The term 'bureau' in Latin simply means 'desk', it was invented by a French philosopher, Vincent De Gourney in 1745. There are two kinds of bureaucracy, one is political and the other is non-political. Political are the representatives, they are temporary. The non-political are the experts of administration. They are referred to as permanent executive. Therefore political executive depends upon non-political executive. Administration by the non-political executive is called 'bureaucracy'. .
Bureaucracy as defined by Max Weber is the most characteristic form of government administration. The administrative staff members are engaged in the discharge of only the impersonal duties of their officers, they are personally free. His theory of bureaucracy finds the central place in all bureaucratic functioning till the present time. India follows Weber's theory of bureaucracy and places it in the normative space but with time has deviated into inefficiency and corruption. S.K Das finds bureaucracy in India when introduced by the British worked "perfectly as long as politics and administration where maintained as separate compartments. After independence India failed to retain that fine distinction." The public bureaucracy in India is rated as one of the most corrupt in the world. .
Max Weber (1864-1920) was born in Germany and lived under the rule of Bismarck. He was the founder of modern Sociology, a pioneer of administrative thought and one of the foremost Industrial psychologist. His works, The theory of Economic and Social Organisations, General Economic History and Protestant Ethic and spirit of Capitalism are one of the most important works in the fields of administration, psychology and sociology. Weber believed in the capitalist market economy and studied the ancient medieval Roman administration, medieval trading companies and modern stock exchange and came up with his theory of bureaucracy which was influenced by the social conditions of Germany under Bismarck.
