Thursday, April 9, 2009

Weber' Bureaucracy in a Middle School Tutoring Agency

Read the paper for idea. Sorry late for class so no abstract.
Posted by at

1 comment:

  1. NickPApril 9, 2009 at 1:10 PM

    Rational bureaucracy is best understood in contrast to patrimonialism. Bureaucracy is a structure that organizes social relations and power in a relatively impersonalized and fixed way. Whereas, in patrimonialism, personalized and fluid social relations permeate. So, in bureaucracy the official is devoted to her position in and for itself, not as a source of income for herself. This is not to say she is totally sacrificing her own interests for the good of the bureaucracy’s clients. Her own needs are fully provided for since she is guaranteed a salaried position of some sort for life. This development, in turn, requires a money economy that allows production to be easily changed into taxes and then bureaucrats’ salaries through the medium of currency. And if the bureaucrat follows the standardized rules—which effect obedience to the bureaucracy and not herself—she will be regularly promoted up a hierarchical structure, not in a haphazard manner determined by a patrimonial boss. Furthermore, she is provided with some emotional self-satisfaction by being held in esteem by society. Related to this is the ingrained, disciplined obedience of the bureaucrat that reinforces her commitment to the bureaucracy (229). Thus, there developed counterbalances or tradeoffs for the individual official’s loss of power as the means of administration were dispossessed and concentrated as patrimonialism gave way to bureaucracy. These counterbalances, that provide for the needs and satisfaction of the individual bureaucrats, are key to maintaining the individual bureaucrat’s acceptance of just being a cog in a machine, ensuring the system does not degenerate into the abuse of personalized power.
    Similarly, the subservient position of the governed had to be counterbalanced as direct violence and repression became less of a tactic of control—a change key to the development of rational capitalism. (A development, in turn, inseparable and key to bureaucracy. Capitalism is aided by the technically efficient, expertly trained bureaucracy (214-5) and stems from the general move towards the rationalization and dehumanization of social relations (215-6) that occurred as feudal forms of power that opposed capitalism were destroyed (230-1).) To this end a rational, “equal” legal system (221) and “democracy” (224) developed to assuage the propertyless classes. These essentially discipline or hegemonize the lower classes to accept the autocracy of the bureaucracy and its economic supporters, the bourgeoisie. Socially leveling passive democracy also serves the purpose of destroying feudal, patrimonial relations (224-5). Threaded throughout all these developments is the overarching development of rationalization. The legal system (221), democracy (224), capitalism (215-6), bureaucracy (240), education (240-1), tax collection and budgeting (205-6), and others are all tied up with the development of rationalization. It is rationalization that seems to help explain and balance the various contradictions of modernity, for example between bureaucracy and democracy, the privileged and propertyless.
    My institution, a middle-school tutoring agency, does have a bureaucracy but the part I interact with is somewhat less bureaucratic since there are only two levels of hierarchy. In my office, there are tutors supervised by the leadership team. At the central office there is a much larger hierarchy with official titles, positions, and duties. I do not believe there is tenure for life and I am unaware of careerist policies of promotions. Incomes, however, increase with the hierarchy and only come from the program and not students. I was trained when I arrived and paired with another tutor for the early sessions. Similarly, we have regular biweekly training sessions. This training, especially the early ones, conveyed to us the numerous rules written in a large binder. There are rules of interactions with the clients/students and for our daily duties which remain generally fixed from week to week. The duties involve many, many documents. We constantly fill out documents, partly to supervise students but also to supervise us. These we pass up the hierarchy at the end of daily sessions in debriefings. These debriefings are the closest we come to regular examinations. Solidarity with the bureaucracy is ensured through our incomes and a commitment to the students (maybe social esteem here)—but this does not really equate with the obedient discipline in Weber’s bureaucracy. Finally, while the rules and hierarchy are generally rationalized, day to day interactions are not so much since the duties of tutoring involve so much personalized interaction. Indeed, there are elements of patrimonialism to the actual tutoring since loyalty is present in controlling students as is sometimes individualized favors and privileges. That is, relations are not fully dehumanized. Still, there are limits to the patrimonial-like control. If students perceive that there is favoritism or lax discipline—i.e., overly personal and friendly relations with the tutor—then questions over social levelness and the autocracy of the tutors can arise. Thus, there is definitely still a role for depersonalized and universal rational rules.

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)