Tasks of Bureaucrats

Mostafid Arafat
Deconstructing Public Administration
1 min readNov 30, 2018

Bureaucracy refers to an organisation or a set of organisations designed to carry out a specialized set of tasks,often on a massive scale. Bureaucrats are people who work in bureaucracies. Tasks that are entrusted to bureaucrats range from simple administrative ones, such as typing or photocopying to the implementation of complex policy goals, such as reducing air pollution or maintaining natural defence. Bureaucrats are generally responsible for the implementation of policy. Studies of policy implementation examine how bureaucratic decision making preferences, as well as political, economic and social institutions.

Modern society relies on the effective function of government to provide public goods,enhance quality of life and stimulate economic growth. The activities by which government achieves these functions include taxation, homeland security immigration, foreign affairs and education. The more society grows and the need for government services expands. The more challenging bureaucratic management and public administration becomes, public administration is both the implementation of public policy in government bureaucracies and the academic study that prepares civil servants for work in these organisations.

The classical version of bureaucracy is hierarchical and can be described by an organisational chart that outlines the separation of tasks and worker specialization while also establishing a clear unity of command by assigning each employee to only one boss.

Bureaucracy may seem like a modern invention, but bureaucrates have served in government for nearly as long as has existed.

Infact, the long pedigree of bureaucracy is an enduring testament to the necessity of administrative organisation like government.

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