Market Bureaucracy? Exploring the Contending Rationalities of Contemporary Administrative Regimes

Abstract

In the new ‘Post-Fordist’ public sector the previously accepted distinctions between the market and hierarchy are transformed by the advent of a new organisational form, the ‘market bureaucracy’. The article identifies four core characteristics of this new type and compares these to the organising principles of the three other administrative regimes found in contemporary public organisations.

The article identifies unique patterns of selectivity as the central feature of the ‘market bureaucracy’ and argues that this is a system which is structured in direct response to problems of risk and taste. The ‘network bureaucracy’, on the other hand, provides an alternative model of restructure in which selectivity is based upon regional attributes and the guiding rationality of the administrative system is primarily cultural.