STUDYING BUREAUCRACY.

STUDYING BUREAUCRACY. Lawyers spend so much time dealing with bureaucracies that I find it natural to look at umpires as bureaucrats. Yet the problems presented by bureaucratic politics, bureaucratic imperatives, and bureaucratic behavior don’t seem to make it into the law school curriculum. Administrative law touches on them, but primarily from the point of view of legal controls on bureaucratic behavior. Persuasion of judges is taught, but not persuasion of bureaucrats. One of the best ways to learn about bureaucracies is through detective stories that are police procedurals. Almost any mystery story involving a police force is going to show turf warfare and organizational rivalries. Think of the Kyra Sedgwick series, The Closer. In literature, Trollope is very good on bureaucracy. (The bureaucracy he analyzes is the Church of England.) Of course, Trollope was a very accomplished bureaucrat in the English postal service.