he could subject the discipline to the precise, exacting standards and
empirical research required of "hard"sciences such as chemistry,physics and biology.
Wilson was not nearly as dogmatic in his quest to ground a "science"of administration as later writers concluded. Nonetheless, he was the progenitor of a movement away from the politics administration marriage so elegantly discussed by earlier theorists, most notably Publius in The Federalist Papers.
Subsequent commentators picked up on threads in the Wilsonian argument
and developed them to their illogical conclusion. Max Weber, the German
sociologist writing at the beginning of the twentieth century, arguably was the most renowned of these later thinkers. Weber was not satisfied merely to call for scientific standards as a general proposition. He sought to develop "Ideal types"that would provide clear examples of scientific principles. In defining the concept of "bureaucracy,"he focused on developing a strict hierarchical structure that outlined the duties of workers without reference to personal factors such as charisma. In that era, when"bureaucracy" was not viewed negatively, Weber argued that a bureaucratic organizational system was preferred over the partisan, internecine struggles that characterized nineteenth century political life.