official
A functionary (“commissioner”, honorary or full-time official or mandate holder; from the Latin fungi , “perform”, “procure”, “manage (an office)”) is a person who holds a management position within an organization . It is therefore a question of sociological functional and structural relationships, such as B. by theories of functionalism u. a. by Bronisław Malinowski , Alfred Radcliffe-Brown and Talcott Parsons .
As a rule, one becomes a functionary through co-optation , which is legitimized externally through an often formally necessary election . This form of functionary recruitment is most common in parties , party functionaries for example. as branch manager, secretaries of the party chairman. But also in other associations ( sports officials , trade union officials etc.) the personnel selection often takes place in this way. Sociologically, the terms authority , bureaucracy , rule , accumulation of offices and immunization are of particular importance here. The functional differentiation and specialization in the sense of the division of labor is also important here (vertical and horizontal sociological stratification). In highly developed industrial societies, vertical stratification often outweighs horizontal stratification.
See also
literature
- Helmut Schelsky : Functionaries , 4th edition. Seewald, Stuttgart-Degerloch 1982, ISBN 3-512-00652-3 .
