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Question
Compare and contrast between bureaucracy in school and any social institution
I will use what I believe the right approach to answer your question.
Bureaucracy can be described as a rational, efficient way of completing tasks and rewarding individuals based on their contributions. The hierarchy and rules and regulations of a bureaucracy are often mistaken as the idea of centralization. But centralization is only one component of a bureaucracy that may or may not be present within the social organizations. Again: bureaucracy is often a term associated with a negative meaning. The word is utilized to describe inefficient organizations incapable to take rapid decision, costly and paralyzed by their complex system of work. According to the Oxford Dictionary “bureaucracy is government officials who are regarded as oppressive and inflexible or who follows a set of rigid rules”.
These are “stereotypes”. As Max Weber - the founding father of the concept of bureaucracy - pointed out: “Bureaucracy is the formation of a large, structured, and impersonal organization that influences the lives of everyone born in this present time we are living in”. It is only this and nothing else. Weber does not give to the term “bureaucracy” a moral value judgment. Bureaucracy only provides a hierarchal authority structure that is supposed to operate under certain rules and procedures.
The bureaucracy takes on specific characteristics (which we can judge “advantageous” or “disadvantageous”) solely and exclusively depending on the “type” and “purposes” of very different social organizations. So, bureaucracy is simply the response to the problems posed by very different social organizations. Some organizations need a specific form of order of the ranks or chains of command (rigid/coercive; flexible/permissive, or other...) to coordinate the activities of their members. Some organizations need a form of order of the rules and procedures so different among them shaping in a very various way the organizational life of these same organizations. Some organizations are organized vertically and centrally. Others are organized horizontally and in a decentralized way. Bureaucracy may be present in all these organizations. Its appearance/face will change radically according to their “nature” and “aims” (of social organizations).
Hi, Cristina.
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Answers by Expert:
dr. Cristina Carpinelli
Expertise
Cristina Carpinelli is a sociologist/politolog. She deals with research works, from economic and social point of view, concerning Central-Est Europe (Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland), South-Est Europe (Bulgaria, Romania, balkan Countries), Russia and all Former Soviet Union Countries. Recently, She has also become an expert on gender issues in Countries mentioned above. She can't answer the questions relative to other geo-economic and political areas or about other questions outside her competence/knowledge. She lives and works in Milan (Italy).
Experience
Cristina Carpinelli wrote many articles and essays on the Ussr and on the transition of the Fsu from a planned economic system to a free market one. She wrote also some books. Now, She is collaborating with some magazines/reviews (The Calendar of People, Slavia, Cassandra, Marxism today ecc.).
Organizations
She is a Scientific Committee Member of Cespi (International Problems Study Center) of Milan - Italy. (www.cespi-ong.org). She is part of the teaching staff of ISPI school (professional diploma for economic operators in Russia) for the training courses "Objective: Russia" (http://www.ispionline.it/it/school.php?id=76). She is a permanent collaborator of the Italian Magazine "noidonne" (www. noidonne.org) and the Italian Magazine on-line "Cassandra" (www.cassandrarivista.it). She is also an editorial staff member of the Italian Magazine on-line "Antonio Gramsci oggi" (www. gramscioggi.org).
Publications
“Soviet society in the years of the perestrojka”, New Authors, Milan 1991; "Women and family in Soviet Russia", F. Angeli, Milan 1998; "Identities in Transition: Fsu Countries after the Collapse of Real Socialism", Cespi, February 2004; "Women and poverty in Russia under El’cin administration (the era of liberal transition)", F. Angeli, Milan 2004; "The contradictions of real socialism in Soviet Union" in 'Marxism Today' n.2/2007; "The Russia in pieces" (Achab, Verona 2008); "The Enlargement of Europe to the Eastern European Countries"; Cespi, May 2008.
Education/Credentials
Cristina Carpinelli graduated during the academic year 1983/84 with the thesis "The process of demografic ageing of the population in Soviet Union" - State University of Milan - Faculty of Political Sciences (Statistics Department). The thesis of degree was elaborated in the Ussr, at the State University Lomonosov of Moscow.
For a more detailed professional profile of Cristina Carpinelli, you can connected to: http://www.beepworld.it/members/criliberoit/curriculumenglish.htm
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