Legitimizing Bureaucracy and the Challenge of Caesarism

Part One of the article re-examines Weber's famous chapter (as presented in the Gerth and Mills anthology) on bureaucracy in the light of the historical-critical edition of the text in the Max Weber Gesamtausgabe. A contrast emerges between the ideal type treatment of bureaucracy and actual, country specific, cases of bureaucracy where the determinants of state, economy and culture impact the bureaucracy. Weber insisted on the legitimacy of modern bureaucracy, which he analysed through his theory of social action. He offered broad legal grounds for its validity. This becomes the subject of detailed and critical examination in relation to neoliberalism, New Public Management and Neo-Weberian state theory.