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18 Soc. F. 560 (1939-1940)
Bureaucratic Structure and Personality

handle is hein.journals/josf18 and id is 568 raw text is: GOVERNMENT, POLITICS, CITIZENSHIP Contributions tthsDepartmntwill icludermaterial of trekns()oigaldiscussion, dngcsrioo . p eeprgrm BUREAUCRATIC STRUCTURE AND PERSONALITY ROBERT K. MERTON Tulane University A FORMAL, rationally organized social structure involves clearly defined patterns of activity in which, ideally, every series of actions is functionally related to the purposes of the organization.' In such an organization there is integrated a series of offices, of hierarchized statuses, in which inhere a number of obligations and privileges closely defined by limited and specific rules. Each of these offices contains an area of imputed competence and responsi- bility. Authority, the power of control which derives from an acknowledged status, inheres in the office and not in the particular person who performs the official role. Official action ordinarily occurs within the framework of preexisting rules of the organization. The system of prescribed relations between the various offices involves a considerable degree of formality and clearly defined social dis- tance between the occupants of these positions. Formality is manifested by means of a more or less complicated social ritual which symbolizes and supports the pecking order of the various offices. Such formality, which is integrated with 1 For a development of the concept of rational organization, see Karl Mannheim, Mensch und Gesellschaft im Zeitalter des Umbaus (Leiden: A. W. Sijthoff, 1935), esp. pp. 28 ff. the distribution of authority within the system, serves to minimize friction by largely restricting (official) contact to modes which are previously defined by the rules of the organization. Ready cal- culability of others' behavior and a stable set of mutual expectations is thus built up. Moreover, formality facilitates the inter- action of the occupants of offices despite their (possibly hostile) private attitudes toward one another. In this way, the subordinate is protected from the arbitrary action of his superior, since the actions of both are constrained by a mutually recognized set of rules. Specific pro- cedural devices foster objectivity and restrain the quick passage of impulse into action.2 The ideal type of such formal organiza- tion is bureaucracy and, in many respects, the classical analysis of bureaucracy is that by Max Weber.3 As Weber indi- 2 H. D. Lasswell, Politics (New York: McGraw- Hill, 1936), pp. io-ii. Max Weber, Wirtichaft und Gesellschaft (Tiib- ingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 92.), Pt. III, chap. 6, pp. 650- 678. For a brief summary of Weber's discussion, see Talcott Parsons, The Structure of Social Action (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1937), esp. pp. 506 ff. For a description, which is not a caricature, of the bureaucrat as a personality type, see C. Rabany, Les types sociaux: le fonctionnaire, Revue ginirale d'administration, LXXXVIII (1907), 5-.8.

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