The judgements of experts, however, help bring out the significance of how questions are formulated, and at the same time give the impression that a mainly negatively directed power of defence and obstruction prevails. An overall 'yes' thus results as a sum total of the unwillingness to say 'no'. … Power develops, so to speak, in spite of organization. In this informal system of political influence, overcoming the difficulties which result from the formal structure ranks among the 'political costs' which may – but do not necessarily – prevent an action from taking place. Politics then thrives on this and at the same time suffers from the fact that power has reached the stage of sacrificing technical efficiency.

XREF: Echoes familiar critique of bureaucracy and Chester Barnard's informal organization theory; connects to Weber's iron cage and modern views of organizational politics.

Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, loc. 806