Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 353.01
EAN: 9780465007851
ISBN: 0465007856
Label: Basic Books
Languages: Array
Manufacturer: Basic Books
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 464
Publication Date: 1991-01-30
Publisher: Basic Books
Studio: Basic Books

A leading expert explains what government bureaucracies do and why they behave the way they do.

Customer Rating:
Summary: great read for policy people
Comment: I just finished a masters program in public policy, and though this book was not used in any of my classes, it was recommended reading. I have to say that it provides a great introduction to bureaucracies and why they are the way they are. (Spoiler: it's not, as many believe, because bureacrats are idiots) Coming from a background of small, private-sector organizations, this was especially useful for me.

I appreciate Wilson's taxonomies of various organizations. Every political scientist has to have a 2x2 matrix to divide the world, but one of Wilson's, that divides organizations into "production," "coping," "craft," and "procedural" is particularly useful. If you are planning a career in public service, you'd do well to take some time to match your personality to the type of organization you're thinking of joining.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: This book is NOT a sociological examination of bureaucracy
Comment: Though the author does name drop Max Weber twice, this book is far from a concise sociological understanding of the concept bureaucracy. So reading it from this standpoint, the material would appear a bit long winded and inconcise. I would not recommend this book if you are interested in understanding bureaucracy from a sociological perspective. The focus is strictly government bureaucracy (mostly if not entirely a United States bureacracy analysis). "Search inside this book" and you can see how the author breaks up this focus. ( Don't be fooled by reading the paged provided to you by Amazon, the rest of the book isn't at all like those few beginning pages. The book gets more uninteresting as you read the following chapters.) In my opinion the book is overloaded with example that, as reader, you kind of lose focus as to what the points of those examples are. And it's almost as though these "examples" that the author provides are really suppose to be stand alone "stories of interest" The book was written in 1989 so all the examples are dated in that respect so if you purchase this book now in 2007, these examples may not be of any interest in and of themselves like I believe the author intended them to be. For 25 plus dollars I would say that this book really isn't worth a purchase but if money is not an issue or if you can get this book for less then whatever you know. It not even a very good book on government bureaucracy either in my opinion because the author really isn't very insightful in his analysis. Just read the review by Tansu Demir found in the review section and save your money.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Good book
Comment: This is a book used for my public management class and I have to say, it is pretty interesting. I feel that there is some overlap in chapters, but overall it's a good book.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Student Review
Comment: Overall good book offering the student of Bureaucratic Behavior a unique insight into the wide variety of personality traits that are commonly found in today's bureacracies as well as an in-depth vew of how the US form of Governemnt operates in a sometimes difficult arena of these personalities. I do believe chapter summaries could have been better developed and in some cases there was too much in the examples and in some there was too little. Overall a good book on the subject.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Wonderfully written
Comment: Wilson, as usual, writes amazingly well in this comprehensive book covering bureaucracies, how they operate, and why bureaucrats act the way they do.

He discusses the different organizational features that persist across all bureaucracies, and why it is that once a bureaucracy is created it's almost impossible to get rid of. This may pique your interest if you've been following the recent attempts to solve our intelligence problems by adding more layers of bureaucrats, as if that will somehow solve the problem.

Highly recommended to all students of American politics.

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