ...
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