Bureaucracy, as just mentioned, is the machinery, which implements rational-legal authority. Max Weber studies bureaucracy in detail and constructs an ideal type, which contains the most prominent characteristics of bureaucracy. Let us examine this ideal type, which reveals to us the major features of bureaucracy.

1. In order that the bureaucracy may function adequately, it relies on certain rules and regulations. These are as follows:

•          The activities, which comprise bureaucracy, are distributed to the officials in the form of official duties.
•          There is a stable or regular system by which officials are vested with authority. This authority is strictly delimited by the laws of the land.
•          There are strict and methodical procedures, which ensure that officials perform their duties adequately. The above-mentioned three characteristics constitute ‘bureaucratic authority’ which is to be found in developed, modern societies.

2.         The second feature of bureaucracy is that there is the hierarchy of officials in authority. By this we mean that there is a firmly build structure of subordination nd super ordination. Lower officials are supervised by higher ones and are answerable to them. The advantage to this system is that governed people can express their dissatisfaction with lower officials by appealing to the higher ones. For instance, if you are dissatisfied with the behaviour or performance of a clerk or a section officer in an office, you can appeal to the higher official to seek redress.
3.          The management of the bureaucratic office is carried out through written documents or files. They are preserved and properly kept by clerks who are special appointed for this purpose.
4.         The work in the bureaucratic office is highly specialized and staff is trained accordingly.
5.          A fully developed bureaucratic office demands the full working capacity of the staff. In such a case, officials may be compelled to work over-time.

Having seen the main features of a bureaucratic set-up, let us now study something about the officials that we have repeatedly referred to.

Weber mentions the following characteristics of officials in a bureaucratic set-up. Office-work is a ‘vocation’ for officials. They are specially trained for their jobs. Their qualifications determine their position or rank in the office.

They are expected to do their work honestly.

Their official positions also have a bearing on their personal lives. Bureaucratic officials enjoy a high status in society. Often, their jobs carry transfer liabilities. By this we mean that they may be transferred from one place or department to another leading to some instability in their professional and personal lives. Officials receive salaries not in accordance with productivity but status. The higher their rank, the higher their salaries. They also receive benefits like pension, provident fund, medical and other facilities. Their jobs are considered very secure. Officials enjoy good career prospects. They can move from the lower rungs of the bureaucratic ladder to higher ones if they work in a disciplined manner.

Yet Weber also noted the dysfunctions of bureaucracy. Its major advantage, the calculability of results, also makes it unwieldy and even stultifying in dealing with individual cases. Thus modern rationalized and bureaucratized systems of law have become incapable of dealing with individual particularities, to which earlier types of justice were well suited. The “modern judge,” Weber stated in writing on the legal system of Continental Europe, “ is a vending machine into which the pleadings are inserted together with the fee and which then disgorges the judgment together with the reasons mechanically derived from the Code.”

Weber argued that the bureaucratization of the modern world has led to its depersonalization. Further bureaucratization and rationalization seemed to Weber an almost inescapable fate. Even though he would permit himself upon occasion the hope that some charismatic leader might arise to deliver mankind from the curse of its own creation, he thought it more probable that the future would be an “iron cage” rather than a Garden of Eden.