Between machine, organism, and octopus: analysis of the organizational models of the Paraguayan Institute of Indigenous People

Abstract

This article describes, with a sociological perspective, the different levels of operation of the Paraguayan Indigenous Institute from the viewpoint of its officials, using theories and metaphors. The theoretical approaches used to analyze the functioning of the institution are: Max Weber’s machine model, which presents the institution as efficient and striving to operate like a controlled gear in a machine. The second is Niklas Luhmann’s organism model, which conceives organizations as entities that select alternatives to make decisions and adapt to their environment, demonstrating flexibility and suitability. The third model is the octopus model, using the idea of Clifford Geertz, which conceives the organization as centralized, but flexible and reacting to needs and demands. The study concludes that the INDI, as a state institution, presents itself in some areas as a machine in the style proposed by Weber, as an organism as Luhmann states, but it can combine several operational models and/or emphasize one or another according to the need for action. It is an institution that adapts like an organism, internally and externally managing its bureaucratic procedures, flexibly accommodating to the demands of the recipients of its actions as expressed in Clifford Geertz’s octopus model.