İgnorance in bureaucracies and beyond

Rule by nobody is the most Tyrannical of all since there is no one who can be held accountable for what has happened. Bureaurcracy or the rule of intricate system of bureaus in which no man, neither one, nor the best, can be held responsible.

The social and political usefulness of ignorance in general has received more attention with the identification of secrecy as the very core of power. İgnorance is much more complex, having a distinct and changing political georaphy indicator of the polity fo knowledge.

İt has been fairly recently that social theory has turned to the question of the strategic use of ignorance both within bureaucracies and beyond. The most comprehensive treatment of the phrase 'will to ignore' as complementory to knowldege deriving their meaning from their interrelation.

İt is the tacit nature of anti strategies that make it easier to dismiss regulatory malfunction as simply the result of human fallibility or human idiocy, rather than representative of inherent systemic dysfunction. One must dispel the equvalence of knowldedge as power - in refussing to admit ignorance harbours secret.

The Values of Bureaucracy, P du Gay (ed) Oxford University Press, 2005