This encyclopedic reference/text provides an analysis of the basic issues and major aspects of bureaucracy, bureaucratic politics and administrative theory, public policy, and public administration in historical and contemporary perspectives. Examining theoretical, philosophical, and empirical interpretations, as well as the intricate position of bureaucracy in government, politics, national development, international relations, and a host of other institutions, the book focuses on the multifunctional role of public bureaucracies in societies with various socioeconomic, political, cultural, and ideological orientations and covers a wide range of processes and subjects.

Part 1 Historical Perspectives on Bureaucracy: Public Administration, Administrative Thought and the Emergence of the Nation State; Administration of the Spanish Empire In the Americas. Part 2 Theoretical/Conceptual Perspectives on Bureaucracy and Bureaucratic Politics: Excessive Bureaucratization - The J-Curve Theory of Bureaucracy and Max Weber Through the Looking Glass; Max Weber - Victim of Ethnocentric Mishandling, or How Weber Became a Management Consultant; Getung at the Essence of the Administrative State; The Bureaucracy-Democracy Conundrum - A Contemporary Inquiry into the Labyrinth. Part 3 Bureaucracy, Politics, and Society: Government Reorganization - A Theoretical Analysis; Organizational Strategy for Coping with External Environments - Reducing Work-Loads as One Approach; Bureaucracy and the Environmental Crisis - A Comparative Perspective; Bureaucracy and Modernization; The Thatcher Agenda, the Civil Science, and "Total Etriciency". Part 4 Bureaucracy, Public Policy, and Administration/Management: Bureaucracy in International Organizations - Building Capacity and Credibility in a Newly Interdependent World; Privatization and Debureaucratization - A Comparative Analysis of Bureaucratic Alternatives; Managing Human and Natural Disasters In Developing Nations - The Multidimensional Bureaucratic Role; Organizational Conflict. Part 5 Bureaucracy and Bureaucratic Politics in North/Central/Latin America: The Emergence of the American Administrative State - The Intellectual Origins; Three Efforts at Managing Crises from FDR's White House; Supreme Court Articulation of the Politics/Administration Dichotomy; Bureaucracy and Justice - An Overview of Criminal Justice In the United States; Termination and Bureaucracy - Ending Government Programmes, Policies and Organizations. Part 6 Bureaucracy and Bureaucratic Politics in Europe and Australia: Genesis of Public Administration and its Early Development In Australia, 1788-1856; Political and Managerial Reform in a Small State - The Relevance of the 1980s. Part 7 Bureaucracy and Politics In Asia, Africa and the Middle/Near East: Public Bureaucracy In Korea; A Subordinate Bureaucracy - The Philippine Civil Service to 1992; Bureaucracy and Rural Development In Bangladesh; Bureaucracy in the Ottoman-Turkish Polity.