Max Weber’s Bequest for European Public Administration

Rosser, Christian

doi:10.1057/978-1-137-55269-3_51

Cited by 7 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…9-10). Analyzing reality against the ideal type would allow for an interpretative understanding (deutendes Verstehen) of a concrete empirical observation by comparing its differences with the initially constructed yardstick (Raadschelders, 2010, p. 306;Rosser, 2018Rosser, , p. 1013).…”

Section: Weber's Ideal Type As Methodological Toolmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is a utopia. (1949, p. 90) As Weber himself indicates, he did not seek to describe the German administrative apparatus of his time, although his work may have been inspired by the contemporary Wilhelminian Reich (Rosser, 2018(Rosser, , p. 1014).…”

Section: Weber's Ideal Type As Methodological Toolmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In view of this, their household must be strictly separated from their profession, which in turn requires that they be employed and receive a pension. Considering these principles, one notes that they refer to both formal organizational structures and bureaucratic personnel (Rosser, 2018(Rosser, , p. 1013Weber, 1980, pp. 124-130, 825-827).…”

Section: What Does Weberian Bureaucracy Mean?mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Weberian Bureaucracy

Sager¹,

Rosser²

2021

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics

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The term Weberian bureaucracy refers to Max Weber’s (1864–1920) ideal type (or model) of rational bureaucracy, published in Economy and Society posthumously in 1921/22 by his wife Marianne Weber. His ideal type of bureaucracy consists of a number of organizational features of administrative order. At the ideal type’s core lies a hierarchically structured, professional, rule-bound, impersonal, meritocratic, and disciplined body of public servants who possess a specific set of competences and who operate outside the sphere of politics. An ideal type is an analytical construct against which to contrast empirical observations. Weber never meant it to be a descriptive nor a prescriptive account of how bureaucracy should be. Weberian bureaucracy is part of his broader sociology and must therefore be understood as part of its methodological, theoretical, and empirical context. The model is not an isolated concept; it derives from Weber’s historical analysis of modernization and the emergence of the rational state, and serves as the epitome of it. To Weber, modernization and people’s corresponding transformed worldviews were preconditions for rational rule and inevitably led to rational bureaucracy. Weber’s rationalization thesis draws from his sociology of rule, which comprises three types of authority: charismatic, traditional, and rational. Weber wrote in dynamic historical times. His bürgerlicher (bourgeois) background and his politically liberal stance contributed to the model’s normative objective of keeping administration out of democratic politics. The model received immense scholarly attention. Due to its simplicity and how catchy it was, the model was prone to become a stereotype, which is exactly what happened. In post–World War II public administration literature, Weber’s model was made into the scapegoat for unfashionable bureaucracy based on hierarchy and red tape. The model’s reception was not only negative because of de-contextualized reading and misinterpretation. There were also serious criticisms regarding the model itself, including claims of empirical inaccuracy. Twenty-first-century attempts to launch a neo-Weberian approach in Public Administration have not yet eclipsed the stereotypical use of Weber. Weber’s legacy as an intellectual giant of 20th-century social sciences is best served if 21st-century Public Administration scholarship treats the model as what it actually is—an integral part of a historical scholarly masterpiece, not an analytical or normative guideline for the study and design of early 21st-century administrative praxis.

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Section: Weber's Ideal Type As Methodological Toolmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Weber's Ideal Type As Methodological Toolmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: What Does Weberian Bureaucracy Mean?mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Weberian Bureaucracy

Sager¹,

Rosser²

2021

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics

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“…The current research extends the existing scholarly interest in personalization of politics to the relatively neglected administrative realm, which is also gradually becoming amenable to personalization as a means of legitimating—or de‐legitimating—the use of public power (Courpasson, 2000; Gustafsson & Weinryb, 2020). While Weber framed the ideal type of the state's bureaucracy as the epitome of impersonal, rational, neutral, and technocratic governance (Fry & Nigro, 1996; Rosser, 2018), public administration, and especially administrators in organizational leadership positions, are widely understood today to be steeped in policymaking, and hence in the need of popular legitimacy. They thus face the strategic choice between personalization and non‐personalization of their public personae (Meyer et al, 2013; Rasinski et al, 1985); as well as the legitimation challenges that come with the personalization of political and cultural discourse in the social and news media.…”

Section: Institutions Versus Individuals In Legal Decisionmakingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Perhaps the classic example of the bureaucratic model can be traced to the administrative ethics of the industrial states of continental Europe, epitomized in the German bureaucracy—which informed Weber's typology (Rosser, 2018). This model has traditionally demanded from public administrators ideological detachment, legalistic authority, and rational and impassioned decisionmaking (Meyer et al, 2013); in essence, mandating a “distinction between a public office and the person who occupies it” (Du Gay, 2008, p. 336).…”

Section: Institutions Versus Individuals In Legal Decisionmakingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does personalization of officeholders undermine the legitimacy of the office? On perceptions of objectivity in legal decisionmaking

Aronson

Elad‐Strenger

Kessler

et al. 2022

Regulation & Governance

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Public legitimation of legal decisionmaking can be promoted through various strategies. We examine strategies of legitimation that are premised on personalizing the public image of legal agents. A personalized public administration emphasizes individual decisionmakers and seeks legitimacy through familiarity with the character, identity, and virtues of individual agents, whereas a non-personalized public administration projects an ethos of technocratic decisionmaking, seeking legitimacy through institutional objectivity and impartiality. We conducted an experiment to examine the efficacy of personalization strategies in the context of a politically charged legal affair: the criminal cases involving the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu. We focus on people's perceived objectivity of the office of the Israeli attorney general (AG), given exposure (vs. no exposure) to different types of personal information about the AG, and while manipulating the salience of contrasting decisions concerning Netanyahu (indicting him on several counts of corruption versus exculpating him in others). We find that exposure to personal information about the AG decreased the perceived objectivity of his office, compared to no exposure to personal information, regardless of the type of information, decision salience, and respondents' political leanings. Our findings, therefore, support the legitimating potential of the non-personalization of decisionmakers, and show that it pertains to people positioned as both "losers" and "winners" with regard the political impact of the decision. The study further reflects the capacity of nonabstract real-world, real-time, analyses to shed light on the drivers of public trust in legal decisionmaking in politically polarized contexts-an issue of pertinence in many contemporary democracies.

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Legitimacy as Condition for a Hybrid’s Success

Rosser¹,

Pfaff²

2022

The Sweet Spot of Legitimacy

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Max Weber’s Bequest for European Public Administration

Cited by 7 publications

References 31 publications

Weberian Bureaucracy

Weberian Bureaucracy

Does personalization of officeholders undermine the legitimacy of the office? On perceptions of objectivity in legal decisionmaking

Legitimacy as Condition for a Hybrid’s Success

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