The Trial: A Bureaucratic System in Zizek’s View

Abstract

In this paper we engage with the bureaucratic project from Zizek’s view in The Trial by Kafka. Kafka has given an exaggerated, fantastic and subjectively distorted expression to modern bureaucracy and the fate of the individual within it. The first discourse is bureaucracy expressed through post-bureaucratic discourses which very much define the main stream of management thought today, highlighting the need for organizational openness which can only come through liberation of management from the closed structures of the bureaucracy. The second discourse of Zizek’s view defends the bureaucratic ethos of liberal-democratic institutions. We point to the limitations of both discourse of the dominance of bureaucracy by discussing key aspects of Slavoj Žižek's work. Žižek displaces the state socialism, and the dominance of bureaucracy is quite obvious. State bureaucracies administer all possible aspects of life. In each case bureaucratic designate are in positions of state power. The bureaucracy system is always watching, always gathering information, and contributes to broader efforts to reimagine democracy.