Abstract
More and more people are complaining about bureaucracy. Indeed, if we take the example of the current French debate about the European Constitution, we can see that a lot of politicians are ascribed to Brussels bureaucrats; the difficulties people are facing, such as unemployment, delocalization or even reforms- which according to those politicians are imposed by Brussels. In other words, they are implying that Bureaucrats from Brussels rule the European Union and are uncontrollable.
However that feature is not a part and parcel of the definition of Bureaucracy, which only implies that governments are run by rules which are enforced by bureaus who are dedicated to just those rules. The original idea was to establish rules of law instead of arbitrary enforcement, which tends to be corrupt. Bureaucracy had been set up by governments in order to impose their control over the population. But today it is often said that the Bureaucracy has seized the power.
