Humanizing Bureaucracy: Applying the Human \nRights-Based Approach to Weber's Bureaucracy

Weber's bureaucracy has persisted in the public administration literature as a lens through which to analyze organizational structures. The "ideal type," however, was never meant to be ideal; despite this, it has become a default framework for structuring and studying organizations, as if they should be structured as such. At the same time, research on bureaucracy often explores its negative impacts, such as the value of merit that has become so enmeshed in law and policies, it can neglect to account for performance and diverse abilities, and rules that have evolved into red tape and constrain bureaucratic behavior. These raise questions about the dehumanizing effects of bureaucracy, something Weber himself cautioned. Using a human rights-based approach, we seek to understand Weber's bureaucracy through the lens of human rights, and offer suggestions for how to structure organizations that are fair, equitable, and oriented around the human condition. We argue that a human- and human rights-centered approach to bureaucracy requires rethinking the way in which we assess bureaucratic outcomes by prioritizing fundamental human rights values, such as nondiscrimination, participation, freedom, access, and inclusion over neoliberal preferences, which in turn impact employee and client well-being and the structure of the organization itself.