Practice question · Multiple choice
Why does Weber describe impersonal decision-making, sine ira et studio, as a guarantee rather than a coldness?
Hints
- Ask what the alternative was in patrimonial administration.
- Where decisions were personal, they depended on who you knew.
Show the answer
D. It means a case is decided by the same rule as anyone else's, regardless of who the applicant is
Why
Because the alternative was a decision that depended on who you were and whom you knew. Impersonality is what makes equal treatment possible; the cost, which Weber also named, is that the same rule prevents any response to the genuinely exceptional case.
Practise The Weberian Model of Bureaucracy
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