Bureaucracy has long been a cornerstone of advanced industrial societies, and a defining feature of modernity. At the same time, many commentators from all quarters argue that it is on the wane in this post-this or that world; or that if it isn't, it should be dismantled to free up organizations, enterprise, and innovation. But do we live in a more or less bureaucratic world? Do contemporary forms and means of communication undermine or modify bureaucracy, or does technology create new 'iron cages' and forms of control? If bureaucratic models of organization are abandoned, do we run risks of organizational failure and inequity? Are there certain moral, professional, and social values associated with bureaucratic models? This book explores these issues in different organizational contexts - public administration, the National Health Service, the modern firm and corporation - and offers new insights into enduring questions. It will be an invaluable resource for academics, researchers, and students in organization studies, management, public administration, and sociology. The volume will also appeal to managers, planners, and policy makers who deal with these challenges.

Harro Hoepfl presents here a full-length study of the single most influential organized group of scholars and pamphleteers in early modern Europe (1540-1630), namely the Jesuits. He explores the academic and political controversies in which they were engaged in and their contribution to academic discourse around ideas of 'the state' and 'politics'. He pays particular attention to their actual teaching concerning doctrines for whose menacing practical implications Jesuits generally were vilified: notably tyrannicide, the papal power to depose rulers, the legitimacy of 'Machiavellian' policies in dealing with heretics and the justifiability of breaking faith with heretics. Hoepfl further explores the paradox of the Jesuits' political activities being at once the subject of conspiratorial fantasies but at the same time being widely acknowledged as among the foremost intellects of their time, with their thought freely cited and appropriated. This is an important work of scholarship.

Harro Hopfl presents here the first full-length study of the single most influential organised group of scholars and pamphleteers in early modern Europe (1540-1630), namely the Jesuits. He explores the academic and political controversies in which they were engaged in and their contribution to academic discourse around ideas of 'the state' and 'politics'. He pays particular attention to their actual teaching concerning doctrines for whose menacing practical implications Jesuits generally were vilified: notably tyrannicide, the papal power to depose rulers, the legitimacy of 'Machiavellian' policies in dealing with heretics and the justifiability of breaking faith with heretics. Hopfl further explores the paradox of the Jesuits' political activities being at once the subject of conspiratorial fantasies but at the same time being widely acknowledged as among the foremost intellects of their time, with their thought freely cited and appropriated. This is an important work of scholarship.

This book explores the relationship between Calvin's thought about civil and ecclesiastical order and his own circumstances and activities. The early chapters argue that in his pre-Genevan writings, including the first edition of the Institution, Calvin's political thinking was entirely conventional; his subsequent thought and conduct were not an implementation of previously formulated ideas. Later chapters examine whether and to what extent Calvin developed a distinctive vision of the Christian polity as part of an overall conception of the Christian life.

Martin Luther and John Calvin were the principal 'magistral' Reformers of the sixteenth-century: they sought to enlist the cooperation of rulers in the work of reforming the Church. However, neither regarded the relationship between Reformed Christians and the secular authorities as comfortable or unproblematic. The two pieces translated here, Luther's On Secular Authority and Calvin's On Civil Government, constitute their most sustained attempts to find the proper balance between these two commitments. Despite their mutual respect, there were wide divergences between them. Luther's On Secular Authority would later be cited en bloc in favour of religious toleration, whereas Calvin envisaged secular authority as an agency for the compulsory establishment of the external conditions of Christian virtue and the suppression of dissent. The introduction, glossary, chronology and bibliography contained in this volume locate the texts in the broader context of the theology and political thinking of their authors.

Bureaucracy has long been a cornerstone of advanced industrial societies, and a defining feature of modernity. At the same time, many commentators from all quarters argue that it is on the wane in this post-this or that world; or that if it isn't, it should be dismantled to free up organizations, enterprise, and innovation. But do we live in a more or less bureaucratic world? Do contemporary forms and means of communication undermine or modify bureaucracy, or does technology create new 'iron cages' and forms of control? If bureaucratic models of organization are abandoned, do we run risks of organizational failure and inequity? Are there certain moral, professional, and social values associated with bureaucratic models? This book explores these issues in different organizational contexts - public administration, the National Health Service, the modern firm and corporation - and offers new insights into enduring questions. It will be an invaluable resource for academics, researchers, and students in organization studies, management, public administration, and sociology. The volume will also appeal to managers, planners, and policy makers who deal with these challenges.