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A bureaucracy () is "a body of non-elective government officials" and/or "an administrative policy-making group".〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Bureaucracy - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary )〕 Historically, bureaucracy was government administration managed by departments staffed with nonelected officials.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=definition of bureaucracy )〕 Today, ''bureaucracy'' is the administrative system governing any large institution.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Still a bureaucracy: Normal paperwork continues its flow at Vatican )〕 Since being coined, the word "bureaucracy" has developed negative connotations. Bureaucracies have been criticized as being too complex, inefficient, or too inflexible. The dehumanizing effects of excessive bureaucracy became a major theme in the work of Franz Kafka, and were central to his novels, ''The Castle'' and ''The Trial''. The elimination of unnecessary bureaucracy is a key concept in modern managerial theory and has been an issue in some political campaigns. Others have defended the necessity of bureaucracies. The German sociologist Max Weber argued that bureaucracy constitutes the most efficient and rational way in which one can organize human activity, and that systematic processes and organized hierarchies were necessary to maintain order, maximize efficiency and eliminate favoritism. Weber also saw unfettered bureaucracy as a threat to individual freedom, in which an increase in the bureaucratization of human life can trap individuals in an "iron cage" of rule-based, rational control.〔〔 ==Etymology and usage== The term "bureaucracy" is French in origin, and combines the French word ''bureau'' – desk or office – with the Greek word κράτος ''kratos'' – rule or political power.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Bureaucracy - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary )〕 It was coined in the mid-18th century by the French economist Jacques Claude Marie Vincent de Gournay,〔Riggs, Fred W. (Introduction : Évolution sémantique du terme 'bureaucratie' ), ''Revue internationale des sciences sociales''. Unesco, Paris vol. XXX I (1979), n° 4〕 and was a satirical pejorative from the outset.〔Anter, Andreas. (L'histoire de l'État comme histoire de la bureaucratie ). ''Trivium'', 7; December 6, 2010.〕 Gournay never wrote the term down, but was later quoted at length in a letter from a contemporary: The first known English-language use dates to 1818.〔 Here, too, the sense was pejorative, with Irish novelist Lady Morgan referring to "the Bureaucratie, or office tyranny, by which Ireland has so long been governed." By the mid-19th century, the word was used in a more neutral sense. It could to refer to a system of public administration in which offices were held by unelected career officials, and in this sense "bureaucracy" was seen as a distinct form of management, often subservient to a monarchy. In the 1920s, the definition was expanded by the German sociologist Max Weber to include any system of administration conducted by trained professionals according to fixed rules.〔 Weber saw the bureaucracy as a relatively positive development; however by 1944, the Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises noted that the term bureaucracy was "always applied with an opprobrious connotation,"〔 and by 1957 the American sociologist Robert Merton noted that the term "bureaucrat" had become an epithet.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Bureaucracy」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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