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Bureaucracies and Community Planning
Author(s) -
MOTT PAUL E.
Publication year - 1973
Publication title -
sociological inquiry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.446
H-Index - 51
eISSN - 1475-682X
pISSN - 0038-0245
DOI - 10.1111/j.1475-682x.1973.tb00012.x
Subject(s) - bureaucracy , agency (philosophy) , administration (probate law) , public administration , government (linguistics) , welfare , sociology , service (business) , subsistence agriculture , politics , political science , economics , law , social science , ecology , linguistics , philosophy , economy , biology , agriculture
Since much of what is said below is based on the writer's personal observations of bureaucracies in the United States, a few comments on that experience are necessary. For the last eight years he has studied or worked in several Washington agencies. The first six years were devoted to studies of the Executive Office of the President, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Office of Economic Opportunity, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. For the next two years (1971–73) he worked for the Administrator of the Social and Rehabilitation Service (SRS) which is located in DHEW. SRS had the third largest agency budget in the federal government ($15 billion) and contained at that time programs for the aged, youth, handicapped, and for the provision of medical and subsistence payments to dependent children and their families. This sojourn into the bureaucracy provided an unusual opportunity to compare some sociological concepts and theories about bureaucracies with the realities of bureaucratic life.