To what extent is public service in a context/organisation within which you are familiar currently, or heading towards, the notion of system-level bureaucracy? Please include the consequences for governance, and offer alternative or additional frameworks in your answer.
When many Americans think about government bureaucracies, negative stereotypes immediately come to mind – adjectives such as “red tape-bound,” “impersonal,” “unresponsive,” “lethargic,” and “undemocratic” are associated with those stereotypes. Similarly, bureaucrats themselves are often labeled as “lazy,” “incompetent,” “insensitive,” and “power hungry.” However, even though many Americans carry these negative stereotypes around in their reservoir of thinking, most adults in the workforce are employed by some type of private, public or nonprofit bureaucracy and depend on government bureaucracies for a wide range of services provided by such bureaucracies as schools, hospitals, fire and police agencies, the U.S. Postal Service, the Social Security Administration, etc. Without bureaucracy, very little in the way of public services would be provided in modern society. In addition, the social, economic and ecological sustainability we need to promote all depend on the institutional sustainability of those entities of state and local government, which endeavor to organize and implement government policies and programs.