Bureaucracy: the experience of structural-functional analysis

Abstract

The article attempts to consider bureaucracy as an instrument of public administration from the standpoint of the methodology of structural and functional analysis. The use of this methodology is intended to identify and describe the structural components and elementary functions, as well as structural and functional features of the bureaucracy as such, regardless of the traits that it acquires in a particular country in a certain historical era. Bureaucracy is seen as an element of the social structure, which in turn has stable principles of internal organization. These principles include the hierarchical form of the organization, and the formal hierarchy of posts and the informal hierarchy of job statuses may not be the same. It is noted that the hierarchical principle of management in bureaucratic structures, unlike commercial management, has no alternatives and is carried out much more consistently. Special attention is paid to the analysis of terminological problems arising in the process of analyzing the functions of bureaucracy. The concept of ‘administration', implying the presence of specific organizational and managerial procedures in the Russian language until now has limited use and is usually accompanied by negative connotations. It is proposed to classify the functions of bureaucracy by features: formal and informal, external and internal. Identification of informal functions of bureaucracy allows to identify its features as a large social group and status group. The analysis of internal functions also creates additional opportunities for describing and evaluating bureaucracy from the point of view of the theory and sociology of organizations. In conclusion, the article points to some structural and functional features of the bureaucracy that distinguish it from the organizational models characteristic of commercial organizations and public associations.