The article aims at exploring some elements so as to provide a theoretical framework concerning the non-state public bureaucracy - the so called non profit NGOs which operates in the public sphere and are allegedly not prone to state bureaucracies' dysfunctions. The author follows a three step methodology: a) concept building on state bureaucracies' dysfunctions related to political and other organizational issues which underlies ineffectiveness, patrimonial action and bureaucratic insulation; b) comparative analysis on whether such dysfunctions are more or less supposed to occur in non-state bureaucracies; and c) formulation of contemporary state and non-state bureaucratic effectiveness' requisites such as social embeddedness and political regulation. I suggest that non-state bureaucracy is more prone to achieve social embeddedness while less prone to be politically regulated in an universal basis. I argue that this condition requires in some cases a kind of political regulation integrated to the state once the control that flows from the political society is not by itself enough to make non-state bureaucracies dysfunctions safe.