 Weber and public governance. Chapter 3 in The Crisis of Governance, 2023, pp 40-58 from Edward Elgar Publishing Abstract: Governance as it has been known is based on ideas from Max Weber. First, Weber aimed for rationality, for rationalization, for logical inference drawn from facts, science and scientific thinking. Secondly, administration needed to be based on impersonality, as bureaucracy should be an impersonal system based on laws and ordered rules, on process and procedure and not on personal favoritism of any kind. Authoritarianism, cults of personality, autocracy are not new, nor can they deliver something better. They are rather reverting to the pre-modern forms that existed before Weber, to the kind of authority relations that he argued against and declared to be obsolete in the modern age. To Weber, traditional and charismatic authority are pre-modern and irrational, compared to rational-legal authority. Rationality has its limitations, but does not excuse making policy without any facts or logic, governing through lies and obfuscation, allowing personal administration and even authoritarianism back in. Keywords: Business and Management; Economics and Finance; Law - Academic; Politics and Public Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:elg:eechap:19578_3 Ordering information: This item can be ordered from Access Statistics for this chapter More chapters in Chapters from Edward Elgar Publishing |
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