Bureaucracy, Administration, and Politics: An Introduction
Bureaucracy and History: Civilization and Administration
Th e early civilizations owe much to the formidable role of bureaucracy as an instrument of power, public works implementation, and planning and implementation of monumental works such as the Suez Canal in Egypt under the Persians, the Chinese Walls, and the pyramids of Egypt.
the origin of bureaucracy is traced to the ancient world of Persia, China, and Egypt, and much later to Rome. While other bureaucracies of the ancient world were around, it was the complexity, structure, and eff ective performance of the Persian bureaucracy that made it world famous, gaining a global reputation of being “second to none in human history
Modern bureaucracy of the Western world advanced with more sophistication, and during the twentieth century, bureaucracy reached its height of power, expertise, and institutional capacities everywhere, prompting numerous scholarly studies on the role, nature, and functions of bureaucracy worldwide. Bureaucracy during the twentieth century played a formidable role in public governance and administration and in business administration, leading to the rise of large-scale corporate organizations and multinational corporations everywhere.
However, as noted earlier, by the late twentieth century, bureaucracy came under vicious attacks from many directions, resulting in its diminution in institutional capacity and legitimacy as an instrument of government and administration. Has bureaucracy disappeared, as a result? No, not at all. Bureaucracy has survived
millennia of changes, and it will persist. However, its character and functions have been altered signifi cantly—more on this later.
Meanings of Bureaucracy
Bureaucracy has at least three major connotations or meanings:
One is the traditional view of the term as defi ned by Weber and characterized as a Weberian model, referring to any organization of modern society with several ideal characteristics such as unity of command, clear line of hierarchy, division of labor and specialization, record keeping, and merit system for recruitment
and promotion, and fi nally, rules and regulations to govern relationship and organizational
performance. Th is was Weber’s characterization as an ideal-type bureaucracy for policy development
and implementation.
To Weber, bureaucracy in modern society is intimately linked, and works together as a necessary organizational instrument, with capitalism.
With thegrowth of government, society, and public sectors, bureaucracy assumes bigger roles due to its
unique position of expertise and order-oriented structure, and it is almost impossible to control it.
Bureaucratization is an inevitable process that expands and reaches everywhere. Unless controlled,
bureaucracy has a tendency to “overtower” society and rule it.
Weber’s ideal-type bureaucracy is the most effi cient form of organization for the implementation of policy and getting things done as a machinery of governance. Th erefore, his ideal model opens a strategic methodological “comparative approach” in governance and organization theory.
Th e second meaning of bureaucracy refers to any large organization or institution structured with missions, functions, and processes and with signifi cant impact on its internal and external environments. Th is is the meaning that Waldo (1992) also adopted, a meaning that is boarder and applicable to all fairly large organizations, private as well as public, modern or ancient. In fact long before Waldo raised this view, it was already studied, mentioned, and applied in social science inquiries. Ancient Persian bureaucracy is often noted as the most effi cient and eff ective organization of public administration presenting many of the Weberian ideal characteristics. Th erefore, when speaking of federal bureaucracy, or local bureaucracy, this meaning often applies. While Weber’s ideal type is criticized for being rigid, infl exible, and not realistic, the second meaning does not make any normative claims though by performance it may produce normative reputations.
Th e third meaning of bureaucracy, though not much mentioned in academe, is the one sociologists
and political scientists refer to as “dynamic” and extends to military and security bureaucratic
institutions of government and governance in public and private sectors.
Bureaucratic Politics and Democratic Theory
However, generally it refers to a wide range of bureaucratic behaviors, roles, and functions. At least fi ve perspectives or viewpoints explain bureaucratic politics, in their broadest sense, with implications for democratic and administrative theories.
One is the “politics of bureaucracy” with a multitude of its own variants, for example, bureaucracy
in policy making versus strict implementation, bureaucracy as a distributional and redistributional
force in the budgetary process, bureaucracy as a dominant military ruler, and so on. Here,
there is a constant call for “controlling the bureaucracy” by democratic institutions, a cry that
complains against bureaucratic tendency to stifl e democracy and individual freedom. Its solution
is privatization and elected offi cials in charge.
What it does not consider in its perspective is the constructive role of bureaucracy in providing consistency, vertical organizational accountability, order and stability, and professionalism and impartiality in the wake of competing partisan and diff erent sectarian sentiments.
But bureaucracy can also engage in various degrees of “bureaucratism,” a phenomenon through which self-serving bureaucrats engage in abusing the power position they enjoy and stifl e or undermine constructive behavior in government or society (Farazmand, 1989). Bureaucratism is a political and dysfunctional behavior displayed by bureaucracy and must be prevented through reforms, training, and development of its personnel.
Th e second perspective of bureaucratic politics is the “the political economy” of bureaucracy,
performing a role in the service of specifi c class or group interests. Th e politics and economics
of bureaucracy therefore cover the external role it plays in society—economically and politically
enhancing certain classes or groups against others—and in its internal dynamics, promoting individual
personalities, positions, and power centers toward specifi c interest group or class goals,
including its own self-serving goals. Th e political economy perspective comes primarily from Karl
Marx, whose view of bureaucracy is generally negative and exploitative, and considers bureaucracy
as an instrument of class rule in service of those in dominant class positions in society—e.g., capitalist
bourgeoisie and the socialist state in reverse. According to Marx (1951, 1966), bureaucracy in capitalism is a circle no one can escape from—all are enslaved by this repressive institutional organization that is organized to serve one goal—enhancing the ruling capitalist class at the expense of the working classes. Bureaucracy also benefi ts from this as it perpetuates its own realm of control and manipulation, but cannot fool the ruling class elite because its own well-being is intimately linked to that class interests, and it becomes parasitic as it grows bigger.
Th e third perspective views bureaucratic politics in its distinct administrative service delivery,
performance of large-scale achievements through its massive professionalized capacities. Judging this perspective is based on criteria of mass performance management: building and managing public works, bridges, and highways; mobilizing forces in the wake of crises and emergencies; coordinating and competing with adversarial forces in crises; etc Th e role of bureaucracy in “development” is another feature of administrative function. However, a bureaucracy heavily entangled in security and control orientation is no longer a healthy functioning bureaucracy in the service of broad-based public interests.
Th e fourth perspective, therefore, is related to the political economy as well, and it is the
“system maintenance and system enhancement” role of the bureaucracy in modern society. All political systems are concerned about their maintenance and tend to defend themselves against system challengers, whether democracy or dictatorship, open or closed. Yet a highly politically oriented bureaucracy acting predominantly in the service of system maintenance and enhancement is fragile, repressive, and instrumental in encouraging a growing dictatorship that erodes all institutions of society, including the regime in power, its own organizational legitimacy, and position in society. No one would trust the repressive bureaucracy of the post-1953 bloody military coup d’ état in Iran that led to the Shah’s military–bureaucratic dictatorship for the next 25 years. Similarly, no one would trust the bureaucracy under the dictatorship of General Pinochet in Chile, or of Somoza in Nicaragua, and Marcos in the Philippines. A bureaucracy heavily involved in system maintenance and enhancement cannot maintain a balance between its administrative functions and security–military functions, therefore degenerating progressively into a repressive instrument of dictatorship.Th is is a pattern that has spread among most countries worldwide; the administrative state has been forced into retreat, and the military–security–bureaucratic state has triumphed. Would this result in increased poverty and destitution, injustice and violence, and possible revolutions worldwide? Yes, most likely. In fact, according to all international records, poverty has increased dramatically worldwide, and violence too has increased, not decreased. Such poverty and instability will call for more social control through police, meaning an even stronger military–security bureaucracy at the expense of administrative public service bureaucracy, a vicious circle no one can escape from, but the ruling corporatist elite, including the bureaucratic elite, will be the prime benefi ciaries.
Th e fi fth perspective of bureaucratic politics refers to politicization and bureaucratization of polity, society, and of course the bureaucracy and government. Bureaucratization is a political phenomenon, and politicization is an ideological process for indoctrination of the bureaucracy and the people dealing with it. Politicization injects certain ideological, political, and economic values toward specifi c goals and mission, for example, globalization of corporate globalization or slogans of market-base reforms, and forces members of the bureaucracy and administrative state to conform, adhere to, and enhance the new values; any rejection or resistance would result in unpleasant consequences, including loss of jobs and income, demotion, character assassination, ostracizing, and even security threat to the system.
1.5 Bureaucracy and Development
Traditionally, bureaucracy
has played a key role in the processes of nation building and institutionalization of governance
and administration. As a central and most powerful institution of governance, bureaucracy—by
virtue of its organizational, knowledge, and control capacities—has always been instrumental
in governing and public administration not only in developing nations, but also in advanced
industrialized countries. Bureaucracy is better organized, better controlled, order oriented, has
knowledge expertise, possesses large capacities which most organizations do not have, and it
receives its annual budget from the treasury allocated by politicians interested in preserving the
status quo and expanding their political interests through bureaucratic organizational channels.
Th ere is also an intimate relationship between the bureaucratic elite, the business elite, and the
political elite whose desire is often linked to the other two—all three form iron triangles in
various fi elds or sectors.
In pursing development policies, bureaucracy is in a strategic position to formulate and develop
policy proposals, submit them to legislatures for approval, manipulate the process, and form alliance
in the legislatures as most bureaucratic elite members are also members of political and business
elite.
Bureaucracy is also involved in implementing policy decisions coming back from the
legislature—whether in parliamentary or congressional and presidential systems, like the United
States—and then again involved in evaluation and the whole cycle continues.
In terms of development, bureaucracy is also in key positions to devise,
develop, and implement developmental projects, programs, and activities, very often slowly and
with probable corruption.
In developing countries, likewise, bureaucracy has played a major role in the development
process, but not fast enough, therefore raising a critical question of why bureaucracy is not the best
institution to achieve development goals. Actually, this is a critical question and cannot be simplifi
ed with a negative answer, as it all depends on the political elite and governing elite being independent
and constructive or not, or are they simply pawns or instruments of foreign colonial and
imperialist powers or not. Nevertheless, for faster development process many factors are involved,
including a cable and development administrative capacity to initiate and implement development
projects and programs eff ectively and effi ciently. Bureaucracy is slow in doing this, but it can be
complemented by nonbureaucratic and hybrid organizational systems of administration to manage
development. Nevertheless, bureaucracy can play that mothership role, steering and guiding
all other institutional systems in the development process. Several chapters in this book address
the role of bureaucracy in development in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. However, as noted
above, much of the success of development depends on political elite autonomy from external pressures
and dictation and on the degree to which indigenous population are involved.
Development requires sound development administration, and development administration
requires sound administrative capacity—with institutional, organizational, managerial, and leadership
knowledge, skills, and commitments with values that transcend diversity and diff erences.
Administrative development capacity building requires education and training, program development,
leadership training, and a host of other capacity developments. Unless internalized and
developed with commitments, mere importation of these ideas and expertise cannot work as they
become useless in the face of changes and upheavals—simply put, there is no confi dence building
involved and no leadership to sustain it even if built.
-->Studies have shown that bureaucracy is not resistant to changes that may serve national development
goals, as long as their positions are not lost to outsiders. For example, privatization in some developing countries like Bangladesh has met little or no resistance from bureaucrats, especially from higher civil servants of the bureaucracy, because most of these higher civil servants are usually involved and connected to the privatized business elite.
1.6 Bureaucracy, Change, and Revolution
However, briefl y noted here,
bureaucracy, by nature, is slow to change and adapt, but under right conditions it can be altered
to respond to popular demand. Yet, expectations must be modifi ed as the dynamic ingredients
for radical change and transformation are scarce in the bureaucracy. Bureaucracy stands for order,
specialization, professionalization, and stability; its propensity for change is low and must be supplemented
with additional dynamic energy and forces.
Th eories of change and reform point to three types of change and reform: top-down, bottomup,
and institutional (Peters, 2001; Farazmand, 2002). Top-down reforms and changes move
from the center downward—from the elite and organizational leaders who for some reasons see a
need for change and reform. Th ese reasons can be economic, social, and political or cultural, but
mainly it is due to political system maintenance reasons, instituting some reform to pacify rebelling
forces below and to preserve the system in control. Very often political regimes in trouble
come up with some top-down reforms to preserve the system and prevent social revolutions.
Bottom-up reforms are most pushed upward by popular pressures demanding change and
genuine reforms in a system plagued by corruption, repression, or simply ineffi ciency. Whatever
the motivation, bottom-up reforms and changes are most of the time reformist at best and not
revolutionary, as once the motivation loses heat, business as usual starts to creep in. Sometimes,
however, people are not satisfi ed by piece meal changes and push for more radical ones, a process
that can make dynamics hard if not impossible to predict or control. Most revolutionary movements
lead to this level and progress further till the system is replaced. Reforms do not bring about
fundamental changes; they simply make adjustments to preserve the status quo.
Institutional reforms and changes are rather more comprehensive and embrace not just one
organization or agency; they embrace a whole spectrum of institutional arrangements of a government
or the entire system of an institution, involving its people, culture, and value systems.
It is holistic and combines both top-down and bottom-up approaches, but it goes to the heart of
the system and institutionalizes the reforms or changes to make sure that those involved accept
and take part in the process. Short of being revolutionary changes, most institutional changes are
comprehensive and take a long time to accomplish.
Revolutionary changes come as a result of a radical answer to a fundamental question: What to
do with the old regime’s bureaucracy so entrenched and supportive of the old order? Th is is a central
question for all revolutionary leaders, from the French to the Russian and the Cuban, Chinese,
and the Iranian revolutions.(but even they didnt abolish it completely as it was not possible.)
Revolutions demand revolutionary changes in the machinery of government and administrative
systems. Any piecemeal change will do more harm and undermine the new system; its gains
must be consolidated. Th us revolutionary changes include replacement of all key and strategic
positions and offi cials, leaving the lower echelons of the bureaucracy in place but closely supervised
to perform necessary functions, only to be led by a new administrative elite, having military
commanders loyal to the new regime, and absorbing neutral and loyal members of the old system
gradually and cautiously into the new bureaucracy. Th is is what the Iranian revolutionary leaders
did by creating antibureaucratic, parallel organizations against the bureaucracy, and staff ed the
bureaucracy with new revolutionary leaders, as well as mobilizing the entire population of the citizenry
into various grassroots organizations to check on the bureaucracy and to perform essential
public service functions.
Th e Russians also did the same, so did the Chinese and the Cubans. And so did the Americanbacked
military dictators like Pinochet in post-Allende Chile and the Shah’s military and bureaucratic
elite in post-coup d’ état 1953 Iran—all potentially loyal offi cers of the old system were not
only fi red, but executed, jailed, or they disappeared from the face of the earth. Th e same was done
by American occupying forces after invading Iraq—most Saddam’s military and civilian bureaucratic
offi ces and offi cers were eliminated, executed, or replaced with new ones.
Conclusion: Bureaucracy Persists, Beyond Weber
Th e above rather brief discussion concludes that bureaucracy persists and has survived millennia
of all changes—slow and radical, and peaceful and bloody violent ones. Why does bureaucracy persist? It persists because it provides professionalism and continuity in organizational, cultural,
and managerial structure and values; it stands for order and stability in the wake of turbulence.
Yet, its slowness and sometime resistance to change make it diffi cult, if not impossible, to make
changes possible. Only resolute decisions and committed leadership can bring about changes in
bureaucracy through genuine programs of reform that involve institutional members and those
aff ected by the reforms. Revolutionary changes require revolutionary and fundamental changes
in the old bureaucracy, otherwise tenacious old habits die hard and can undermine the new order.
Also, crises and emergency situations demand a swift administrative response that established
bureaucracies are generally not suited for, unless they have special organizational design capacities
prepared and in place for such events (Farazmand, 2007).
What about a stifl ing bureaucracy unresponsive to rising popular demands? Th e antibureaucratic
movements of the last 25 years or so have caused massive public awareness about the rigid,
slow moving bureaucracy insensitive to pressures of a much demanding fast life for citizens who
feel more and more unhappy with government performance and bureaucratic obstacles. Understanding
the positive side of the bureaucracy is important, and it is time for the traditional bureaucratic
models to learn to change, adapt, and relearn to lead organizationally, to meet the challenges
of rapid globalization, and to respond to citizens’ demands and expectations. Bureaucracy must
move “beyond Weber” and adapt to changes and transformations that challenge the administrative
or bureaucratic systems. Bureaucracies everywhere are now forced to learn to adapt and change,
open up secret and monopolistic information, share it with citizens and other organizations, and
perform with transparency and ethical standards. Th is is the new challenge of the time in the age
of rapid globalization (Farazmand, 2009, forthcoming) and “global empire” (Amsden, 2007).
Indian Legacy of Bureaucracy and Administration
Of the three fully developed ancient bureaucracies of India, China, and Iran, the Indian legacy
has made a widespread contribution to modern public administration in the third world, mainly
through the agency of the British Empire. Th is happened because the British had no precedents,
experience, or ideas available in their own domestic nonbureaucratic arrangements for applying to
their new Indian possessions in the late eighteenth century and hence they picked up, polished,
and adapted the relevant practices of Indian administration to their immediate needs. As their
empire expanded onto Southeast Asia and Africa, they simply transplanted these onto their new
possessions thus spreading the Indian legacy over large areas of the globe. For this reason alone,
the administrative legacy of ancient India is worth careful study.
Evolution of Imperial Bureaucracy
1.Early Hindu political institutions were not imperial; there were several democratic republics on one
side and several monarchies with some ethical and institutional controls on the other. Most republics
were conquered and absorbed by neighboring kingdoms, but the Indian republican tradition
is preserved for us not only in the writings of Greek scholars, but also in the republican conciliar
constitution of the Buddhist Sangha [6].
2.For quite a long while, the monarchs fought each other
according to well known rules without absorbing and integrating rival kingdoms into a larger
empire, being satisfi ed with proclaiming a vague paramountcy. Th e Rajasuya sacrifi ce performed
by victorious monarchs, just confi rmed and acknowledged this paramountcy. Th is arrangement
gave way to imperial conquest and territorial absorption by the fi fth century BC when the Nanda
dynasty founded an empire in the Gangetic valley—which was soon after expanded and consolidated
by Chandragupta Maurya into the famous Mauryan Empire, a little earlier to the fi rst
empire of Shi Huang Ti in China, and contemporaneous with the Achaemenid Empire in Iran.
Th e three world states or empires thus took shape within a few years of each other—and in all
the three cases, the power holders opted for some form of bureaucracy to integrate their conquests
and preserve their hold. In other words, the occasion and provocation for ancient bureaucracy
was the need to knit and rule a new empire of sizeable area.
Th e logic behind this is worked out in the structure of the famous contemporary work Kautilya’s Arthasastra [7]. Th e fi rst six “books” or sections describe in great detail a centralized bureaucracy while the next nine discuss the ways of acquiring other lands by war and diplomacy to build an empire. Th e order seems reversed; the acquisition of empire coming after the details of its administration, but their mutual relationship
is clear.
3.Th e options for an empire builder were few and clear. In a small kingdom or republic, a
fl exible mode of governing without elaborate formal structures was the norm. But with a large
empire, the options were letting the old rulers continue as tributaries, or creating a new feudal
order of nobles with full local power or structuring a new bureaucracy of paid loyal offi cials. Th e
bureaucratic option was chosen as the best way to consolidate power with loyal offi cers without
their own power-base. Th e logic behind this comes out clearly in Chapters X and XII of the fi rst
book of Arthasastra dealing with the testing of ministers and offi cials with various temptations and
the ruthless manner in which “thorns” (traitors) were to be dealt with. Th e bureaucracy was to be
based not on birth or relationship, but on merit and loyalty alone without which the bureaucratic
option to entrench power and hold an empire together would not work.
4.Arthasastra’s fi rst six “books” form probably the most detailed manual of monarchical administration
in the ancient or medieval world, though more scholarly attention has been devoted to
the last nine books on war, diplomacy, and international relations. Th e instructions on administration
cover all areas and functions with brutal detail and clarity.
Indeed, the second book, with its 38 chapters, is one of the most specifi cally detailed account
of imperial administration anywhere in the ancient world. Th us Chapter X on royal writs discusses
all grammatical and stylistic nuances and Chapter XI on gems and gifts is a virtual catalogue of
all contemporary products. Other chapters elaborate central administration, provincial, regional,
fi eld and village administration, municipal administration, fi nancial and resource administration,
and justice and military administration.
5.Kautilya glides lightly over contractual theories of kingship, assumes that a high
concentration of power is necessary for civilized society to carry on, and advises the King against
all sorts of stratagems, to be strong and diligent. At the same time, no man can run a state singlehanded;
one needs a central team of advisers and a large team of fi eld executives. Kautilya implicitly
bypasses the options of feudalist power-sharing and patrimonial delegation—and advises the
monarch to choose all advisers and offi cers by various tests for loyalty and merit. Th e testing
against “allurements” and particularly “religious allurement” in Chapter VII of the fi rst book
implies a separation of religion from politics and a sharp focus on ability and loyalty in the choice
of ministers and offi cials.
6.Th e structure of central administration is given in great detail both in Kautilya’s Arthasastra
and in the Asokan inscriptions [9]. Th ey agree about two or three top levels in central administration;
a minister or ministers called Mantrin (Kautilya) or Mahamatra (Asoka); a council of ministers
at the next level (Mantri parishad), and many top offi cers and public servants variously called
Amatyas or Sachivas, in a clear hierarchy. Th ese three levels were retained with slightly changed
names in the later Gupta Empire in the fi fth century AD and under Harsha in the seventh century.
Th e general of the army was also a Mantri of equal status, as were the viceroys or Kumaras of
the four large regions or provinces of the Mauryan Empire. Th eir high and equal status is borne
out by the high annual salary of 48,000 panas assigned to them. Th e members of the council were
either part-time or consultative and drew 12,000 panas, but the public servants “amatyas” drew
24,000 panas, or half of what the top Mantrins earned.
Th e army administration was separately organized as was accounting and fi nancial administration
through separate hierarchies. Th e offi ce of Collector General (Samahartri) and the Accountant
General (Akshapataladhyaksha) were separate and each had its own hierarchy. Chapter VI
of Book II on the former goes into detail about the distinctions between current receipts and last
balance, and between necessary and profi table expenditure while Chapter VII on accounts details
various types of accounting deceptions and their punishment, and a separate long Chapter VII
focuses on embezzlement. Kautilya goes into minute detail about everything, but even more so in
regard to fi nance. Th us Chapter XXI of Book II, on tolls, details various punishments for various
off ences relating to toll evasion and Chapter XVI on commerce discusses government monopolies
of local produce and imports in detail and suitable ways of increasing profi t. Two detailed chapters
are again assigned to gold and currency.
Th e central administrative structure was generally replicated in the regions or provinces governed
by viceroys. Th ese were subdivided into divisions and districts. Th e district has continued
to be the nerve center of fi eld administration today [10]. Th e district offi cer then called Pradeshtri
or Sthanika seems to have been much the same as his present day counterpart. He combined
revenue collection and magisterial duties and supervised the work of other technical or clerical
offi cials (Yutktas) as well as village government under the Gopa. Th e Asokan inscriptions as well as
Kautilya’s work generally agree in most regards. As a great Buddhist emperor, Asoka of course
appointed Dharma mahamatras or ethical superintendents to elevate the moral tone of the society.
How was such an elaborate tentacular bureaucracy sustained in loyalty and effi ciency in those
days of diffi cult communication? It was achieved essentially through three factors: an elaborate
system of internal spying and inspection, the hard work and vigilance of the emperor and his
cohorts, and thirdly through a skeletal monetary economy with cash payments.
Th is bureaucratic system founded by Kautilya, Chandragupta, and Asoka was adopted by
the successor empires of the Guptas, and of Harsha with minor changes in name and substance
[11]. Th us we fi nd an offi cer for war and peace, Sandhivigraha, another offi cer Uparika associated
with provincial administration, Kumaramatyas or experienced offi cials, and Dandanayaka standing
for a police or an army offi cer. Th e Guptas in the North and the Cholas in the South made a
sophisticated system of village self-government an integral part of the administrative system. But
the overall structures of central and provincial administration were essentially modifi cations of the
Arthasastra–Asoka model.
Imperial unity did not, however, last in India as it did in China. Th e Mauryan Empire declined
after Asoka and was replaced by the Sunga dynasty ruling over a smaller area. India was divided
into a number of fairly sizeable independent states with the western parts being under Persian
satraps. Th e Indianized Kushan Empire after straddling a good part of North India and areas of
Central Asia lasted for a century after Christ spreading Buddhist culture.
Th is was followed by another period of border incursions and independent states until the
Guptas in the fourth century welded a good part of India into an empire after subduing the Saka
invaders. Th e empire declined due to Hun invasions and other disintegrative factors, giving way to
several independent kingdoms. Th e empire of Harsha in the seventh century covering North India
up to the Narmada River, a loosely knit federal empire was the swansong of the Hindu imperial
tradition. After four centuries of smaller empires and some independent kingdoms, the Muslim
invaders established a sultanate in Delhi from the late twelfth century. While their rule covered
a good part of North India, it was checkered by change of dynasties, assassinations, intrigues,
and rebellions and was not characterized by steady patterns of administration. Th e exception was
Sher Shah in the late fi fteenth century, whose revenue administration formed a model for the
Mughuls.
Th e Mughul Empire in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries provided a steady pattern of
administration, but its decline in the eighteenth century was followed by total anarchy in large
parts of North India, when the British East India Company began its career or gradual conquest.
Th roughout the long period from the thirteenth to the eighteenth century, South India witnessed
the rise and fall of the Vijayanagar Empire, the Bahmani Kingdom, the Muslim sultanates of
Bijapur and Golconda largely under their Hindu ministers, the rise and fall of Mahratta power,
and several smaller viceroyalties and kingdoms. Th is extremely cursory historical account underscores
the point that India had no imperial administrative continuity as China had under the
mandarinic. Some administrative ideas, however, survived in modifi ed or resuscitated forms. Let
us investigate the causes of discontinuity in India and the nature of the modifi ed continuity.
3.5 Marxist and Weberian Attitudes
Our analysis of ancient Indian bureaucracy as such seems self-suffi cient in terms of our parameters.
But a brief glance at Weber’s and Marx’s ideas in this regard may be attempted cautiously. Th e fi rst
diffi culty in this is that there is no agreement among competing Marxists and non-Marxists as to
what is meant by Marx’s AMP or Precapitalist Mode of Production [21]. Secondly, several scholars
have pointed out, the meager undeveloped European orientalist sources from which Weber and
Marx drew [22]. Without bothering to study that debate we can look at the question afresh in our
own way.
We may assume that Weber’s characterization of modern legal rational bureaucracy involves
(1) the mutual complementarity of these characteristics, and (2) assumes that a market and
monetary economy was essential for these characteristics to be sustained. It then follows that
ancient bureaucracies having only some of the characteristics and not being based on a monetary
economy could not continue as legal-rational bureaucracies.
We can argue that this mode of
dismissing them is arbitrary. Th e Mauryan bureaucracy in India or the Han and Tang bureaucracies
in China and certainly the Persian bureaucracy exhibited the main characteristics of
the Weberian list, of hierarchy, rules and regulations, division of labor, and career orientation
in a sustained manner for long periods, in an economy which was at least partly monetary
though predominantly barter and exchange based.. Th ere is thus no need to lump them
under some pejorative labels like patrimonial or prebendal for nonstudy. Th e real argument
for a sharper identifi cation of modern legal-rational bureaucracy away from ancient bureaucracies
was never spelled out precisely by Weber himself though it may be inferred by the second
remove by mar rying the general approach of Weber to that of his great contemporaries Tonnies
and Durkhcim .
Th us the impersonal legalrational characteristics of modern bureaucracy—are sustained by a gesellschaft society that is itself organized into partly impersonal functional associations. Th is correspondence, makes it easy
for bureaucracy’s recruitment of personnel from society and its smooth interactions with society
just as a monetary economy makes a bureaucratic career dependent on job performance with
bureaucracy as a vocation—unlike in feudalistic prebendal or other modes of remuneration. To
the extent to which bureaucracy’s impersonal characteristics were divorced from that of a gemeinschaft
society, it was vulnerable either to continuous dilution by contact or ineff ectiveness by isolation.
Th e lapses of bureaucratic into feudal structures in ancient India developed partly because
of this. A similar development also overtook even Tudor bureaucracy in England after Elizabeth I
because it was evolved during a period of limited transport and communications and had fulfi lled
its main purpose of unifying the country.
It was an enlightened landed aristocracy that took power in the Glorious Revolution of 1688
and ran the country on a voluntaristic basis without much bureaucracy for a century and a half,
while bureaucracy took shape later in Louis XIV’s France and Frederick the Great’s Prussia when
feudalism was in its death throes and a gesellschaft society was evolving along with faster communications
[23]. It was this harmonious simultaneous evolution of society into gesellschaft and
bureaucracy that sustained both in the nineteenth century and later. It was the isolation of bureaucracy
in a gemeinschafi society that diluted it sooner or later.
Marx’s AMP has been interpreted diff erently by Marxists themselves, but let us assume for
the sake of argument that it meant bureaucratically controlled state monopolies in production
without private property. It is doubtful if that picture was obtained at all, in India, in its fullness
during any period. In fact, during the late eighteenth century, when the East India Company
was just entering India, it did not show such a picture at all. Th ere was some state controlled
production by Kharkhanas under the Mughuls at one end, a substantial accumulation of capital
for investment at another end, and a large surplus of privately manufactured cotton goods for
export—a strange combination indeed. Th e fi rm establishment of British rule, far from generating
an outburst of local capitalism as Marx might have expected, killed the textile industry,
diverted Indian capital into money-lending and gold ornament manufacture, and created
a purely salaried and professional bourgeoisie. Later Marxists like Kusinen have explained this
as an alliance of monopoly capitalism in its imperial phase with the traditional elite (Degras).
Whatever the merits of the original or refurbished AMP concept, it is clear that it gives no
insights into the role of ancient or medieval Indian bureaucracy in the context of the society at
that time and Wittfogel’s modifi ed theory relating hydraulic society and bureaucratic control
(which is disowned by several Marxists) does no better as we have already argued. In short, one
purpose of this chapter is to argue that neither Marx nor Weber have all that much to off er in
understanding ancient bureaucracies and to suggest a really fresh look at them without rigid
Weberian or Marxist commitments.
THEORETICAL AND CONCEPTUAL PERSPECTIVES ON BUREAUCRACY AND
BUREAUCRATIC POLITICS
1.Bureaucratic Links between Administration and Politics
Th ere are no doubts that originally rulers created
bureaucracies to serve them as instruments of administration to implement their policies. However,
as soon as anyone received an appointment to serve as a public offi cial, that person discovered that the
position carried power and created political interests. It is not an exaggeration to think of bureaucracy
as a class, and as a class that has both pronounced interests and the power to protect them. However,
by defi nition, bureaucracy is only a part of a larger system of governance. We can only understand how
bureaucrats behave (politically and administratively) when we take that larger system into account.
Th e history of the word bureaucracy refl ects the changing role of public offi cials in diff erent
systems of government. It was coined in the eighteenth century to refer to a state dominated by
appointed offi cials (Albrow 1970; Riggs 1979). I shall use bureaucratic policy for this concept,
which is an essential one in this chapter. In popular usage, bureaucrat became a term of derision.
Needless to say, this sense of the word is ruled out of the present discourse. However, in technical
usage the word soon came to mean a ruling class composed of public offi cials—a similar evolution
changed the meaning of “aristocracy” from a type of polity to the name of a class. Th en the
meaning of “bureaucracy” evolved further until it came to mean the class of appointed offi cials or
the positions they occupy, whether or not they exercise power. Th ose who think of bureaucrats as
politically “neutral” administrators have carried the idea another step, conceiving of public offi -
cials as a kind of powerless apparatus, devoid of self-interest or power.
Th e myth of a dichotomy between administration and politics rests, in general, on the construction
of this word: it postulates a politically neutral “state apparatus,” that is, the bureaucracy,
which merely implements the policies adopted by a ruling group, whether it consists of a “class,”
in the Marxist view, or of constitutionally prescribed “political” institutions.
Here I must use “bureaucracy,”
generically, to refer to all appointed offi cials regardless of their tenure in offi ce, their civil or military
status, or their rank.
To summarize, public bureaucracies (as defi ned above) always perform both administrative
and political (including nonpartisan) roles. In order to understand how their administrative functions
are performed, we need to consider their political roles; and conversely, to understand their
political functions we also need to think about their administrative roles. Accordingly, we need to
study the institutional factors that aff ect the motivation and capacity of public offi cials to engage
both in political action and in administrative tasks. I shall fi rst, discuss three intrabureaucratic
variables—tenure, income, and interdependence—that aff ect bureaucratic performance. Th en I
shall look at the extrabureaucratic institutional context of bureaucracy, going from the traditional
to the modern, including the third world.
Bureaucratic Variables
Intra bureaucratic
1. Tenure
2.Income
3.Interdependence
Extrabereaucratic
the administrative eff ectiveness of bureaucracy is optimized when its power position is balanced with that of extrabureaucratic institutions.Th is means that when bureaucratic power radically exceeds that of the extrabureaucratic institutions (or diminishes excessively) administrative performance levels decline.
Th is view confl icts with the widely accepted myth that politics and administration can
and should be divorced—such that public offi cials should not exercise power but should follow
politically neutral administrative public service norms, and by contrast, that the politically
dominant extrabureaucratic institutions ought to monopolize the shaping of public policies.
Th is myth has been widely disseminated in the third world, especially since World War II, primarily
under American infl uence. Instead of achieving its intended goal of enhancing administrative
capabilities, I believe it has, quite perversely, proven counterproductive, because it has encouraged
the unbalanced growth of bureaucratic power at the expense of the capacity of extrabureaucratic
institutions to monitor and control public bureaucracies. Ultimately, therefore, it has
tended to undermine rather than to enhance the administrative capabilities of struggling third
world regimes.
Modern Polities
Th e replacement of royal sovereignty with new self-governing institutions based on the principle of
popular sovereignty, as represented through political parties in elected assemblies, and by responsible
heads of government, greatly enhanced the capacity of extrabureaucratic institutions to control
offi cials, and also permitted a vast expansion of diff erentiated bureaucratic functions with an
interdependent structure staff ed by tenured salaried personnel.We are easily confused by the varieties of modern polities because we lack a collective term
for the set of institutions designed to implement popular sovereignty: namely, an electoral system,
an elected assembly, and a party system. For convenience, I refer to this composite set of
extrabureaucratic institutions as a constitutive system. Th e relevant sense of constitutive has this
dictionary defi nition: “having power to institute, establish or enact.” Th e term was selected,
because it resonates with such related words as constitution, constituents, and constituency
(Riggs 1969:243–246).
1.Single-Party Regimes
Some critics have argued that single-party authoritarian regimes are “modern,” yet lack a constitutive
system. However, if we do not defi ne “party system” rigidly by insisting that it must have
more than one party, the objection does not hold. As I understand a party system, it is the system
formally responsible for nominating and electing offi cials to public offi ce. As such, it may contain
only one party, or it may contain two or more parties. Clearly in countries like the former Soviet
Union and China today, the Communist Party does perform this function. Moreover, there are
elected assemblies and “elections,” even when voters have no option but to support a single candidate
for offi ce. Consequently these regimes do have a constitutive system.
Th e signifi cant point is that when a constitutive system contains only one party, that party is
able to manage the elections and dominate the assembly. Moreover, as in all modern polities, the
constitutive system is able to control the public bureaucracy, primarily by means of party groups
of committees established to monitor the performance of key elements in the state “apparatus.”
Clearly this eff ort is not always successful, as seen in the rise of collusive “family circles” (Fainsod
1963).14 Moreover, the curtailment or abolition of private organizations typical in such polities
dictates a mammoth expansion of bureaucratic functions, thereby greatly increasing the diffi culties
involved in controlling the bureaucracy. Mikhail Gorbachov’s perestroika refl ects a current
attempt to ameliorate these problems in the Soviet Union by curtailing the extent of central domination
over bureaucratic behavior. Th e goal is simultaneously to enhance the performance levels
of public administration and to transfer some functions to an embryonic “private sector,” subject
to market rather than direct political controls.
2.Open Constitutive Systems
More responsiveness to public opinion and openness to dissent is achieved in polities whose constitutive
system contains a competitive party system—one with two or more parties. No doubt
critics will complain that to the degree such polities permit private capitalism, economic power
becomes unequally distributed and great inequities can result. However, it also seems apparent
that without a vigorous private sector, the economic basis for support of a multiparty system and
a powerful elected assembly cannot exist. “Open constitutive systems”—as we may call those
containing multiparty systems—are able to control their bureaucracies just as well as the “closed
constitutive systems” that have only one party.
However, the way such controls are exercised varies signifi cantly depending on the way the
chief executive (or head of government) is chosen. In parliamentary systems the norm involves
selection, via the elected assembly, of a governing cabinet under the leadership of a prime minister.
By contrast, in presidentialist systems, based on the principle of “separation of powers,” we fi nd
independent election of a president and an assembly, each with a fi xed term of offi ce.
Th e term presidentialist is used to make an important distinction: since parliamentary systems
also often have “presidents,” whether directly or indirectly elected, we need to distinguish clearly
between “presidentialist” systems, based on the separation of powers, and other kinds of “presidential”
systems. Moreover, presidential is often used in discussions of the role of the president, rather
than the constitutional system as a whole. Whether or not the head of state is called a president
seems to have no particular importance, and this concept is therefore not used here. What is important
is the distinction between two ideal types of open constitutive system: the parliamentary and
the presidentialist. No doubt there are numerous varieties of each, and increasingly also hybrids,
such as we fi nd in the French Fifth Republic. Because of its historical signifi cance the American
regime is treated as a prototype for presidentialism, but comparative analysis of other presidentialist
systems is needed to demonstrate its general properties. Because the bureaucratic role under
parliamentarism and presidentialism is strikingly diff erent, I shall discuss each in turn.
Bureaucratic Power in the Third World
According to statistics collected in 1965 (see Tables 5.1 and 5.2) some 57 third world regimes out
of a total of 141 (about 40%) had lost power at least once in military coups—100% of the 33 with
presidentialist constitutions have experienced at least one breakdown and episode of military rule.
More recent fi gures would not signifi cantly change this fi nding. Since military offi cers form part
of every country’s bureaucracy, the phenomenon has a lot to do with bureaucratic politics—and
administration.
1.Bureaucratic Power
Virtually all of the new states that were liberated from imperial rule after World War II inherited a
well-established and modernized public bureaucracy. By contrast, most of them did not inherit an
institutionalized constitutive system. However, there were signifi cant diff erences among the states
concerning the viability of these systems: some were simply much more fragile than others.
Th ose that were more fragile soon found themselves in the awkward position of being unable to
control their own bureaucracies, hence unable to govern. In a situation of political crisis and collapsing
public administration, groups of public offi cials came to the conclusion that it was neces sary
for them to seize power in order to prevent complete anarchy. Since there is no constitutionally legitimate formula in any country whereby appointed offi cials select their own leader, the only
remaining road to power involves violence or the threat of violence. Exceptionally, desperate civilian
leaders called on career offi cers to rule—as in Burma in 1958. Even there, after parliamentary
government was restored, General Ne Win returned to power by a coup in 1962. Usually, then, a
bureaucratic cabal, headed by military offi cers, seizes control of a collapsing regime.
Th e political or administrative role of bureaucracy in the new states, therefore, refl ects a tension
between the forces involved in the creation of new extrabureaucratic constitutive systems and
those acting to indigenize the existing bureaucratic machinery of government.
We may, nevertheless, distinguish between the older and the newer states of the third world.
Th ose that were liberated in the twentieth century, notably after World War II, in Asia and Africa
had relatively “modern” bureaucracies in which some kind of merit system had been developed.
By contrast, those that secured their independence in the nineteenth century, particularly in the
Americas, inherited a patronage-based premodern type of bureaucracy. Let me hypothesize that it
was easier for extrabureaucratic constitutive systems to retain control over patronage-based than
over merit-based bureaucracies. Th is would explain why, in Latin America, the incidence of coups
increased as merit systems, especially in the military services, grew. Th e exceptional case is that of
the United States.
2.Traditional Monarchies
Th e traditional form of extrabureaucratic institution was monarchic. In traditional monarchies,
as I use this term, kings actually rule—they are not mere fi gureheads.
also talk of constitutional monarchies
3.Constitutional Models
Far more interestingly and importantly, the new states usually borrowed constitutional regimes
from their former imperial masters, or they organized single-party authoritarian regimes based
on the Soviet (Bolshevik) model. In all these cases a constitutive system had been established as
the popularly based ruling institution. However, in almost half of these states these institutions
collapsed after an initial “vestibule” period during which they struggled to govern and keep the
bureaucracy under control.
According to my 1985 data (see Table 5.2) there were then 109 new states, of which 48 (44%)
had succumbed at least once to a coup d’état—many had succumbed more often. In these 48
states, therefore, the bureaucracy had displaced its constitutive system. Th ere were 61 states (56%),
by contrast, that had retained their constitutive systems and were able to sustain, however precariously,
a balance of power with their public bureaucracies.
As the fi gures in Table 5.2 show, the success ratio of the diff erent kinds of constitutive system
varies greatly: of 34 single-party authoritarian regimes, only fi ve (15%) succumbed to coups,
whereas of 75 with open (i.e., multiparty) constitutive systems, 43 (57%) succumbed to coups. No
doubt it is easier for authoritarian regimes that ban opposition parties and suppress their opponents
to sustain their control over the machinery of government that it is for polities based on the
protection of minority rights and civil liberties.
4.Open Polities
in general, the presidentialist regimes originated after the revolutionary war, whereas most parliamentary
regimes came into existence by negotiation. In these countries, however, revolutionary
origin appears to have a negative relation to postrevolutionary survival. Actually, the diff erence
between the fates of presidentialist and parliamentary regimes is quite striking and deserves closer
analysis.
Of the 33 new states that adopted a presidentialist constitution, at least 30 (91%) have experienced
coups—and the remaining 3 have succumbed for other reasons. By contrast, of the 42
states coded as basically parliamentary in structure, only 13 (31%) have been displaced by military
coups.
Even so, the statistical contrast is suggestive, and it compels
us to consider the possibility that presidentialist systems are inherently diffi cult to sustain. If so,
even a weak premodern bureaucracy might well fi nd itself compelled by the failure of a government
to try in its own self-interest, to fi ll the “vacuum.” If we are to understand the political role of
bureaucracies and its relation to the viability of extrabureaucratic (constitutive) systems, we need
to pay attention to the design of these systems and the typical problems they create, especially as
they relate to the control and direction of bureaucracies.
5.Presidentialist Regimes
(disucss why it is weak system)
A Parabolic Theory of Bureaucracy or Max Weber through the Looking Glass
1.A Parabolic Curve of Bureaucratization
For some time, students of bureaucracy have been concerned with its apparent contradictions. On
the one hand, its institutionalization of legal–rational authority makes it more productive than
most alternative forms of human organization, especially on a large scale. Yet it manifests so many
potential organizational defi ciencies or bureaupathologies that it can become most unproductive.
Can it be that there is in operation the same kind of process that economists and others have observed in respect to utility, namely a parabolic curve whereby with increasing resources, utility
at fi rst accelerates, then experiences diminishing marginal returns, and fi nally reaches a point of
nonutility? With increasing bureaucratization, does productivity fi rst accelerate, then experience
diminishing returns, and fi nally reach a point of actual decline?
When, during the nineteenth century, industrializing societies experienced the increased
productivity of bureaucratization, scholarship concentrated on the functionality of bureaucracy.
Weber’s ideal type analysis could be (and was often) interpreted as a justifi cation and exhortation
of bureaucratization, although he, like Durkheim and others, also noted its alienating eff ects on
individuals and its other dysfunctional elements. As bureaucratization increased, its dysfunctionalities
became more apparent and attracted more and more attention during the fi rst half of the
twentieth century, and bureaucracy itself became subject to increasing criticism. But only in the
second half of the century has research concentrated on the dysfunctional bureaucracy, suggesting
that further bureaucratization may induce so many bureaupathologies that bureaucracy will
become dysfunctional, productivity will decline, performance will be inhibited, and many of the
already overbureaucratized organizations would be better off if they debureaucratized. So infl uential
have these critics been that policymakers now look for alternative ways of delivering public
services other than through public bureaucracies and responsive management experiments with
debureaucratization to increase productivity.
2.Max Weber through the Looking Glass
Not only did he outline the advantages of legal–rational authority in organizing human activities, but he also referred to some of its disadvantages, increasingly so toward the end of his life when bureaucratization was fast becoming the norm of contemporary society. Despite his warnings, bureaucratization has almost been deifi ed by organizational analysts who have preferred to blame its apparent shortcomings on the inability of people to adapt themselves to bureaucratization rather than delve into inherent shortcomings. Today, the term “bureaupathology” is no longer applied to organizational misfi ts, but, as the word would suggest, to the
pathologies, sicknesses, or shortcomings of the bureaucratic form of organization
Th e virtues of bureaucracy are well known. But if the bureaucratization process is carried too
far, if it is hastily pursued, and if it is misapplied, then the virtues turn into vices.
what constitutes bureaucratic dysfunction will vary according to the
size of organizations, their purposes, their structures, their tolerance of ineffi ciency, and even their
perceptions of organizational health. Organizations may not be aware of what is happening slowly
to them for there may not be any outward signs of bureaucratic dysfunction, but eventually they
will suff er bureaupathologies which, if not treated in time or properly, will lead to their demise.
a. Specialization or Dehumanization ?.
Th e virtues of the division of labor have long been admired. Th e industrial society has carried the
division of labor to its logical conclusion in the workplace. Industrial engineering has extended
job diff erentiation, position classifi cation, and simple task performance, epitomized by Charlie
Chaplin in Modern Times.
Explain how it affects organisation as awhole including subordinates who try to flaw and get away as manager is dehumanised )
b.Hierarchy
Th e virtues of hierarchy are well known. Hierarchy concentrates authority, provides direction, and
ensures coordination. It enforces accountability through direct and clear lines of responsibility
from top to bottom in a bureaucratic organization. It is simple and easily understood. Th ose in
the upper reaches of hierarchy set the tone, give orders, and ensure that the lower reaches carry
out the orders given them. Th ose in the lower reaches carry out the orders given them and report
to their superiors on what they do. Th e bureaucratic organization moves with purpose, order, and
discipline, with everyone pulling in the same direction and combining with everyone else to that
end. If, however, hierarchy is carried too far, with layers upon layers of authority, something quite
diff erent results.
Excessive hierarchy encourages irresponsibility. Everyone below the apex has fi xed jurisdiction,
fi xed authority, and fi xed duties and obligations, which are only fragments of the whole. Th eir
vision is deliberately curtailed. Th ey are warned not to exceed their bounds, not to invade somebody
else’s territory, and not to concern themselves with matters outside their responsibility. So,
apart from the apex, the interest of all becomes the interest of none. Nobody needs be concerned
with the whole, only with his or her small part, and as long as that area seems to be doing well, it
matters not that the whole may be jeopardized, although such subsystem optimization may work
against the best interests of the whole system, which may require greater self-discipline and common
sacrifi ces. Th e assumption is that the apex knows what is going on and looks after the interests
of all. Should the apex fail to realize its responsibility to the whole, there is no way formally
that the vacuum can be fi lled, and woe betide those who take upon themselves the task of fi lling
apparent vacuums unless authorized expressly by the apex or some external overriding authority.
c.Rules and Regulations
d.Management by Administrators (generalist Vs specialist )?.
e.Impersonality
Th e virtue of bureaucracy and bureaucrats is that they are impersonal, act impartially, put aside
all extraneous and personal considerations, and decide rationally. Presumably the rational decision
is the right decision. But impersonality can be carried too far, especially in human service
organizations where the aim is to assist deserving clients. Excessive impersonality turns clients into
dehumanized objects—cyphers, symbols, cards, cases, fi les, or numbers—and inevitably becomes
quite insensitive even to genuine human plights.
f.Careerism
Careerism certainly helps to attract and retain qualifi ed and competent people to devote their
working lives to bureaucratic organizations. Appointments are made on merit alone. Employees
have guaranteed tenure as long as they do an acceptable job. And as a reward for their organizational
loyalty, they receive a pension at retirement. Th us assured, they can devote themselves and
their talents to advancing the interests of their employer and concentrate on doing a good job
without worrying distractions. If carried too far, the concept of careerism can produce a quite
diff erent type of employee.
Th e career system is a closed system. Successful probationers stay with the same organization
for the whole of their working lives. Th ey know no other organization. Th ey gain no other
experience. Th ey work with much the same people. Th e organization is incestuous. All who enter
are socialized to conformity. Th ose who decide on promotions look for people much like themselves.
Th e whole system is self-perpetuating. Its quality depends on whom it fi rst attracts and
whom it manages to retain. If it attracts quality, that quality will move through the organization,
but if it fails to attract high-quality people or high-quality people leave early, then mediocrity
predominates.
3.Implications
In time, it negates all that bureaucratization
is supposed to promote. Excessive specialization may well result in uncaring, uninterested
employees, working well below capacity and unwilling to stop the organizational saboteurs among
them. Excessive hierarchy may well result in ignorant, powerless elites who are captives of bloated
middle management busy manufacturing needless work for others. Excessive rules may well result
in corruption and arbitrariness. Excessive impersonality may well result in insensitivity, indiff erence,
petty manipulation of clients, and employee burnout. Excessive careerism may well produce
a staff of mediocre time-servers. Together, these constitute quite a caricature of bureaucracy, but
if we look around at the real world of organizations, one cannot be sanguine about the possibility
that some large organizations, some autocratic organizations, and some secret fraternal organizations
have already succumbed to excessive bureaucratization.
It is important for any organization to recognize, if possible, two points. One is where diminishing
marginal effi ciency (or output or performance) occurs and the other where marginal effi -
ciency actually evaporates. Th is can only be done through complex and continued measurement
of the operations of the whole organization. What is needed is the equivalent of the control room
in a computerized production line. Such organizational monitors are now being devised but the
costs are high and their deployment raises other important issues as the implementation of the
1993 Government Performance and Results Act illustrates.
But it is unnecessary to go to such lengths to profi t from the foregoing analysis. Every organization
can safeguard itself against overbureaucratization in simpler ways by directing close attention
to each bureaucratic characteristic. Excessive division of labor is already being tackled by
work integration, job rotation, mechanization of routinized operations, and a holistic view of
members or employees. Even so, it will remain a fact that most people are overeducated for the
work they do and if anything the spread of high technology will increase the gap. (Who will need
to tell time or spell when machines do that already?) Work, not education, needs to be restructured
to allow more active participation by those who perform it by increasing tasks and expanding
decision-making responsibilities.
Unfortunately, excessive hierarchy prevents restructuring work in this way. Unnecessary layers,
particularly at middle levels of the organization, need to be consolidated and the whole structure
reduced so that the distance between top and bottom is shortened. Computerization has given
organizations the opportunity of shrinking middle management and they have seized it. Similarly,
excessive red tape and formalities need to be minimized and the gap between the formal rules and
the informal group norms reduced, again by allowing line people to assume greater responsibility for deciding how to perform their tasks. Th is too is being done through genuine decentralization
and the implementation of the New Public Management. Administrative rule does not have to be
taken to such extremes, and reward structures should be arranged to permit line people to receive
more than managers who exercise, at least on paper, authority over them, and steps should be
taken to prevent the isolation at the apex.
Likewise, organizations should accept that the idea of impersonality is too demanding,
particularly in welfare and human service bureaucracies. Th e personal touch may be desirable, as
long as care is taken to prevent discrimination, prejudice, and arbitrariness. Work should not be
structured as to demand perfect human beings to perform it, and greater attention should be
paid to detecting and overcoming personal stress on the job and burnout. For this and other reasons,
there should be greater freedom of entry and exit in the organization at all levels, without
penalties imposed on promotion prospects or retirement benefi ts. Careerism has its place but
not to the detriment of organizational performance. No one is owed a living and organizational
generos ity should not substitute for a proper social welfare system and adequate retraining facilities
of members or employees who no longer pull their weight. In any event, younger generations
are not so prepared to stick to one employer or organization; they want more mobility and they
expect several career changes in their lifetime.
Th ese are but samples of what can and should be done in dealing with overbureaucratization.
Th e analysis still leaves open more serious questions as to where and when bureaucratization has
been wrongly applied, how bureaucracy itself can be replaced by alternative schemes of human
organization, and what refi nements still need to be made in the bureaucratic form to make organizations
more error-free, innovative, and adaptive. Reengineering now does this with much success.
We do not have to stand Max Weber on his head. We just need to peer more closely at him
through the looking glass.
Building Blocks toward a Theory of Public Administration
Public administration is the study of the state in action, that is, the administrative state as contrasted
with the political, economic, or social aspect of the state as an institutionalized collective
power. A theory of public administration would entail a theory of the administrative state,
something more than a theory of government but less than a theory of collective action.
It would be broader in scope than any
idiosyncratic form of institutionalized collective power, and it would have to take into account
the international superstructure that binds the community of nations into a real world network.
Although this form of governance has been growing at an increasingly accelerating pace, particularly
in the latter half of the twentieth century, there is still no global theory of the administrative
state and few related to it, despite its obvious centrality in contemporary society and its clear staying
power.
Could there be any universal elements on which a global theory of the administrative state could be based?
Need to inderstand the administrative state .
1.A Theory of Collective Action and Communitarianism
Th e administrative state constitutes possibly the largest organization in any country if one includes
the whole machinery of government, together with public enterprises, military and police forces,parastatals and NGOs offi cial overseas representations, and neighborhood associations, however ill-knit.Since the 1960s, little attempt has been made to fi nd a universal theory all human organizations and all collective nonprivate action. Th eories in this area continue to proliferate, and they are expressed in increasingly obtuse and diffi cult language beyond the comprehension (and knowledge) of most practitioners.
2.A Theory of the Public Interest
Plato and Aristotle were quite clear on this, as were the authors of Th e Federalist Papers. Echoes of this sentiment can be heard from the earliest days of recorded history in many diverse cultures.
3.A Theory of Bureaucracy and Bureaucratization
Since the predominant form of organization within the administrative state is bureaucracy, so an
essential ingredient in understanding its essence is a theory of bureaucracy. For the past century,
that has meant Max Weber’s theory of bureaucracy, which is timeless and universal, is hardly
surprising given its origins. But the Weberian model is incomplete, and ever since his work was
translated from German, scholars have been busily fi lling in the gaps. Although it is not yet complete,
this aspect of the administrative state is among the best understood and the most widely
propagated. As a result, attention has switched to organizational alternatives to bureaucracy and
the nonbureaucratic delivery of public goods and services.
4.A Theory of Public Trust, Responsibility, and Accountability
5.A Theory of Government Intervention and Regulation
Th e justifi cation for the exercise of authority to protect people from others and themselves need not
be repeated simply because the raison d’être of the state is grounded in its protection of its members
from external attack and its maintenance of order. Nobody quite envisaged their evolution into the
garrison state or warfare state or the police state or their assumption of totalitarianism and tyranny,
and ever since the state has taken on these features, theorists have been keen to defi ne limitations
to state intervention and regulation and to justify revolts, that is, disobedience against intolerable
interference with individual privacy.
6.A Theory of Public Policy
Public policy, like public administration, still lacks an all-encompassing theory per se and is the
product of several diff erent theoretical perspectives concerning the goals of state activities and
eff orts to develop knowledge relevant to public policy-making. In trying to provide a theoretical
basis for the study of public policy, Yehezkel Dror identifi ed many diff erent models, including
rational comprehensive theory, economic rational model, satisfi cing theory, sequential decision
model, incremental model, systems theory, elitism, group theory, institutional model, optimal
qualitative model, and extrarational model (Dror, 1968), all of which are oriented toward the
improvement of policy-making, its outcomes and processes, its modes of inquiry and access to
relevant information, its quality and effi cacy, its responsiveness and morality. Clearly, there is such
a need as etatization proceeds, and Dror has sketched out an optimal framework for the policy
sciences that has still to be fi lled in. Its philosophical basis is largely neoutilitarian, scientism, and
rationality.
7.A Theory of Public Goods and Services
Private goods were fully
rival and excludable, whereas public goods were not. Nonexcludability was the crucial factor in
determining which goods should be publicly provided. Th en the public choice theorists explored
“impure public goods,” goods that were not public or private but characterized by excludable benefi
ts which could be provided by nongovernmental suppliers if an exclusion mechanism could be
installed at a reasonable price (Cornes and Sandier, 1986).Th is notion further expanded the list of public goods that could be privately provided. From a diff erent direction, the externalities of social
costs of private goods were expanded to market failure and public goods. Simply put, the mere existence
of an externality was not a suffi cient cause for government intervention as bargaining or liability
assignments could provide nongovernmental means for neutralizing externalities. Corrective
means included private as well as governmental action. Furthermore, as governments could fail just
as markets could, public goods and services should be competitively provided to prevent the pitfalls
of monopoly. Unfortunately, many government functions cannot mimic free market concepts,
particularly not those public goods and services from which society as a whole benefi ts; immediate
gratifi cation is not possible, and the long-term overall community needs cannot be assessed.
8.A Theory of Public Initiatives and Enterprise
Keynes maintained that governments should not do things which individuals were already doing
(even if it could do them better) but do those that were not done at all, that is, to fi ll in the gaps
left by private enterprise and initiative. Against this, collectivists have wanted to do away with
most private provision, market forces, and private property in favor of government or collectivist
provision. Both approaches admit the existence of state-owned enterprises, public corporations,
and government-controlled corporations, in which surpluses accrue to the public, decisions rest
on social as well as commercial criteria, and accountability is held by government and consumers:
that is, public elements are mixed with enterprise elements. How states assume such public
enterprises varies, as illustrated in the case of railways, where they have been nationalized for ideological,
economic (natural monopoly), developmental, military, technological (unifi cation), fi nancial
(bankruptcy), and national (reduction of foreign ownership) reasons. Th e rationale for public
enterprise can be reduced to fi ve arguments, namely (1) ideology—state ownership as an end in
itself and a transfer of wealth producing assets from private to public sector (2) nationalism—an
end to imperialist or foreign domination and external dependency and ensuing local supply, (3)
power—an end of dominance of certain interest groups and their special privileges or deliberate
exploitation of the public sector for consolidating their political position, (4) pragmatism—a shift
in public opinion, promotion of development and employment, encouragement of competition
and infl uence on markets, and mitigation of hardship, and (5) natural monopolies—preference
for ownership over regulation. Whatever be their origins, governments are concerned about their
performance, defi ne principles governing their operations, and spell out concrete performance
measures to which they must conform or face termination.
9.A Theory of Nongovernmental Organization
10.A Theory of National Planning and Utilization of Resources
11.A Theory of Social Welfare and Equity
12.A Theory of Public Ethics
13.A Theory of Administrative Reform
14.A Theory of Public Value and Worth
Its value and worth should be measured by the extent to which
it enables people to pursue life, liberty, happiness, and property. Against this view of the liberal
administrative state, there has been both revolutionary and evolutionary socialism with their stress
on the value of the public goods and services, public property, equal access, fair shares, and societal
enrichment and community to off set social disintegration and atomization. Th e jury is likely to be
out for a long time yet on this one.
15.A Theory of Bureaucratic Growth
16.A Theory of Public Investment and Employment
17.A Theory of Public Law and Regulation
Outside English-speaking countries, public administration is studied under the umbrella of public
law. Th e administrative state is or has been largely seen as an instrument for implementing
public law as authorized by legitimate governmental authority, rather than as an instrument for
implementing public policy and a political actor in its own right. Recent political analysis has
begun to redress the balance and contrast the diff erent views of the state vis-à-vis society and
other social institutions. Th us, at least eight diff erent concepts of the state have been identifi ed
in Germany, over the past two centuries, namely, Obrigkeitsstaat (authoritarian), Beamtenstaat
(bureaucratic), Rechtsstaat (rule of law), Parteienstaat (party), Fuehrerstaat (dictator), Bundesstaat
(federal), Sozialstaat (social), and Wohlfahrtstaat (social welfare) (Kristad, 1989, p. 99), all with
diff erent implications for the theory of public law and the constitutional basis for administrative
law. In comparison, public and administrative laws elsewhere have been left largely to lawyers. As
yet, there is no agreed universal philosophy of law that clearly delineates the areas of government
intervention but has developed criteria which should prevail when intervention occurs—due process
and equal protection assured by rule making and judicial review—and has contributed the
most to the protection of individual rights.
18.A Theory of Collective and Individual Rights and Obligations
19.A Theory of Collectivist or Administrative Limitations
20.A Theory of Public Service
21.A Theory of Citizenship and Public Participation
21.A Theory of Public Sector Productivity and Effectiveness
22.A Theory of Public Sector Productivity and Effectiveness
23.A Theory of Public Sector Management
Formulating a separate theory of public sector management is a research very much in progress to
diff erentiate public administration from business administration. But much of it has tended to blur
rather than clarify the divide, especially as the growing middle ground of NGOs rather muddies
the waters as their very public missions are steered by increasingly privatized managerial goals.
24.A Theory of Public Choice
25.A Theory of the Good Society
When rounded out, these 25 elements or building blocks, each of which is capable of being
internationalized, should be integrated into a general theory of public administration. Some pieces
of this intellectual jigsaw puzzle are already at hand. But too many are still missing or wrongly
shaped to fi t into a coherent pattern. We cannot show the way to people trapped in cruel, crippling,
and corrupt administrative states if we ourselves cannot properly justify our ideas of public
administration and convince even our own politicians to heed us. We cannot assume that the
political marketplace will buy our wares unless we have worthwhile products to sell and parade
them more attractively than we do. But fi rst we have to agree among ourselves that our enterprise
of theory building should be given a higher priority in our own value system.
Bureaucracy, Democracy, and the New Public Management
Precision, speed, unambiguity, knowledge of fi les, continuity, discretion, unity, strict
subordination, reduction of friction and of material and personal cost—these are
raised to the optimum point in the strictly bureaucratic administration, and especially
in its monocratic form.
Today’s environment demands institutions that are extremely fl exible and adaptable.
It demands institutions that deliver high-quality goods and services, squeezing ever
more bang out of every buck. It demands institutions that are responsive to their ustomers, off ering choices of nonstandardized services; that lead by persuasion and
incentives rather than commands; that give their employees a sense of meaning and
control, even ownership. It demands institutions that empower citizens rather than
simply serve them. (Osborne and Gaebler, 1992, p. 12, 15)
Contradictions and tension existing between the values of bureaucracy (order, effi ciency, uniformity)
and democracy (transparency, fl exibility, responsiveness) have been discussed widely in the
political science and public administration literature (Behn, 2001; Etzioni-Halevy, 1983; Finer,
1941; Frederickson, 1980; Friedrich, 1940; Hyneman, 1950; Yates, 1982). Since the time of the
ancient Greek city-states, scholars and citizens have debated how to best assure that the will of the
people would be observed and how to protect the people from unwanted actions by a small group
of masters.
1.Classic Formulation of Bureaucracy
Legal–rational authority is the basis of bureaucracy. Weber argued that, from a technical
viewpoint, bureaucracies were capable of attaining the highest degree of rationality and eff ectiveness.
Hierarchy facilitated planning, coordination, control, and discipline. Employment
on the basis of qualifi cation increased the knowledge and competency base. Rules saved eff ort through standardization. Impersonal detachment promoted objectivity and prevented inequitable
treatment.
Weber considered bureaucracy as essential for modern organizations. He formulated the
following propositions about legal authority systems:
1. Offi cial tasks are organized on a continuous, regulated basis.
2. Tasks are divided into functionally distinct spheres, each furnished with the requisite authority
and sanctions.
3. Offi ces are arranged hierarchically, and control between offi ces is clearly established.
4. Th e rules according to which work is conducted may be either technical or legal. In both
cases trained men are necessary.
5. Th e resources of the organization are quite distinct from those of the members as private
individuals.
6. Th e offi ce holder cannot appropriate his offi ce.
7. Administration is based on written documents and this tends to make the offi ce the hub of
modern organizations.
8. Legal authority systems can take many forms, but are seen at their purest in a bureaucratic
administrative staff .
In addition to these propositions about the structure of legal authority systems, Weber
defi ned the characteristics of the ideal bureaucratic staff . Th ese characteristics included the
following:
1. Th e staff members are personally free, observing only the impersonal duties of their offi ces.
2. Th ere is a clear hierarchy of offi ces.
3. Th e functions of the offi ces are clearly specifi ed.
4. Offi cials are appointed on the basis of a contract.
5. Offi cials are selected on the basis of professional qualifi cations, ideally substantiated by a
diploma gained through examination.
6. Offi cials have a monetary salary, and usually pension rights. Th e salary is graded according
to position in the hierarchy. Th e offi cial can always leave the post, and under certain circumstances
pension rights may also be terminated.
7. Th e offi cial’s post is his or her sole or main occupation.
8. Th ere is a career structure, and promotion is possible either by seniority or merit. Promotion
is made according to the judgment of superiors.
9. Th e offi cial may appropriate neither the post nor the resources, which go with it.
10. Th e offi cial is subject to unifi ed control and a disciplinary system (Albrow, 1970,
p. 43–45)
Th ese features constitute Weber’s ideal type of bureaucracy. Weber viewed bureaucracies as the
most satisfactory form of organization. Th is was attributed to its precision, speed, clarity, continuity,
unity, strict subordination, and reduction of interpersonal friction.
Weber is known for his contribution to bureaucratic thought. He also delineated various limitations
to his model, acknowledging that bureaucracies could create a new elite. Th is new elite had
the potential to control elected leaders through eff ective use of expertise. In addition, bureaucracies
were thought to be antagonistic to democratic notions of popular sovereignty. Th is fear of
elite control and rule by a narrowly selected technocracy does not seem to have abated over time.
Today, concepts of bureaucrats and bureaucracies, in general, seem to have fallen to exceptionally
low levels as government agencies are normally associated with ineptitude and ineffi ciency.
Criticisms of Bureaucracy
Th e concept of the overweight, coff ee drinking, nonproductive government offi cial has been imprinted in American consciousness.
According to Terry,
people fear bureaucracies for the following reasons. Public bureaucracies are perceived as wielding
too much power. Career civil servants are no longer thought to be responsive and accountable to
elected political authorities. Furthermore, unaccountable power is incongruent with the values of
the American democratic system. For democracy to fl ourish, the appointed offi cials should not exercise arbitrary discretion but should be more accountable to elected leaders and the voters who put them into offi ce.
Huntington (1981) argued that opposition to power and suspicion of government as the most
dangerous embodiment of power, were central themes in American political thought.
In order to check the power of bureaucracies, a number of strategies have been implemented: constant
reorganization, politicization of the bureaucracy, budget cuts, and exclusion of career executives
from policy discussions. In addition to these strategies, the size of both executive and legislation staff s
have been increased in order to reduce the expertise gap that exists between these institutions and the
administrative branch of government (Terry, 1995, p. 5). Other institutions, however, must also depend
upon experts but often will use “their own” experts to come up with alternative policy prescriptions
In the past, government activism was advocated in the name of promoting specifi c sets of
values (Frederickson, 1980). To these analysts, government is not an evil but is the embodiment
of good. Implicit in this perspective is the acceptance of the concept of positive liberty. Positive
liberty suggests that governments must do more than negate threats to individual liberty. Government
should solve problems and right the wrongs. Th e public sector should take a proactive stance
in promoting values such as social equity, fairness, opportunity, and justice. Government should
promote justice, expand opportunity, and advance fairness. Th is view of an activist government is
consistent with current views on the value of participation and citizenship.
A good deal of literature has evolved, in recent years, delineating the concept of democratic
citizenship (King and Stivers, 1998; Shklar, 1991; Stivers, 1994). According to this view, participation
by citizens should enhance accountability, responsiveness, and social equity. Th e concept
of social capital is intertwined with the idea of citizenship. A major proponent of social capital
development is Harvard Professor Robert Putnam. Putnam (1995), claimed that America’s democratic
tradition is dependent on the existence of civically engaged citizens who are active in all
sorts of groups and associations. He noted that the prospects for improvement in education, urban
poverty, crime, and health care increased where the communities were civically engaged. To his
dismay, however, Putnam documented a substantial decrease in the level of civic engagement and
the level of “social capital” in the United States. Advocates of democratic citizenship generally decry the lack of political input from average
citizens, and support increased levels of citizen participation. Th ese advocates also express concern
over the potential for nonelected offi cials to abuse the power of their offi ce (Etzioni-Halevi, 1983;
Mises, 1944; Terry, 1995).
Denhardt and Denhardt (2000, p. 549) argued that public administrators
should focus on their responsibility to serve and empower citizens. Th ey stated that “emphasis
should not be placed on either steering or rowing the government boat, but rather on building
institutions marked by integrity and responsiveness.” Th e authors believed that promoting an
ethic they termed “Th e New Public Service” could support institutions. Th is New Public Service
is distinguished by the following characteristics.
1. Helping citizens articulate and meet their shared interests. In the New Public Service the
primary role of government is not to merely direct actions of the public through decree.
Government becomes a player in the process of moving society in one direction or another.
Governments act in concert with private and nonprofi t groups to seek solutions to community
problems.
2. Building a collective, shared notion of the public interest. Th e goal of public administrators
is creation of shared interest and shared responsibilities. Widespread dialogue and deliberation
are central to the process. Government should bring people together to facilitate
unconstrained and authentic discourse concerning future directions for society. Government
should assure that solutions are consistent with democratic norms of justice, fairness,
and equity.
3. Acting democratically through collective eff orts and collaborative processes. Programs
of civic education and development of leaders can stimulate civic pride and civic responsibility.
An aim of the New Public Service is to make sure that government is open and
accessible. Government should operate to serve citizens and create opportunities for
citizenship.
4. Serving citizens, not customers. Public servants should not merely respond to the demands
of customers but should focus on building relationships of trust and collaboration among
citizens. In government, considerations of fairness and equity should play an important role
in delivering services.
5. Paying attention to statutory and constitutional law, community values, political norms,
professional standards, and citizen interests. Public administrators should be infl uenced by
and held accountable to many institutions, norms, values, and preferences. Th ey should
make decisions through a process of dialogue, citizen empowerment, and broad-based
citizen engagement.
6. Valuing people, not just productivity. Public organizations are more likely to succeed if they
are operated through the processes of collaboration and shared leadership. Attention should
be paid to the values and interests of individual members of an organization, their norms,
values, and preferences. Public offi cials should not crave security (old public administration
value), or competition in a market (NPM view), but should want to make a diff erence in the
lives of others.
7. Valuing citizenship and public service above entrepreneurship. Public administrators
should not think that public resources belong to them. Public administrators should
accept responsibility to serve citizens by acting as stewards of public resources, conservators
of public organizations, facilitators of democratic dialogue, and catalysts for community
engagement.
Other authors have also called for a return to the values of democratic citizenship. Some assert
that public administrators should become an active agent of democratic education and reform.
For example, King and Stivers (1998) called for more active citizenship and a more facilitative,
less expertise-driven approach to administration. Stivers (1994) claimed that administrators
could become more accountable to citizens by developing the capacity to listen. Th is should help
administrators hear neglected voices and engage in reciprocal communication with the public.
Box et al. (2001) argued that NPM claims to make the government customer centered and therefore
more responsive in its delivery of services. NPM, however, fails to adequately place public
administration within the context of democratic rule. Democratic theorists, such as Box, reject
the idea of citizens as mere customers and advance ideals such as citizenship, public interest,
social responsibility, and dialogue.
Many of the citizenship theorists recognize the inherent confl ict between the values of democratic
responsiveness and bureaucratic professionalism. For example, Stivers (1994, p. 364) stated
that in public administration responsiveness is a problematic concept in that “Democracy would
seem to require administrators who are responsive to the popular will, at least through legislatures
and elected chief executives if not directly to the people. Yet administrators and scholars alike tend
to treat responsiveness as at best a necessary evil that appears to compromise professional eff ectiveness,
and at worst an indication of political expediency if not outright corruption.” Th is issue of
the inherent confl ict between the values of responsiveness and those of professional eff ectiveness
is discussed in further detail below.
2.Bureaucracy–Democracy Value Confl icts
Bureaucracy has been criticized on many grounds. Th ose considered to be on the ideological
“right” have focused upon the danger of control and potential loss of individual freedom. Mises
(1944) contended that bureaucratic growth represented a danger to “what people used to call
democracy” but that the leaders of the community not the bureaucrat were to blame:
[D]emocracy becomes impracticable if the eminent citizens, the intellectual leaders of
the community, are not in a position to form their own opinion on the basic social,
economic, and political principles of policies. If the citizens are under the intellectual
hegemony of the bureaucratic professionals, society breaks up into two castes: the ruling
professionals, the Brahmins, and the gullible citizenry. Th en despotism emerges,
whatever the wording of constitutions and laws may be. (p. 120) Mises concluded that democracy is consistent with self-determination and inconsistent with citizen
apathy. He asserted that citizens had to gain an independent judgment on fundamental political and
economic problems through their own thinking. Democracy was viewed as a “treasure that must be
daily defended” and could not be sustained without trouble (p. 121). Citizens had a responsibility to
be informed, aware, and capable of making rational decisions that would foster their interests.
--In a more modern update of anxiety with discretionary power of bureaucrats, Gruber (1987,
p. 11) stated that bureaucracies pose a problem for democracy when they make decisions (public
policy) that short-circuit electoral channels of public control. Short-circuiting the electoral system
increases “the potential for signifi cant governmental action to be taken in the name of the public
without being infl uenced by the public.” Th is problem for democracy is lessened if bureaucratic
discretion is controlled.
--Bureaucracy has also been described as an enemy of the citizen (Hummel, 1977, p. 20). Some
contend that the entire phenomenon of professionalism (characterized by the drive for neutrality,
order, effi ciency, control, standardization, and quantifi cation) can subvert active citizenship
(Cooper, 1984). Inactive citizens in turn increase the power of appointed offi cials. Th is represents
a danger to the democratic ideal that is grounded in the view that bureaucracies do not order the
people to follow directives, but work for the people to foster the larger society.
--It has been argued that bureaucracies have the potential to become antidemocratic yet are not
antidemocratic by their nature. Beetham (1987, p. 112) noted that bureaucracies were necessary to
maintain democratic order. He thought that they only become an antidemocratic force when they
become self-enclosed and exclusive, when information is protected by secrecy, and when organizational
power is used to control and manipulate. Th ese characteristics are not inherent to bureaucracies
but are believed to be necessary for the fulfi llment of specifi c tasks that are performed by
public sector bureaucracies. Secrecy and control are thought as useful to perform tasks related to
national security and other mandates.
Th e issue of the interface between bureaucratic management and democratic values has taken on
renewed interest with the rise of NPM. As the NPM calls for renewed emphasis on managerial
values, criticism of this perspective has arisen. For example, Terry (1993) viewed the application of
the concept of entrepreneurship to the public sector as misplaced, dangerous, and a serious threat
to democracy. Box et al. (2001, p. 613) viewed the market model of management as going beyond
earlier reforms and threatening to eliminate democracy as a guiding principle in public-sector
management. Th ey stated that “the market model of administration evident in NPM hinders any return to substantive democracy and limits the degree to which citizens can meaningfully aff ect
policy and administration.” Th e authors contend that NPM claims to be responsive in its delivery
of services, yet fails to understand the democratic foundation of public administration
--In another critique of NPM, Moe (1994) questioned the unwritten assumptions behind Vice
President Al Gore’s National Performance Review (NPR). According to Moe, the Gore Report
(NPR Report) represented an intentional break in management philosophy from earlier studies
going back to the beginning of the Republic. Moe noted that earlier organizational management
studies all emphasized the need for democratic accountability. Th ey accepted as a fundamental
premise the view that the government of the United States is a government of laws passed by
representatives of the people assembled in Congress. Previous government reports emphasized the
view that authority and accountability had to be centralized by the president for laws to be implemented.
Th e Gore Report discounts this clear linkage between government action and accountability
to the people.
--According to Moe, the NPM sought to mesh the public and private sectors. Advocates of the
doctrine of NPM argued that federal government agencies should be viewed as entrepreneurial
bodies that should function in a competitive market environment. Such a meshing was viewed
by Moe as both unrealistic and ill-advised. He predicted that implementing the recommendations
of the Gore Report would make the government less accountable to citizens. Accountability
would decline as a consequence of the weakening of the presidency and evisceration of central
management agencies. Furthermore, Moe questioned the managerial similarities between the private
and public sectors. He stated that “the management of the executive branch is not like the
management of General Electric or the Ritz-Carlton Hotels. Th e mission of government agencies
is determined by the representatives of the people, not agency management. Government does not
have the option available to private sector managers of simply stopping the performance of some
activity because it is not profi table or unpleasant.” (p. 119).
--A clear dichotomy does not exist between democratic values and bureaucratic values. A better
way to look at these values is one of mutual coexistence along a continuum. Referring to Kaufman’s
(1956) suggestion that administrative organizations operate in pursuit of diff erent values at different
times, Denhardt and Denhardt (2000) stated that it makes sense to think of one normative
model as prevailing at any point in time. During one value’s time (such as neutral competence),
however, other values are never totally neglected. Denhardt and Denhardt (2000, p. 557) argued
that “in a democratic society, a concern for democratic values should be paramount in the way
we think about systems of governance. Values such as effi ciency and productivity should not be
lost, but should be placed in the larger context of democracy, community, and the public interest.”
Th ese authors call for refocusing on citizenship values yet they have admitted that currently the
NPM and its surrogates have been established as the dominant paradigm in the fi eld of governance
and public administration.
“High priests” of NPM Osborne and Gaebler (1992, p. 12) presented a simple thesis. Th ey
claimed that the kind of governments that developed during the industrial era, with sluggish centralized
bureaucracies, preoccupation with rules, and hierarchical chains of command, simply no
longer worked very well. Th ey thought that public bureaucracies no longer worked well because
the old public bureaucracies failed to change when the world began to change. Th e bureaucracies
designed in the 1930s and 1940s were viewed as an anachronism, not fi tting into the rapidly
changing, information-rich, knowledge-intensive societies of today.
Charles Goodsell (1993) neatly summarized the arguments of Osborne and Gaebler. According
to Goodsell, the principal issue for Osborne and Gaebler is not what the government should do but
how it should do it. To “reinvent” itself, the government must be adaptable, responsive, effi cient, and
eff ective. It must be able to produce high quality goods and services, it must be led by persuasion
rather than command, be responsive to customers, empower clients, and be entrepreneurial.
Ten principles described how the transformation from the old hierarchical model to the new
entrepreneurial model would transpire. Osborne and Gaebler (1992, p. xvii) off ered these 10 principles
(the “map”) as a “rough draft” and not the fi nal word about reinventing government. Th ey
stated that “We have developed our map by looking around us, at the successful public sector
organizations we see emerging, piece by piece, all across this county.… We as authors are not
inventing new ideas so much as synthesizing the ideas and experiences of others. Th ose about
whom we write are reinventing government. Th ey are the heroes of this story.”
Osborne and Gaebler stated that they were “as bullish on the future of government as they
were bearish on the current condition of government.” Th e 10 principles discussed below off er
solutions to the problems of government, and were provided by Osborne and Gaebler in an eff ort
to help transform public institutions “from staid bureaucracies into innovative, fl exible, responsive
organizations” (p. xxii):
1. Catalytic government: Steering rather than rowing. Entrepreneurial governments increasingly
should move away from rowing or the delivery of services to steering. Steering recognizes
a wide range of alternative courses of action. Th ose who steer defi ned their future while
those who row relied on traditional assumptions. Steering organizations looked for the best
method to achieve their goals. Innovative alternatives to standard delivery of services by
public employees included franchising, contracting out, public–private partnerships, volunteers,
and vouchers.
2. Community-owned government: Empowering rather than serving. Entrepreneurial governments
shifted ownership of public initiatives into the community. Th ey empowered citizens
and neighborhood groups to be sources of their own solutions. Th ey changed the focus of
programs from that of collecting clients to that of empowering citizens.
3. Competitive government: Injecting competition into service delivery. Entrepreneurial
governments injected competition into the governing process. Th e advantages of competition
included achieving greater effi ciency, being more responsive to the needs of customers,
encouraging innovation, and boosting the morale of pubic employees.
4. Mission-driven government: Transforming rule-driven organizations. Entrepreneurial governments
have mission-driven organizations. Th ese organizations turned employees free to
pursue missions with the most eff ective methods they could fi nd. Excessive rule making
stifl ed experimentation and innovation.
5. Results-oriented government: Funding outcomes, not inputs. Entrepreneurial governments
based agency performance and fund allocation on policy outcomes. Traditional governments
based funding on inputs such as how many children were enrolled in school rather
than on outcomes such as how well children improved their reading scores.
6. Customer-driven government: Meeting the needs of the customer. Entrepreneurial governments
regard client citizens as customers. Traditional public-sector managers get funding
from government institutions not from individual customers. Traditional government
agencies feel they have to please interest groups, political leaders, and government bodies.
Entrepreneurial agencies serve customers fi rst.
7. Enterprising government: Earning rather than spending. Public entrepreneurs fi nd innovative
ways to “do more with less.” Entrepreneurial governments do not just spend money that
is allocated by institutions but fi nd ways to “earn” their own money. Methods to earn money
include using user fees, entrepreneurial loan pooling, and profi t centers. Entrepreneurial
governments create incentives for separate entities to earn their own money. Public entities
that could earn money include: public marinas, public golf courses, water services, and sewer
services.
8. Anticipatory government: Prevention rather than cure. Public entrepreneurs should not just
deliver services but should meet needs. Entrepreneurs can prevent needs from arising in the
fi rst place by taking proactive steps. Public institutions can use strategic planning to examine
the current situation, set goals, develop strategies to achieve goals, and measure results.
9. Decentralized government: From hierarchy to participation and teamwork. Entrepreneurial
leaders instinctively reach for the decentralized approach. Th ey move decisions into the
periphery, put discretion into the hands of customers and into the hands of nongovernmental
organizations. Entrepreneurial leaders fl atten hierarchies and give authority to their
employees. Teamwork, participatory management, labor-management cooperation, quality
circles, and employee development programs are examples of decentralized government.
10. Market-oriented government: Leveraging change through the market. Public entrepreneurs
respond to changing conditions with innovative strategies aimed at allowing market forces to
work. Just as Franklin D. Roosevelt changed the way mortgages were issued, the government
can provide incentives to structure the marketplace so that it better fulfi lls a public purpose.
Government structures the private sector but does not play a direct role in service delivery.
Th ese 10 principles have eff ectively altered the dialogue and created a new paradigm for the public
sector. Th e principles helped to unleash new ways of thinking and acting for government offi cials.
Th is new paradigm does not appear to be unique to the United States, but appears to have taken
hold throughout the developed world. Osborne and Gaebler (1992, p. 328) correctly predicted
such a global revolution.
Global Application of New Public Management
Christopher Hood (1991, p. 3) observed that the rise of NPM was an international trend in public
administration. While “Westminster nations” such as the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and
Australia are cited for their aggressive adaptation of NPM reform, other nations from Korea to Brazil, from Portugal to Sweden have moved to reform their conception of public management
(Kettl, 1997, p. 446). Reforms include aspects of NPM such as more explicit standards for performance,
linking rewards to measured performance, breaking up centralized personnel systems,
creating smaller units, adopting term contracts, adopting greater fl exibility in hiring, and “doing
more with less.”
Th e greatest embrace of these principles appears to have taken place in New Zealand. Major
changes occurred in New Zealand, as government offi cials enthusiastically adopted the principles of
NPM. As a result of these changes, New Zealand overhauled its welfare state, restructured commercial
functions, and sold off many public agencies. Other changes adopted in New Zealand included
adoption of user fees, increased contracting (with both public and private service providers), heightened
competition over provision of services, fewer regulations, and decentralizing management.
New Zealand jettisoned its old civil service system and allowed department managers to negotiate
individual contracts with employees. Government-owned businesses (such as the national
railway, the telecommunications system, and the broadcasting corporation) were forced into competitive
markets. Individualized work and performance contracts replaced the rule-based civil
service system. Government agencies hired senior managers on a contract basis and held managers
accountable to performance standards. Th e entire structure of the governmental work force
changed with signifi cant reductions in personnel. New Zealand’s core departments witnessed
major job cuts in local areas (Kettl, 1997, p. 453).
Firing government employees and slashing services are often associated with the political rise
of the “New Right” and the growing popularity of conservative philosophies. A direct linkage
between the principles of NPM and “New Right” views, however, is not apparent. Principles
of NPM were endorsed by Labor governments in New Zealand and Australia, as well as by the
Social Democratic Party in Sweden. Th e administration of Bill Clinton was at the forefront of
the NPM movement. Th eir commitment to these principles was elaborated in Vice-President Al
Gore’s National Public Management Report that was previously discussed.
Typically, however, conservative governments are linked to the principles of NPM. Margaret
Th atcher of Great Britain is widely recognized for her support of NPM principles. Many examples of
implementing these principles exist. During the Th atcher administration public housing units were
sold to tenants, publicly funded training systems were privatized, vouchers and school choice were
expanded. In the early 1990s, the British government restructured its National Health Service. Th e
Th atcher administration also instituted greater managerial accountability, hired heads of executive
agencies competitively from the public and private sectors, and issued specifi c performance contracts.
Major cuts were made in the number of national government employees. After 15 years of
Th atcher–Major reforms, the civil service in the United Kingdom had been reduced by nearly 30%.
Th e Australian variant of the NPM adopted many of the same principles but diff ered in
focus from the British–New Zealand model (Kettl, 1997, p. 453). Th e Australian adaptation of
the NPM emphasized the need to transform human resources as the keystone for broad reform.
Reforms stressed enhancing the skills of workers in government service and inculcating a culture
of continuous improvement. In theory, this culture of continuous improvement would help people
achieve agency objectives and increase capacities in the public service. In contrast, the British–
New Zealand model sought a more fundamental reduction in the size and scope of the public
sector through more “radical” changes in the way the state managed its programs. While the
British –New Zealand model endorsed substantial dismantling of civil service rules, signifi cant
privatization, and substantial delegation of authority to lower level managers, the Australian model
emphasized new investments in training and providing incentives to workers. Th e Australian
model supported more gradual and continuous change.
sometimes describe a classical era where effi ciency was the principal criterion used to evaluate
bureaucratic performance. Th is period begins with Frederick Taylor’s work on scientifi c management encompasses the municipal reform and early twentieth-century governmental
reorganization literature, and is supposed to close with Luther Gulick and Lyndall Urwick’s (1937)
Papers on the Science of Administration. Its seeming reliance on a monochromatic conceptual perspective
is contrasted with modern concern with bureaucratic responsiveness, equity, and effi ciency
with inevitable trade-off s among these variables precluding optimal performance on all counts
(Wilson, 1973). For some analysts, the new, more variegated perspective means less keenness for
effi ciency at least in the short run (Frederickson, 1980).
Th is chapter analyzes some of the ways in which effi ciency has been used as a conceptual
underpinning to bureaucratic study. Th e thrust of the argument is that the classical era actually
contains two approaches to understanding effi ciency, one primarily managerial and the
other political. Th e fi rst literature, which stretches from Taylor to Gulick and Urwick, examines
the internal mechanisms of public and private organizations with an eye toward increasing
output/input. Th e second, written by turn-of-the-century political Progressives, focuses on ways
to improve effi ciency by strengthening the links between bureaucrats and their stakeholders.
Frederick Taylor and Scientifi c Management
that organizations could optimize output/input by creating a work science applicable to even the
most routine tasks.
For Taylor (1947a, p. 21), the art of management required knowing what an organization or
unit should do and then meeting this goal in the best and cheapest way. Th e eff ective manager creates
information, applying new data to solve old problems, particularly through time study, where
engineers deconstruct work into elementary components and analyze the time it takes to do each
under varying contingencies.
Taylor was an early proponent of the idea that a new approach to studying work required a
more specialized organizational structure, particularly the development of a planning department
(Taylor, 1947a, pp. 94–148). He argued that organizations should leave the military form of command
and create functional hierarchies where each worker received orders and help from multiple
supervisors, each with a separate expertise and function. Examples of functional supervisors are
the gang boss who supervises work until the material is in the machine, the speed boss who takes
over during an operation, the inspector who checks quality, and the repair boss who keeps the
machines in running order.
Taylor’s ideas were extensively debated in the fi rst two decades of the twentieth century with
hundreds of articles published on his work in Europe and America. Almost everyone writing on
effi ciency credited his ideas as an infl uence although Taylor did not always agree with the strategies
proposed by many of his contemporaries who said that they wanted to maximize effi ciency
(Schachter, 1989).
Th e most well-known literature that emerged from the drive to create new information
involved an attempt to systematize internal principles of management to improve effi ciency in all
organizations, public or private. With demand for effi ciency spilling over from the business to the
public sector (e.g., Weber, 1919), a second (somewhat less cited) literature appeared centering on
the relationship between increasing output/input and a renaissance in citizen activity. Th is second
literature is somewhat more parochial, concentrating only on American public agencies, but it
off ers links between effi ciency and other valued goals. Each literature will be examined in turn.
Administrative Principles
Effi -
ciency was the paramount goal for all organizations regardless of any other purpose they might
have. Indeed, Emerson (1912a, p. 373) went so far as to say, “Th e ideal of the… Effi ciency Principles
is waste elimination…. Th e mere purpose for which waste is to be eliminated is not important.”
A key belief was that the same structural principles would enhance public and private effi ciency
in all cultures. Fayol (1937, p. 101) wrote, “All undertakings require planning, organization, command,
coordination and control, and… all must observe the same general principles. We are no
longer confronted with several administrative sciences but with one alone, which can be applied
equally well to public and to private aff airs.”
While these writers diff ered on the exact number of principles one could derive from the science
of administration, three issues they all saw as important were division of labor, authority, and
span of control. All four authors posit that specialization increases effi ciency because it makes better
use of the varying skills of diff erent workers and eliminates the time lost when people turn from
one job to the next.
Because specialization requires coordination, bureaucracies create hierarchies to manage work
and amalgamate specialized tasks. All four writers insist that the authority of each person on the
chain of command be commensurate with responsibility. Top management must defi ne responsibility
precisely and allocate enough authority to accomplish each task.
In an interlocking hierarchy reaching from the chief executive to entry-level workers, unity of
command is crucial. Fayol (1949) and Gulick (1937) explicitly criticize Taylor’s advocacy of functional
supervision because this violates the principle of one command locus for a given worker.
Th e principles literature also posits the need for each manager to have a relatively tight span of
control, that is, a small number of people under his or her direct supervision. Gulick (1937) argues
that the best span will vary, depending on the executive, the time required to complete the task
and the spatial arrangement of the enterprise. Urwick (1938, p. 8) adds numbers to the relationship,
asserting that no manager can supervise more than fi ve or six people whose work interlocks.
One diff erence that does appear among the four authors is their relative sophistication in
apprehending the diffi culties in applying these principles to specifi c cases. Urwick gives the most
unconditional loyalty to the principles. Urwick (1944, p. 9) even argues that going against them
amounts to an antisocial act in the same sense as forgery or murder. At the other end of the continuum,
Gulick explicitly notes the diffi culties involved in applying the principles to various contingencies
(e.g., 1937, p. 8). He even cautions that structural change alone may prove insuffi cient
to produce eff ective operations (Gulick 1937, p. 37). (For a discussion of this aspect of Gulick’s
thought, see Hammond, 1990.) Because of his recognition of nuance, Gulick’s work serves as a
bridge between the classical era and some of the modern critics.
Critique of the Principles Literature
Th e earliest critiques of the effi ciency concept concentrate on demonstrating problems with the
principles without attacking the importance of effi ciency itself. Th e most infl uential of such
critiques is Herbert Simon’s Administrative Behavior (1947). (For an account of its impact on textbooks,
see Dunn, 1988.) Simon is squarely in the tradition of those who accept effi ciency as the
guiding criterion in bureaucratic design; like the principles’ authors, he accepts that effi ciency is
completely neutral in regard to which goals are to be attained. His protest is simply against regarding
the principles as immutable guides in concrete situations.
Th e principles literature off ers to tell practicing executives how to maximize output/input, and
Simon argues that the advice is not very useful on a case-by-case basis. Division of labor is a key
precept in the principles literature, but the manager’s problem is not only whether to specialize
but also how to decide the basis for dividing labor. Th e principles do not say whether dividing by
function, place, process, or client is preferable.
In addition, the principles confl ict with each other. If unity of command means that only one
person can give orders to a particular worker, then it is incompatible with specialization because a
worker may need advice from diff erent experts. Span of control confl icts with keeping to a minimum
the number of hierarchical levels through which information must pass before a decision
maker acts on it. When all workers in a health department report to one person, that executive has
a large span of control; if the agency appoints assistant managers for some clinics, then people may
complain of red tape as it takes a long time for information to move through the newly created
layers (Simon, 1947, p. 27).
Simon did not urge managers to forgo the principles entirely but rather to take a more tentative
approach to structural questions. He was not the fi rst to urge a tentative stance—both Gulick and
Dimock (1938) did this in the thirties—but his book became a standard text in public-administration
courses and a rallying cry for people who wanted to change the fi eld (Augier and March, 2001). After
his work appeared, many writers took a less dogmatic tack to structural analyses. For example, the
fourth edition of White’s (1955, pp. 20–21) public administration textbook adds to his usual
introduction that managers may not always know the one best way of designing organizations.
Since 1947, the principles have been undermined from many angles. Motivation theorists (e.g.,
Hertzberg et al., 1959) now question the relationship between specialization and effi ciency. Th ey
argue that challenging assignments encompassing a whole task stimulate at least some workers
to better performance. Th is argument has led private and public organizations to implement job
enlargement and enrichment. In the fi rst reform, companies amalgamate routine tasks that were
once rigidly divided. In job enrichment, organizations add planning and control functions to an
employee’s work.
A need for fl exibility causes some organizations in volatile environments to forsake rigid
hierarchies and unity of command. Th ese organizations implement matrix teams where employees
are simultaneously members of a functional department and a project team (Griffi n, 2002,
pp. 370–373). Th e argument is even made (Landau, 1969) that early attempts to prevent duplication may have hurt effi ciency because redundancy can aid reliability as in a conversation where people
repeat words to prevent misunderstandings.
Th e principles literature tried to present an easy path to effi ciency. Th e work of Simon and
others convinced managers that the road to high output/input was more diffi cult to traverse.
Effi ciency/Responsiveness/Equity Trade-Offs
By the 1960s, some theorists began to question the importance of high output/input itself. Th ey
argued that inevitable trade-off s exist between effi cient administration and responsive and equitable
government. Some early proponents of this view were associated with the “new” public administration
movement. As we will see later, this view also appears in Denhardt’s (2000) proposal for
a public administration paradigm oriented toward service.
1.New Public Administration
Th e early assault on effi ciency itself is identifi ed with the “new” public administration of the late
sixties and seventies (Marini, 1971; Waldo, 1971a); the equity concerns of this literature also
appear in the works of contemporaneous economists advocating a stakeholder view of corporate
responsibility. Participants in these literatures cast themselves as rebels and announce that
effi ciency should not necessarily be the foremost organizational goal.
Th e most popular approach is to stress that agency activity is a zero-sum game with inevitable
trade-off s between effi ciency and other values. Frederickson (1980) asserts that the contest is
between high output/input and responsiveness to the poor; although Frederickson sees effi ciency
as a value with some usefulness (1976), he prefers greater deference to the wishes of low-income
communities.
White (1969, p. 35) casts the struggle as between effi ciency and client freedom, arguing, “Th e
degree of effi ciency… is simply a lower-level framing of the question of how much freedom the
client wishes or may have to yield in the name of the general order.” For White, the effi ciency
criterion causes bureaucracies to husband resources and choose how much to invest in a given
case; he prefers a client-centered organization with an unequivocal mandate to help people—even
hopeless cases.
Economist Okun (1975) sees a trade-off between effi ciency and equal rights. To achieve maximum
output/input, organizations must concentrate resources and authority in a few hands, but
this leads to inequity because the central players have better access to legal advice and more forums
to disseminate their views. No blanket solution to the dilemma exists because some disparity in
income will always be necessary in our sociopolitical system.
Th e trade-off metaphor is not the only one off ered for reconsidering the worth of maximizing
output/input. Goodin and Wilenski (1984) assert that effi ciency is not a stand-alone
goal but simply an instrumental means to obtain want satisfaction. Th ey see this interpretation
as a stronger check on effi ciency than the trade-off metaphor where no theoretical
reason exists to prefer responsiveness or client freedom. In Goodin and Wilenski’s scenario,
effi ciency (a surface principle) has to yield to want satisfaction (a meta-principle that gives it
meaning). Goodin and Wilenski (1984, p. 513) argue that bureaucracies must override the
need for effi ciency if people want particular arrangements that make decision making “less
effi cient in some sense.”
Th e new public administration writers share two characteristics. First, like so many of their
predecessors from Taylor on, they combine scholarship with a call to action. Th ey want improvement
as well as understanding. Second, they tend to see their concern for responsiveness and want
satisfaction as a challenge to traditional theory. Th ey make scant reference to the municipal reform
literature and its analogous concerns.
Savage (1971) is one of the few new public administration writers to see that output/input
questions are actually crucial to the social agenda. He argues that the problem with contemporary
bureaucracies is that they do not ameliorate social justice effi ciently.
Th is is the position of the municipal reform literature. Th e Bureau writers considered effi -
ciency a prerequisite to responsiveness and equity, not a trade-off with them. Th e old writers
would have agreed with Goodin and Wilenski’s argument about want satisfaction, but they would
have envisioned a broader notion of the wants that organizations should satisfy effi ciently. For
example, Goodin and Wilenski (1984, p. 514) argue that effi ciency and equity clash in job
training programs; it is more cost eff ective to train middle class people, but equity considerations
may cause a community to work with the truly disadvantaged. Th e municipal reformers
would reply that if a community wants job training for the poor, then the key question becomes
how to implement such programs effi ciently. If the public wants training for the disadvantaged,
opening programs for middle class people can never be effi cient, just as the most skillfully
constructed bridges are ineffi cient if they do not meet the needs of mass transit riders. For the
municipal reformers, high benefi ts or least cost gains the respected name of effi ciency only in
the service of responsive action. Th e municipal reform literature celebrates effi ciency because it
holds high output/input to be a prerequisite for realizing the value of responsiveness. On the
issue of effi ciency, the new public administration and its allies might have engaged the older
literature in dialogue.
given effi ciency as a way of preserving existing power relations. Critical theorists stress that
every bureaucracy consists of a controlling entity and subordinates; the powerful select goals for
the organization and defi ne actions as rational if they help meet those objectives (Denhardt, 1981;
Fischer and Sirianni, 1984; Fischer, 1990). Traditional bureaucratic studies focus on the quest for
better performance, neglecting the tension created when lower-level employees do not consider
goal attainment rational in terms of their own interests
Denhardt (1981, p. 43) uses critical theory to argue that concern with effi ciency leads scholars
to neglect the inner lives of the workers—their search for meaning—and to concentrate “on the
outer world of behavior, performance and accomplishment.” He asserts that a critical focus means
reprioritizing scholarly interest toward processes that favor individual growth rather than effi cient
production. For him, the central question “is no longer how the individual may contribute to the
effi cient operation of the system, but how the individual may transcend the system” (Denhardt, 1981,
p. 131, emphasis in original).
A focus on people’s need to fi nd meaning through work does not necessarily place critical
theory out of alignment with other writing on bureaucracies. Th e bulk of the postwar motivation
literature puts great stock on increasing autonomy and responsibility throughout the chain of
command. Critical theorists are not even the fi rst to assign innate importance to the psychological
state of individual bureaucrats. As early as 1936, Dimock argued that employee satisfaction was a
good in its own right.
Critical theory is at odds with earlier work for two other reasons. First, from Taylor on, previous
writers always assumed that the interests of organizations and workers were (or through technique
could be made) compatible. Critical theory assumes that interests are opposed; structures of
organized actions make legitimate, uncoerced discourse between workers and executives diffi cult
to achieve. Critical theory emphasizes the elitist character of modern bureaucracies.
Second, critical theory is one of several attempts beginning in the 1970s and 1980s to make
inner life a pivot of organizational analysis and to defi ne organizations as something more than
instruments for task accomplishment. Other attempts include White and McSwain’s (1983) transformational
theory which concerns individuals liberating themselves from their psychic prisons
and Hummel (1994). Th e writers mentioned in the early sections of this chapter (Taylor, the
principles exponents, the municipal reformers, Simon, etc.) did not emphasize consciousness at
the expense of concrete objectives.
Analysis of alienation is important for understanding what happens in organizations, but primarily
so if it links up with how consciousness aff ects action relating to substantive governmental aims. In
1977, Denhardt cautioned that scholars did not know whether the new approach would prove useful
in enhancing actions relating to public service, but it seemed that much might be gained in pursuing it.
In 1985, Forester argued that critical theory had practical implications for planning departments;
its focus on distorted communication helped administrators anticipate and correct for eff ective design
review and implement more democratic planning. Matters are handled more economically because
open information exchange reduces unnecessary disruption of the planning process. By 1993, Forester
argued that critical theory ought to show how public policies alter the structural conditions of
social action, the actual social interactions of aff ected people, the conditions of citizens’ recourse to
discourses with administrators, and the public’s capacity to challenge claims to truth and justice.
For scholars who are not themselves critical theorists, interest in this approach can be sustained
by the belief that its psychological insights relate to service delivery, that less alienated entry-level personnel
perform their tasks in a preferable way, or that an organization that engages the agendas of its
entry-level workers will be more responsive to the public-at-large. For such analysts, critical theory is
important precisely because its arguments suggest new approaches to old questions about effi ciency;
the emphasis is on using insights from this approach to help individuals contribute better service.
management which focuses on the administrator’s responsibility to serve and empower citizens.
Th is attractive model is a response to Osborne and Gaebler’s (1992) reinventing government model
with its emphasis on markets and customers. Th e new public service model values citizenship and
public service above entrepreneurship. It insists that the public interest is the aim not the byproduct
of administration and that public workers serve citizens rather than customers. It encourages
extensive, broad-based dialogue between administrators and citizens.
Denhardt and Denhardt say that the perspective that under-girds their new public service
model is that in contrast to managerial calls for greater effi ciency, they want greater responsiveness.
Th us, while they mention critical theory as one root for their ideas, their model is also heir
to much of the new public administration’s thinking that perceives effi ciency as a trade-off with
more desirable qualities. While they do say that effi ciency “should not be lost” (p. 557), they do
not accept the assumption that effi ciency is necessary to maximize other valued criteria. Th ey want
effi ciency placed in the context of democracy and the public interest. Th e question then becomes
how the placement should be construed, as a series of trade-off s or with effi ciency in the role of a
necessary tactical aid to achieve desirable values?
Conclusions
Th e quest for more effi cient organizations has been a staple of bureaucratic study throughout the
century. Looking for an easy path to effi ciency, some of the earlier writers tried to enunciate immutable
principles of bureaucratic structure. Today, writers on public and private organizations stress
that no one structural ideal exists; the most useful patterns depend on circumstances. Managers are taught to take a contingency approach to structure; they appreciate that appropriate design
depends on many variables. Traditional bureaucratic characteristics such as specialization and
hierarchy may be useful in one instance, dysfunctional in the next.
Since the late sixties, the worth of effi ciency itself has come under fi re from people with concerns
for responsiveness and equity. Th e confl ict is articulated most vividly in public-sector writing
but it also appears in debates about how to make business more socially responsive. People with a
broad concept of corporate performance want to judge private bureaucracies on their impact on
customers, employees, and neighbors as well as on shareholder profi ts. Some people say it may
even be right to see less output/input in the short run to further responsiveness to outside parties,
but generally even those who take a broad view of corporate performance stress that socially
responsible companies should not lose in the profi t ratings over long periods (e.g., the discussion
in Griffi n, 2002, pp. 111–118).
Th ese corporate innovators face a dilemma that appears in any assault on effi ciency; it is diffi
cult to disregard high output/input as a value in practice. Waldo (1971b) notes that even people
who criticize effi ciency are not so blunt as to say that they prefer ineffi ciency.
Indeed, Dwight Waldo’s career is a case in point. In Th e Administrative State (1948), he cautions
against considering effi ciency as an ultimate value. But by 1986, he notes, “[I]n the beginning
I came at effi ciency with the instincts or biases of the humanist. … Along the way, so to
speak, I had second thoughts…. I concluded that considerations of effi ciency were relevant to the
attainment of liberal or humane values” (Brown and Stillman, 1986). Effi ciency is a criterion in
programs to increase civil rights, feed the hungry, or house the poor.
One way of dealing with this trade-off dilemma is to make it explicit at the defi nition level that
actions are ineffi cient unless they are responsive to a relevant public. In a 1912 article, William
Prendergast, New York City’s Progressive comptroller, explicitly rejected “results/expenditures” as
a defi nition for effi ciency. He preferred defi ning the concept as doing what the public wants done
as well as possible at least expense. While this defi nition begs the question of defi ning “public”
or saying how its wants are measured, it does announce that effi cient action requires responsiveness—
a relationship that the municipal reformers recognized.
In similar fashion, a Progressive-era report on the administration of justice defi nes ineffi ciency
as inadequacy to meet the purpose for which the public established a justice system or to achieve
what the public expects of it (Eliot et al., 1914, p. 5). Th is defi nition seems to say that effi ciency
only exists when an agency is responsive to citizens, a diff erent approach from Emerson (1912a,b)
or Simon’s (1947) contention that effi ciency can exist in relation to any goal. Th at the report presents
its defi nition without embellishment suggests that at least some people in the Progressive era were
used to relating effi ciency and responsiveness.
Modern use of an expanded defi nition would link the concepts of output/input and responsiveness
in the public and private sectors. It would make explicit that “effi ciency” is not a synonym
for “least cost” and that the word has no meaning in relation to projects that do not meet a relevant
public’s wants. Indeed, effi cient action may require greater costs if this leads to even larger benefi t
ratios. Gulick (1966) notes that the BMR’s call for effi ciency resulted in better social programs
that eventually cost the taxpayer more money. In 1914, the New York BMR conducted a study of
Springfi eld, Massachusetts’ health department for a sister BMR in Springfi eld. Th e report says that
effi ciency does not mean spending less; the investigators congratulate Springfi eld “on the liberality
of its appropriations” (Springfi eld Bureau of Municipal Research, 1914, p. 9).
To denigrate effi ciency is to turn away from a value that common sense tells us is crucial to all
endeavors. More useful for bureaucratic analysts is to identify the range of responsive outcomes for
a given organization or unit and to be explicit about what effi ciency calculations can and cannot
be made for each. Th e conventional wisdom assumes that effi ciency is easier to measure than other values.
However, ease of calculation only attends such measurements for production of goods. In other
cases, analysts may actually fi nd it easier to calculate equity rather than output/input. For example,
it is easier to calculate whether a school system has spent the same amount of resources to
imbue each child with an appreciation of art than to know how much genuine appreciation it gets
per dollar of expenditure.
Th e diffi culty of measuring output/input in “soft” areas leads analysts to restrict effi ciency
calculations to a sparse number of goals. Th is, in turn, yields a perception that effi ciency is irrelevant
to the satisfaction of other wants. Managers who produce goods consider output/input in
planning their strategies and tactics. When promoting other goals—such as citizen participation
or political accountability—managers do not subject their idealism to rigorous appraisal of what
a public gets for a given expenditure.
Once the full list of desired outcomes is associated with effi ciency, discussion can begin on
how to measure cost/benefi t outside the provision of goods and how to calculate maximum output/
input for securing honesty, say, or accountability. Present-day analysts calculate how much
energy a railroad gets from the expenditure of X dollars on various fuels. Why not discuss how
much honesty we are likely to get from the work done by passing a code of ethics or putting restrictions
on the ability of public servants to take gifts from those with whom they work? Even if the
original calculations are crude, the attempt indicates that the analyst is aware of the full range of
outcomes that the public wants from a given bureaucracy. Th e approach also suggests that simply
writing an ethics code or restricting gifts is not enough; the important matter is to learn how such
innovations infl uence the incidence of honest behavior.
Using an expanded defi nition may open a Pandora’s box of problems in defi ning relevant
public, but it also leads analysts to consider output/input in relation to a host of genuine wants. By
doing this, it enhances the value of the effi ciency concept. Such an approach shows that effi ciency
remains a useful construct to a socially informed study of bureaucracies as it constitutes an aid to
understanding even in those cases where profi t or delivery of tangible goods and services are not
the only benefi ts people seek from organizations.
Following are a few approaches that could move us in this direction. Some are important because
of their indirect impact on moral performance, although they serve other purposes as well.
1. We need more emphasis and support for the career service. It is a very fundamental imperative
for an ethical environment. A proud public servant is a good public servant. Eff orts
should be directed toward building and maintaining that pride.
2. Coincident with this objective is making better use of the career service, with all its expertise,
institutional memory, and discipline in serving the public interest. Th e concept of a
responsive bureaucracy was reduced during the Reagan years to one of a submissive bureaucracy.
Many of the policy missteps and moral lapses at that time could have been avoided
if career people had been given a chance to participate. Not only were alternatives or warnings
by careerists ignored, but also for the most part they were suppressed. Knowledgeable
professionals were often kept in the dark, with work planning frequently confi ned to woefully
unqualifi ed amateurs. An open, healthy exchange between inside experts who safeguard
institutional memory and integrity and outside appointees who ostensibly represent
a president’s overall policy is absolutely essential both to eff ective government and ethical
government. Moreover, the art as well as the science of governance demands assimilation of
all relevant points of view before fi nal decisions are made. Multiple participation in decisionmaking
is the only rational methodology in public administration.
3. Less stress on ethics as such and more emphasis on selection of personnel would help reach
the fundamental problem of wrongly motivated people. Th is applies both to promoting the
quality of presidential and other political appointments and to fostering rigorous application
of merit principles for entry and advancement in the career service.
4. A good deal of awakening has already occurred to the inadequacy of rules relating to individual
fi nancial holdings and restrictions on employment subsequent to government service .
For example, requiring appointees to divest themselves of corporate stock or real estate
before entering on public job focuses too much on the appearance or prospect of wrongdoing
without taking into account the impact on recruiting or retaining the best candidates.
Likewise, too mechanistic or legalistic limitations on employment after leaving government
may create impossible situations for professionals who might not be able to pursue their
lifelong expertise at all outside government if they so desire. Th is also dissuades competent
people from accepting public employment.
It would be naive to remove all penalties for misdeeds that might grow out of too cozy a
relationship between outside fi nancial interests and public policy-makers or to lift all restrictions
on the “revolving-door” mentality that pervaded the Reagan administration. But some
of the more absurd and badly drawn proscriptions require modifi cation, lest recruitment of
qualifi ed people be severely handicapped.
A more sensible emphasis might be on machinery (a) to investigate more fully in advance
a candidate’s personal history and sense of ethical behavior; (b) to provide for continuous
review, by multimembered panels of experts inside government, of conditions that lend
themselves to wrongdoing; and (c) to make ethical performance a major ingredient of executive
training for both career and noncareer appointees. Th is may cost a little more in government
personnel operations, but it would pay for itself a thousand times over,
5. Since so much depends on the ethical climate outside government, we cannot overlook the
importance of building more understanding of the political world and more civic consciousness
among the general population.
6. Because of its direct relationship to morality in government, more insistent attention must
be given to reform of the ways in which political campaigns for offi ce are fi nanced, including
both the presidency and the Congress. Studies and programs of the public-interest
organization Common Cause are one of the best sources for enlightenment and action on
this subject. Ultimate success in removing the strong connection between campaign gifts
and decisions by elected offi cials, in my judgment, will not come until we provide a neutral
and nonpartisan fi nancial source for conducting campaigns. It is well known that lavish
gifts to political campaigns provide the contributor with access to members of Congress and
the Executive Branch that is not so easily available to other citizens. Th e spillover eff ect from
a congressional offi ce to a cabinet member or other key offi cial is obvious. Th e system itself is
corrupt. Th e ultimate solution is public fi nancing for all campaigns, but with stringent controls
on spending limits for any one candidate and restrictions on the number of candidates
for any one offi ce. In my judgment, it would be worth the extra cost to government, even if it
means more taxes, but it is nowhere near as expensive as the current loss to all citizens in the
unwarranted infl uence procured by political action committees, corporations, and wealthy
individuals. It is not only the best way to insulate government from corruption but the only
way ultimately to ensure the democratic process, under which all voters have equal access.
and legal measures adopted to combat corruption, safeguard the integrity of public service, and
promote professional conduct based on sound ethical grounds. Almost all public organizations
and associations of public service appear to have adopted codes of ethics. Institutional arrangements,
such as offi ces to prevent or control unethical conduct, appear everywhere; it is a global
phenomenon.
Eight major themes and perspectives appear to have emerged in recent publications on administrative
ethics and accountability, which are as follows:
1. Citizenship and democratic theory, with an emphasis on the renewal of civic virtue. Th is
theme views public servants as virtuous citizens and as guardians of community interests.
Virtuous citizenship is important for democratic governance and administration. Loyalty
to democratic values, responsiveness, responsibility, and moral conduct are virtues of democratic
citizenship. Civility, tolerance, respect for equality and for citizens’ rights, as well as
obligations are key values in democratic citizenship.
2. Virtue ethics, with an emphasis on good character in public service and administration.
It is an extension of the fi rst perspective. Character is the focus of study and practice in
administrative ethics: the most critical problem is the scarcity of men and women of good
character in positions of leadership—whether public, private, educational, or religious. For
too long, the management orthodoxy has taken the proposition that good systems will produce
good people, as axiomatic. However, it is clear that a just society depends more on
the moral trustworthiness of its citizens and leaders than on structures and systems. Costly
ethical failures of organizational leaders have caused irreparable damage to public trust and
to societal interests. As a personal attribute, virtue is a character trait that inclines us toward
ethical conduct. Ethics has ancient origins. Ethical education was a major component of
educational system in ancient Persia, where education and training for public servants, leaders,
and bureaucrats was highly important and ethics and justice administration made up
a key component of preparing for personal and professional or career life—Persians valued
virtuous characters in personal and public lives very highly, as it was a hallmark of their educational
system from the very early age of preschool system—childhood (see Chapter 2).
According to Aristotle, moral virtue comes about as a result of habit, whence its name ethike
is a derivative of ethos (habit). From this, it also follows that none of the moral virtues arise in
us by nature. Th erefore, to Aristotle and all those following this perspective, administrative
ethics are cognitive and learnt values. But the social environment in which public administrators
operate aff ects the cognitive values acquired or learned. Contemporary writers commonly
associate the quest for excellence with the practice of virtue. Th is perspective has signifi cant
implications for modern public administration, in that virtuous administrators can be trained
and developed through ethical precept for public service. Th erefore, unethical behavior may be
considered as a form of corruption, for corruption is the absence of civic virtue.
3. Constitutional tradition, insisting on the public offi cials’ ethical obligation to uphold such
major values enshrined in constitutions as freedom, liberty, equality, due process, justice,
etc. Th is perspective also values effi ciency in the measure that the ethical and political values
of democracy are upheld. It is as central to the theme of public interest as procedural versus
substantive justice and seeks to maximize the salutary infl uence of personal interest and to
control the adverse eff ects of popular passions. Upholding the principles and values of the
constitution is considered the most important approach to the study and practice of ethics
in public administration (Rohr, 1989).
4. Ethics as education, with an emphasis on the study of ethics in the public administration curriculum
and training public servants for an honorable career. Th is perspective has a grounding
on the educational development of public administrators and highlights the community
service. Ethics through education can transform offi cials by molding their attitudes, behavior,
and perception of others. However, it is through self-development that social administrative
ethics are also promoted. Ethics as education is both external learning and internalization of
moral values.
5. Th e organizational context of ethics, with a focus on effi ciency and eff ectiveness as well as on
the normative values of fairness, justice, and moral conduct: organizations and their members
must not only be moral where it is effi cient to do so, they must be effi cient only where
it is moral to do so. Effi ciency at any cost is not acceptable, but effi ciency with moral and
ethical conduct is imperative. Organizational structures refl ect value choices and ethical
commitments made by those who design organizations. Th ey not only protect ethical values
such as fairness, justice, honesty, accountability, and respect for rights, but may also impede
them through built-in bureau pathologies. Structures and procedures may be viewed as
mechanisms for pursuing ethical outcomes. Procedural justice is considered as a way to deal
with the arbitrariness, tyranny, and injustice that may arise in the exercise of administrative
discretion. Th us, discretion should be checked by means of judicial and other institutions. In
public administration, a clash between ethics and organizational culture may occur. Critics
argue that bureaucratic culture corrupts society through lack of human-centered norms. Th e
manipulative role of power holders degenerates into a system of totalitarianism, in which
organizational ethical values are compromised.
6. Philosophical theory and perspectives, with a focus on rejecting positivism and postpositivist
perspectives in public administration. Rejecting the neutrality argument, this perspective
highlights the public servants’ active role in upholding and promoting agreed-upon values of
the “community as public interests.” Administrative ethics, therefore, identify professionalism
with active moral conduct. Th e role of professionalism and of professional administrators
is emphasized in administrative ethics, regardless of partisan or dominant elite interests.
7. Ethics as consequence or utilitarianism, with a focus on the outcome of conduct and behavior
in public administration, is also an extension of the philosophical perspective. In a major
break with classical thought, Machiavelli argued in Th e Prince that acts should be judged as
good or bad depending on their consequences, rather than on their intentions or the characteristics
of their actors. Following this line of argument, John Stuart Mill (1806–1873)
wrote in Utilitarianism that “All action is for the sake of some end, and rules of action it
seems natural to pursue must take their whole character and colour from the end to which
they are subservient. To be good, actions must be means to something admitted to be good,
…such as health or pleasure.”
8. Ethics as principle, with an emphasis on categorical imperatives in which absolute “right”
versus wrong is pursued. Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) approached the question of ethics from a very diff erent angle than Machiavelli or Mill. Kant outlines his categorical imperative
as the ultimate basis for ethical action or inaction. Behaviors are either wrong or right,
ethical or unethical, nothing in between. For example, lying is wrong in an absolute term
and there is no such thing as situational ethics. His philosophy calls for a perfect society
based on ethical and moral “principles” that must be observed under all circumstances. Th is
perspective, which is also philosophical, resonates the ancient Persian “ethical doctrine” in
publics service, administration, and governance, which heavily stressed on the categorical
principles of right versus wrong, good versus evil, justice and fairness, telling “truth,” and
considered “lying” as not only disgraceful and admonishing but also against law and seriously
punishable as a crime. However, the Persians considered exceptional circumstance,
such as unintentional lying, or lying to save lives or community or family interests, while
judging a person in violation of the ethical doctrine and reduced the severity of punishments,
given the person had clear prior records (see Chapter 2). Th e ethical doctrine was
highly emphasized in Persian educational systems to prepare leadership for public service
and administration throughout the vast “global empire of Persia.” For more detailed
information, see Cooper (2001) and Farazmand (2002).
Professionalism and Administrative Ethics
Max Weber once observed that the modern state administration would be bureaucratized
everywhere. Both capitalist and socialist States and their administrative systems have gone through
bureaucratization and professionalization. Professionalization of public administration has been
characterized by an adherence to merit system, to task specialization, to systems of checks and
balances, and to the organizational values of effi ciency, economy, and eff ectiveness achieved. It is
also exemplifi ed by the adherence to professional standards, values, criteria, and ethics, rather than
political or other criteria.
Th us, generally speaking, the professionalization of public administration and the administrative
state presents two contrasting perspectives: professionalization introduces task performance,
effi ciency, eff ectiveness, objectivity, integrity, identity, and cohesion. It also serves as a bulwark
against political corruption and other substandard behaviors in the public service. Its value as a
corrective measure has been recognized. However, the clash between professional civil service values,
on the one hand, and the political values of responsiveness, responsibility, and accountability
to citizens, on the other, has been a major source of tension between professional career bureaucrats
and politicians, elected or appointed. Th e confl ict between professional and political values
has captured much of the recent literature in public administration and political science around
the globe. Are they really contradictory or complementary?
Two opposing perspectives prevail on this question. Th e one against professional discretion
and participation in policy-making asserts that such participation is undemocratic because nonelected,
appointed bureaucrats cannot be held accountable to members of the electorate. Th is
perspective also contends that democratic values of responsiveness and responsibility are lost, as
professional bureaucrats play a part in policy decisions. It is increasingly diffi cult not to hold professional
experts accountable, since only they understand the minutiae of the knowledge they possess.
Th e counterargument for professional values asserts that professional standards serve the broad
public interest. Th erefore, they are responsive to societal needs. Accountability is achieved through organizational, professional, and personal mechanisms of checks and balances. In addition, legislative,
judicial, and other means of oversight are also exercised over them.
A third theoretical approach consists of combining professional and democratic values in the
public service. Th us, to be a sound administrator, it is not only essential to perform with high
ethical values and promote effi ciency and eff ectiveness, but also with responsiveness, responsibility,
and fairness or justice. Discretion must be exercised not only under multiple systems of checks
and balances, but also with personal and professional integrity and prudence (practical wisdom).
Th erefore, to be a professional is not enough. One must also be a responsible and responsive
administrator. Th is requires ethical education and training at all levels.
Professional public administrators may be seen as the guardians of the administrative state.
Th ey provide stability and continuity in governance, even in the midst of paralyzing political
crises, upheavals, and revolutions. It is an established fact that bureaucracy has survived political
changes for more than three millennia. Public administrators play an active role in the formulation
of public policies. But their impact on the pace, style, tone, and quality of policy implementation
is immense. Th ey may be viewed as guardians of the public trust.
Accountability in the public service is very important, because there are many aspects of
administrative work that are open to corruption and subversion of the public interest. At the
same time, there are aspects of professionalism that make it diffi cult to attain an acceptable level
of accountability. Th e diffi culty in attaining administrative accountability makes administrative
ethics particularly important. Ethics is a form of self-discipline, an inner check on the conduct of
public servants, and it must be internalized to appear in ethical behavior. Yet, there are external
mechanisms of ethical control of administration—ethics code, institutional reports and requirements,
etc.—that if observed can work eff ectively against unethical conducts. Accountability is
also an organizational and political concern. It touches on issues of liability as well as ethical matters.
To deal with these two issues of worldwide concern, it is worth considering the question of
why some public administrators abuse their trust and act in ways considered to be contrary to the
public interest and in violation of the public trust. For more on this see, Farazmand (2002).
Guardians of the Public Trust
Generally speaking, there are three categories of factors that may impel public administrators to
violate the public trust. Th ese are misrepresentation of the public interest, corruption, and subversion
(Rosenbloom, 1995).
Obstacles to Guard the Guardians
Important though it is, the task of guarding the guardians presents a number of problems:
1. Special expertise and information. Public administrators are often experts at what they do.
Th e expertise and specialized information they possess puts them in an advantageous position,
which is not matched by outsiders, especially common citizens, but even politicians.
Th is technical, specialized expertise and information is often the basis of administrative and
organizational decisions, and often beyond the ability of outsiders and those charged with
oversight to fathom.
2. Full-time status. Simply stated, the full-time status of public administrators makes it diffi cult
for outsiders, who have many other things to do, to hold them accountable. Administrators
are involved in details and are often good at what they do. Politicians and common citizens
do not have the time and expertise to match such status.
3. Job security and other protections. Most public administrators enjoy job security, and any
adverse organizational action against them is subject to due process, civil-service protection
procedures, and so on. Although job security has been eroded during the last 25 years or so,
it is still a source of protection against arbitrary dismissals and disciplinary actions. Discipline
and dismissals are diffi cult, though not impossible. Many small and petty administrative
infractions can over time lead to a signifi cant adverse impact on public service image
and credibility, as well as on organizational productivity, performance, and service quality.
4. Th e law of countercontrol. According to Anthony Downs (1967), it takes a bureaucracy to control
another bureaucracy. Th e law of countercontrol has several manifestations in diff erent
parts of the world. It leads to duplication, waste, and the proliferation of bureaucratic organizations
for control purposes, a practice that obscures the cardinal purpose of public service,
which is to serve the citizens and to protect their interest in an effi cient and eff ective manner.
5. Coordination problems. Such problems make accountability diffi cult for many reasons. For
example, separation of powers in the United States between the Executive, Congress, and
Judiciary has been a source of diffi culties in securing accountability (Rosenbloom, 1993).
Analogous examples may be found elsewhere in the world. It is often diffi cult to hold an
agency or administrator accountable, when many organizations and offi cials are involved in
implementation without proper coordination and control.
6. Fragmentation of organizational functions and structures. Th is is another obstacle in securing
administrative accountability. Fragmentation and overlapping functions and responsibilities
cause confusion. Accountability is lost because no one seems to be responsible, where everyone
is responsible. Blames are shifted from one source to another. Organizational structure
often require duplication and redundancy, both of which can provide unhappy bureaucrats—
both public and private sectors—adequate defensive mechanisms to hide behind
rules and procedures when resisting change, implementation, or even desiring to alter the
outcome of undesired policy or issues in the implementation process.
7. Th e large size and scope of public administration. Almost everywhere in the world, the size,
missions, and scope of public administration are extremely broad. Often the structures,
rules, procedures, and the number of employees employed complicate the task of holding
public administrators accountable. Complexity is a function of size, scope, and structural
features of organizational activities. Th e more complex an organization, the more diffi
cult it is to hold the administrators accountable in the performance. Complexity is also
complicated by the challenges of rapid globalization, turbulence in world politics, and
chaotic nonlinear events that shake the world with surprises.
Yet, despite these major obstacles, a number of means have been used to secure accountability
in public service and thus to guard the guardians. Codes of professional ethics and education
constitute two broad categories. A complementary approach encompasses political, legal, cultural,
and other institutional arrangements, which are explored in the subsequent section, but nothing
replaces a thorough ethical educational system incorporated in the curricula from the early age on,
and especially through preparation for public service and administration.
Achieving Accountability
Administrative accountability in the public service can be achieved through a number of formal means.
Th ese are institutionalized mechanisms through which checks and balances are expected to work.
1.Managerial/Organizational
Th ese universal organizational values or principles are effi ciency, economy,
eff ectiveness, and control. Th e fi rst three are values of instrumental rationality, while the fourth is
both a normative and a rational imperative of organizational accountability. Organizational unity
is important for the maximization of these values, and several means are used to secure it.
First, hierarchy, authority, and responsibility need to be clearly defi ned and assigned. Overlapping
functions should be reduced; lines of hierarchical authority should be clear and comprehensive. Multiple
agency heads/leadership tend to divide subordinates’ loyalties and to obscure responsibility.
Subordination is also necessary for organizational unity, eff ectiveness, and accountability.
Insubordination is seldom tolerated and is punishable by dismissal. Lastly, the span of control is
an eff ective means of organizational accountability. Essentially, a part of the orthodox, classical
management and organization theory, a narrow span of control has been viewed as an important
principle of organizational accountability.
Organizational loyalty is expected of all members and is assured in many ways: these include
socialization into the organizational milieu; occupational specialization makes it diffi cult for
employees to fi nd equivalent positions elsewhere, and dependence on organizations, through pension
schemes or indeed confl ict-of-interest regulations close the revolving door. Countries such as
the United States have legislative regulations that tend to be comprehensive on these matters. Formal
disciplinary systems enforce accountability and subordination. Th ey are designed to identify
the types of proper conduct and to prevent abuse of agency authority and property.
Formal disciplinary systems have often been criticized as largely ineff ective. Public accountability
should seek to enforce much higher standards of behavior, an approach that is professional
and legal or constitutional in nature. Audits are strong deterrents to corruption or other abuses of
public trust. Audits can also be internal or external, and it may be desirable to employ external as
well as internal audits. In many public organizations, both are required.
2.Political Means
Th e political approach takes a diff erent road in stressing the need to develop an external means
of accountability in public administration. Th is is frequently done through political control of
personnel systems by using patronage appointments. However, other important means are also
applied eff ectively and are familiar to most systems:
1. Legislative oversight, which can be achieved by means of legislative requirement for the
ratifi cation of the appointment of agency heads, legislative investigations, and auditing.
2. Budgetary control, which means the power of the purse, an extremely important legislative
check on executive power.
3. Rotation in offi ce to reduce the risk of misrepresentation of public interest, amassment of
power, or empire-building by key administrators. Th is is an ancient personnel practice going
back to Persia and Rome. Its utility is recognized for a number of reasons around the world.
Th e 1978 Civil Service Reform Act of the United States created the Senior Executive Service
to enable the federal civil servants to move from one agency to another. Political executives
are routinely rotated from offi ce to offi ce, or out of offi ce, when a new political boss arrives.
4. Representation and public participation as a means of broadening the composition of public
service and encouraging diversity, which may bring administrative values closer to the general
public, thus refl ecting citizens’ perspectives and preferences.
5. Whistleblowing is a widely known practice, with its benefi ts and costs. Th e use of hot lines
and other confi dential channels may be safer for public administrators, protecting them
from reprisals. Leaks to the press, exposure to the public and the media, reporting to higher
authority, resignation in protest, and exposure are some means of whistleblowing. Some
countries have passed legislation protecting whistleblowers, but in reality, it is a risky practice,
as whistleblowers are often demonized, character assassinated, and attached to scandals
to keep them silenced.
6. “Sunshine laws,” which require open public dealings as important means of securing accountability
and proper conduct of public offi cials. Today, most American states and local governments
have adopted some forms of sunshine laws. Sunshine laws are useful mechanisms for
transparency, but they tend to become facades as the actors in the process often streamline
issues and decisions before they are bought in on the agenda or to the open meetings.
7. Confl ict of interest, which is similar to the organizational and managerial approach. However,
confl ict of interests is very pervasive everywhere and its eradication is a monumental
task not everyone can carry. People with infl uence in high offi ces often tend to form informal
alliances with key individuals and business sectors that benefi t lawmakers, administrators,
and a lot more. Confl ict of interests benefi t individuals with connections to businesses
carrying out government contracting jobs; they are directly or indirectly related to offi cials
who benefi t from such government contracts and business deals.
3.Legal Approach
Th is is a judicial approach to administrative accountability. Administrative liability is one issue;
another is a strong and personally internalized incentive to protect the constitutional rights of
individual citizens.
4.Cultural Approach
Th is is another means of achieving accountability in public service. It requires inclusion of signifi cant
ethical components in the educational curricula for children and adults. Ethical education can be carried out through religious and secular institutions. Religious institutions and values can be used
as major guiding principles in public service conduct. For example, in Islam, like in other religions,
there is a high value attached to being a public servant and to proper behavior in personal
and public life.
5.Ethics Institutional Approach
A number of institutions can be created and empowered to promote and enforce ethical behavior
and accountability. For example, programs for whistleblowing, ethics hot lines, ethics boards
and commissions, ethics education programs for elected, politically appointed, and administrative
offi cials, agency ethics offi cers, fi nancial and confl ict-of-interest disclosure systems, and professional
codes of ethics are typically found in modern governments. Australia, Canada, the United
States, the United Kingdom, Iran, India, and many developing countries have most or all of these
institutions in place.
public service ethics and accountability remain major concerns, the incidence of corruption and
unethical behavior is mostly found to be on the political side of the public service. Political executives
are often at the apex of public organizations and, as elites, they tend to be key players in
most scandals. Professionalism in public administration has helped in curbing political corruption
around the world.
Acting as guardians of the public trust, professional administrators are in a central position
to revive and enhance the image of the public service. Th is is a major challenge, which entails
conscious eff ort of advocacy and enforcement. Th e following paragraphs present a list of principles
that can guide public administrators in promoting the above goals. Th ese principles or precepts
are identifi ed as do’s and don’ts.
Ethical education. Ethical education is a must and should be part of all educational systems
at all levels. However, education and training in administrative ethics are most essential for
public service careers anywhere in the world. Th ey must include both personal and administrative
ethics. Civic virtues, virtuous citizenship, respect for others, protection of individual
rights, and other ethical values should be internalized by public servants. Advice to top
executives should also include the following: Set the example and tone for the entire organization
by emphasizing education and training in ethics, by thinking and behaving ethically.
On the other hand, advice to public employees should include the following: Educate yourself
with ethical and moral principles and act ethically; do not compromise on principles;
disobey unconstitutional, immoral, illegal, and unethical orders and expose them through
the appropriate channels; and fi nd appropriate ways to do it.
Preservation of professional and personal integrity. Professional values should prevail over organizational
or personal orders of superiors deemed questionable. Responsible professionalism
is an essential component of administrative behavior. Th is requires self-regulation, knowledge,
self-control, a degree of autonomy and personal independence, and subordination of
private interests to the public interest and public trust. Yet, strict observance to professional interests can and do confl ict, sometimes, confl ict with broad public interests, a problem that
must be avoided when faced, as broad public interests are superior to narrow-based professional
interests, and this requires prudence.
Prudence. Th e exercise of prudence, which means practical wisdom, was emphasized by
three great Persian philosophers and thinkers of the Middle Ages—Farabi, Ibn-e-Cina, and
Nizam-ul-Mulk. Every society has its own thinkers of this caliber. Prudence requires selfcontrolled,
discretionary decisions based on knowledge, expertise, and ethical judgment on
particular situations.
Public spirit. Private interests should be subordinate to public, community interests. In making
decisions or acting as an administrator, think of the public trust and citizens’ interests
fi rst, and then think of yourself. Develop civic virtue, act virtuously, and promote virtuous
citizenship by being a virtuous citizen and acting as a virtuous administrator.
Avoid and prevent problems causing public service crises. Some of these problems are beyond
one’s control as an administrator, but those values and factors that deter public service corruption
and compromise should be adhered to. A responsible, prudent, and virtuous public
administrator should not only try to avoid getting into or causing corruption and crises in
public service, but should also try to do everything possible to prevent them—in the spirit
of serving public interests.
Be a responsible administrator. Act with restraint, discretion, and freedom. Be an example
to others. If you cannot continue to perform your duties properly, resign and expose those
who make it impossible for you to perform ethically and professionally, or blow the whistle
and report wrongdoings to the right sources for corrections. However, it is a tight rope that
must be walked very carefully, as it is common to see a genuine whistleblower charged with
wrongdoing and pay the price—it must be done with consultation and maximum care,
because you as an administrator also have obligations to yourself and your family.
Promote the common good. Devote your time, expertise, and knowledge in building community
values and defending the rights of the poor as well as the affl uent. It is the public interest and
trust that you must serve at all times with integrity. Breaching such principle will lead you to
more unethical violations and corruption—maintain your integrity regardless of the situation.
Be competent and fair. Competence comes with training, skills development, and knowledge. It
is extremely important to apply competence with fairness, equity, and justice in administrative
positions. Effi ciency and eff ectiveness are important organizational and managerial values, but
they must be blended with fairness, equity, and justice. It is this blend of ethical and professional
values that makes professional ethics in public administration possible and desirable.
Follow and enforce the professional code of ethics. Codes of ethics in public administration are
written and unwritten collections or systems of laws, rules, regulations, and norms that
guide public service conduct. Th ey are statements of ideals, canons of action consonant with
those ideals, and binding means of enforcing behavior within the boundaries established by
the code. Opponents of codes of ethics argue that one should resist moralizing everything,
that rigid codifi cation of right or wrong is dysfunctional, and that bureaucratic neutrality
considers it immoral to pass moral judgments on public organizations. Proponents of codes
of ethics cite the objectivity and the positive value added through code of ethics enforcement.
Some codes of ethics carry sanctions for unethical behaviors, while others are more
aspirational or guides to public servants.
Establish and affi rm professional identity as a public servant, as a professional, as a keeper of
public trust, and as an ethical person. Resist all forms of corruption and temptations to
unethical behaviors.
Avoid unethical dilemmas as much as possible but, if caught in the middle, seek advice and
exercise prudence. Most ethical dilemmas can be handled with prudence.
Act morally and ethically with a sound character and responsible judgment. Value and promote
the image of the public service.
Combat corruption at any level and at all times. Establish and use commissions of inquiry,
wage war on indiscipline, and show moral leadership. Also, use scholarly research and the
confi dential approaches mentioned earlier.
Develop and internalize a sense of total quality management (TQM). Promote the idea of doing
things right the fi rst time and prevent the costly error of duplicating or repeating poor quality
work. Do not cheat on your work, internalize work ethics, and develop a sense of motivation
for public interest and self-actualization.
View citizens as valued human beings and as community members, not merely as consumers or
customers in the marketplace. Discourage an overly biased corporate ideology, which seeks
only profi ts and tends to promote corruption and unethical behavior to gain more profi ts.
Markets are not alternatives to public service. Rather, sound governance, public service,
and responsible citizenship are sine qua non of a business-friendly environment, the smooth
operation of markets, eff ective democracy, and social peace.
Bureaucracy and History: Civilization and Administration
Th e early civilizations owe much to the formidable role of bureaucracy as an instrument of power, public works implementation, and planning and implementation of monumental works such as the Suez Canal in Egypt under the Persians, the Chinese Walls, and the pyramids of Egypt.
the origin of bureaucracy is traced to the ancient world of Persia, China, and Egypt, and much later to Rome. While other bureaucracies of the ancient world were around, it was the complexity, structure, and eff ective performance of the Persian bureaucracy that made it world famous, gaining a global reputation of being “second to none in human history
Modern bureaucracy of the Western world advanced with more sophistication, and during the twentieth century, bureaucracy reached its height of power, expertise, and institutional capacities everywhere, prompting numerous scholarly studies on the role, nature, and functions of bureaucracy worldwide. Bureaucracy during the twentieth century played a formidable role in public governance and administration and in business administration, leading to the rise of large-scale corporate organizations and multinational corporations everywhere.
However, as noted earlier, by the late twentieth century, bureaucracy came under vicious attacks from many directions, resulting in its diminution in institutional capacity and legitimacy as an instrument of government and administration. Has bureaucracy disappeared, as a result? No, not at all. Bureaucracy has survived
millennia of changes, and it will persist. However, its character and functions have been altered signifi cantly—more on this later.
Meanings of Bureaucracy
Bureaucracy has at least three major connotations or meanings:
One is the traditional view of the term as defi ned by Weber and characterized as a Weberian model, referring to any organization of modern society with several ideal characteristics such as unity of command, clear line of hierarchy, division of labor and specialization, record keeping, and merit system for recruitment
and promotion, and fi nally, rules and regulations to govern relationship and organizational
performance. Th is was Weber’s characterization as an ideal-type bureaucracy for policy development
and implementation.
To Weber, bureaucracy in modern society is intimately linked, and works together as a necessary organizational instrument, with capitalism.
With thegrowth of government, society, and public sectors, bureaucracy assumes bigger roles due to its
unique position of expertise and order-oriented structure, and it is almost impossible to control it.
Bureaucratization is an inevitable process that expands and reaches everywhere. Unless controlled,
bureaucracy has a tendency to “overtower” society and rule it.
Weber’s ideal-type bureaucracy is the most effi cient form of organization for the implementation of policy and getting things done as a machinery of governance. Th erefore, his ideal model opens a strategic methodological “comparative approach” in governance and organization theory.
Th e second meaning of bureaucracy refers to any large organization or institution structured with missions, functions, and processes and with signifi cant impact on its internal and external environments. Th is is the meaning that Waldo (1992) also adopted, a meaning that is boarder and applicable to all fairly large organizations, private as well as public, modern or ancient. In fact long before Waldo raised this view, it was already studied, mentioned, and applied in social science inquiries. Ancient Persian bureaucracy is often noted as the most effi cient and eff ective organization of public administration presenting many of the Weberian ideal characteristics. Th erefore, when speaking of federal bureaucracy, or local bureaucracy, this meaning often applies. While Weber’s ideal type is criticized for being rigid, infl exible, and not realistic, the second meaning does not make any normative claims though by performance it may produce normative reputations.
Th e third meaning of bureaucracy, though not much mentioned in academe, is the one sociologists
and political scientists refer to as “dynamic” and extends to military and security bureaucratic
institutions of government and governance in public and private sectors.
Bureaucratic Politics and Democratic Theory
However, generally it refers to a wide range of bureaucratic behaviors, roles, and functions. At least fi ve perspectives or viewpoints explain bureaucratic politics, in their broadest sense, with implications for democratic and administrative theories.
One is the “politics of bureaucracy” with a multitude of its own variants, for example, bureaucracy
in policy making versus strict implementation, bureaucracy as a distributional and redistributional
force in the budgetary process, bureaucracy as a dominant military ruler, and so on. Here,
there is a constant call for “controlling the bureaucracy” by democratic institutions, a cry that
complains against bureaucratic tendency to stifl e democracy and individual freedom. Its solution
is privatization and elected offi cials in charge.
What it does not consider in its perspective is the constructive role of bureaucracy in providing consistency, vertical organizational accountability, order and stability, and professionalism and impartiality in the wake of competing partisan and diff erent sectarian sentiments.
But bureaucracy can also engage in various degrees of “bureaucratism,” a phenomenon through which self-serving bureaucrats engage in abusing the power position they enjoy and stifl e or undermine constructive behavior in government or society (Farazmand, 1989). Bureaucratism is a political and dysfunctional behavior displayed by bureaucracy and must be prevented through reforms, training, and development of its personnel.
Th e second perspective of bureaucratic politics is the “the political economy” of bureaucracy,
performing a role in the service of specifi c class or group interests. Th e politics and economics
of bureaucracy therefore cover the external role it plays in society—economically and politically
enhancing certain classes or groups against others—and in its internal dynamics, promoting individual
personalities, positions, and power centers toward specifi c interest group or class goals,
including its own self-serving goals. Th e political economy perspective comes primarily from Karl
Marx, whose view of bureaucracy is generally negative and exploitative, and considers bureaucracy
as an instrument of class rule in service of those in dominant class positions in society—e.g., capitalist
bourgeoisie and the socialist state in reverse. According to Marx (1951, 1966), bureaucracy in capitalism is a circle no one can escape from—all are enslaved by this repressive institutional organization that is organized to serve one goal—enhancing the ruling capitalist class at the expense of the working classes. Bureaucracy also benefi ts from this as it perpetuates its own realm of control and manipulation, but cannot fool the ruling class elite because its own well-being is intimately linked to that class interests, and it becomes parasitic as it grows bigger.
Th e third perspective views bureaucratic politics in its distinct administrative service delivery,
performance of large-scale achievements through its massive professionalized capacities. Judging this perspective is based on criteria of mass performance management: building and managing public works, bridges, and highways; mobilizing forces in the wake of crises and emergencies; coordinating and competing with adversarial forces in crises; etc Th e role of bureaucracy in “development” is another feature of administrative function. However, a bureaucracy heavily entangled in security and control orientation is no longer a healthy functioning bureaucracy in the service of broad-based public interests.
Th e fourth perspective, therefore, is related to the political economy as well, and it is the
“system maintenance and system enhancement” role of the bureaucracy in modern society. All political systems are concerned about their maintenance and tend to defend themselves against system challengers, whether democracy or dictatorship, open or closed. Yet a highly politically oriented bureaucracy acting predominantly in the service of system maintenance and enhancement is fragile, repressive, and instrumental in encouraging a growing dictatorship that erodes all institutions of society, including the regime in power, its own organizational legitimacy, and position in society. No one would trust the repressive bureaucracy of the post-1953 bloody military coup d’ état in Iran that led to the Shah’s military–bureaucratic dictatorship for the next 25 years. Similarly, no one would trust the bureaucracy under the dictatorship of General Pinochet in Chile, or of Somoza in Nicaragua, and Marcos in the Philippines. A bureaucracy heavily involved in system maintenance and enhancement cannot maintain a balance between its administrative functions and security–military functions, therefore degenerating progressively into a repressive instrument of dictatorship.Th is is a pattern that has spread among most countries worldwide; the administrative state has been forced into retreat, and the military–security–bureaucratic state has triumphed. Would this result in increased poverty and destitution, injustice and violence, and possible revolutions worldwide? Yes, most likely. In fact, according to all international records, poverty has increased dramatically worldwide, and violence too has increased, not decreased. Such poverty and instability will call for more social control through police, meaning an even stronger military–security bureaucracy at the expense of administrative public service bureaucracy, a vicious circle no one can escape from, but the ruling corporatist elite, including the bureaucratic elite, will be the prime benefi ciaries.
Th e fi fth perspective of bureaucratic politics refers to politicization and bureaucratization of polity, society, and of course the bureaucracy and government. Bureaucratization is a political phenomenon, and politicization is an ideological process for indoctrination of the bureaucracy and the people dealing with it. Politicization injects certain ideological, political, and economic values toward specifi c goals and mission, for example, globalization of corporate globalization or slogans of market-base reforms, and forces members of the bureaucracy and administrative state to conform, adhere to, and enhance the new values; any rejection or resistance would result in unpleasant consequences, including loss of jobs and income, demotion, character assassination, ostracizing, and even security threat to the system.
1.5 Bureaucracy and Development
Traditionally, bureaucracy
has played a key role in the processes of nation building and institutionalization of governance
and administration. As a central and most powerful institution of governance, bureaucracy—by
virtue of its organizational, knowledge, and control capacities—has always been instrumental
in governing and public administration not only in developing nations, but also in advanced
industrialized countries. Bureaucracy is better organized, better controlled, order oriented, has
knowledge expertise, possesses large capacities which most organizations do not have, and it
receives its annual budget from the treasury allocated by politicians interested in preserving the
status quo and expanding their political interests through bureaucratic organizational channels.
Th ere is also an intimate relationship between the bureaucratic elite, the business elite, and the
political elite whose desire is often linked to the other two—all three form iron triangles in
various fi elds or sectors.
In pursing development policies, bureaucracy is in a strategic position to formulate and develop
policy proposals, submit them to legislatures for approval, manipulate the process, and form alliance
in the legislatures as most bureaucratic elite members are also members of political and business
elite.
Bureaucracy is also involved in implementing policy decisions coming back from the
legislature—whether in parliamentary or congressional and presidential systems, like the United
States—and then again involved in evaluation and the whole cycle continues.
In terms of development, bureaucracy is also in key positions to devise,
develop, and implement developmental projects, programs, and activities, very often slowly and
with probable corruption.
In developing countries, likewise, bureaucracy has played a major role in the development
process, but not fast enough, therefore raising a critical question of why bureaucracy is not the best
institution to achieve development goals. Actually, this is a critical question and cannot be simplifi
ed with a negative answer, as it all depends on the political elite and governing elite being independent
and constructive or not, or are they simply pawns or instruments of foreign colonial and
imperialist powers or not. Nevertheless, for faster development process many factors are involved,
including a cable and development administrative capacity to initiate and implement development
projects and programs eff ectively and effi ciently. Bureaucracy is slow in doing this, but it can be
complemented by nonbureaucratic and hybrid organizational systems of administration to manage
development. Nevertheless, bureaucracy can play that mothership role, steering and guiding
all other institutional systems in the development process. Several chapters in this book address
the role of bureaucracy in development in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. However, as noted
above, much of the success of development depends on political elite autonomy from external pressures
and dictation and on the degree to which indigenous population are involved.
Development requires sound development administration, and development administration
requires sound administrative capacity—with institutional, organizational, managerial, and leadership
knowledge, skills, and commitments with values that transcend diversity and diff erences.
Administrative development capacity building requires education and training, program development,
leadership training, and a host of other capacity developments. Unless internalized and
developed with commitments, mere importation of these ideas and expertise cannot work as they
become useless in the face of changes and upheavals—simply put, there is no confi dence building
involved and no leadership to sustain it even if built.
-->Studies have shown that bureaucracy is not resistant to changes that may serve national development
goals, as long as their positions are not lost to outsiders. For example, privatization in some developing countries like Bangladesh has met little or no resistance from bureaucrats, especially from higher civil servants of the bureaucracy, because most of these higher civil servants are usually involved and connected to the privatized business elite.
1.6 Bureaucracy, Change, and Revolution
However, briefl y noted here,
bureaucracy, by nature, is slow to change and adapt, but under right conditions it can be altered
to respond to popular demand. Yet, expectations must be modifi ed as the dynamic ingredients
for radical change and transformation are scarce in the bureaucracy. Bureaucracy stands for order,
specialization, professionalization, and stability; its propensity for change is low and must be supplemented
with additional dynamic energy and forces.
Th eories of change and reform point to three types of change and reform: top-down, bottomup,
and institutional (Peters, 2001; Farazmand, 2002). Top-down reforms and changes move
from the center downward—from the elite and organizational leaders who for some reasons see a
need for change and reform. Th ese reasons can be economic, social, and political or cultural, but
mainly it is due to political system maintenance reasons, instituting some reform to pacify rebelling
forces below and to preserve the system in control. Very often political regimes in trouble
come up with some top-down reforms to preserve the system and prevent social revolutions.
Bottom-up reforms are most pushed upward by popular pressures demanding change and
genuine reforms in a system plagued by corruption, repression, or simply ineffi ciency. Whatever
the motivation, bottom-up reforms and changes are most of the time reformist at best and not
revolutionary, as once the motivation loses heat, business as usual starts to creep in. Sometimes,
however, people are not satisfi ed by piece meal changes and push for more radical ones, a process
that can make dynamics hard if not impossible to predict or control. Most revolutionary movements
lead to this level and progress further till the system is replaced. Reforms do not bring about
fundamental changes; they simply make adjustments to preserve the status quo.
Institutional reforms and changes are rather more comprehensive and embrace not just one
organization or agency; they embrace a whole spectrum of institutional arrangements of a government
or the entire system of an institution, involving its people, culture, and value systems.
It is holistic and combines both top-down and bottom-up approaches, but it goes to the heart of
the system and institutionalizes the reforms or changes to make sure that those involved accept
and take part in the process. Short of being revolutionary changes, most institutional changes are
comprehensive and take a long time to accomplish.
Revolutionary changes come as a result of a radical answer to a fundamental question: What to
do with the old regime’s bureaucracy so entrenched and supportive of the old order? Th is is a central
question for all revolutionary leaders, from the French to the Russian and the Cuban, Chinese,
and the Iranian revolutions.(but even they didnt abolish it completely as it was not possible.)
Revolutions demand revolutionary changes in the machinery of government and administrative
systems. Any piecemeal change will do more harm and undermine the new system; its gains
must be consolidated. Th us revolutionary changes include replacement of all key and strategic
positions and offi cials, leaving the lower echelons of the bureaucracy in place but closely supervised
to perform necessary functions, only to be led by a new administrative elite, having military
commanders loyal to the new regime, and absorbing neutral and loyal members of the old system
gradually and cautiously into the new bureaucracy. Th is is what the Iranian revolutionary leaders
did by creating antibureaucratic, parallel organizations against the bureaucracy, and staff ed the
bureaucracy with new revolutionary leaders, as well as mobilizing the entire population of the citizenry
into various grassroots organizations to check on the bureaucracy and to perform essential
public service functions.
Th e Russians also did the same, so did the Chinese and the Cubans. And so did the Americanbacked
military dictators like Pinochet in post-Allende Chile and the Shah’s military and bureaucratic
elite in post-coup d’ état 1953 Iran—all potentially loyal offi cers of the old system were not
only fi red, but executed, jailed, or they disappeared from the face of the earth. Th e same was done
by American occupying forces after invading Iraq—most Saddam’s military and civilian bureaucratic
offi ces and offi cers were eliminated, executed, or replaced with new ones.
Conclusion: Bureaucracy Persists, Beyond Weber
Th e above rather brief discussion concludes that bureaucracy persists and has survived millennia
of all changes—slow and radical, and peaceful and bloody violent ones. Why does bureaucracy persist? It persists because it provides professionalism and continuity in organizational, cultural,
and managerial structure and values; it stands for order and stability in the wake of turbulence.
Yet, its slowness and sometime resistance to change make it diffi cult, if not impossible, to make
changes possible. Only resolute decisions and committed leadership can bring about changes in
bureaucracy through genuine programs of reform that involve institutional members and those
aff ected by the reforms. Revolutionary changes require revolutionary and fundamental changes
in the old bureaucracy, otherwise tenacious old habits die hard and can undermine the new order.
Also, crises and emergency situations demand a swift administrative response that established
bureaucracies are generally not suited for, unless they have special organizational design capacities
prepared and in place for such events (Farazmand, 2007).
What about a stifl ing bureaucracy unresponsive to rising popular demands? Th e antibureaucratic
movements of the last 25 years or so have caused massive public awareness about the rigid,
slow moving bureaucracy insensitive to pressures of a much demanding fast life for citizens who
feel more and more unhappy with government performance and bureaucratic obstacles. Understanding
the positive side of the bureaucracy is important, and it is time for the traditional bureaucratic
models to learn to change, adapt, and relearn to lead organizationally, to meet the challenges
of rapid globalization, and to respond to citizens’ demands and expectations. Bureaucracy must
move “beyond Weber” and adapt to changes and transformations that challenge the administrative
or bureaucratic systems. Bureaucracies everywhere are now forced to learn to adapt and change,
open up secret and monopolistic information, share it with citizens and other organizations, and
perform with transparency and ethical standards. Th is is the new challenge of the time in the age
of rapid globalization (Farazmand, 2009, forthcoming) and “global empire” (Amsden, 2007).
Indian Legacy of Bureaucracy and Administration
Of the three fully developed ancient bureaucracies of India, China, and Iran, the Indian legacy
has made a widespread contribution to modern public administration in the third world, mainly
through the agency of the British Empire. Th is happened because the British had no precedents,
experience, or ideas available in their own domestic nonbureaucratic arrangements for applying to
their new Indian possessions in the late eighteenth century and hence they picked up, polished,
and adapted the relevant practices of Indian administration to their immediate needs. As their
empire expanded onto Southeast Asia and Africa, they simply transplanted these onto their new
possessions thus spreading the Indian legacy over large areas of the globe. For this reason alone,
the administrative legacy of ancient India is worth careful study.
Evolution of Imperial Bureaucracy
1.Early Hindu political institutions were not imperial; there were several democratic republics on one
side and several monarchies with some ethical and institutional controls on the other. Most republics
were conquered and absorbed by neighboring kingdoms, but the Indian republican tradition
is preserved for us not only in the writings of Greek scholars, but also in the republican conciliar
constitution of the Buddhist Sangha [6].
2.For quite a long while, the monarchs fought each other
according to well known rules without absorbing and integrating rival kingdoms into a larger
empire, being satisfi ed with proclaiming a vague paramountcy. Th e Rajasuya sacrifi ce performed
by victorious monarchs, just confi rmed and acknowledged this paramountcy. Th is arrangement
gave way to imperial conquest and territorial absorption by the fi fth century BC when the Nanda
dynasty founded an empire in the Gangetic valley—which was soon after expanded and consolidated
by Chandragupta Maurya into the famous Mauryan Empire, a little earlier to the fi rst
empire of Shi Huang Ti in China, and contemporaneous with the Achaemenid Empire in Iran.
Th e three world states or empires thus took shape within a few years of each other—and in all
the three cases, the power holders opted for some form of bureaucracy to integrate their conquests
and preserve their hold. In other words, the occasion and provocation for ancient bureaucracy
was the need to knit and rule a new empire of sizeable area.
Th e logic behind this is worked out in the structure of the famous contemporary work Kautilya’s Arthasastra [7]. Th e fi rst six “books” or sections describe in great detail a centralized bureaucracy while the next nine discuss the ways of acquiring other lands by war and diplomacy to build an empire. Th e order seems reversed; the acquisition of empire coming after the details of its administration, but their mutual relationship
is clear.
3.Th e options for an empire builder were few and clear. In a small kingdom or republic, a
fl exible mode of governing without elaborate formal structures was the norm. But with a large
empire, the options were letting the old rulers continue as tributaries, or creating a new feudal
order of nobles with full local power or structuring a new bureaucracy of paid loyal offi cials. Th e
bureaucratic option was chosen as the best way to consolidate power with loyal offi cers without
their own power-base. Th e logic behind this comes out clearly in Chapters X and XII of the fi rst
book of Arthasastra dealing with the testing of ministers and offi cials with various temptations and
the ruthless manner in which “thorns” (traitors) were to be dealt with. Th e bureaucracy was to be
based not on birth or relationship, but on merit and loyalty alone without which the bureaucratic
option to entrench power and hold an empire together would not work.
4.Arthasastra’s fi rst six “books” form probably the most detailed manual of monarchical administration
in the ancient or medieval world, though more scholarly attention has been devoted to
the last nine books on war, diplomacy, and international relations. Th e instructions on administration
cover all areas and functions with brutal detail and clarity.
Indeed, the second book, with its 38 chapters, is one of the most specifi cally detailed account
of imperial administration anywhere in the ancient world. Th us Chapter X on royal writs discusses
all grammatical and stylistic nuances and Chapter XI on gems and gifts is a virtual catalogue of
all contemporary products. Other chapters elaborate central administration, provincial, regional,
fi eld and village administration, municipal administration, fi nancial and resource administration,
and justice and military administration.
5.Kautilya glides lightly over contractual theories of kingship, assumes that a high
concentration of power is necessary for civilized society to carry on, and advises the King against
all sorts of stratagems, to be strong and diligent. At the same time, no man can run a state singlehanded;
one needs a central team of advisers and a large team of fi eld executives. Kautilya implicitly
bypasses the options of feudalist power-sharing and patrimonial delegation—and advises the
monarch to choose all advisers and offi cers by various tests for loyalty and merit. Th e testing
against “allurements” and particularly “religious allurement” in Chapter VII of the fi rst book
implies a separation of religion from politics and a sharp focus on ability and loyalty in the choice
of ministers and offi cials.
6.Th e structure of central administration is given in great detail both in Kautilya’s Arthasastra
and in the Asokan inscriptions [9]. Th ey agree about two or three top levels in central administration;
a minister or ministers called Mantrin (Kautilya) or Mahamatra (Asoka); a council of ministers
at the next level (Mantri parishad), and many top offi cers and public servants variously called
Amatyas or Sachivas, in a clear hierarchy. Th ese three levels were retained with slightly changed
names in the later Gupta Empire in the fi fth century AD and under Harsha in the seventh century.
Th e general of the army was also a Mantri of equal status, as were the viceroys or Kumaras of
the four large regions or provinces of the Mauryan Empire. Th eir high and equal status is borne
out by the high annual salary of 48,000 panas assigned to them. Th e members of the council were
either part-time or consultative and drew 12,000 panas, but the public servants “amatyas” drew
24,000 panas, or half of what the top Mantrins earned.
Th e army administration was separately organized as was accounting and fi nancial administration
through separate hierarchies. Th e offi ce of Collector General (Samahartri) and the Accountant
General (Akshapataladhyaksha) were separate and each had its own hierarchy. Chapter VI
of Book II on the former goes into detail about the distinctions between current receipts and last
balance, and between necessary and profi table expenditure while Chapter VII on accounts details
various types of accounting deceptions and their punishment, and a separate long Chapter VII
focuses on embezzlement. Kautilya goes into minute detail about everything, but even more so in
regard to fi nance. Th us Chapter XXI of Book II, on tolls, details various punishments for various
off ences relating to toll evasion and Chapter XVI on commerce discusses government monopolies
of local produce and imports in detail and suitable ways of increasing profi t. Two detailed chapters
are again assigned to gold and currency.
Th e central administrative structure was generally replicated in the regions or provinces governed
by viceroys. Th ese were subdivided into divisions and districts. Th e district has continued
to be the nerve center of fi eld administration today [10]. Th e district offi cer then called Pradeshtri
or Sthanika seems to have been much the same as his present day counterpart. He combined
revenue collection and magisterial duties and supervised the work of other technical or clerical
offi cials (Yutktas) as well as village government under the Gopa. Th e Asokan inscriptions as well as
Kautilya’s work generally agree in most regards. As a great Buddhist emperor, Asoka of course
appointed Dharma mahamatras or ethical superintendents to elevate the moral tone of the society.
How was such an elaborate tentacular bureaucracy sustained in loyalty and effi ciency in those
days of diffi cult communication? It was achieved essentially through three factors: an elaborate
system of internal spying and inspection, the hard work and vigilance of the emperor and his
cohorts, and thirdly through a skeletal monetary economy with cash payments.
Th is bureaucratic system founded by Kautilya, Chandragupta, and Asoka was adopted by
the successor empires of the Guptas, and of Harsha with minor changes in name and substance
[11]. Th us we fi nd an offi cer for war and peace, Sandhivigraha, another offi cer Uparika associated
with provincial administration, Kumaramatyas or experienced offi cials, and Dandanayaka standing
for a police or an army offi cer. Th e Guptas in the North and the Cholas in the South made a
sophisticated system of village self-government an integral part of the administrative system. But
the overall structures of central and provincial administration were essentially modifi cations of the
Arthasastra–Asoka model.
Imperial unity did not, however, last in India as it did in China. Th e Mauryan Empire declined
after Asoka and was replaced by the Sunga dynasty ruling over a smaller area. India was divided
into a number of fairly sizeable independent states with the western parts being under Persian
satraps. Th e Indianized Kushan Empire after straddling a good part of North India and areas of
Central Asia lasted for a century after Christ spreading Buddhist culture.
Th is was followed by another period of border incursions and independent states until the
Guptas in the fourth century welded a good part of India into an empire after subduing the Saka
invaders. Th e empire declined due to Hun invasions and other disintegrative factors, giving way to
several independent kingdoms. Th e empire of Harsha in the seventh century covering North India
up to the Narmada River, a loosely knit federal empire was the swansong of the Hindu imperial
tradition. After four centuries of smaller empires and some independent kingdoms, the Muslim
invaders established a sultanate in Delhi from the late twelfth century. While their rule covered
a good part of North India, it was checkered by change of dynasties, assassinations, intrigues,
and rebellions and was not characterized by steady patterns of administration. Th e exception was
Sher Shah in the late fi fteenth century, whose revenue administration formed a model for the
Mughuls.
Th e Mughul Empire in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries provided a steady pattern of
administration, but its decline in the eighteenth century was followed by total anarchy in large
parts of North India, when the British East India Company began its career or gradual conquest.
Th roughout the long period from the thirteenth to the eighteenth century, South India witnessed
the rise and fall of the Vijayanagar Empire, the Bahmani Kingdom, the Muslim sultanates of
Bijapur and Golconda largely under their Hindu ministers, the rise and fall of Mahratta power,
and several smaller viceroyalties and kingdoms. Th is extremely cursory historical account underscores
the point that India had no imperial administrative continuity as China had under the
mandarinic. Some administrative ideas, however, survived in modifi ed or resuscitated forms. Let
us investigate the causes of discontinuity in India and the nature of the modifi ed continuity.
3.5 Marxist and Weberian Attitudes
Our analysis of ancient Indian bureaucracy as such seems self-suffi cient in terms of our parameters.
But a brief glance at Weber’s and Marx’s ideas in this regard may be attempted cautiously. Th e fi rst
diffi culty in this is that there is no agreement among competing Marxists and non-Marxists as to
what is meant by Marx’s AMP or Precapitalist Mode of Production [21]. Secondly, several scholars
have pointed out, the meager undeveloped European orientalist sources from which Weber and
Marx drew [22]. Without bothering to study that debate we can look at the question afresh in our
own way.
We may assume that Weber’s characterization of modern legal rational bureaucracy involves
(1) the mutual complementarity of these characteristics, and (2) assumes that a market and
monetary economy was essential for these characteristics to be sustained. It then follows that
ancient bureaucracies having only some of the characteristics and not being based on a monetary
economy could not continue as legal-rational bureaucracies.
We can argue that this mode of
dismissing them is arbitrary. Th e Mauryan bureaucracy in India or the Han and Tang bureaucracies
in China and certainly the Persian bureaucracy exhibited the main characteristics of
the Weberian list, of hierarchy, rules and regulations, division of labor, and career orientation
in a sustained manner for long periods, in an economy which was at least partly monetary
though predominantly barter and exchange based.. Th ere is thus no need to lump them
under some pejorative labels like patrimonial or prebendal for nonstudy. Th e real argument
for a sharper identifi cation of modern legal-rational bureaucracy away from ancient bureaucracies
was never spelled out precisely by Weber himself though it may be inferred by the second
remove by mar rying the general approach of Weber to that of his great contemporaries Tonnies
and Durkhcim .
Th us the impersonal legalrational characteristics of modern bureaucracy—are sustained by a gesellschaft society that is itself organized into partly impersonal functional associations. Th is correspondence, makes it easy
for bureaucracy’s recruitment of personnel from society and its smooth interactions with society
just as a monetary economy makes a bureaucratic career dependent on job performance with
bureaucracy as a vocation—unlike in feudalistic prebendal or other modes of remuneration. To
the extent to which bureaucracy’s impersonal characteristics were divorced from that of a gemeinschaft
society, it was vulnerable either to continuous dilution by contact or ineff ectiveness by isolation.
Th e lapses of bureaucratic into feudal structures in ancient India developed partly because
of this. A similar development also overtook even Tudor bureaucracy in England after Elizabeth I
because it was evolved during a period of limited transport and communications and had fulfi lled
its main purpose of unifying the country.
It was an enlightened landed aristocracy that took power in the Glorious Revolution of 1688
and ran the country on a voluntaristic basis without much bureaucracy for a century and a half,
while bureaucracy took shape later in Louis XIV’s France and Frederick the Great’s Prussia when
feudalism was in its death throes and a gesellschaft society was evolving along with faster communications
[23]. It was this harmonious simultaneous evolution of society into gesellschaft and
bureaucracy that sustained both in the nineteenth century and later. It was the isolation of bureaucracy
in a gemeinschafi society that diluted it sooner or later.
Marx’s AMP has been interpreted diff erently by Marxists themselves, but let us assume for
the sake of argument that it meant bureaucratically controlled state monopolies in production
without private property. It is doubtful if that picture was obtained at all, in India, in its fullness
during any period. In fact, during the late eighteenth century, when the East India Company
was just entering India, it did not show such a picture at all. Th ere was some state controlled
production by Kharkhanas under the Mughuls at one end, a substantial accumulation of capital
for investment at another end, and a large surplus of privately manufactured cotton goods for
export—a strange combination indeed. Th e fi rm establishment of British rule, far from generating
an outburst of local capitalism as Marx might have expected, killed the textile industry,
diverted Indian capital into money-lending and gold ornament manufacture, and created
a purely salaried and professional bourgeoisie. Later Marxists like Kusinen have explained this
as an alliance of monopoly capitalism in its imperial phase with the traditional elite (Degras).
Whatever the merits of the original or refurbished AMP concept, it is clear that it gives no
insights into the role of ancient or medieval Indian bureaucracy in the context of the society at
that time and Wittfogel’s modifi ed theory relating hydraulic society and bureaucratic control
(which is disowned by several Marxists) does no better as we have already argued. In short, one
purpose of this chapter is to argue that neither Marx nor Weber have all that much to off er in
understanding ancient bureaucracies and to suggest a really fresh look at them without rigid
Weberian or Marxist commitments.
THEORETICAL AND CONCEPTUAL PERSPECTIVES ON BUREAUCRACY AND
BUREAUCRATIC POLITICS
1.Bureaucratic Links between Administration and Politics
Th ere are no doubts that originally rulers created
bureaucracies to serve them as instruments of administration to implement their policies. However,
as soon as anyone received an appointment to serve as a public offi cial, that person discovered that the
position carried power and created political interests. It is not an exaggeration to think of bureaucracy
as a class, and as a class that has both pronounced interests and the power to protect them. However,
by defi nition, bureaucracy is only a part of a larger system of governance. We can only understand how
bureaucrats behave (politically and administratively) when we take that larger system into account.
Th e history of the word bureaucracy refl ects the changing role of public offi cials in diff erent
systems of government. It was coined in the eighteenth century to refer to a state dominated by
appointed offi cials (Albrow 1970; Riggs 1979). I shall use bureaucratic policy for this concept,
which is an essential one in this chapter. In popular usage, bureaucrat became a term of derision.
Needless to say, this sense of the word is ruled out of the present discourse. However, in technical
usage the word soon came to mean a ruling class composed of public offi cials—a similar evolution
changed the meaning of “aristocracy” from a type of polity to the name of a class. Th en the
meaning of “bureaucracy” evolved further until it came to mean the class of appointed offi cials or
the positions they occupy, whether or not they exercise power. Th ose who think of bureaucrats as
politically “neutral” administrators have carried the idea another step, conceiving of public offi -
cials as a kind of powerless apparatus, devoid of self-interest or power.
Th e myth of a dichotomy between administration and politics rests, in general, on the construction
of this word: it postulates a politically neutral “state apparatus,” that is, the bureaucracy,
which merely implements the policies adopted by a ruling group, whether it consists of a “class,”
in the Marxist view, or of constitutionally prescribed “political” institutions.
Here I must use “bureaucracy,”
generically, to refer to all appointed offi cials regardless of their tenure in offi ce, their civil or military
status, or their rank.
To summarize, public bureaucracies (as defi ned above) always perform both administrative
and political (including nonpartisan) roles. In order to understand how their administrative functions
are performed, we need to consider their political roles; and conversely, to understand their
political functions we also need to think about their administrative roles. Accordingly, we need to
study the institutional factors that aff ect the motivation and capacity of public offi cials to engage
both in political action and in administrative tasks. I shall fi rst, discuss three intrabureaucratic
variables—tenure, income, and interdependence—that aff ect bureaucratic performance. Th en I
shall look at the extrabureaucratic institutional context of bureaucracy, going from the traditional
to the modern, including the third world.
Bureaucratic Variables
Intra bureaucratic
1. Tenure
2.Income
3.Interdependence
Extrabereaucratic
the administrative eff ectiveness of bureaucracy is optimized when its power position is balanced with that of extrabureaucratic institutions.Th is means that when bureaucratic power radically exceeds that of the extrabureaucratic institutions (or diminishes excessively) administrative performance levels decline.
Th is view confl icts with the widely accepted myth that politics and administration can
and should be divorced—such that public offi cials should not exercise power but should follow
politically neutral administrative public service norms, and by contrast, that the politically
dominant extrabureaucratic institutions ought to monopolize the shaping of public policies.
Th is myth has been widely disseminated in the third world, especially since World War II, primarily
under American infl uence. Instead of achieving its intended goal of enhancing administrative
capabilities, I believe it has, quite perversely, proven counterproductive, because it has encouraged
the unbalanced growth of bureaucratic power at the expense of the capacity of extrabureaucratic
institutions to monitor and control public bureaucracies. Ultimately, therefore, it has
tended to undermine rather than to enhance the administrative capabilities of struggling third
world regimes.
Modern Polities
Th e replacement of royal sovereignty with new self-governing institutions based on the principle of
popular sovereignty, as represented through political parties in elected assemblies, and by responsible
heads of government, greatly enhanced the capacity of extrabureaucratic institutions to control
offi cials, and also permitted a vast expansion of diff erentiated bureaucratic functions with an
interdependent structure staff ed by tenured salaried personnel.We are easily confused by the varieties of modern polities because we lack a collective term
for the set of institutions designed to implement popular sovereignty: namely, an electoral system,
an elected assembly, and a party system. For convenience, I refer to this composite set of
extrabureaucratic institutions as a constitutive system. Th e relevant sense of constitutive has this
dictionary defi nition: “having power to institute, establish or enact.” Th e term was selected,
because it resonates with such related words as constitution, constituents, and constituency
(Riggs 1969:243–246).
1.Single-Party Regimes
Some critics have argued that single-party authoritarian regimes are “modern,” yet lack a constitutive
system. However, if we do not defi ne “party system” rigidly by insisting that it must have
more than one party, the objection does not hold. As I understand a party system, it is the system
formally responsible for nominating and electing offi cials to public offi ce. As such, it may contain
only one party, or it may contain two or more parties. Clearly in countries like the former Soviet
Union and China today, the Communist Party does perform this function. Moreover, there are
elected assemblies and “elections,” even when voters have no option but to support a single candidate
for offi ce. Consequently these regimes do have a constitutive system.
Th e signifi cant point is that when a constitutive system contains only one party, that party is
able to manage the elections and dominate the assembly. Moreover, as in all modern polities, the
constitutive system is able to control the public bureaucracy, primarily by means of party groups
of committees established to monitor the performance of key elements in the state “apparatus.”
Clearly this eff ort is not always successful, as seen in the rise of collusive “family circles” (Fainsod
1963).14 Moreover, the curtailment or abolition of private organizations typical in such polities
dictates a mammoth expansion of bureaucratic functions, thereby greatly increasing the diffi culties
involved in controlling the bureaucracy. Mikhail Gorbachov’s perestroika refl ects a current
attempt to ameliorate these problems in the Soviet Union by curtailing the extent of central domination
over bureaucratic behavior. Th e goal is simultaneously to enhance the performance levels
of public administration and to transfer some functions to an embryonic “private sector,” subject
to market rather than direct political controls.
2.Open Constitutive Systems
More responsiveness to public opinion and openness to dissent is achieved in polities whose constitutive
system contains a competitive party system—one with two or more parties. No doubt
critics will complain that to the degree such polities permit private capitalism, economic power
becomes unequally distributed and great inequities can result. However, it also seems apparent
that without a vigorous private sector, the economic basis for support of a multiparty system and
a powerful elected assembly cannot exist. “Open constitutive systems”—as we may call those
containing multiparty systems—are able to control their bureaucracies just as well as the “closed
constitutive systems” that have only one party.
However, the way such controls are exercised varies signifi cantly depending on the way the
chief executive (or head of government) is chosen. In parliamentary systems the norm involves
selection, via the elected assembly, of a governing cabinet under the leadership of a prime minister.
By contrast, in presidentialist systems, based on the principle of “separation of powers,” we fi nd
independent election of a president and an assembly, each with a fi xed term of offi ce.
Th e term presidentialist is used to make an important distinction: since parliamentary systems
also often have “presidents,” whether directly or indirectly elected, we need to distinguish clearly
between “presidentialist” systems, based on the separation of powers, and other kinds of “presidential”
systems. Moreover, presidential is often used in discussions of the role of the president, rather
than the constitutional system as a whole. Whether or not the head of state is called a president
seems to have no particular importance, and this concept is therefore not used here. What is important
is the distinction between two ideal types of open constitutive system: the parliamentary and
the presidentialist. No doubt there are numerous varieties of each, and increasingly also hybrids,
such as we fi nd in the French Fifth Republic. Because of its historical signifi cance the American
regime is treated as a prototype for presidentialism, but comparative analysis of other presidentialist
systems is needed to demonstrate its general properties. Because the bureaucratic role under
parliamentarism and presidentialism is strikingly diff erent, I shall discuss each in turn.
Bureaucratic Power in the Third World
According to statistics collected in 1965 (see Tables 5.1 and 5.2) some 57 third world regimes out
of a total of 141 (about 40%) had lost power at least once in military coups—100% of the 33 with
presidentialist constitutions have experienced at least one breakdown and episode of military rule.
More recent fi gures would not signifi cantly change this fi nding. Since military offi cers form part
of every country’s bureaucracy, the phenomenon has a lot to do with bureaucratic politics—and
administration.
1.Bureaucratic Power
Virtually all of the new states that were liberated from imperial rule after World War II inherited a
well-established and modernized public bureaucracy. By contrast, most of them did not inherit an
institutionalized constitutive system. However, there were signifi cant diff erences among the states
concerning the viability of these systems: some were simply much more fragile than others.
Th ose that were more fragile soon found themselves in the awkward position of being unable to
control their own bureaucracies, hence unable to govern. In a situation of political crisis and collapsing
public administration, groups of public offi cials came to the conclusion that it was neces sary
for them to seize power in order to prevent complete anarchy. Since there is no constitutionally legitimate formula in any country whereby appointed offi cials select their own leader, the only
remaining road to power involves violence or the threat of violence. Exceptionally, desperate civilian
leaders called on career offi cers to rule—as in Burma in 1958. Even there, after parliamentary
government was restored, General Ne Win returned to power by a coup in 1962. Usually, then, a
bureaucratic cabal, headed by military offi cers, seizes control of a collapsing regime.
Th e political or administrative role of bureaucracy in the new states, therefore, refl ects a tension
between the forces involved in the creation of new extrabureaucratic constitutive systems and
those acting to indigenize the existing bureaucratic machinery of government.
We may, nevertheless, distinguish between the older and the newer states of the third world.
Th ose that were liberated in the twentieth century, notably after World War II, in Asia and Africa
had relatively “modern” bureaucracies in which some kind of merit system had been developed.
By contrast, those that secured their independence in the nineteenth century, particularly in the
Americas, inherited a patronage-based premodern type of bureaucracy. Let me hypothesize that it
was easier for extrabureaucratic constitutive systems to retain control over patronage-based than
over merit-based bureaucracies. Th is would explain why, in Latin America, the incidence of coups
increased as merit systems, especially in the military services, grew. Th e exceptional case is that of
the United States.
2.Traditional Monarchies
Th e traditional form of extrabureaucratic institution was monarchic. In traditional monarchies,
as I use this term, kings actually rule—they are not mere fi gureheads.
also talk of constitutional monarchies
3.Constitutional Models
Far more interestingly and importantly, the new states usually borrowed constitutional regimes
from their former imperial masters, or they organized single-party authoritarian regimes based
on the Soviet (Bolshevik) model. In all these cases a constitutive system had been established as
the popularly based ruling institution. However, in almost half of these states these institutions
collapsed after an initial “vestibule” period during which they struggled to govern and keep the
bureaucracy under control.
According to my 1985 data (see Table 5.2) there were then 109 new states, of which 48 (44%)
had succumbed at least once to a coup d’état—many had succumbed more often. In these 48
states, therefore, the bureaucracy had displaced its constitutive system. Th ere were 61 states (56%),
by contrast, that had retained their constitutive systems and were able to sustain, however precariously,
a balance of power with their public bureaucracies.
As the fi gures in Table 5.2 show, the success ratio of the diff erent kinds of constitutive system
varies greatly: of 34 single-party authoritarian regimes, only fi ve (15%) succumbed to coups,
whereas of 75 with open (i.e., multiparty) constitutive systems, 43 (57%) succumbed to coups. No
doubt it is easier for authoritarian regimes that ban opposition parties and suppress their opponents
to sustain their control over the machinery of government that it is for polities based on the
protection of minority rights and civil liberties.
4.Open Polities
in general, the presidentialist regimes originated after the revolutionary war, whereas most parliamentary
regimes came into existence by negotiation. In these countries, however, revolutionary
origin appears to have a negative relation to postrevolutionary survival. Actually, the diff erence
between the fates of presidentialist and parliamentary regimes is quite striking and deserves closer
analysis.
Of the 33 new states that adopted a presidentialist constitution, at least 30 (91%) have experienced
coups—and the remaining 3 have succumbed for other reasons. By contrast, of the 42
states coded as basically parliamentary in structure, only 13 (31%) have been displaced by military
coups.
Even so, the statistical contrast is suggestive, and it compels
us to consider the possibility that presidentialist systems are inherently diffi cult to sustain. If so,
even a weak premodern bureaucracy might well fi nd itself compelled by the failure of a government
to try in its own self-interest, to fi ll the “vacuum.” If we are to understand the political role of
bureaucracies and its relation to the viability of extrabureaucratic (constitutive) systems, we need
to pay attention to the design of these systems and the typical problems they create, especially as
they relate to the control and direction of bureaucracies.
5.Presidentialist Regimes
(disucss why it is weak system)
A Parabolic Theory of Bureaucracy or Max Weber through the Looking Glass
1.A Parabolic Curve of Bureaucratization
For some time, students of bureaucracy have been concerned with its apparent contradictions. On
the one hand, its institutionalization of legal–rational authority makes it more productive than
most alternative forms of human organization, especially on a large scale. Yet it manifests so many
potential organizational defi ciencies or bureaupathologies that it can become most unproductive.
Can it be that there is in operation the same kind of process that economists and others have observed in respect to utility, namely a parabolic curve whereby with increasing resources, utility
at fi rst accelerates, then experiences diminishing marginal returns, and fi nally reaches a point of
nonutility? With increasing bureaucratization, does productivity fi rst accelerate, then experience
diminishing returns, and fi nally reach a point of actual decline?
When, during the nineteenth century, industrializing societies experienced the increased
productivity of bureaucratization, scholarship concentrated on the functionality of bureaucracy.
Weber’s ideal type analysis could be (and was often) interpreted as a justifi cation and exhortation
of bureaucratization, although he, like Durkheim and others, also noted its alienating eff ects on
individuals and its other dysfunctional elements. As bureaucratization increased, its dysfunctionalities
became more apparent and attracted more and more attention during the fi rst half of the
twentieth century, and bureaucracy itself became subject to increasing criticism. But only in the
second half of the century has research concentrated on the dysfunctional bureaucracy, suggesting
that further bureaucratization may induce so many bureaupathologies that bureaucracy will
become dysfunctional, productivity will decline, performance will be inhibited, and many of the
already overbureaucratized organizations would be better off if they debureaucratized. So infl uential
have these critics been that policymakers now look for alternative ways of delivering public
services other than through public bureaucracies and responsive management experiments with
debureaucratization to increase productivity.
2.Max Weber through the Looking Glass
Not only did he outline the advantages of legal–rational authority in organizing human activities, but he also referred to some of its disadvantages, increasingly so toward the end of his life when bureaucratization was fast becoming the norm of contemporary society. Despite his warnings, bureaucratization has almost been deifi ed by organizational analysts who have preferred to blame its apparent shortcomings on the inability of people to adapt themselves to bureaucratization rather than delve into inherent shortcomings. Today, the term “bureaupathology” is no longer applied to organizational misfi ts, but, as the word would suggest, to the
pathologies, sicknesses, or shortcomings of the bureaucratic form of organization
Th e virtues of bureaucracy are well known. But if the bureaucratization process is carried too
far, if it is hastily pursued, and if it is misapplied, then the virtues turn into vices.
what constitutes bureaucratic dysfunction will vary according to the
size of organizations, their purposes, their structures, their tolerance of ineffi ciency, and even their
perceptions of organizational health. Organizations may not be aware of what is happening slowly
to them for there may not be any outward signs of bureaucratic dysfunction, but eventually they
will suff er bureaupathologies which, if not treated in time or properly, will lead to their demise.
a. Specialization or Dehumanization ?.
Th e virtues of the division of labor have long been admired. Th e industrial society has carried the
division of labor to its logical conclusion in the workplace. Industrial engineering has extended
job diff erentiation, position classifi cation, and simple task performance, epitomized by Charlie
Chaplin in Modern Times.
Explain how it affects organisation as awhole including subordinates who try to flaw and get away as manager is dehumanised )
b.Hierarchy
Th e virtues of hierarchy are well known. Hierarchy concentrates authority, provides direction, and
ensures coordination. It enforces accountability through direct and clear lines of responsibility
from top to bottom in a bureaucratic organization. It is simple and easily understood. Th ose in
the upper reaches of hierarchy set the tone, give orders, and ensure that the lower reaches carry
out the orders given them. Th ose in the lower reaches carry out the orders given them and report
to their superiors on what they do. Th e bureaucratic organization moves with purpose, order, and
discipline, with everyone pulling in the same direction and combining with everyone else to that
end. If, however, hierarchy is carried too far, with layers upon layers of authority, something quite
diff erent results.
Excessive hierarchy encourages irresponsibility. Everyone below the apex has fi xed jurisdiction,
fi xed authority, and fi xed duties and obligations, which are only fragments of the whole. Th eir
vision is deliberately curtailed. Th ey are warned not to exceed their bounds, not to invade somebody
else’s territory, and not to concern themselves with matters outside their responsibility. So,
apart from the apex, the interest of all becomes the interest of none. Nobody needs be concerned
with the whole, only with his or her small part, and as long as that area seems to be doing well, it
matters not that the whole may be jeopardized, although such subsystem optimization may work
against the best interests of the whole system, which may require greater self-discipline and common
sacrifi ces. Th e assumption is that the apex knows what is going on and looks after the interests
of all. Should the apex fail to realize its responsibility to the whole, there is no way formally
that the vacuum can be fi lled, and woe betide those who take upon themselves the task of fi lling
apparent vacuums unless authorized expressly by the apex or some external overriding authority.
c.Rules and Regulations
d.Management by Administrators (generalist Vs specialist )?.
e.Impersonality
Th e virtue of bureaucracy and bureaucrats is that they are impersonal, act impartially, put aside
all extraneous and personal considerations, and decide rationally. Presumably the rational decision
is the right decision. But impersonality can be carried too far, especially in human service
organizations where the aim is to assist deserving clients. Excessive impersonality turns clients into
dehumanized objects—cyphers, symbols, cards, cases, fi les, or numbers—and inevitably becomes
quite insensitive even to genuine human plights.
f.Careerism
Careerism certainly helps to attract and retain qualifi ed and competent people to devote their
working lives to bureaucratic organizations. Appointments are made on merit alone. Employees
have guaranteed tenure as long as they do an acceptable job. And as a reward for their organizational
loyalty, they receive a pension at retirement. Th us assured, they can devote themselves and
their talents to advancing the interests of their employer and concentrate on doing a good job
without worrying distractions. If carried too far, the concept of careerism can produce a quite
diff erent type of employee.
Th e career system is a closed system. Successful probationers stay with the same organization
for the whole of their working lives. Th ey know no other organization. Th ey gain no other
experience. Th ey work with much the same people. Th e organization is incestuous. All who enter
are socialized to conformity. Th ose who decide on promotions look for people much like themselves.
Th e whole system is self-perpetuating. Its quality depends on whom it fi rst attracts and
whom it manages to retain. If it attracts quality, that quality will move through the organization,
but if it fails to attract high-quality people or high-quality people leave early, then mediocrity
predominates.
3.Implications
In time, it negates all that bureaucratization
is supposed to promote. Excessive specialization may well result in uncaring, uninterested
employees, working well below capacity and unwilling to stop the organizational saboteurs among
them. Excessive hierarchy may well result in ignorant, powerless elites who are captives of bloated
middle management busy manufacturing needless work for others. Excessive rules may well result
in corruption and arbitrariness. Excessive impersonality may well result in insensitivity, indiff erence,
petty manipulation of clients, and employee burnout. Excessive careerism may well produce
a staff of mediocre time-servers. Together, these constitute quite a caricature of bureaucracy, but
if we look around at the real world of organizations, one cannot be sanguine about the possibility
that some large organizations, some autocratic organizations, and some secret fraternal organizations
have already succumbed to excessive bureaucratization.
It is important for any organization to recognize, if possible, two points. One is where diminishing
marginal effi ciency (or output or performance) occurs and the other where marginal effi -
ciency actually evaporates. Th is can only be done through complex and continued measurement
of the operations of the whole organization. What is needed is the equivalent of the control room
in a computerized production line. Such organizational monitors are now being devised but the
costs are high and their deployment raises other important issues as the implementation of the
1993 Government Performance and Results Act illustrates.
But it is unnecessary to go to such lengths to profi t from the foregoing analysis. Every organization
can safeguard itself against overbureaucratization in simpler ways by directing close attention
to each bureaucratic characteristic. Excessive division of labor is already being tackled by
work integration, job rotation, mechanization of routinized operations, and a holistic view of
members or employees. Even so, it will remain a fact that most people are overeducated for the
work they do and if anything the spread of high technology will increase the gap. (Who will need
to tell time or spell when machines do that already?) Work, not education, needs to be restructured
to allow more active participation by those who perform it by increasing tasks and expanding
decision-making responsibilities.
Unfortunately, excessive hierarchy prevents restructuring work in this way. Unnecessary layers,
particularly at middle levels of the organization, need to be consolidated and the whole structure
reduced so that the distance between top and bottom is shortened. Computerization has given
organizations the opportunity of shrinking middle management and they have seized it. Similarly,
excessive red tape and formalities need to be minimized and the gap between the formal rules and
the informal group norms reduced, again by allowing line people to assume greater responsibility for deciding how to perform their tasks. Th is too is being done through genuine decentralization
and the implementation of the New Public Management. Administrative rule does not have to be
taken to such extremes, and reward structures should be arranged to permit line people to receive
more than managers who exercise, at least on paper, authority over them, and steps should be
taken to prevent the isolation at the apex.
Likewise, organizations should accept that the idea of impersonality is too demanding,
particularly in welfare and human service bureaucracies. Th e personal touch may be desirable, as
long as care is taken to prevent discrimination, prejudice, and arbitrariness. Work should not be
structured as to demand perfect human beings to perform it, and greater attention should be
paid to detecting and overcoming personal stress on the job and burnout. For this and other reasons,
there should be greater freedom of entry and exit in the organization at all levels, without
penalties imposed on promotion prospects or retirement benefi ts. Careerism has its place but
not to the detriment of organizational performance. No one is owed a living and organizational
generos ity should not substitute for a proper social welfare system and adequate retraining facilities
of members or employees who no longer pull their weight. In any event, younger generations
are not so prepared to stick to one employer or organization; they want more mobility and they
expect several career changes in their lifetime.
Th ese are but samples of what can and should be done in dealing with overbureaucratization.
Th e analysis still leaves open more serious questions as to where and when bureaucratization has
been wrongly applied, how bureaucracy itself can be replaced by alternative schemes of human
organization, and what refi nements still need to be made in the bureaucratic form to make organizations
more error-free, innovative, and adaptive. Reengineering now does this with much success.
We do not have to stand Max Weber on his head. We just need to peer more closely at him
through the looking glass.
Building Blocks toward a Theory of Public Administration
Public administration is the study of the state in action, that is, the administrative state as contrasted
with the political, economic, or social aspect of the state as an institutionalized collective
power. A theory of public administration would entail a theory of the administrative state,
something more than a theory of government but less than a theory of collective action.
It would be broader in scope than any
idiosyncratic form of institutionalized collective power, and it would have to take into account
the international superstructure that binds the community of nations into a real world network.
Although this form of governance has been growing at an increasingly accelerating pace, particularly
in the latter half of the twentieth century, there is still no global theory of the administrative
state and few related to it, despite its obvious centrality in contemporary society and its clear staying
power.
Could there be any universal elements on which a global theory of the administrative state could be based?
Need to inderstand the administrative state .
1.A Theory of Collective Action and Communitarianism
Th e administrative state constitutes possibly the largest organization in any country if one includes
the whole machinery of government, together with public enterprises, military and police forces,parastatals and NGOs offi cial overseas representations, and neighborhood associations, however ill-knit.Since the 1960s, little attempt has been made to fi nd a universal theory all human organizations and all collective nonprivate action. Th eories in this area continue to proliferate, and they are expressed in increasingly obtuse and diffi cult language beyond the comprehension (and knowledge) of most practitioners.
2.A Theory of the Public Interest
Plato and Aristotle were quite clear on this, as were the authors of Th e Federalist Papers. Echoes of this sentiment can be heard from the earliest days of recorded history in many diverse cultures.
3.A Theory of Bureaucracy and Bureaucratization
Since the predominant form of organization within the administrative state is bureaucracy, so an
essential ingredient in understanding its essence is a theory of bureaucracy. For the past century,
that has meant Max Weber’s theory of bureaucracy, which is timeless and universal, is hardly
surprising given its origins. But the Weberian model is incomplete, and ever since his work was
translated from German, scholars have been busily fi lling in the gaps. Although it is not yet complete,
this aspect of the administrative state is among the best understood and the most widely
propagated. As a result, attention has switched to organizational alternatives to bureaucracy and
the nonbureaucratic delivery of public goods and services.
4.A Theory of Public Trust, Responsibility, and Accountability
5.A Theory of Government Intervention and Regulation
Th e justifi cation for the exercise of authority to protect people from others and themselves need not
be repeated simply because the raison d’être of the state is grounded in its protection of its members
from external attack and its maintenance of order. Nobody quite envisaged their evolution into the
garrison state or warfare state or the police state or their assumption of totalitarianism and tyranny,
and ever since the state has taken on these features, theorists have been keen to defi ne limitations
to state intervention and regulation and to justify revolts, that is, disobedience against intolerable
interference with individual privacy.
6.A Theory of Public Policy
Public policy, like public administration, still lacks an all-encompassing theory per se and is the
product of several diff erent theoretical perspectives concerning the goals of state activities and
eff orts to develop knowledge relevant to public policy-making. In trying to provide a theoretical
basis for the study of public policy, Yehezkel Dror identifi ed many diff erent models, including
rational comprehensive theory, economic rational model, satisfi cing theory, sequential decision
model, incremental model, systems theory, elitism, group theory, institutional model, optimal
qualitative model, and extrarational model (Dror, 1968), all of which are oriented toward the
improvement of policy-making, its outcomes and processes, its modes of inquiry and access to
relevant information, its quality and effi cacy, its responsiveness and morality. Clearly, there is such
a need as etatization proceeds, and Dror has sketched out an optimal framework for the policy
sciences that has still to be fi lled in. Its philosophical basis is largely neoutilitarian, scientism, and
rationality.
7.A Theory of Public Goods and Services
Private goods were fully
rival and excludable, whereas public goods were not. Nonexcludability was the crucial factor in
determining which goods should be publicly provided. Th en the public choice theorists explored
“impure public goods,” goods that were not public or private but characterized by excludable benefi
ts which could be provided by nongovernmental suppliers if an exclusion mechanism could be
installed at a reasonable price (Cornes and Sandier, 1986).Th is notion further expanded the list of public goods that could be privately provided. From a diff erent direction, the externalities of social
costs of private goods were expanded to market failure and public goods. Simply put, the mere existence
of an externality was not a suffi cient cause for government intervention as bargaining or liability
assignments could provide nongovernmental means for neutralizing externalities. Corrective
means included private as well as governmental action. Furthermore, as governments could fail just
as markets could, public goods and services should be competitively provided to prevent the pitfalls
of monopoly. Unfortunately, many government functions cannot mimic free market concepts,
particularly not those public goods and services from which society as a whole benefi ts; immediate
gratifi cation is not possible, and the long-term overall community needs cannot be assessed.
8.A Theory of Public Initiatives and Enterprise
Keynes maintained that governments should not do things which individuals were already doing
(even if it could do them better) but do those that were not done at all, that is, to fi ll in the gaps
left by private enterprise and initiative. Against this, collectivists have wanted to do away with
most private provision, market forces, and private property in favor of government or collectivist
provision. Both approaches admit the existence of state-owned enterprises, public corporations,
and government-controlled corporations, in which surpluses accrue to the public, decisions rest
on social as well as commercial criteria, and accountability is held by government and consumers:
that is, public elements are mixed with enterprise elements. How states assume such public
enterprises varies, as illustrated in the case of railways, where they have been nationalized for ideological,
economic (natural monopoly), developmental, military, technological (unifi cation), fi nancial
(bankruptcy), and national (reduction of foreign ownership) reasons. Th e rationale for public
enterprise can be reduced to fi ve arguments, namely (1) ideology—state ownership as an end in
itself and a transfer of wealth producing assets from private to public sector (2) nationalism—an
end to imperialist or foreign domination and external dependency and ensuing local supply, (3)
power—an end of dominance of certain interest groups and their special privileges or deliberate
exploitation of the public sector for consolidating their political position, (4) pragmatism—a shift
in public opinion, promotion of development and employment, encouragement of competition
and infl uence on markets, and mitigation of hardship, and (5) natural monopolies—preference
for ownership over regulation. Whatever be their origins, governments are concerned about their
performance, defi ne principles governing their operations, and spell out concrete performance
measures to which they must conform or face termination.
9.A Theory of Nongovernmental Organization
10.A Theory of National Planning and Utilization of Resources
11.A Theory of Social Welfare and Equity
12.A Theory of Public Ethics
13.A Theory of Administrative Reform
14.A Theory of Public Value and Worth
Its value and worth should be measured by the extent to which
it enables people to pursue life, liberty, happiness, and property. Against this view of the liberal
administrative state, there has been both revolutionary and evolutionary socialism with their stress
on the value of the public goods and services, public property, equal access, fair shares, and societal
enrichment and community to off set social disintegration and atomization. Th e jury is likely to be
out for a long time yet on this one.
15.A Theory of Bureaucratic Growth
16.A Theory of Public Investment and Employment
17.A Theory of Public Law and Regulation
Outside English-speaking countries, public administration is studied under the umbrella of public
law. Th e administrative state is or has been largely seen as an instrument for implementing
public law as authorized by legitimate governmental authority, rather than as an instrument for
implementing public policy and a political actor in its own right. Recent political analysis has
begun to redress the balance and contrast the diff erent views of the state vis-à-vis society and
other social institutions. Th us, at least eight diff erent concepts of the state have been identifi ed
in Germany, over the past two centuries, namely, Obrigkeitsstaat (authoritarian), Beamtenstaat
(bureaucratic), Rechtsstaat (rule of law), Parteienstaat (party), Fuehrerstaat (dictator), Bundesstaat
(federal), Sozialstaat (social), and Wohlfahrtstaat (social welfare) (Kristad, 1989, p. 99), all with
diff erent implications for the theory of public law and the constitutional basis for administrative
law. In comparison, public and administrative laws elsewhere have been left largely to lawyers. As
yet, there is no agreed universal philosophy of law that clearly delineates the areas of government
intervention but has developed criteria which should prevail when intervention occurs—due process
and equal protection assured by rule making and judicial review—and has contributed the
most to the protection of individual rights.
18.A Theory of Collective and Individual Rights and Obligations
19.A Theory of Collectivist or Administrative Limitations
20.A Theory of Public Service
21.A Theory of Citizenship and Public Participation
21.A Theory of Public Sector Productivity and Effectiveness
22.A Theory of Public Sector Productivity and Effectiveness
23.A Theory of Public Sector Management
Formulating a separate theory of public sector management is a research very much in progress to
diff erentiate public administration from business administration. But much of it has tended to blur
rather than clarify the divide, especially as the growing middle ground of NGOs rather muddies
the waters as their very public missions are steered by increasingly privatized managerial goals.
24.A Theory of Public Choice
25.A Theory of the Good Society
When rounded out, these 25 elements or building blocks, each of which is capable of being
internationalized, should be integrated into a general theory of public administration. Some pieces
of this intellectual jigsaw puzzle are already at hand. But too many are still missing or wrongly
shaped to fi t into a coherent pattern. We cannot show the way to people trapped in cruel, crippling,
and corrupt administrative states if we ourselves cannot properly justify our ideas of public
administration and convince even our own politicians to heed us. We cannot assume that the
political marketplace will buy our wares unless we have worthwhile products to sell and parade
them more attractively than we do. But fi rst we have to agree among ourselves that our enterprise
of theory building should be given a higher priority in our own value system.
Bureaucracy, Democracy, and the New Public Management
Precision, speed, unambiguity, knowledge of fi les, continuity, discretion, unity, strict
subordination, reduction of friction and of material and personal cost—these are
raised to the optimum point in the strictly bureaucratic administration, and especially
in its monocratic form.
Today’s environment demands institutions that are extremely fl exible and adaptable.
It demands institutions that deliver high-quality goods and services, squeezing ever
more bang out of every buck. It demands institutions that are responsive to their ustomers, off ering choices of nonstandardized services; that lead by persuasion and
incentives rather than commands; that give their employees a sense of meaning and
control, even ownership. It demands institutions that empower citizens rather than
simply serve them. (Osborne and Gaebler, 1992, p. 12, 15)
Contradictions and tension existing between the values of bureaucracy (order, effi ciency, uniformity)
and democracy (transparency, fl exibility, responsiveness) have been discussed widely in the
political science and public administration literature (Behn, 2001; Etzioni-Halevy, 1983; Finer,
1941; Frederickson, 1980; Friedrich, 1940; Hyneman, 1950; Yates, 1982). Since the time of the
ancient Greek city-states, scholars and citizens have debated how to best assure that the will of the
people would be observed and how to protect the people from unwanted actions by a small group
of masters.
1.Classic Formulation of Bureaucracy
Legal–rational authority is the basis of bureaucracy. Weber argued that, from a technical
viewpoint, bureaucracies were capable of attaining the highest degree of rationality and eff ectiveness.
Hierarchy facilitated planning, coordination, control, and discipline. Employment
on the basis of qualifi cation increased the knowledge and competency base. Rules saved eff ort through standardization. Impersonal detachment promoted objectivity and prevented inequitable
treatment.
Weber considered bureaucracy as essential for modern organizations. He formulated the
following propositions about legal authority systems:
1. Offi cial tasks are organized on a continuous, regulated basis.
2. Tasks are divided into functionally distinct spheres, each furnished with the requisite authority
and sanctions.
3. Offi ces are arranged hierarchically, and control between offi ces is clearly established.
4. Th e rules according to which work is conducted may be either technical or legal. In both
cases trained men are necessary.
5. Th e resources of the organization are quite distinct from those of the members as private
individuals.
6. Th e offi ce holder cannot appropriate his offi ce.
7. Administration is based on written documents and this tends to make the offi ce the hub of
modern organizations.
8. Legal authority systems can take many forms, but are seen at their purest in a bureaucratic
administrative staff .
In addition to these propositions about the structure of legal authority systems, Weber
defi ned the characteristics of the ideal bureaucratic staff . Th ese characteristics included the
following:
1. Th e staff members are personally free, observing only the impersonal duties of their offi ces.
2. Th ere is a clear hierarchy of offi ces.
3. Th e functions of the offi ces are clearly specifi ed.
4. Offi cials are appointed on the basis of a contract.
5. Offi cials are selected on the basis of professional qualifi cations, ideally substantiated by a
diploma gained through examination.
6. Offi cials have a monetary salary, and usually pension rights. Th e salary is graded according
to position in the hierarchy. Th e offi cial can always leave the post, and under certain circumstances
pension rights may also be terminated.
7. Th e offi cial’s post is his or her sole or main occupation.
8. Th ere is a career structure, and promotion is possible either by seniority or merit. Promotion
is made according to the judgment of superiors.
9. Th e offi cial may appropriate neither the post nor the resources, which go with it.
10. Th e offi cial is subject to unifi ed control and a disciplinary system (Albrow, 1970,
p. 43–45)
Th ese features constitute Weber’s ideal type of bureaucracy. Weber viewed bureaucracies as the
most satisfactory form of organization. Th is was attributed to its precision, speed, clarity, continuity,
unity, strict subordination, and reduction of interpersonal friction.
Weber is known for his contribution to bureaucratic thought. He also delineated various limitations
to his model, acknowledging that bureaucracies could create a new elite. Th is new elite had
the potential to control elected leaders through eff ective use of expertise. In addition, bureaucracies
were thought to be antagonistic to democratic notions of popular sovereignty. Th is fear of
elite control and rule by a narrowly selected technocracy does not seem to have abated over time.
Today, concepts of bureaucrats and bureaucracies, in general, seem to have fallen to exceptionally
low levels as government agencies are normally associated with ineptitude and ineffi ciency.
Criticisms of Bureaucracy
Th e concept of the overweight, coff ee drinking, nonproductive government offi cial has been imprinted in American consciousness.
According to Terry,
people fear bureaucracies for the following reasons. Public bureaucracies are perceived as wielding
too much power. Career civil servants are no longer thought to be responsive and accountable to
elected political authorities. Furthermore, unaccountable power is incongruent with the values of
the American democratic system. For democracy to fl ourish, the appointed offi cials should not exercise arbitrary discretion but should be more accountable to elected leaders and the voters who put them into offi ce.
Huntington (1981) argued that opposition to power and suspicion of government as the most
dangerous embodiment of power, were central themes in American political thought.
In order to check the power of bureaucracies, a number of strategies have been implemented: constant
reorganization, politicization of the bureaucracy, budget cuts, and exclusion of career executives
from policy discussions. In addition to these strategies, the size of both executive and legislation staff s
have been increased in order to reduce the expertise gap that exists between these institutions and the
administrative branch of government (Terry, 1995, p. 5). Other institutions, however, must also depend
upon experts but often will use “their own” experts to come up with alternative policy prescriptions
In the past, government activism was advocated in the name of promoting specifi c sets of
values (Frederickson, 1980). To these analysts, government is not an evil but is the embodiment
of good. Implicit in this perspective is the acceptance of the concept of positive liberty. Positive
liberty suggests that governments must do more than negate threats to individual liberty. Government
should solve problems and right the wrongs. Th e public sector should take a proactive stance
in promoting values such as social equity, fairness, opportunity, and justice. Government should
promote justice, expand opportunity, and advance fairness. Th is view of an activist government is
consistent with current views on the value of participation and citizenship.
A good deal of literature has evolved, in recent years, delineating the concept of democratic
citizenship (King and Stivers, 1998; Shklar, 1991; Stivers, 1994). According to this view, participation
by citizens should enhance accountability, responsiveness, and social equity. Th e concept
of social capital is intertwined with the idea of citizenship. A major proponent of social capital
development is Harvard Professor Robert Putnam. Putnam (1995), claimed that America’s democratic
tradition is dependent on the existence of civically engaged citizens who are active in all
sorts of groups and associations. He noted that the prospects for improvement in education, urban
poverty, crime, and health care increased where the communities were civically engaged. To his
dismay, however, Putnam documented a substantial decrease in the level of civic engagement and
the level of “social capital” in the United States. Advocates of democratic citizenship generally decry the lack of political input from average
citizens, and support increased levels of citizen participation. Th ese advocates also express concern
over the potential for nonelected offi cials to abuse the power of their offi ce (Etzioni-Halevi, 1983;
Mises, 1944; Terry, 1995).
Denhardt and Denhardt (2000, p. 549) argued that public administrators
should focus on their responsibility to serve and empower citizens. Th ey stated that “emphasis
should not be placed on either steering or rowing the government boat, but rather on building
institutions marked by integrity and responsiveness.” Th e authors believed that promoting an
ethic they termed “Th e New Public Service” could support institutions. Th is New Public Service
is distinguished by the following characteristics.
1. Helping citizens articulate and meet their shared interests. In the New Public Service the
primary role of government is not to merely direct actions of the public through decree.
Government becomes a player in the process of moving society in one direction or another.
Governments act in concert with private and nonprofi t groups to seek solutions to community
problems.
2. Building a collective, shared notion of the public interest. Th e goal of public administrators
is creation of shared interest and shared responsibilities. Widespread dialogue and deliberation
are central to the process. Government should bring people together to facilitate
unconstrained and authentic discourse concerning future directions for society. Government
should assure that solutions are consistent with democratic norms of justice, fairness,
and equity.
3. Acting democratically through collective eff orts and collaborative processes. Programs
of civic education and development of leaders can stimulate civic pride and civic responsibility.
An aim of the New Public Service is to make sure that government is open and
accessible. Government should operate to serve citizens and create opportunities for
citizenship.
4. Serving citizens, not customers. Public servants should not merely respond to the demands
of customers but should focus on building relationships of trust and collaboration among
citizens. In government, considerations of fairness and equity should play an important role
in delivering services.
5. Paying attention to statutory and constitutional law, community values, political norms,
professional standards, and citizen interests. Public administrators should be infl uenced by
and held accountable to many institutions, norms, values, and preferences. Th ey should
make decisions through a process of dialogue, citizen empowerment, and broad-based
citizen engagement.
6. Valuing people, not just productivity. Public organizations are more likely to succeed if they
are operated through the processes of collaboration and shared leadership. Attention should
be paid to the values and interests of individual members of an organization, their norms,
values, and preferences. Public offi cials should not crave security (old public administration
value), or competition in a market (NPM view), but should want to make a diff erence in the
lives of others.
7. Valuing citizenship and public service above entrepreneurship. Public administrators
should not think that public resources belong to them. Public administrators should
accept responsibility to serve citizens by acting as stewards of public resources, conservators
of public organizations, facilitators of democratic dialogue, and catalysts for community
engagement.
Other authors have also called for a return to the values of democratic citizenship. Some assert
that public administrators should become an active agent of democratic education and reform.
For example, King and Stivers (1998) called for more active citizenship and a more facilitative,
less expertise-driven approach to administration. Stivers (1994) claimed that administrators
could become more accountable to citizens by developing the capacity to listen. Th is should help
administrators hear neglected voices and engage in reciprocal communication with the public.
Box et al. (2001) argued that NPM claims to make the government customer centered and therefore
more responsive in its delivery of services. NPM, however, fails to adequately place public
administration within the context of democratic rule. Democratic theorists, such as Box, reject
the idea of citizens as mere customers and advance ideals such as citizenship, public interest,
social responsibility, and dialogue.
Many of the citizenship theorists recognize the inherent confl ict between the values of democratic
responsiveness and bureaucratic professionalism. For example, Stivers (1994, p. 364) stated
that in public administration responsiveness is a problematic concept in that “Democracy would
seem to require administrators who are responsive to the popular will, at least through legislatures
and elected chief executives if not directly to the people. Yet administrators and scholars alike tend
to treat responsiveness as at best a necessary evil that appears to compromise professional eff ectiveness,
and at worst an indication of political expediency if not outright corruption.” Th is issue of
the inherent confl ict between the values of responsiveness and those of professional eff ectiveness
is discussed in further detail below.
2.Bureaucracy–Democracy Value Confl icts
Bureaucracy has been criticized on many grounds. Th ose considered to be on the ideological
“right” have focused upon the danger of control and potential loss of individual freedom. Mises
(1944) contended that bureaucratic growth represented a danger to “what people used to call
democracy” but that the leaders of the community not the bureaucrat were to blame:
[D]emocracy becomes impracticable if the eminent citizens, the intellectual leaders of
the community, are not in a position to form their own opinion on the basic social,
economic, and political principles of policies. If the citizens are under the intellectual
hegemony of the bureaucratic professionals, society breaks up into two castes: the ruling
professionals, the Brahmins, and the gullible citizenry. Th en despotism emerges,
whatever the wording of constitutions and laws may be. (p. 120) Mises concluded that democracy is consistent with self-determination and inconsistent with citizen
apathy. He asserted that citizens had to gain an independent judgment on fundamental political and
economic problems through their own thinking. Democracy was viewed as a “treasure that must be
daily defended” and could not be sustained without trouble (p. 121). Citizens had a responsibility to
be informed, aware, and capable of making rational decisions that would foster their interests.
--In a more modern update of anxiety with discretionary power of bureaucrats, Gruber (1987,
p. 11) stated that bureaucracies pose a problem for democracy when they make decisions (public
policy) that short-circuit electoral channels of public control. Short-circuiting the electoral system
increases “the potential for signifi cant governmental action to be taken in the name of the public
without being infl uenced by the public.” Th is problem for democracy is lessened if bureaucratic
discretion is controlled.
--Bureaucracy has also been described as an enemy of the citizen (Hummel, 1977, p. 20). Some
contend that the entire phenomenon of professionalism (characterized by the drive for neutrality,
order, effi ciency, control, standardization, and quantifi cation) can subvert active citizenship
(Cooper, 1984). Inactive citizens in turn increase the power of appointed offi cials. Th is represents
a danger to the democratic ideal that is grounded in the view that bureaucracies do not order the
people to follow directives, but work for the people to foster the larger society.
--It has been argued that bureaucracies have the potential to become antidemocratic yet are not
antidemocratic by their nature. Beetham (1987, p. 112) noted that bureaucracies were necessary to
maintain democratic order. He thought that they only become an antidemocratic force when they
become self-enclosed and exclusive, when information is protected by secrecy, and when organizational
power is used to control and manipulate. Th ese characteristics are not inherent to bureaucracies
but are believed to be necessary for the fulfi llment of specifi c tasks that are performed by
public sector bureaucracies. Secrecy and control are thought as useful to perform tasks related to
national security and other mandates.
Th e issue of the interface between bureaucratic management and democratic values has taken on
renewed interest with the rise of NPM. As the NPM calls for renewed emphasis on managerial
values, criticism of this perspective has arisen. For example, Terry (1993) viewed the application of
the concept of entrepreneurship to the public sector as misplaced, dangerous, and a serious threat
to democracy. Box et al. (2001, p. 613) viewed the market model of management as going beyond
earlier reforms and threatening to eliminate democracy as a guiding principle in public-sector
management. Th ey stated that “the market model of administration evident in NPM hinders any return to substantive democracy and limits the degree to which citizens can meaningfully aff ect
policy and administration.” Th e authors contend that NPM claims to be responsive in its delivery
of services, yet fails to understand the democratic foundation of public administration
--In another critique of NPM, Moe (1994) questioned the unwritten assumptions behind Vice
President Al Gore’s National Performance Review (NPR). According to Moe, the Gore Report
(NPR Report) represented an intentional break in management philosophy from earlier studies
going back to the beginning of the Republic. Moe noted that earlier organizational management
studies all emphasized the need for democratic accountability. Th ey accepted as a fundamental
premise the view that the government of the United States is a government of laws passed by
representatives of the people assembled in Congress. Previous government reports emphasized the
view that authority and accountability had to be centralized by the president for laws to be implemented.
Th e Gore Report discounts this clear linkage between government action and accountability
to the people.
--According to Moe, the NPM sought to mesh the public and private sectors. Advocates of the
doctrine of NPM argued that federal government agencies should be viewed as entrepreneurial
bodies that should function in a competitive market environment. Such a meshing was viewed
by Moe as both unrealistic and ill-advised. He predicted that implementing the recommendations
of the Gore Report would make the government less accountable to citizens. Accountability
would decline as a consequence of the weakening of the presidency and evisceration of central
management agencies. Furthermore, Moe questioned the managerial similarities between the private
and public sectors. He stated that “the management of the executive branch is not like the
management of General Electric or the Ritz-Carlton Hotels. Th e mission of government agencies
is determined by the representatives of the people, not agency management. Government does not
have the option available to private sector managers of simply stopping the performance of some
activity because it is not profi table or unpleasant.” (p. 119).
--A clear dichotomy does not exist between democratic values and bureaucratic values. A better
way to look at these values is one of mutual coexistence along a continuum. Referring to Kaufman’s
(1956) suggestion that administrative organizations operate in pursuit of diff erent values at different
times, Denhardt and Denhardt (2000) stated that it makes sense to think of one normative
model as prevailing at any point in time. During one value’s time (such as neutral competence),
however, other values are never totally neglected. Denhardt and Denhardt (2000, p. 557) argued
that “in a democratic society, a concern for democratic values should be paramount in the way
we think about systems of governance. Values such as effi ciency and productivity should not be
lost, but should be placed in the larger context of democracy, community, and the public interest.”
Th ese authors call for refocusing on citizenship values yet they have admitted that currently the
NPM and its surrogates have been established as the dominant paradigm in the fi eld of governance
and public administration.
New Public Management
Defi ning New Public Management“High priests” of NPM Osborne and Gaebler (1992, p. 12) presented a simple thesis. Th ey
claimed that the kind of governments that developed during the industrial era, with sluggish centralized
bureaucracies, preoccupation with rules, and hierarchical chains of command, simply no
longer worked very well. Th ey thought that public bureaucracies no longer worked well because
the old public bureaucracies failed to change when the world began to change. Th e bureaucracies
designed in the 1930s and 1940s were viewed as an anachronism, not fi tting into the rapidly
changing, information-rich, knowledge-intensive societies of today.
Charles Goodsell (1993) neatly summarized the arguments of Osborne and Gaebler. According
to Goodsell, the principal issue for Osborne and Gaebler is not what the government should do but
how it should do it. To “reinvent” itself, the government must be adaptable, responsive, effi cient, and
eff ective. It must be able to produce high quality goods and services, it must be led by persuasion
rather than command, be responsive to customers, empower clients, and be entrepreneurial.
Ten principles described how the transformation from the old hierarchical model to the new
entrepreneurial model would transpire. Osborne and Gaebler (1992, p. xvii) off ered these 10 principles
(the “map”) as a “rough draft” and not the fi nal word about reinventing government. Th ey
stated that “We have developed our map by looking around us, at the successful public sector
organizations we see emerging, piece by piece, all across this county.… We as authors are not
inventing new ideas so much as synthesizing the ideas and experiences of others. Th ose about
whom we write are reinventing government. Th ey are the heroes of this story.”
Osborne and Gaebler stated that they were “as bullish on the future of government as they
were bearish on the current condition of government.” Th e 10 principles discussed below off er
solutions to the problems of government, and were provided by Osborne and Gaebler in an eff ort
to help transform public institutions “from staid bureaucracies into innovative, fl exible, responsive
organizations” (p. xxii):
1. Catalytic government: Steering rather than rowing. Entrepreneurial governments increasingly
should move away from rowing or the delivery of services to steering. Steering recognizes
a wide range of alternative courses of action. Th ose who steer defi ned their future while
those who row relied on traditional assumptions. Steering organizations looked for the best
method to achieve their goals. Innovative alternatives to standard delivery of services by
public employees included franchising, contracting out, public–private partnerships, volunteers,
and vouchers.
2. Community-owned government: Empowering rather than serving. Entrepreneurial governments
shifted ownership of public initiatives into the community. Th ey empowered citizens
and neighborhood groups to be sources of their own solutions. Th ey changed the focus of
programs from that of collecting clients to that of empowering citizens.
3. Competitive government: Injecting competition into service delivery. Entrepreneurial
governments injected competition into the governing process. Th e advantages of competition
included achieving greater effi ciency, being more responsive to the needs of customers,
encouraging innovation, and boosting the morale of pubic employees.
4. Mission-driven government: Transforming rule-driven organizations. Entrepreneurial governments
have mission-driven organizations. Th ese organizations turned employees free to
pursue missions with the most eff ective methods they could fi nd. Excessive rule making
stifl ed experimentation and innovation.
5. Results-oriented government: Funding outcomes, not inputs. Entrepreneurial governments
based agency performance and fund allocation on policy outcomes. Traditional governments
based funding on inputs such as how many children were enrolled in school rather
than on outcomes such as how well children improved their reading scores.
6. Customer-driven government: Meeting the needs of the customer. Entrepreneurial governments
regard client citizens as customers. Traditional public-sector managers get funding
from government institutions not from individual customers. Traditional government
agencies feel they have to please interest groups, political leaders, and government bodies.
Entrepreneurial agencies serve customers fi rst.
7. Enterprising government: Earning rather than spending. Public entrepreneurs fi nd innovative
ways to “do more with less.” Entrepreneurial governments do not just spend money that
is allocated by institutions but fi nd ways to “earn” their own money. Methods to earn money
include using user fees, entrepreneurial loan pooling, and profi t centers. Entrepreneurial
governments create incentives for separate entities to earn their own money. Public entities
that could earn money include: public marinas, public golf courses, water services, and sewer
services.
8. Anticipatory government: Prevention rather than cure. Public entrepreneurs should not just
deliver services but should meet needs. Entrepreneurs can prevent needs from arising in the
fi rst place by taking proactive steps. Public institutions can use strategic planning to examine
the current situation, set goals, develop strategies to achieve goals, and measure results.
9. Decentralized government: From hierarchy to participation and teamwork. Entrepreneurial
leaders instinctively reach for the decentralized approach. Th ey move decisions into the
periphery, put discretion into the hands of customers and into the hands of nongovernmental
organizations. Entrepreneurial leaders fl atten hierarchies and give authority to their
employees. Teamwork, participatory management, labor-management cooperation, quality
circles, and employee development programs are examples of decentralized government.
10. Market-oriented government: Leveraging change through the market. Public entrepreneurs
respond to changing conditions with innovative strategies aimed at allowing market forces to
work. Just as Franklin D. Roosevelt changed the way mortgages were issued, the government
can provide incentives to structure the marketplace so that it better fulfi lls a public purpose.
Government structures the private sector but does not play a direct role in service delivery.
Th ese 10 principles have eff ectively altered the dialogue and created a new paradigm for the public
sector. Th e principles helped to unleash new ways of thinking and acting for government offi cials.
Th is new paradigm does not appear to be unique to the United States, but appears to have taken
hold throughout the developed world. Osborne and Gaebler (1992, p. 328) correctly predicted
such a global revolution.
Global Application of New Public Management
Christopher Hood (1991, p. 3) observed that the rise of NPM was an international trend in public
administration. While “Westminster nations” such as the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and
Australia are cited for their aggressive adaptation of NPM reform, other nations from Korea to Brazil, from Portugal to Sweden have moved to reform their conception of public management
(Kettl, 1997, p. 446). Reforms include aspects of NPM such as more explicit standards for performance,
linking rewards to measured performance, breaking up centralized personnel systems,
creating smaller units, adopting term contracts, adopting greater fl exibility in hiring, and “doing
more with less.”
Th e greatest embrace of these principles appears to have taken place in New Zealand. Major
changes occurred in New Zealand, as government offi cials enthusiastically adopted the principles of
NPM. As a result of these changes, New Zealand overhauled its welfare state, restructured commercial
functions, and sold off many public agencies. Other changes adopted in New Zealand included
adoption of user fees, increased contracting (with both public and private service providers), heightened
competition over provision of services, fewer regulations, and decentralizing management.
New Zealand jettisoned its old civil service system and allowed department managers to negotiate
individual contracts with employees. Government-owned businesses (such as the national
railway, the telecommunications system, and the broadcasting corporation) were forced into competitive
markets. Individualized work and performance contracts replaced the rule-based civil
service system. Government agencies hired senior managers on a contract basis and held managers
accountable to performance standards. Th e entire structure of the governmental work force
changed with signifi cant reductions in personnel. New Zealand’s core departments witnessed
major job cuts in local areas (Kettl, 1997, p. 453).
Firing government employees and slashing services are often associated with the political rise
of the “New Right” and the growing popularity of conservative philosophies. A direct linkage
between the principles of NPM and “New Right” views, however, is not apparent. Principles
of NPM were endorsed by Labor governments in New Zealand and Australia, as well as by the
Social Democratic Party in Sweden. Th e administration of Bill Clinton was at the forefront of
the NPM movement. Th eir commitment to these principles was elaborated in Vice-President Al
Gore’s National Public Management Report that was previously discussed.
Typically, however, conservative governments are linked to the principles of NPM. Margaret
Th atcher of Great Britain is widely recognized for her support of NPM principles. Many examples of
implementing these principles exist. During the Th atcher administration public housing units were
sold to tenants, publicly funded training systems were privatized, vouchers and school choice were
expanded. In the early 1990s, the British government restructured its National Health Service. Th e
Th atcher administration also instituted greater managerial accountability, hired heads of executive
agencies competitively from the public and private sectors, and issued specifi c performance contracts.
Major cuts were made in the number of national government employees. After 15 years of
Th atcher–Major reforms, the civil service in the United Kingdom had been reduced by nearly 30%.
Th e Australian variant of the NPM adopted many of the same principles but diff ered in
focus from the British–New Zealand model (Kettl, 1997, p. 453). Th e Australian adaptation of
the NPM emphasized the need to transform human resources as the keystone for broad reform.
Reforms stressed enhancing the skills of workers in government service and inculcating a culture
of continuous improvement. In theory, this culture of continuous improvement would help people
achieve agency objectives and increase capacities in the public service. In contrast, the British–
New Zealand model sought a more fundamental reduction in the size and scope of the public
sector through more “radical” changes in the way the state managed its programs. While the
British –New Zealand model endorsed substantial dismantling of civil service rules, signifi cant
privatization, and substantial delegation of authority to lower level managers, the Australian model
emphasized new investments in training and providing incentives to workers. Th e Australian
model supported more gradual and continuous change.
The Role of Effi ciency in Bureaucratic Study
Public administration textbooks (e.g., Gordon, 1986, p. 45; Rosenbloom, 1989, pp. 15–16)sometimes describe a classical era where effi ciency was the principal criterion used to evaluate
bureaucratic performance. Th is period begins with Frederick Taylor’s work on scientifi c management encompasses the municipal reform and early twentieth-century governmental
reorganization literature, and is supposed to close with Luther Gulick and Lyndall Urwick’s (1937)
Papers on the Science of Administration. Its seeming reliance on a monochromatic conceptual perspective
is contrasted with modern concern with bureaucratic responsiveness, equity, and effi ciency
with inevitable trade-off s among these variables precluding optimal performance on all counts
(Wilson, 1973). For some analysts, the new, more variegated perspective means less keenness for
effi ciency at least in the short run (Frederickson, 1980).
Th is chapter analyzes some of the ways in which effi ciency has been used as a conceptual
underpinning to bureaucratic study. Th e thrust of the argument is that the classical era actually
contains two approaches to understanding effi ciency, one primarily managerial and the
other political. Th e fi rst literature, which stretches from Taylor to Gulick and Urwick, examines
the internal mechanisms of public and private organizations with an eye toward increasing
output/input. Th e second, written by turn-of-the-century political Progressives, focuses on ways
to improve effi ciency by strengthening the links between bureaucrats and their stakeholders.
Frederick Taylor and Scientifi c Management
that organizations could optimize output/input by creating a work science applicable to even the
most routine tasks.
For Taylor (1947a, p. 21), the art of management required knowing what an organization or
unit should do and then meeting this goal in the best and cheapest way. Th e eff ective manager creates
information, applying new data to solve old problems, particularly through time study, where
engineers deconstruct work into elementary components and analyze the time it takes to do each
under varying contingencies.
Taylor was an early proponent of the idea that a new approach to studying work required a
more specialized organizational structure, particularly the development of a planning department
(Taylor, 1947a, pp. 94–148). He argued that organizations should leave the military form of command
and create functional hierarchies where each worker received orders and help from multiple
supervisors, each with a separate expertise and function. Examples of functional supervisors are
the gang boss who supervises work until the material is in the machine, the speed boss who takes
over during an operation, the inspector who checks quality, and the repair boss who keeps the
machines in running order.
Taylor’s ideas were extensively debated in the fi rst two decades of the twentieth century with
hundreds of articles published on his work in Europe and America. Almost everyone writing on
effi ciency credited his ideas as an infl uence although Taylor did not always agree with the strategies
proposed by many of his contemporaries who said that they wanted to maximize effi ciency
(Schachter, 1989).
Th e most well-known literature that emerged from the drive to create new information
involved an attempt to systematize internal principles of management to improve effi ciency in all
organizations, public or private. With demand for effi ciency spilling over from the business to the
public sector (e.g., Weber, 1919), a second (somewhat less cited) literature appeared centering on
the relationship between increasing output/input and a renaissance in citizen activity. Th is second
literature is somewhat more parochial, concentrating only on American public agencies, but it
off ers links between effi ciency and other valued goals. Each literature will be examined in turn.
Administrative Principles
Effi -
ciency was the paramount goal for all organizations regardless of any other purpose they might
have. Indeed, Emerson (1912a, p. 373) went so far as to say, “Th e ideal of the… Effi ciency Principles
is waste elimination…. Th e mere purpose for which waste is to be eliminated is not important.”
A key belief was that the same structural principles would enhance public and private effi ciency
in all cultures. Fayol (1937, p. 101) wrote, “All undertakings require planning, organization, command,
coordination and control, and… all must observe the same general principles. We are no
longer confronted with several administrative sciences but with one alone, which can be applied
equally well to public and to private aff airs.”
While these writers diff ered on the exact number of principles one could derive from the science
of administration, three issues they all saw as important were division of labor, authority, and
span of control. All four authors posit that specialization increases effi ciency because it makes better
use of the varying skills of diff erent workers and eliminates the time lost when people turn from
one job to the next.
Because specialization requires coordination, bureaucracies create hierarchies to manage work
and amalgamate specialized tasks. All four writers insist that the authority of each person on the
chain of command be commensurate with responsibility. Top management must defi ne responsibility
precisely and allocate enough authority to accomplish each task.
In an interlocking hierarchy reaching from the chief executive to entry-level workers, unity of
command is crucial. Fayol (1949) and Gulick (1937) explicitly criticize Taylor’s advocacy of functional
supervision because this violates the principle of one command locus for a given worker.
Th e principles literature also posits the need for each manager to have a relatively tight span of
control, that is, a small number of people under his or her direct supervision. Gulick (1937) argues
that the best span will vary, depending on the executive, the time required to complete the task
and the spatial arrangement of the enterprise. Urwick (1938, p. 8) adds numbers to the relationship,
asserting that no manager can supervise more than fi ve or six people whose work interlocks.
One diff erence that does appear among the four authors is their relative sophistication in
apprehending the diffi culties in applying these principles to specifi c cases. Urwick gives the most
unconditional loyalty to the principles. Urwick (1944, p. 9) even argues that going against them
amounts to an antisocial act in the same sense as forgery or murder. At the other end of the continuum,
Gulick explicitly notes the diffi culties involved in applying the principles to various contingencies
(e.g., 1937, p. 8). He even cautions that structural change alone may prove insuffi cient
to produce eff ective operations (Gulick 1937, p. 37). (For a discussion of this aspect of Gulick’s
thought, see Hammond, 1990.) Because of his recognition of nuance, Gulick’s work serves as a
bridge between the classical era and some of the modern critics.
Critique of the Principles Literature
Th e earliest critiques of the effi ciency concept concentrate on demonstrating problems with the
principles without attacking the importance of effi ciency itself. Th e most infl uential of such
critiques is Herbert Simon’s Administrative Behavior (1947). (For an account of its impact on textbooks,
see Dunn, 1988.) Simon is squarely in the tradition of those who accept effi ciency as the
guiding criterion in bureaucratic design; like the principles’ authors, he accepts that effi ciency is
completely neutral in regard to which goals are to be attained. His protest is simply against regarding
the principles as immutable guides in concrete situations.
Th e principles literature off ers to tell practicing executives how to maximize output/input, and
Simon argues that the advice is not very useful on a case-by-case basis. Division of labor is a key
precept in the principles literature, but the manager’s problem is not only whether to specialize
but also how to decide the basis for dividing labor. Th e principles do not say whether dividing by
function, place, process, or client is preferable.
In addition, the principles confl ict with each other. If unity of command means that only one
person can give orders to a particular worker, then it is incompatible with specialization because a
worker may need advice from diff erent experts. Span of control confl icts with keeping to a minimum
the number of hierarchical levels through which information must pass before a decision
maker acts on it. When all workers in a health department report to one person, that executive has
a large span of control; if the agency appoints assistant managers for some clinics, then people may
complain of red tape as it takes a long time for information to move through the newly created
layers (Simon, 1947, p. 27).
Simon did not urge managers to forgo the principles entirely but rather to take a more tentative
approach to structural questions. He was not the fi rst to urge a tentative stance—both Gulick and
Dimock (1938) did this in the thirties—but his book became a standard text in public-administration
courses and a rallying cry for people who wanted to change the fi eld (Augier and March, 2001). After
his work appeared, many writers took a less dogmatic tack to structural analyses. For example, the
fourth edition of White’s (1955, pp. 20–21) public administration textbook adds to his usual
introduction that managers may not always know the one best way of designing organizations.
Since 1947, the principles have been undermined from many angles. Motivation theorists (e.g.,
Hertzberg et al., 1959) now question the relationship between specialization and effi ciency. Th ey
argue that challenging assignments encompassing a whole task stimulate at least some workers
to better performance. Th is argument has led private and public organizations to implement job
enlargement and enrichment. In the fi rst reform, companies amalgamate routine tasks that were
once rigidly divided. In job enrichment, organizations add planning and control functions to an
employee’s work.
A need for fl exibility causes some organizations in volatile environments to forsake rigid
hierarchies and unity of command. Th ese organizations implement matrix teams where employees
are simultaneously members of a functional department and a project team (Griffi n, 2002,
pp. 370–373). Th e argument is even made (Landau, 1969) that early attempts to prevent duplication may have hurt effi ciency because redundancy can aid reliability as in a conversation where people
repeat words to prevent misunderstandings.
Th e principles literature tried to present an easy path to effi ciency. Th e work of Simon and
others convinced managers that the road to high output/input was more diffi cult to traverse.
Effi ciency/Responsiveness/Equity Trade-Offs
By the 1960s, some theorists began to question the importance of high output/input itself. Th ey
argued that inevitable trade-off s exist between effi cient administration and responsive and equitable
government. Some early proponents of this view were associated with the “new” public administration
movement. As we will see later, this view also appears in Denhardt’s (2000) proposal for
a public administration paradigm oriented toward service.
1.New Public Administration
Th e early assault on effi ciency itself is identifi ed with the “new” public administration of the late
sixties and seventies (Marini, 1971; Waldo, 1971a); the equity concerns of this literature also
appear in the works of contemporaneous economists advocating a stakeholder view of corporate
responsibility. Participants in these literatures cast themselves as rebels and announce that
effi ciency should not necessarily be the foremost organizational goal.
Th e most popular approach is to stress that agency activity is a zero-sum game with inevitable
trade-off s between effi ciency and other values. Frederickson (1980) asserts that the contest is
between high output/input and responsiveness to the poor; although Frederickson sees effi ciency
as a value with some usefulness (1976), he prefers greater deference to the wishes of low-income
communities.
White (1969, p. 35) casts the struggle as between effi ciency and client freedom, arguing, “Th e
degree of effi ciency… is simply a lower-level framing of the question of how much freedom the
client wishes or may have to yield in the name of the general order.” For White, the effi ciency
criterion causes bureaucracies to husband resources and choose how much to invest in a given
case; he prefers a client-centered organization with an unequivocal mandate to help people—even
hopeless cases.
Economist Okun (1975) sees a trade-off between effi ciency and equal rights. To achieve maximum
output/input, organizations must concentrate resources and authority in a few hands, but
this leads to inequity because the central players have better access to legal advice and more forums
to disseminate their views. No blanket solution to the dilemma exists because some disparity in
income will always be necessary in our sociopolitical system.
Th e trade-off metaphor is not the only one off ered for reconsidering the worth of maximizing
output/input. Goodin and Wilenski (1984) assert that effi ciency is not a stand-alone
goal but simply an instrumental means to obtain want satisfaction. Th ey see this interpretation
as a stronger check on effi ciency than the trade-off metaphor where no theoretical
reason exists to prefer responsiveness or client freedom. In Goodin and Wilenski’s scenario,
effi ciency (a surface principle) has to yield to want satisfaction (a meta-principle that gives it
meaning). Goodin and Wilenski (1984, p. 513) argue that bureaucracies must override the
need for effi ciency if people want particular arrangements that make decision making “less
effi cient in some sense.”
Th e new public administration writers share two characteristics. First, like so many of their
predecessors from Taylor on, they combine scholarship with a call to action. Th ey want improvement
as well as understanding. Second, they tend to see their concern for responsiveness and want
satisfaction as a challenge to traditional theory. Th ey make scant reference to the municipal reform
literature and its analogous concerns.
Savage (1971) is one of the few new public administration writers to see that output/input
questions are actually crucial to the social agenda. He argues that the problem with contemporary
bureaucracies is that they do not ameliorate social justice effi ciently.
Th is is the position of the municipal reform literature. Th e Bureau writers considered effi -
ciency a prerequisite to responsiveness and equity, not a trade-off with them. Th e old writers
would have agreed with Goodin and Wilenski’s argument about want satisfaction, but they would
have envisioned a broader notion of the wants that organizations should satisfy effi ciently. For
example, Goodin and Wilenski (1984, p. 514) argue that effi ciency and equity clash in job
training programs; it is more cost eff ective to train middle class people, but equity considerations
may cause a community to work with the truly disadvantaged. Th e municipal reformers
would reply that if a community wants job training for the poor, then the key question becomes
how to implement such programs effi ciently. If the public wants training for the disadvantaged,
opening programs for middle class people can never be effi cient, just as the most skillfully
constructed bridges are ineffi cient if they do not meet the needs of mass transit riders. For the
municipal reformers, high benefi ts or least cost gains the respected name of effi ciency only in
the service of responsive action. Th e municipal reform literature celebrates effi ciency because it
holds high output/input to be a prerequisite for realizing the value of responsiveness. On the
issue of effi ciency, the new public administration and its allies might have engaged the older
literature in dialogue.
Critical Theory
Th e most radical attack on output/input comes from critical theory which sees the analytic deferencegiven effi ciency as a way of preserving existing power relations. Critical theorists stress that
every bureaucracy consists of a controlling entity and subordinates; the powerful select goals for
the organization and defi ne actions as rational if they help meet those objectives (Denhardt, 1981;
Fischer and Sirianni, 1984; Fischer, 1990). Traditional bureaucratic studies focus on the quest for
better performance, neglecting the tension created when lower-level employees do not consider
goal attainment rational in terms of their own interests
Denhardt (1981, p. 43) uses critical theory to argue that concern with effi ciency leads scholars
to neglect the inner lives of the workers—their search for meaning—and to concentrate “on the
outer world of behavior, performance and accomplishment.” He asserts that a critical focus means
reprioritizing scholarly interest toward processes that favor individual growth rather than effi cient
production. For him, the central question “is no longer how the individual may contribute to the
effi cient operation of the system, but how the individual may transcend the system” (Denhardt, 1981,
p. 131, emphasis in original).
A focus on people’s need to fi nd meaning through work does not necessarily place critical
theory out of alignment with other writing on bureaucracies. Th e bulk of the postwar motivation
literature puts great stock on increasing autonomy and responsibility throughout the chain of
command. Critical theorists are not even the fi rst to assign innate importance to the psychological
state of individual bureaucrats. As early as 1936, Dimock argued that employee satisfaction was a
good in its own right.
Critical theory is at odds with earlier work for two other reasons. First, from Taylor on, previous
writers always assumed that the interests of organizations and workers were (or through technique
could be made) compatible. Critical theory assumes that interests are opposed; structures of
organized actions make legitimate, uncoerced discourse between workers and executives diffi cult
to achieve. Critical theory emphasizes the elitist character of modern bureaucracies.
Second, critical theory is one of several attempts beginning in the 1970s and 1980s to make
inner life a pivot of organizational analysis and to defi ne organizations as something more than
instruments for task accomplishment. Other attempts include White and McSwain’s (1983) transformational
theory which concerns individuals liberating themselves from their psychic prisons
and Hummel (1994). Th e writers mentioned in the early sections of this chapter (Taylor, the
principles exponents, the municipal reformers, Simon, etc.) did not emphasize consciousness at
the expense of concrete objectives.
Analysis of alienation is important for understanding what happens in organizations, but primarily
so if it links up with how consciousness aff ects action relating to substantive governmental aims. In
1977, Denhardt cautioned that scholars did not know whether the new approach would prove useful
in enhancing actions relating to public service, but it seemed that much might be gained in pursuing it.
In 1985, Forester argued that critical theory had practical implications for planning departments;
its focus on distorted communication helped administrators anticipate and correct for eff ective design
review and implement more democratic planning. Matters are handled more economically because
open information exchange reduces unnecessary disruption of the planning process. By 1993, Forester
argued that critical theory ought to show how public policies alter the structural conditions of
social action, the actual social interactions of aff ected people, the conditions of citizens’ recourse to
discourses with administrators, and the public’s capacity to challenge claims to truth and justice.
For scholars who are not themselves critical theorists, interest in this approach can be sustained
by the belief that its psychological insights relate to service delivery, that less alienated entry-level personnel
perform their tasks in a preferable way, or that an organization that engages the agendas of its
entry-level workers will be more responsive to the public-at-large. For such analysts, critical theory is
important precisely because its arguments suggest new approaches to old questions about effi ciency;
the emphasis is on using insights from this approach to help individuals contribute better service.
The New Public Service
At the start of the new millennium, Denhardt and Denhardt (2000) articulated a vision of publicmanagement which focuses on the administrator’s responsibility to serve and empower citizens.
Th is attractive model is a response to Osborne and Gaebler’s (1992) reinventing government model
with its emphasis on markets and customers. Th e new public service model values citizenship and
public service above entrepreneurship. It insists that the public interest is the aim not the byproduct
of administration and that public workers serve citizens rather than customers. It encourages
extensive, broad-based dialogue between administrators and citizens.
Denhardt and Denhardt say that the perspective that under-girds their new public service
model is that in contrast to managerial calls for greater effi ciency, they want greater responsiveness.
Th us, while they mention critical theory as one root for their ideas, their model is also heir
to much of the new public administration’s thinking that perceives effi ciency as a trade-off with
more desirable qualities. While they do say that effi ciency “should not be lost” (p. 557), they do
not accept the assumption that effi ciency is necessary to maximize other valued criteria. Th ey want
effi ciency placed in the context of democracy and the public interest. Th e question then becomes
how the placement should be construed, as a series of trade-off s or with effi ciency in the role of a
necessary tactical aid to achieve desirable values?
Conclusions
Th e quest for more effi cient organizations has been a staple of bureaucratic study throughout the
century. Looking for an easy path to effi ciency, some of the earlier writers tried to enunciate immutable
principles of bureaucratic structure. Today, writers on public and private organizations stress
that no one structural ideal exists; the most useful patterns depend on circumstances. Managers are taught to take a contingency approach to structure; they appreciate that appropriate design
depends on many variables. Traditional bureaucratic characteristics such as specialization and
hierarchy may be useful in one instance, dysfunctional in the next.
Since the late sixties, the worth of effi ciency itself has come under fi re from people with concerns
for responsiveness and equity. Th e confl ict is articulated most vividly in public-sector writing
but it also appears in debates about how to make business more socially responsive. People with a
broad concept of corporate performance want to judge private bureaucracies on their impact on
customers, employees, and neighbors as well as on shareholder profi ts. Some people say it may
even be right to see less output/input in the short run to further responsiveness to outside parties,
but generally even those who take a broad view of corporate performance stress that socially
responsible companies should not lose in the profi t ratings over long periods (e.g., the discussion
in Griffi n, 2002, pp. 111–118).
Th ese corporate innovators face a dilemma that appears in any assault on effi ciency; it is diffi
cult to disregard high output/input as a value in practice. Waldo (1971b) notes that even people
who criticize effi ciency are not so blunt as to say that they prefer ineffi ciency.
Indeed, Dwight Waldo’s career is a case in point. In Th e Administrative State (1948), he cautions
against considering effi ciency as an ultimate value. But by 1986, he notes, “[I]n the beginning
I came at effi ciency with the instincts or biases of the humanist. … Along the way, so to
speak, I had second thoughts…. I concluded that considerations of effi ciency were relevant to the
attainment of liberal or humane values” (Brown and Stillman, 1986). Effi ciency is a criterion in
programs to increase civil rights, feed the hungry, or house the poor.
One way of dealing with this trade-off dilemma is to make it explicit at the defi nition level that
actions are ineffi cient unless they are responsive to a relevant public. In a 1912 article, William
Prendergast, New York City’s Progressive comptroller, explicitly rejected “results/expenditures” as
a defi nition for effi ciency. He preferred defi ning the concept as doing what the public wants done
as well as possible at least expense. While this defi nition begs the question of defi ning “public”
or saying how its wants are measured, it does announce that effi cient action requires responsiveness—
a relationship that the municipal reformers recognized.
In similar fashion, a Progressive-era report on the administration of justice defi nes ineffi ciency
as inadequacy to meet the purpose for which the public established a justice system or to achieve
what the public expects of it (Eliot et al., 1914, p. 5). Th is defi nition seems to say that effi ciency
only exists when an agency is responsive to citizens, a diff erent approach from Emerson (1912a,b)
or Simon’s (1947) contention that effi ciency can exist in relation to any goal. Th at the report presents
its defi nition without embellishment suggests that at least some people in the Progressive era were
used to relating effi ciency and responsiveness.
Modern use of an expanded defi nition would link the concepts of output/input and responsiveness
in the public and private sectors. It would make explicit that “effi ciency” is not a synonym
for “least cost” and that the word has no meaning in relation to projects that do not meet a relevant
public’s wants. Indeed, effi cient action may require greater costs if this leads to even larger benefi t
ratios. Gulick (1966) notes that the BMR’s call for effi ciency resulted in better social programs
that eventually cost the taxpayer more money. In 1914, the New York BMR conducted a study of
Springfi eld, Massachusetts’ health department for a sister BMR in Springfi eld. Th e report says that
effi ciency does not mean spending less; the investigators congratulate Springfi eld “on the liberality
of its appropriations” (Springfi eld Bureau of Municipal Research, 1914, p. 9).
To denigrate effi ciency is to turn away from a value that common sense tells us is crucial to all
endeavors. More useful for bureaucratic analysts is to identify the range of responsive outcomes for
a given organization or unit and to be explicit about what effi ciency calculations can and cannot
be made for each. Th e conventional wisdom assumes that effi ciency is easier to measure than other values.
However, ease of calculation only attends such measurements for production of goods. In other
cases, analysts may actually fi nd it easier to calculate equity rather than output/input. For example,
it is easier to calculate whether a school system has spent the same amount of resources to
imbue each child with an appreciation of art than to know how much genuine appreciation it gets
per dollar of expenditure.
Th e diffi culty of measuring output/input in “soft” areas leads analysts to restrict effi ciency
calculations to a sparse number of goals. Th is, in turn, yields a perception that effi ciency is irrelevant
to the satisfaction of other wants. Managers who produce goods consider output/input in
planning their strategies and tactics. When promoting other goals—such as citizen participation
or political accountability—managers do not subject their idealism to rigorous appraisal of what
a public gets for a given expenditure.
Once the full list of desired outcomes is associated with effi ciency, discussion can begin on
how to measure cost/benefi t outside the provision of goods and how to calculate maximum output/
input for securing honesty, say, or accountability. Present-day analysts calculate how much
energy a railroad gets from the expenditure of X dollars on various fuels. Why not discuss how
much honesty we are likely to get from the work done by passing a code of ethics or putting restrictions
on the ability of public servants to take gifts from those with whom they work? Even if the
original calculations are crude, the attempt indicates that the analyst is aware of the full range of
outcomes that the public wants from a given bureaucracy. Th e approach also suggests that simply
writing an ethics code or restricting gifts is not enough; the important matter is to learn how such
innovations infl uence the incidence of honest behavior.
Using an expanded defi nition may open a Pandora’s box of problems in defi ning relevant
public, but it also leads analysts to consider output/input in relation to a host of genuine wants. By
doing this, it enhances the value of the effi ciency concept. Such an approach shows that effi ciency
remains a useful construct to a socially informed study of bureaucracies as it constitutes an aid to
understanding even in those cases where profi t or delivery of tangible goods and services are not
the only benefi ts people seek from organizations.
Ethical Foundations
What Can Be Done about Ethical PerformanceFollowing are a few approaches that could move us in this direction. Some are important because
of their indirect impact on moral performance, although they serve other purposes as well.
1. We need more emphasis and support for the career service. It is a very fundamental imperative
for an ethical environment. A proud public servant is a good public servant. Eff orts
should be directed toward building and maintaining that pride.
2. Coincident with this objective is making better use of the career service, with all its expertise,
institutional memory, and discipline in serving the public interest. Th e concept of a
responsive bureaucracy was reduced during the Reagan years to one of a submissive bureaucracy.
Many of the policy missteps and moral lapses at that time could have been avoided
if career people had been given a chance to participate. Not only were alternatives or warnings
by careerists ignored, but also for the most part they were suppressed. Knowledgeable
professionals were often kept in the dark, with work planning frequently confi ned to woefully
unqualifi ed amateurs. An open, healthy exchange between inside experts who safeguard
institutional memory and integrity and outside appointees who ostensibly represent
a president’s overall policy is absolutely essential both to eff ective government and ethical
government. Moreover, the art as well as the science of governance demands assimilation of
all relevant points of view before fi nal decisions are made. Multiple participation in decisionmaking
is the only rational methodology in public administration.
3. Less stress on ethics as such and more emphasis on selection of personnel would help reach
the fundamental problem of wrongly motivated people. Th is applies both to promoting the
quality of presidential and other political appointments and to fostering rigorous application
of merit principles for entry and advancement in the career service.
4. A good deal of awakening has already occurred to the inadequacy of rules relating to individual
fi nancial holdings and restrictions on employment subsequent to government service .
For example, requiring appointees to divest themselves of corporate stock or real estate
before entering on public job focuses too much on the appearance or prospect of wrongdoing
without taking into account the impact on recruiting or retaining the best candidates.
Likewise, too mechanistic or legalistic limitations on employment after leaving government
may create impossible situations for professionals who might not be able to pursue their
lifelong expertise at all outside government if they so desire. Th is also dissuades competent
people from accepting public employment.
It would be naive to remove all penalties for misdeeds that might grow out of too cozy a
relationship between outside fi nancial interests and public policy-makers or to lift all restrictions
on the “revolving-door” mentality that pervaded the Reagan administration. But some
of the more absurd and badly drawn proscriptions require modifi cation, lest recruitment of
qualifi ed people be severely handicapped.
A more sensible emphasis might be on machinery (a) to investigate more fully in advance
a candidate’s personal history and sense of ethical behavior; (b) to provide for continuous
review, by multimembered panels of experts inside government, of conditions that lend
themselves to wrongdoing; and (c) to make ethical performance a major ingredient of executive
training for both career and noncareer appointees. Th is may cost a little more in government
personnel operations, but it would pay for itself a thousand times over,
5. Since so much depends on the ethical climate outside government, we cannot overlook the
importance of building more understanding of the political world and more civic consciousness
among the general population.
6. Because of its direct relationship to morality in government, more insistent attention must
be given to reform of the ways in which political campaigns for offi ce are fi nanced, including
both the presidency and the Congress. Studies and programs of the public-interest
organization Common Cause are one of the best sources for enlightenment and action on
this subject. Ultimate success in removing the strong connection between campaign gifts
and decisions by elected offi cials, in my judgment, will not come until we provide a neutral
and nonpartisan fi nancial source for conducting campaigns. It is well known that lavish
gifts to political campaigns provide the contributor with access to members of Congress and
the Executive Branch that is not so easily available to other citizens. Th e spillover eff ect from
a congressional offi ce to a cabinet member or other key offi cial is obvious. Th e system itself is
corrupt. Th e ultimate solution is public fi nancing for all campaigns, but with stringent controls
on spending limits for any one candidate and restrictions on the number of candidates
for any one offi ce. In my judgment, it would be worth the extra cost to government, even if it
means more taxes, but it is nowhere near as expensive as the current loss to all citizens in the
unwarranted infl uence procured by political action committees, corporations, and wealthy
individuals. It is not only the best way to insulate government from corruption but the only
way ultimately to ensure the democratic process, under which all voters have equal access.
Public Service Ethics and Professionalism: A Primer for Public Offi cials
Institutional and legislative concerns for ethics have been expressed in many organizationaland legal measures adopted to combat corruption, safeguard the integrity of public service, and
promote professional conduct based on sound ethical grounds. Almost all public organizations
and associations of public service appear to have adopted codes of ethics. Institutional arrangements,
such as offi ces to prevent or control unethical conduct, appear everywhere; it is a global
phenomenon.
Eight major themes and perspectives appear to have emerged in recent publications on administrative
ethics and accountability, which are as follows:
1. Citizenship and democratic theory, with an emphasis on the renewal of civic virtue. Th is
theme views public servants as virtuous citizens and as guardians of community interests.
Virtuous citizenship is important for democratic governance and administration. Loyalty
to democratic values, responsiveness, responsibility, and moral conduct are virtues of democratic
citizenship. Civility, tolerance, respect for equality and for citizens’ rights, as well as
obligations are key values in democratic citizenship.
2. Virtue ethics, with an emphasis on good character in public service and administration.
It is an extension of the fi rst perspective. Character is the focus of study and practice in
administrative ethics: the most critical problem is the scarcity of men and women of good
character in positions of leadership—whether public, private, educational, or religious. For
too long, the management orthodoxy has taken the proposition that good systems will produce
good people, as axiomatic. However, it is clear that a just society depends more on
the moral trustworthiness of its citizens and leaders than on structures and systems. Costly
ethical failures of organizational leaders have caused irreparable damage to public trust and
to societal interests. As a personal attribute, virtue is a character trait that inclines us toward
ethical conduct. Ethics has ancient origins. Ethical education was a major component of
educational system in ancient Persia, where education and training for public servants, leaders,
and bureaucrats was highly important and ethics and justice administration made up
a key component of preparing for personal and professional or career life—Persians valued
virtuous characters in personal and public lives very highly, as it was a hallmark of their educational
system from the very early age of preschool system—childhood (see Chapter 2).
According to Aristotle, moral virtue comes about as a result of habit, whence its name ethike
is a derivative of ethos (habit). From this, it also follows that none of the moral virtues arise in
us by nature. Th erefore, to Aristotle and all those following this perspective, administrative
ethics are cognitive and learnt values. But the social environment in which public administrators
operate aff ects the cognitive values acquired or learned. Contemporary writers commonly
associate the quest for excellence with the practice of virtue. Th is perspective has signifi cant
implications for modern public administration, in that virtuous administrators can be trained
and developed through ethical precept for public service. Th erefore, unethical behavior may be
considered as a form of corruption, for corruption is the absence of civic virtue.
3. Constitutional tradition, insisting on the public offi cials’ ethical obligation to uphold such
major values enshrined in constitutions as freedom, liberty, equality, due process, justice,
etc. Th is perspective also values effi ciency in the measure that the ethical and political values
of democracy are upheld. It is as central to the theme of public interest as procedural versus
substantive justice and seeks to maximize the salutary infl uence of personal interest and to
control the adverse eff ects of popular passions. Upholding the principles and values of the
constitution is considered the most important approach to the study and practice of ethics
in public administration (Rohr, 1989).
4. Ethics as education, with an emphasis on the study of ethics in the public administration curriculum
and training public servants for an honorable career. Th is perspective has a grounding
on the educational development of public administrators and highlights the community
service. Ethics through education can transform offi cials by molding their attitudes, behavior,
and perception of others. However, it is through self-development that social administrative
ethics are also promoted. Ethics as education is both external learning and internalization of
moral values.
5. Th e organizational context of ethics, with a focus on effi ciency and eff ectiveness as well as on
the normative values of fairness, justice, and moral conduct: organizations and their members
must not only be moral where it is effi cient to do so, they must be effi cient only where
it is moral to do so. Effi ciency at any cost is not acceptable, but effi ciency with moral and
ethical conduct is imperative. Organizational structures refl ect value choices and ethical
commitments made by those who design organizations. Th ey not only protect ethical values
such as fairness, justice, honesty, accountability, and respect for rights, but may also impede
them through built-in bureau pathologies. Structures and procedures may be viewed as
mechanisms for pursuing ethical outcomes. Procedural justice is considered as a way to deal
with the arbitrariness, tyranny, and injustice that may arise in the exercise of administrative
discretion. Th us, discretion should be checked by means of judicial and other institutions. In
public administration, a clash between ethics and organizational culture may occur. Critics
argue that bureaucratic culture corrupts society through lack of human-centered norms. Th e
manipulative role of power holders degenerates into a system of totalitarianism, in which
organizational ethical values are compromised.
6. Philosophical theory and perspectives, with a focus on rejecting positivism and postpositivist
perspectives in public administration. Rejecting the neutrality argument, this perspective
highlights the public servants’ active role in upholding and promoting agreed-upon values of
the “community as public interests.” Administrative ethics, therefore, identify professionalism
with active moral conduct. Th e role of professionalism and of professional administrators
is emphasized in administrative ethics, regardless of partisan or dominant elite interests.
7. Ethics as consequence or utilitarianism, with a focus on the outcome of conduct and behavior
in public administration, is also an extension of the philosophical perspective. In a major
break with classical thought, Machiavelli argued in Th e Prince that acts should be judged as
good or bad depending on their consequences, rather than on their intentions or the characteristics
of their actors. Following this line of argument, John Stuart Mill (1806–1873)
wrote in Utilitarianism that “All action is for the sake of some end, and rules of action it
seems natural to pursue must take their whole character and colour from the end to which
they are subservient. To be good, actions must be means to something admitted to be good,
…such as health or pleasure.”
8. Ethics as principle, with an emphasis on categorical imperatives in which absolute “right”
versus wrong is pursued. Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) approached the question of ethics from a very diff erent angle than Machiavelli or Mill. Kant outlines his categorical imperative
as the ultimate basis for ethical action or inaction. Behaviors are either wrong or right,
ethical or unethical, nothing in between. For example, lying is wrong in an absolute term
and there is no such thing as situational ethics. His philosophy calls for a perfect society
based on ethical and moral “principles” that must be observed under all circumstances. Th is
perspective, which is also philosophical, resonates the ancient Persian “ethical doctrine” in
publics service, administration, and governance, which heavily stressed on the categorical
principles of right versus wrong, good versus evil, justice and fairness, telling “truth,” and
considered “lying” as not only disgraceful and admonishing but also against law and seriously
punishable as a crime. However, the Persians considered exceptional circumstance,
such as unintentional lying, or lying to save lives or community or family interests, while
judging a person in violation of the ethical doctrine and reduced the severity of punishments,
given the person had clear prior records (see Chapter 2). Th e ethical doctrine was
highly emphasized in Persian educational systems to prepare leadership for public service
and administration throughout the vast “global empire of Persia.” For more detailed
information, see Cooper (2001) and Farazmand (2002).
Professionalism and Administrative Ethics
Max Weber once observed that the modern state administration would be bureaucratized
everywhere. Both capitalist and socialist States and their administrative systems have gone through
bureaucratization and professionalization. Professionalization of public administration has been
characterized by an adherence to merit system, to task specialization, to systems of checks and
balances, and to the organizational values of effi ciency, economy, and eff ectiveness achieved. It is
also exemplifi ed by the adherence to professional standards, values, criteria, and ethics, rather than
political or other criteria.
Th us, generally speaking, the professionalization of public administration and the administrative
state presents two contrasting perspectives: professionalization introduces task performance,
effi ciency, eff ectiveness, objectivity, integrity, identity, and cohesion. It also serves as a bulwark
against political corruption and other substandard behaviors in the public service. Its value as a
corrective measure has been recognized. However, the clash between professional civil service values,
on the one hand, and the political values of responsiveness, responsibility, and accountability
to citizens, on the other, has been a major source of tension between professional career bureaucrats
and politicians, elected or appointed. Th e confl ict between professional and political values
has captured much of the recent literature in public administration and political science around
the globe. Are they really contradictory or complementary?
Two opposing perspectives prevail on this question. Th e one against professional discretion
and participation in policy-making asserts that such participation is undemocratic because nonelected,
appointed bureaucrats cannot be held accountable to members of the electorate. Th is
perspective also contends that democratic values of responsiveness and responsibility are lost, as
professional bureaucrats play a part in policy decisions. It is increasingly diffi cult not to hold professional
experts accountable, since only they understand the minutiae of the knowledge they possess.
Th e counterargument for professional values asserts that professional standards serve the broad
public interest. Th erefore, they are responsive to societal needs. Accountability is achieved through organizational, professional, and personal mechanisms of checks and balances. In addition, legislative,
judicial, and other means of oversight are also exercised over them.
A third theoretical approach consists of combining professional and democratic values in the
public service. Th us, to be a sound administrator, it is not only essential to perform with high
ethical values and promote effi ciency and eff ectiveness, but also with responsiveness, responsibility,
and fairness or justice. Discretion must be exercised not only under multiple systems of checks
and balances, but also with personal and professional integrity and prudence (practical wisdom).
Th erefore, to be a professional is not enough. One must also be a responsible and responsive
administrator. Th is requires ethical education and training at all levels.
Professional public administrators may be seen as the guardians of the administrative state.
Th ey provide stability and continuity in governance, even in the midst of paralyzing political
crises, upheavals, and revolutions. It is an established fact that bureaucracy has survived political
changes for more than three millennia. Public administrators play an active role in the formulation
of public policies. But their impact on the pace, style, tone, and quality of policy implementation
is immense. Th ey may be viewed as guardians of the public trust.
Accountability in the public service is very important, because there are many aspects of
administrative work that are open to corruption and subversion of the public interest. At the
same time, there are aspects of professionalism that make it diffi cult to attain an acceptable level
of accountability. Th e diffi culty in attaining administrative accountability makes administrative
ethics particularly important. Ethics is a form of self-discipline, an inner check on the conduct of
public servants, and it must be internalized to appear in ethical behavior. Yet, there are external
mechanisms of ethical control of administration—ethics code, institutional reports and requirements,
etc.—that if observed can work eff ectively against unethical conducts. Accountability is
also an organizational and political concern. It touches on issues of liability as well as ethical matters.
To deal with these two issues of worldwide concern, it is worth considering the question of
why some public administrators abuse their trust and act in ways considered to be contrary to the
public interest and in violation of the public trust. For more on this see, Farazmand (2002).
Guardians of the Public Trust
Generally speaking, there are three categories of factors that may impel public administrators to
violate the public trust. Th ese are misrepresentation of the public interest, corruption, and subversion
(Rosenbloom, 1995).
Obstacles to Guard the Guardians
Important though it is, the task of guarding the guardians presents a number of problems:
1. Special expertise and information. Public administrators are often experts at what they do.
Th e expertise and specialized information they possess puts them in an advantageous position,
which is not matched by outsiders, especially common citizens, but even politicians.
Th is technical, specialized expertise and information is often the basis of administrative and
organizational decisions, and often beyond the ability of outsiders and those charged with
oversight to fathom.
2. Full-time status. Simply stated, the full-time status of public administrators makes it diffi cult
for outsiders, who have many other things to do, to hold them accountable. Administrators
are involved in details and are often good at what they do. Politicians and common citizens
do not have the time and expertise to match such status.
3. Job security and other protections. Most public administrators enjoy job security, and any
adverse organizational action against them is subject to due process, civil-service protection
procedures, and so on. Although job security has been eroded during the last 25 years or so,
it is still a source of protection against arbitrary dismissals and disciplinary actions. Discipline
and dismissals are diffi cult, though not impossible. Many small and petty administrative
infractions can over time lead to a signifi cant adverse impact on public service image
and credibility, as well as on organizational productivity, performance, and service quality.
4. Th e law of countercontrol. According to Anthony Downs (1967), it takes a bureaucracy to control
another bureaucracy. Th e law of countercontrol has several manifestations in diff erent
parts of the world. It leads to duplication, waste, and the proliferation of bureaucratic organizations
for control purposes, a practice that obscures the cardinal purpose of public service,
which is to serve the citizens and to protect their interest in an effi cient and eff ective manner.
5. Coordination problems. Such problems make accountability diffi cult for many reasons. For
example, separation of powers in the United States between the Executive, Congress, and
Judiciary has been a source of diffi culties in securing accountability (Rosenbloom, 1993).
Analogous examples may be found elsewhere in the world. It is often diffi cult to hold an
agency or administrator accountable, when many organizations and offi cials are involved in
implementation without proper coordination and control.
6. Fragmentation of organizational functions and structures. Th is is another obstacle in securing
administrative accountability. Fragmentation and overlapping functions and responsibilities
cause confusion. Accountability is lost because no one seems to be responsible, where everyone
is responsible. Blames are shifted from one source to another. Organizational structure
often require duplication and redundancy, both of which can provide unhappy bureaucrats—
both public and private sectors—adequate defensive mechanisms to hide behind
rules and procedures when resisting change, implementation, or even desiring to alter the
outcome of undesired policy or issues in the implementation process.
7. Th e large size and scope of public administration. Almost everywhere in the world, the size,
missions, and scope of public administration are extremely broad. Often the structures,
rules, procedures, and the number of employees employed complicate the task of holding
public administrators accountable. Complexity is a function of size, scope, and structural
features of organizational activities. Th e more complex an organization, the more diffi
cult it is to hold the administrators accountable in the performance. Complexity is also
complicated by the challenges of rapid globalization, turbulence in world politics, and
chaotic nonlinear events that shake the world with surprises.
Yet, despite these major obstacles, a number of means have been used to secure accountability
in public service and thus to guard the guardians. Codes of professional ethics and education
constitute two broad categories. A complementary approach encompasses political, legal, cultural,
and other institutional arrangements, which are explored in the subsequent section, but nothing
replaces a thorough ethical educational system incorporated in the curricula from the early age on,
and especially through preparation for public service and administration.
Achieving Accountability
Administrative accountability in the public service can be achieved through a number of formal means.
Th ese are institutionalized mechanisms through which checks and balances are expected to work.
1.Managerial/Organizational
Th ese universal organizational values or principles are effi ciency, economy,
eff ectiveness, and control. Th e fi rst three are values of instrumental rationality, while the fourth is
both a normative and a rational imperative of organizational accountability. Organizational unity
is important for the maximization of these values, and several means are used to secure it.
First, hierarchy, authority, and responsibility need to be clearly defi ned and assigned. Overlapping
functions should be reduced; lines of hierarchical authority should be clear and comprehensive. Multiple
agency heads/leadership tend to divide subordinates’ loyalties and to obscure responsibility.
Subordination is also necessary for organizational unity, eff ectiveness, and accountability.
Insubordination is seldom tolerated and is punishable by dismissal. Lastly, the span of control is
an eff ective means of organizational accountability. Essentially, a part of the orthodox, classical
management and organization theory, a narrow span of control has been viewed as an important
principle of organizational accountability.
Organizational loyalty is expected of all members and is assured in many ways: these include
socialization into the organizational milieu; occupational specialization makes it diffi cult for
employees to fi nd equivalent positions elsewhere, and dependence on organizations, through pension
schemes or indeed confl ict-of-interest regulations close the revolving door. Countries such as
the United States have legislative regulations that tend to be comprehensive on these matters. Formal
disciplinary systems enforce accountability and subordination. Th ey are designed to identify
the types of proper conduct and to prevent abuse of agency authority and property.
Formal disciplinary systems have often been criticized as largely ineff ective. Public accountability
should seek to enforce much higher standards of behavior, an approach that is professional
and legal or constitutional in nature. Audits are strong deterrents to corruption or other abuses of
public trust. Audits can also be internal or external, and it may be desirable to employ external as
well as internal audits. In many public organizations, both are required.
2.Political Means
Th e political approach takes a diff erent road in stressing the need to develop an external means
of accountability in public administration. Th is is frequently done through political control of
personnel systems by using patronage appointments. However, other important means are also
applied eff ectively and are familiar to most systems:
1. Legislative oversight, which can be achieved by means of legislative requirement for the
ratifi cation of the appointment of agency heads, legislative investigations, and auditing.
2. Budgetary control, which means the power of the purse, an extremely important legislative
check on executive power.
3. Rotation in offi ce to reduce the risk of misrepresentation of public interest, amassment of
power, or empire-building by key administrators. Th is is an ancient personnel practice going
back to Persia and Rome. Its utility is recognized for a number of reasons around the world.
Th e 1978 Civil Service Reform Act of the United States created the Senior Executive Service
to enable the federal civil servants to move from one agency to another. Political executives
are routinely rotated from offi ce to offi ce, or out of offi ce, when a new political boss arrives.
4. Representation and public participation as a means of broadening the composition of public
service and encouraging diversity, which may bring administrative values closer to the general
public, thus refl ecting citizens’ perspectives and preferences.
5. Whistleblowing is a widely known practice, with its benefi ts and costs. Th e use of hot lines
and other confi dential channels may be safer for public administrators, protecting them
from reprisals. Leaks to the press, exposure to the public and the media, reporting to higher
authority, resignation in protest, and exposure are some means of whistleblowing. Some
countries have passed legislation protecting whistleblowers, but in reality, it is a risky practice,
as whistleblowers are often demonized, character assassinated, and attached to scandals
to keep them silenced.
6. “Sunshine laws,” which require open public dealings as important means of securing accountability
and proper conduct of public offi cials. Today, most American states and local governments
have adopted some forms of sunshine laws. Sunshine laws are useful mechanisms for
transparency, but they tend to become facades as the actors in the process often streamline
issues and decisions before they are bought in on the agenda or to the open meetings.
7. Confl ict of interest, which is similar to the organizational and managerial approach. However,
confl ict of interests is very pervasive everywhere and its eradication is a monumental
task not everyone can carry. People with infl uence in high offi ces often tend to form informal
alliances with key individuals and business sectors that benefi t lawmakers, administrators,
and a lot more. Confl ict of interests benefi t individuals with connections to businesses
carrying out government contracting jobs; they are directly or indirectly related to offi cials
who benefi t from such government contracts and business deals.
3.Legal Approach
Th is is a judicial approach to administrative accountability. Administrative liability is one issue;
another is a strong and personally internalized incentive to protect the constitutional rights of
individual citizens.
4.Cultural Approach
Th is is another means of achieving accountability in public service. It requires inclusion of signifi cant
ethical components in the educational curricula for children and adults. Ethical education can be carried out through religious and secular institutions. Religious institutions and values can be used
as major guiding principles in public service conduct. For example, in Islam, like in other religions,
there is a high value attached to being a public servant and to proper behavior in personal
and public life.
5.Ethics Institutional Approach
A number of institutions can be created and empowered to promote and enforce ethical behavior
and accountability. For example, programs for whistleblowing, ethics hot lines, ethics boards
and commissions, ethics education programs for elected, politically appointed, and administrative
offi cials, agency ethics offi cers, fi nancial and confl ict-of-interest disclosure systems, and professional
codes of ethics are typically found in modern governments. Australia, Canada, the United
States, the United Kingdom, Iran, India, and many developing countries have most or all of these
institutions in place.
Guiding Principles in Public Service Ethics
Administrative ethics has been enhanced by professionalization in the administrative state. Whilepublic service ethics and accountability remain major concerns, the incidence of corruption and
unethical behavior is mostly found to be on the political side of the public service. Political executives
are often at the apex of public organizations and, as elites, they tend to be key players in
most scandals. Professionalism in public administration has helped in curbing political corruption
around the world.
Acting as guardians of the public trust, professional administrators are in a central position
to revive and enhance the image of the public service. Th is is a major challenge, which entails
conscious eff ort of advocacy and enforcement. Th e following paragraphs present a list of principles
that can guide public administrators in promoting the above goals. Th ese principles or precepts
are identifi ed as do’s and don’ts.
Ethical education. Ethical education is a must and should be part of all educational systems
at all levels. However, education and training in administrative ethics are most essential for
public service careers anywhere in the world. Th ey must include both personal and administrative
ethics. Civic virtues, virtuous citizenship, respect for others, protection of individual
rights, and other ethical values should be internalized by public servants. Advice to top
executives should also include the following: Set the example and tone for the entire organization
by emphasizing education and training in ethics, by thinking and behaving ethically.
On the other hand, advice to public employees should include the following: Educate yourself
with ethical and moral principles and act ethically; do not compromise on principles;
disobey unconstitutional, immoral, illegal, and unethical orders and expose them through
the appropriate channels; and fi nd appropriate ways to do it.
Preservation of professional and personal integrity. Professional values should prevail over organizational
or personal orders of superiors deemed questionable. Responsible professionalism
is an essential component of administrative behavior. Th is requires self-regulation, knowledge,
self-control, a degree of autonomy and personal independence, and subordination of
private interests to the public interest and public trust. Yet, strict observance to professional interests can and do confl ict, sometimes, confl ict with broad public interests, a problem that
must be avoided when faced, as broad public interests are superior to narrow-based professional
interests, and this requires prudence.
Prudence. Th e exercise of prudence, which means practical wisdom, was emphasized by
three great Persian philosophers and thinkers of the Middle Ages—Farabi, Ibn-e-Cina, and
Nizam-ul-Mulk. Every society has its own thinkers of this caliber. Prudence requires selfcontrolled,
discretionary decisions based on knowledge, expertise, and ethical judgment on
particular situations.
Public spirit. Private interests should be subordinate to public, community interests. In making
decisions or acting as an administrator, think of the public trust and citizens’ interests
fi rst, and then think of yourself. Develop civic virtue, act virtuously, and promote virtuous
citizenship by being a virtuous citizen and acting as a virtuous administrator.
Avoid and prevent problems causing public service crises. Some of these problems are beyond
one’s control as an administrator, but those values and factors that deter public service corruption
and compromise should be adhered to. A responsible, prudent, and virtuous public
administrator should not only try to avoid getting into or causing corruption and crises in
public service, but should also try to do everything possible to prevent them—in the spirit
of serving public interests.
Be a responsible administrator. Act with restraint, discretion, and freedom. Be an example
to others. If you cannot continue to perform your duties properly, resign and expose those
who make it impossible for you to perform ethically and professionally, or blow the whistle
and report wrongdoings to the right sources for corrections. However, it is a tight rope that
must be walked very carefully, as it is common to see a genuine whistleblower charged with
wrongdoing and pay the price—it must be done with consultation and maximum care,
because you as an administrator also have obligations to yourself and your family.
Promote the common good. Devote your time, expertise, and knowledge in building community
values and defending the rights of the poor as well as the affl uent. It is the public interest and
trust that you must serve at all times with integrity. Breaching such principle will lead you to
more unethical violations and corruption—maintain your integrity regardless of the situation.
Be competent and fair. Competence comes with training, skills development, and knowledge. It
is extremely important to apply competence with fairness, equity, and justice in administrative
positions. Effi ciency and eff ectiveness are important organizational and managerial values, but
they must be blended with fairness, equity, and justice. It is this blend of ethical and professional
values that makes professional ethics in public administration possible and desirable.
Follow and enforce the professional code of ethics. Codes of ethics in public administration are
written and unwritten collections or systems of laws, rules, regulations, and norms that
guide public service conduct. Th ey are statements of ideals, canons of action consonant with
those ideals, and binding means of enforcing behavior within the boundaries established by
the code. Opponents of codes of ethics argue that one should resist moralizing everything,
that rigid codifi cation of right or wrong is dysfunctional, and that bureaucratic neutrality
considers it immoral to pass moral judgments on public organizations. Proponents of codes
of ethics cite the objectivity and the positive value added through code of ethics enforcement.
Some codes of ethics carry sanctions for unethical behaviors, while others are more
aspirational or guides to public servants.
Establish and affi rm professional identity as a public servant, as a professional, as a keeper of
public trust, and as an ethical person. Resist all forms of corruption and temptations to
unethical behaviors.
Avoid unethical dilemmas as much as possible but, if caught in the middle, seek advice and
exercise prudence. Most ethical dilemmas can be handled with prudence.
Act morally and ethically with a sound character and responsible judgment. Value and promote
the image of the public service.
Combat corruption at any level and at all times. Establish and use commissions of inquiry,
wage war on indiscipline, and show moral leadership. Also, use scholarly research and the
confi dential approaches mentioned earlier.
Develop and internalize a sense of total quality management (TQM). Promote the idea of doing
things right the fi rst time and prevent the costly error of duplicating or repeating poor quality
work. Do not cheat on your work, internalize work ethics, and develop a sense of motivation
for public interest and self-actualization.
View citizens as valued human beings and as community members, not merely as consumers or
customers in the marketplace. Discourage an overly biased corporate ideology, which seeks
only profi ts and tends to promote corruption and unethical behavior to gain more profi ts.
Markets are not alternatives to public service. Rather, sound governance, public service,
and responsible citizenship are sine qua non of a business-friendly environment, the smooth
operation of markets, eff ective democracy, and social peace.
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