Reclaiming Weber: Bureaucracy as Democracy's Last Line of Defense
本文重新审视韦伯的理性官僚制，认为它在民粹反弹和民主倒退中仍是关键保障，但需依赖伦理取向与职业诚信，而非仅技术能力；通过行政政治化案例揭示“合规陷阱”，并提出基于伦理纪律、参与设计和专业自主的官僚制复兴框架。
ABSTRACT Max Weber's rational–legal bureaucracy remains a vital safeguard amid populist backlash, civil service politicization, and democratic backsliding. This article reframes bureaucracy as a conditional democratic safeguard—one that depends on ethical orientation and professional integrity, not technical capacity alone. When legality is hollowed out through obedience or anticipatory compliance, institutions corrode from within. Evidence from recent cases of executive politicization illustrates how ethical substance erodes behind formally intact institutions. By integrating Weber's structural rationality with Waldo's claim that democracy is fundamentally an ethic requiring value‐laden judgment, the article develops the notion of a “compliance trap” and recasts public servants as ethical constitutional agents rather than passive implementers. It also advances a framework for bureaucratic renewal grounded in ethical discipline, participatory design, and professional autonomy, arguing that administrators must be prepared to exercise principled judgment when other democratic safeguards weaken.