ah, i forgot to add sources:

for a study of north american bureaucracy - 'The Utopia of rules’ by David Graber (my summary here http://mosermichael.github.io/cstuff/all/ramblings/2015/03/2... )

for the study of Russian/Soviet bureaucracy - 'Dead Souls' by Nikolai Gogol http://robobees.seas.harvard.edu/files/gov2126/files/gogol_d...