Download or read book The absurdity of bureaucracy written by Nina Holm Vohnsen and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2017-05-31 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The absurdity of bureaucracy offers a humorous ethnographic account of policy implementation set in contemporary Danish bureaucracy. Taking the reader deep into the hallways of governmental administration and municipal caseworkers’ offices, the book sets out to explore what characterizes policy implementation as a mode of human agency. Using the notions of absurdity and sense-making as lenses through which to explore the dynamic relationship between a policy and its effects, the book reclaims ‘implementation studies’ for the qualitative sciences and emphasizes the existential dilemma that any policymaker and implementer must confront. Following step-by-step the planning and implementation of the randomized controlled trial, Active – Back Sooner, the book sets out to show that ‘going wrong’ is not a question of implementation failure but is in fact the only way in which implementation may happen.
Download or read book A Happy Bureaucracy written by M.P. Fitzgerald and published by M.P. Fitzgerald. This book was released on 2019-01-15 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nukes ended most of society. Now all that’s left is taxes. No big deal or anything. Safe and sound inside a government bunker, Arthur is proud to be just another drone. But for an ambitious man (and excellent typist) such as Arthur, a promotion to supervisor is just around the corner. But his world is flipped when the brass makes him a census-taker instead. His task: to head out into the irradiated streets armed with paperwork and red tape. Assigned to him is a drug-addicted bodyguard, Rabia Duke, who could care less if they survive. The wastes bring much to fear. But even above radiation, roving gangs, and starvation, what the world should fear the most remains bureaucracy. A happy bureaucracy. Brazil by way of Mad Max, M.P. Fitzgerald’s A Happy Bureaucracy is a bleak and hilarious look at the wheels of a system that keep turning even when nothing else is left.Get your copy today!
Download or read book The Utopia of Rules written by David Graeber and published by Melville House. This book was released on 2015-02-24 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of the international bestseller Debt: The First 5,000 Years comes a revelatory account of the way bureaucracy rules our lives Where does the desire for endless rules, regulations, and bureaucracy come from? How did we come to spend so much of our time filling out forms? And is it really a cipher for state violence? To answer these questions, the anthropologist David Graeber—one of our most important and provocative thinkers—traces the peculiar and unexpected ways we relate to bureaucracy today, and reveals how it shapes our lives in ways we may not even notice…though he also suggests that there may be something perversely appealing—even romantic—about bureaucracy. Leaping from the ascendance of right-wing economics to the hidden meanings behind Sherlock Holmes and Batman, The Utopia of Rules is at once a powerful work of social theory in the tradition of Foucault and Marx, and an entertaining reckoning with popular culture that calls to mind Slavoj Zizek at his most accessible. An essential book for our times, The Utopia of Rules is sure to start a million conversations about the institutions that rule over us—and the better, freer world we should, perhaps, begin to imagine for ourselves.
Download or read book Bureaucracy written by Ludwig Von Mises and published by Dead Authors Society. This book was released on 2017-04-25 with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Author Ludwig von Mises was concerned with the spread of socialist ideals and the increasing bureaucratization of economic life. While he does not deny the necessity of certain bureaucratic structures for the smooth operation of any civilized state, he disagrees with the extent to which it has come to dominate the public life of European countries and the United States. The author's purpose is to demonstrate that the negative aspects of bureaucracy are not so much a result of bad policies or corruption as the public tends to think but are the bureaucratic structures due to the very tasks these structures have to deal with. The main body of the book is therefore devoted to a comparison between private enterprise on the one hand and bureaucratic agencies/public enterprise on the other.
Download or read book Paper Tiger written by Nayanika Mathur and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Paper Tiger shifts the debate on state failure and opens up new understanding of the workings of the contemporary Indian state.
Download or read book Dealing with Dysfunction written by Jorrit de Jong and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2016-09-13 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How can we intervene in the systemic bureaucratic dysfunction that beleaguers the public sector? De Jong examines the roots of this dysfunction and presents a novel approach to solving it. Drawing from academic literature on bureaucracy and problem solving in the public sector, and the clinical work of the Kafka Brigade—a social enterprise based in the Netherlands dedicated to diagnosing and remedying bureaucratic dysfunction in practice, this study reveals the shortcomings of conventional approaches to bureaucratic reform. The usual methods have failed to diagnose problems, distinguish symptoms, or identify root causes in a comprehensive or satisfactory way. They have also failed to engage clients, professionals, and midlevel managers in understanding and addressing the dysfunction that plagues them. This book offers conceptual frameworks, theoretical insights, and practical lessons for dealing with the problem. It sets a course for rigorous public problem solving to create governments that can be more effective, efficient, equitable, and responsive to social concerns. De Jong argues that successfully remedying bureaucratic dysfunction depends on employing diagnostics capable of distinguishing and dissecting various kinds of dysfunction. The “Anna Karenina principle” applies here: all well functioning bureaucracies are alike; every dysfunctional bureaucracy is dysfunctional in its own way. The author also asserts that the worst dysfunction occurs when multiple organizations share responsibility for a problem, but no single organization is primarily responsible for solving it. This points to a need for creating and reinforcing distributed problem solving capacity focused on deep (cross-)organizational learning and revised accountability structures. Our best approach to dealing with dysfunction may therefore not be top-down regulatory reform, but rather relentless bottom-up and cross-boundary leadership and innovation. Using fourteen clinical cases of bureaucratic dysfunction investigated by the Kafka Brigade, the author demonstrates how a proper process for identifying, defining, diagnosing, and remedying the problem can produce better outcomes.
Download or read book Organizing Leviathan written by Carl Dahlström and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-06-29 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the quality of government worldwide, their organizational structure, and why some countries are less corrupt and better governed than others.
Download or read book The Absurd Adventures of Bureaucracy written by Kole Collins and published by . This book was released on 2024-03-07 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Absurd Adventures of Bureaucracy" is a gripping tale of forbidden love, betrayal, and the pursuit of freedom. Alice and Theo navigate a bureaucratic world filled with obstacles, their romance kindling against the backdrop of secrecy and suspicion. As they fight against the constraints of their society, they must confront treacherous enemies and their own inner demons. Will their love conquer all, or will the forces of darkness tear them apart? Join them on a journey into the unknown, where danger lurks around every corner and the promise of a new beginning awaits.
Download or read book The Pale King written by David Foster Wallace and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2011-04-15 with total page 636 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The "breathtakingly brilliant" novel by the author of Infinite Jest (New York Times) is a deeply compelling and satisfying story, as hilarious and fearless and original as anything Wallace ever wrote. The agents at the IRS Regional Examination Center in Peoria, Illinois, appear ordinary enough to newly arrived trainee David Foster Wallace. But as he immerses himself in a routine so tedious and repetitive that new employees receive boredom-survival training, he learns of the extraordinary variety of personalities drawn to this strange calling. And he has arrived at a moment when forces within the IRS are plotting to eliminate even what little humanity and dignity the work still has. The Pale King remained unfinished at the time of David Foster Wallace's death, but it is a deeply compelling and satisfying novel, hilarious and fearless and as original as anything Wallace ever undertook. It grapples directly with ultimate questions -- questions of life's meaning and of the value of work and society -- through characters imagined with the interior force and generosity that were Wallace's unique gifts. Along the way it suggests a new idea of heroism and commands infinite respect for one of the most daring writers of our time. "The Pale King is by turns funny, shrewd, suspenseful, piercing, smart, terrifying, and rousing." --Laura Miller, Salon
Download or read book The Beautiful Bureaucrat written by Helen Phillips and published by Henry Holt and Company. This book was released on 2015-08-11 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2015 NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR by Time Out, Bustle, The Atlantic, Electric Literature, Kobo, Kirkus and more... "Riveting... thrillerlike...drolly surreal...Ultimately, The Beautiful Bureaucrat succeeds because it isn't afraid to ask the deepest questions." The New York Times Book Review, Editor's Choice "A joyride..." -Karen Russell NAMED A MUST READ OF THE SUMMER by the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Bustle, The Huffington Post, Buzzfeed, HelloGiggles and more... A young wife's new job pits her against the unfeeling machinations of the universe in a first novel Ursula K. Le Guin hails as "funny, sad, scary, beautiful. I love it." In a windowless building in a remote part of town, the newly employed Josephine inputs an endless string of numbers into something known only as The Database. After a long period of joblessness, she's not inclined to question her fortune, but as the days inch by and the files stack up, Josephine feels increasingly anxious in her surroundings-the office's scarred pinkish walls take on a living quality, the drone of keyboards echoes eerily down the long halls. When one evening her husband Joseph disappears and then returns, offering no explanation as to his whereabouts, her creeping unease shifts decidedly to dread. As other strange events build to a crescendo, the haunting truth about Josephine's work begins to take shape in her mind, even as something powerful is gathering its own form within her. She realizes that in order to save those she holds most dear, she must penetrate an institution whose tentacles seem to extend to every corner of the city and beyond. Both chilling and poignant, The Beautiful Bureaucrat is a novel of rare restraint and imagination. With it, Helen Phillips enters the company of Murakami, Bender, and Atwood as she twists the world we know and shows it back to us full of meaning and wonder-luminous and new.
Download or read book Mini Philosophy written by Jonny Thomson and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2021-08-05 with total page 533 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Engaging, smart and wise, Mini-Philosophy is a diverse taster menu of ideas on life, the mind and the world. Nutritious, bite-sized portions of philosophy that whet the appetite for more' - David Mitchell, author of Cloud Atlas and The Bone Clocks Why do people enjoy watching scary movies? Should we bet on the existence of God? Why is pleasure better than pain? And when is a duck not a duck? Mini Philosophy is a fascinating journey into what some of the greatest minds of the last 2500 years have to say about the big questions in life, and why they are relevant to us today. Covering everything from Sun Tzu's strategy for winning at board games to Freud's insights into our 'death drive'; why De Beauvoir believed the mothering instinct is a myth to why Schopenhauer probably wasn't much fun at parties, these mini meditations will expand your mind (and bend it too).
Download or read book Government of Paper written by Matthew S. Hull and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2012-06-05 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Drawing inspiration from actor-network theory, science studies, and semiotics, this brilliant book makes us completely rethink the workings of bureaucracy as analyzed by Max Weber and James Scott. Matthew Hull demonstrates convincingly how the materiality of signs truly matters for understanding the projects of ‘the state.’” - Katherine Verdery, author of What was Socialism, and What Comes Next? “We are used to studies of roads and rails as central material infrastructure for the making of modern states. But what of records, the reams and reams of paper that inscribe the state-in-making? This brilliant book inquires into the materiality of information in colonial and postcolonial Pakistan. This is a work of signal importance for our understanding of the everyday graphic artifacts of authority.” - Bill Maurer, author of Mutual Life, Limited: Islamic Banking, Alternative Currencies, Lateral Reason "This is an excellent and truly exceptional ethnography. Hull presents a theoretically sophisticated and empirically rich reading that will be an invaluable resource to scholars in the field of Anthropology and South Asian studies. The author’s focus on bureaucracy, “corruption," writing systems and urban studies (Islamabad) in a post-colonial context makes for a unique ethnographic engagement with contemporary Pakistan. In addition, Hull’s study is a refreshing voice that breaks the mold of current representation of Pakistan through the security studies paradigm." - Kamran Asdar Ali, Director, South Asia Institute, University of Texas
Download or read book No They Can t written by John Stossel and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-04-10 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The government is not a neutral arbiter of truth. It never has been. It never will be. Doubt everything. John Stossel does. A self-described skeptic, he has dismantled society’s sacred cows with unerring common sense. Now he debunks the most sacred of them all: our intuition and belief that government can solve our problems. In No, They Can’t, the New York Times bestselling author and Fox News commentator insists that we discard that idea of the “perfect” government—left or right—and retrain our brain to look only at the facts, to rethink our lives as independent individuals—and fast. With characteristic tenacity, John Stossel outlines and exposes the fallacies and facts of the most pressing issues of today’s social and political climate—and shows how our intuitions about them are, frankly, wrong: • the unreliable marriage between big business, the media, and unions • the myth of tax breaks and the ignorance of their advocates • why “central planners” never create more jobs and how government never really will • why free trade works—without government Interference • federal regulations and the trouble they create for consumers • the harm caused to the disabled by government protection of the disabled • the problems (social and economic) generated by minimum-wage laws • the destructive daydreams of “health insurance for everyone” • bad food vs. good food and the government’s intrusive, unwelcome nanny sensibilities • the dumbing down of public education and teachers’ unions • how gun control actually increases crime . . . and more myth-busting realities of why the American people must wrest our lives back from a government stranglehold. Stossel also reveals how his unyielding desire to educate the public with the truth caused an irreparable rift with ABC (nobody wanted to hear the point-by- point facts of ObamaCare), and why he left his long-running stint for a new, uncensored forum with Fox. He lays out his ideas for education innovation as well and, finally, makes it perfectly clear why government action is the least effective and desirable fantasy to hang on to. As Stossel says, “It’s not about electing the right people. It’s about narrowing responsibilities.” No, They Can’t is an irrefutable first step toward that goal.
Download or read book Absurdity in Joseph Heller s Catch 22 written by Jan Riepe and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2005-05-06 with total page 17 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seminar paper from the year 2003 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 1,3, University of Freiburg (Englisches Seminar), course: Hauptseminar "American War Novel", language: English, abstract: The topic of this research paper is the absurd in Joseph Heller’s Catch-22. In the course of this paper I will show that Catch-22 belongs to the Literature of the Absurd, that Heller writes in the tradition of the absurd and that he uses absurdist techniques to describe his novel’s absurd and disjointed world. Yet the novel’s absurd vision differs radically from other literature of the absurd because instead of accepting the universe as absurd, Heller protests against the absurdity he describes. To support my thesis I will examine definitions and features of the Theatre of the Absurd and of the Literature of the Absurd and compare them to Catch-22. I will analyze the novel’s absurdist vision by looking at the absurdity of war, the absurdity of bureaucracy, absurdity of capitalism and at the famous catch-22. Further I will examine the failure of communication and the novel’s structure. To come to a valid conclusion I will then analyze the significance of absurdity in Catch-22. The Literature of the Absurd has its roots in the Theatre of the Absurd and the absurdist movement that emerged after World War II as a rebellion against traditional values and literature. Before the war it was commonly thought that man was a fairly rational creature who lives in an at least partly intelligible universe. It was believed that man was able to show heroism and dignity even in defeat. After the war then there was the tendency to view man as isolated and the universe as possessing no inherent truth, value or meaning. Jean Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, for example viewed the human being as an isolated existent who is cast into an alien universe, to conceive the universe as possessing no inherent truth, value or meaning, and to represent human life – in its fruitless search for purpose and meaning, as it moves in the nothingness whence it came toward the nothingness where it must end – as an existence which is both anguished and absurd.1 1 M. H. Abrahms. A Glossary of Literary Terms. 7th Edition, 1999. p. 1
Download or read book The Revolt of The Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium written by Martin Gurri and published by Stripe Press. This book was released on 2018-12-04 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How insurgencies—enabled by digital devices and a vast information sphere—have mobilized millions of ordinary people around the world. In the words of economist and scholar Arnold Kling, Martin Gurri saw it coming. Technology has categorically reversed the information balance of power between the public and the elites who manage the great hierarchical institutions of the industrial age: government, political parties, the media. The Revolt of the Public tells the story of how insurgencies, enabled by digital devices and a vast information sphere, have mobilized millions of ordinary people around the world. Originally published in 2014, The Revolt of the Public is now available in an updated edition, which includes an extensive analysis of Donald Trump’s improbable rise to the presidency and the electoral triumphs of Brexit. The book concludes with a speculative look forward, pondering whether the current elite class can bring about a reformation of the democratic process and whether new organizing principles, adapted to a digital world, can arise out of the present political turbulence.
Download or read book SOMETHING HAPPENED written by Joseph Heller and published by Dell. This book was released on 2011-09-07 with total page 622 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bob Slocum was living the American dream. He had a beautiful wife, three lovely children, a nice house...and all the mistresses he desired. He had it all -- all, that is, but happiness. Slocum was discontent. Inevitably, inexorably, his discontent deteriorated into desolation until...something happened. Something Happened is Joseph Heller's wonderfully inventive and controversial second novel satirizing business life and American culture. The story is told as if the reader was overhearing the patter of Bob Slocum's brain -- recording what is going on at the office, as well as his fantasies and memories that complete the story of his life. The result is a novel as original and memorable as his Catch-22.
Download or read book Bullshit Jobs written by David Graeber and published by Simon & Schuster. This book was released on 2019-05-07 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From bestselling writer David Graeber—“a master of opening up thought and stimulating debate” (Slate)—a powerful argument against the rise of meaningless, unfulfilling jobs…and their consequences. Does your job make a meaningful contribution to the world? In the spring of 2013, David Graeber asked this question in a playful, provocative essay titled “On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs.” It went viral. After one million online views in seventeen different languages, people all over the world are still debating the answer. There are hordes of people—HR consultants, communication coordinators, telemarketing researchers, corporate lawyers—whose jobs are useless, and, tragically, they know it. These people are caught in bullshit jobs. Graeber explores one of society’s most vexing and deeply felt concerns, indicting among other villains a particular strain of finance capitalism that betrays ideals shared by thinkers ranging from Keynes to Lincoln. “Clever and charismatic” (The New Yorker), Bullshit Jobs gives individuals, corporations, and societies permission to undergo a shift in values, placing creative and caring work at the center of our culture. This book is for everyone who wants to turn their vocation back into an avocation and “a thought-provoking examination of our working lives” (Financial Times).
