BUREAUCRACY

Political Science I
Third Trimester
 Introduction
• Bureaucracy is concerned with executive in the
implementation of laws and policies made by the
legislature.
• The bureaucrats also known as civil servants are
very supportive in policy framing and execution.
• It is non political but permanent part of the
executive as discussed earlier.
• They have interaction with public in limited
capacity. They are public administrator.
 The concept
• The term ‘bureaucracy’ was first time coined by Vincent de Gournay
(1712-51), a French economist in eighteenth century. He observed
that “we have an illness in France which bids fair to play havoc with
us: this illness is called bureaumania.”
• The Dictionary of the French Academy accepted the word in its 1798
supplement and defined it as “power, influence of the heads and staff
of government bureaus”.
• It was in 1895 that bureaucracy was discussed as a subject of
importance in its own right. By Mosca in his Elementi di Scienza
Politica. Mosca regarded bureaucracy as being of fundamental
importance to the governing of great empires and classified political
systems into feudal and bureaucratic. Mosca’s book was translated in
to English in 1939 as The Ruling Class.
• It was however Max Weber (1864-1920) who first
founded the sociological study of bureaucracy.
According to him, bureaucracy is an organization which
meets–or approximates- the following criteria-
1. The officials are personally free and subject to authority
only with respect their impersonal official obligations.
2. They are organized in a clearly defined hierarchy of
offices.
3. Each office has a clearly defined sphere of competence
in the legal sense.
4. The office is filled by a free contractual relationship.
Thus in principle, there is free selection.
5. Candidates are selected on the basis of technical qualifications. In
this most rational case, this is tested by examination or guaranteed by
diploma certifying technical training, or both. They re appointed not
elected.
6. They are remunerated by fixed salaries in money, for the most part
with a right to pensions. Only under certain circumstances doe the
employing authority, especially in private organisations have a right
to terminate the appointment, but the official is always free to resign.
The salary scale is primarily graded according to rank in the hierarchy;
but in addition to the incumbent’s social status may be taken into
account.
7. The office is treated as the sole, or at least the primary, occupation of
the incumbent.
8. It constitutes a career. There is a system of ‘promotion’ according to
achievement. Promotion is dependent on the judgment of superiors.
9. The official works entirely spared from ownership of the means
of administration and without appropriation of his/her position.
10. He/she is subject to strict and systematic discipline and control
in the conduct of the office.

Max Weber has defined bureaucracy in terms of its structural

characteristics. He describes it from the perspective of ‘ideal
type’ systems. The above-mentioned attributes portray a kind of
organisation which is impersonal, where authority is exercised by
administrators only by virtue of the office they hold, and what is
more, in accordance with the clearly defined rules and
regulations. In other words, bureaucracy emerges as uniquely
impersonal, neutral, passive and instrumental. Its behavioral
characteristics are objectivity, precision and consistency.
• Max Weber postulates an absolutely instrumental role of the
bureaucracy. The latter is value-neutral, applying as it does the
prescribed rules and regulations to the cases it deals with
objectivity and impartiality.
• It is this propensity which, he further argues, ensures
predictability and certainty in the bureaucratic decisions.
• Criticism of Max Weber’s philosophy-
On the issue that bureaucracy is technically the most efficient the
critics say that adherence to prescribed rules and regulations
soon becomes the obsession and passion of bureaucracy, with
the consequence that the overall goals and objectives of an
organisation get lost sight of.
• The behavioral traits like objectivity, consistency and precision etc
turn out to be dysfunctional in their effect.
Criticism continues-

• Robert Merton observes that “the very elements

which conduce towards efficiency in general
produce inefficiency in specific instances and also
lead to an over-concern with strict adherence to
regulations which induce timidity, conservatism and
technicism”.
• Bureaucracy, thus, fosters behavioral traits such as
ritualism, red tape, rigidity, over secretiveness,
unwillingness to delegate, reluctance to exercise
discretion etc.
 Bureaucracy as an institution
• Bureaucracy’s formal role is of 2 types- 1. it advises the political executive
in policy-making and 2. it administers the policies and decisions made by
the political executive.
• The first one is an advisory role while administration is its direct
responsibility.
• The policy-making has become a highly specialized task due to great
advances in science and technology, and ministers are generally not well
versed in them the way the bureaucrats are. Therefore even advisory role
in such circumstances becomes very crucial and makes bureaucrats
influential. They have at their disposal a stock of information which they
use very effectively in moulding the views of other participants in policy-
making. The bureaucrats are expert in their area and also acquire more and
more knowledge over the period of time in their fixed tenured services.
Herbert Simon shows that the decision-making by the
bureaucrats is influenced by number of factors like –one’s
belief-sets; socialization; even feelings and emotions.
In short, subjectivity becomes an integral part of decision-
making. Therefore bureaucracy is not ‘passive’ nor its
advice absolutely objective and disinterested as claimed by
Weber.
The socialization processes of public functionaries influence
and even shape their outlooks and orienting values.
Thus while advising the ministers they may be –indeed, do
become- selective in their data and advice, thereby giving a
slant to ministerial thinking and behaviour.
Neutral or Committed Bureaucracy
• One of the very important aspect of the bureaucracy is
whether it is ‘neutral’ in nature or ‘committed’? When
one says ‘committed’, it does not mean dedication or
fulfillment of duties impartially in fact it is just opposite.
• Neutral bureaucracy means the impartial discharge of
duties on part of the bureaucrat without showing loyalty
towards any political party or political master that is
minister. The civil servant has to work in the best
interest of masses. This also implies anonymity,
obscurity and political aloofness for a civil servant.
• Neutral Bureaucracy-
According to one English author – “ the requirements of the civil services
are that it shall be impartially selected, administratively competent and
imbued with spirit of service to community”.
The civil servants should be committed to the ‘ideals’ of the constitution as
well as to the cause of service to the community. There can not be
anything like programme neutrality when gigantic schemes of public
welfare are taken up for the social and economic reconstruction of the
country. In other words, civil servants can not take a neutral position
between welfare and stagnation, between service and apathy, and
between action and inaction.
According to an Indian bureaucrat –” thus, the concept of neutrality, instead
of being redundant, requires to be reinterpreted and reaffirmed in a
positive perspective in a fast changing needs of the society , the public
servant has all along to be a student of public opinion, but no party
politician.
Such bureaucracy prevail in liberal democratic systems.
 Committed Bureaucracy
• The idea of ‘commitment’ has its application in totalitarian countries
where the civil servants have to the line of ‘official ideology’. All civil
servants are commanded to official policies faithfully, otherwise they
are ‘purged’ or suitably tortured. New courses are introduced and
fresh instructions are given that must faithfully followed by all
functionaries of the state. Not only this but the public offices are given
to the ‘faithful’ elements with the result that the differences between
the party cadres and the civil servants is virtually blurred.
In short, the concept of commitment’ signifies that the progressive goals
of a government can not be realized effectively unless the civil
servants are fully dedicated to them and to the political process
through which they are formulated.
Such bureaucracy prevail in communist systems .
Critical Assessment