1990/02/01 by Carl Abbott · 3 citations
Social Sciences · Economics, Econometrics and Finance · #Social and Economic Development in India #Urban and Rural Development Challenges #Indian Economic and Social Development #Icon #Citation #Utopia #Bureaucracy #Download #History #Library science #Art history #World Wide Web #Computer science #Political science #Law #Politics
paper · doi:10.2307/3640096
openalex publication_date 1990/02/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
During 1981-1985, the followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh built a large utopian community in eastern Oregon's solitude and named it Rajneeshpuram. While Rajneeshpuram appeared to be physically isolated and removed from government intervention, it was actually embedded in a dense system of laws and bureaucratic regulations, quite within reach of local, state, and national bureaucracies. It was this ability of the local and state regulators to limit the development that was one of the major factors for the sudden collapse of Rajneeshpuram in the fall of 1985. Other contributing factors were the growing disaffection and factionalism within the commune leadership and the decline in the worldwide income that had underwritten the growth of the settlement. This case study underscores the value of enriching structural-functional models of the evolution of large-scale organization with an understanding of the historical and cultural basis of public action.