During the last years of his life, I had a number of discussions with Rom Harré about the puzzling growth of inefficient bureaucracy around the world. He was particularly critical of the sharp rise in the number of administrators at Oxford, Georgetown, and other universities in which he had invested his academic life. In this paper, I provide a normative account of inefficient bureaucracy inspired by Harré. I give priority to narratives that sustain normative systems ‘out there’ - both beyond individuals, and enmeshing individuals. Through the metaphor of an inverted pyramid with seven levels of identity threat, I interpret the growth of inefficient bureaucracy in organizations as associated with collective narratives about threats against ‘us,’ with identity threat serving as justification and motivation to adopt and expand inefficient bureaucracy. In the final section, I briefly discuss the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in bureaucracy, and possible solutions to inefficient bureaucracy suggested by the normative model.

中文翻译：

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官僚主义心理学：受罗姆·哈雷启发的规范说明

在他生命的最后几年，我与 Rom Harré 就全球低效官僚机构令人费解的增长问题进行了多次讨论。他对牛津大学、乔治城大学和其他他投入学术生活的大学的行政人员数量急剧增加持批评态度。在本文中，我对受哈雷启发的低效官僚作风进行了规范性说明。我优先考虑维持“外面”规范系统的叙述——既超越个人，又吸引个人。通过具有七个身份威胁级别的倒金字塔的比喻，我将组织中低效官僚机构的增长解释为与针对“我们”的威胁的集体叙述相关联，'以身份威胁作为采用和扩大低效官僚机构的理由和动机。在最后一部分，我简要讨论了人工智能 (AI) 在官僚主义中的作用，以及规范模型建议的低效官僚主义的可能解决方案。