Ideology of Administration, The

American and Soviet Cases

By Michael E. Urban

Paperback : 9780873955577, 174 pages, June 1982
Hardcover : 9780873955560, 174 pages, June 1982
Out of print (Paperback)
Out of print (Hardcover)

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Table of contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction

Part One: The General Ideology of Administration

1. Administrative Ideology: Concept and Method
What Is Ideology?
Ideology, Myth and Symbols
A Method of Analysis

2. Modern Industrialism and the Phenomenon of Bureaucracy
Preliminary Remarks
Technological Determination
The Bases of Bureaucracy
Rationality and Bureaucracy: The General Outlines of Administrative Ideology
The Transformation of the Concept "Rationality" in the Modern World
The Rationality of Science
Technical Rationality as the Logic of Bureaucracy
Variants of Modern Industrialism: The United States and the Soviet Union
Constitution of the Governing Class
The Structure of Relations within Bureaucratic Organizations
Political Relations in Modern Industrial Society

3. Contradictions in Administrative Rationality
The Immanent Rationality of Administration as a General Ideology
The Dialectic of Efficiency and Effectiveness

Part Two: Special Ideologies of Administration

4. Ideologies of Administrative Leadership: the Mantle of Science
The Problem of Authority
The "Scientific Management" of Frederick W. Taylor
An Assessment

5. Ideologies of Adminstrative Leadership: "Humane" Administration
Images of Leadership
Tools of Leadership
Human Relations
Advanced Human Relations
Some Empirical Findings
Soviet Practitioners and Academics
American Practitioners and Academics
Concluding Observations

6. Ideologies of Democratic Bureaucracy in the United States
Redefining the Normative Context
Administration and Democratic Leadership
Representative Administration and Democratic Bureaucracy
Empirical Findings

7. Administrative Communism in the Soviet Union
Representative Bureaucracy in Soviet Garb
Administrators and Leadership
Redefining "Communism"
Empirical Findings

8. Conclusions and Implications

Notes
Index

Description

Despite their differences, the USA and the USSR converge in many aspects of one ideology: the ideology of administration, which would convert issues of power and privilege into issues to be resolved by technical experts. This is demonstrated in Michael E. Urban's study of the ideology of administration in the United States and the former Soviet Union.

Dr. Urban interviewed some 61 Soviet and American officials and analyzed published and unpublished works in both countries to bring an empirical and comparative perspective to his study. He reveals ways in which the ideology in both countries is still rich in contradictory symbols and shows how modern industrialism is changing traditional thinking about how government works and how power is maintained.

Michael E. Urban is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the State University of New York, Oswego.