Bureaucracy: prospection of a concept

Abstract

In common language, the term «bureaucracy» comes up with a strong negative resonance or as an undetermined and equivocal notion, highly changed with emotional elements which has turned bureaucratic phenomena particularly opaque ones. There is however the possibility of formulating a precise concept of bureaucracy, which may be used as an adequate instrument for the scientific analysis of such phenomena. Through an analysis of the different meaning of the term «bureaucracy» to be found in the most important theorical studies to use it and relating these different meanings with the historical and sociological contexts in which they appeared, an attempt is made to convey the primary grounds for the necessary definition of a precise sociological concept of «bureaucracy».