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Bureaucracy At The Office Of The Illinois Secretary Of State

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A bureaucracy that I am familiar with is the Office of the Illinois Secretary of State, specifically the Driver Services Department. Max Weber defined a bureaucracy as a formal organization with a hierarchy of authority and a clear division of labor that places emphasis on impersonality of positions and written rules, communications, and records. His characteristics of a bureaucracy applied to the Driver Services Department of the Illinois Secretary of State are shown below:
A bureaucracy has separate levels, with assignments flowing downward and accountability flowing upward. The head of this organization is the Illinois Secretary of State, which is an elected official. His job is to keep state records/archives, and he has authority over vehicle and driver’s licenses. This office is divided into 21 departments, and one of them, driver services, has two directors, one for downstate and the other for the metro area. There are 130 locations that are a part of the driver’s license/state ID card section. Within this section is the Cooperative Driver Testing Program, which allows …show more content…

Each worker is assigned specific tasks, which are coordinated to accomplish the purpose of the organization. The departments of the Office of the Illinois Secretary of State employ over 4,000 people. This characteristic is displayed when you go to a Drivers Services Department location to obtain a driver’s license. When you walk through front door, you first get checked by security, and they direct you where to go. Then, you receive a number, and you have to sit and wait for it to be called. You must proceed to a specific desk, and the worker here will check the database for your information. If everything is in order, you are directed to another station to get your picture taken by different worker. Lastly, you wait for your license to print. In this example, one visit to this organization requires talking to several different

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