Bureaucracy: Three Paradigms

Book excerpt: The study of bureaucracy must include certain key questions: what are bureaucrats and bureaucracies; why do they exist and what are their functions; how do they behave; how much power do they possess; what is their impact on efficiency and production; and how do they affect society? This book contains analyses of all these issues, done by a variety of economists of differing backgrounds, approaches and opinions, broadly categorized under the labels Neoclassical, Institutionalist, and Marxist, although there are overlaps and correspondences that cross ideological and/or paradigmal boundaries. In this book the labels are employed as a guide to the reader with a preference for one approach over the others, and as an indication of how chapters in different sections are related in their approaches.