Bureaucracy: Definition, Weber’s Theory, and Modern Transformations
Item 10: The Bureaucracy
The word “bureaucracy” is a complex concept.
1. Meaning
- Bureaucracy is synonymous with government. The word “bureaucracy” is only applicable to the public sector (not private).
- Vulgar concept: A human group characterized by inefficiency and rigidity.
- Bureaucracy is synonymous with efficient administrative organization, diametrically opposed to the former. This definition is not only Hegel’s but also Weber’s.
- Bureaucracy is government officials and fits the etymological definition. Bureaucracy can be understood as the administrative sector of an organization, whether public or private.
2. Weber
Weber uses two concepts of bureaucracy; one has a marginal concept, the other is the ideal type of bureaucracy. Legal-rational bureaucracy is characterized by:
- The existence of general rules that bind equally those in power, the administrative apparatus, and the citizens.
- Ranking, so that each of the seats is occupied by an individual person and not a collective structure.
- A division of labor system arranged with uniform procedures, recruitment of staff through open competition, and work on an ongoing basis.
- The staff must work in a depersonalized manner and act according to the Latin “sine ira et studio” = without anger and without favoritism.
3. Historical Factors that Explain Rational/Legal Bureaucracy
- Emergence of a money economy.
- Quantitative and qualitative development of the administrative functions of the state.
- Expansion of capacity decisions of those in power.
- Democratization process, embodied in the principle of equality of citizens before the law and the possibility of access to a civil service career.
- Technical superiority of rational/legal bureaucracy.
4. Weber’s Concerns About the Relationship Between Bureaucracy and Political Power
For this, a comment:
- Every bureaucracy is always subordinate to a non-bureaucratic authority.
- The fact that bureaucracy is indispensable in modern life is not enough to speak of an autonomous power of the bureaucracy.
- The relationship between democracy and bureaucracy is complex, since although democracy has encouraged the early settlement of bureaucracy, the latter seems to resist genuine democratic control.
5. Conclusion After Weber
Bureaucracy is usually in a position of advantage with respect to political power, derived on the one hand from the fact that it has expertise and on the other that it often acts with little transparency. As a result, the bureaucrat is usually seen as a specialist faced with an amateur, which at the end of the day is the politician.
6. Different Classification Criteria of Bureaucracy
1) Those who see democracy as a whole. They are interested in bureaucratic elites.
- Reminds us that bureaucracy is organized differently in federal and unitary states, and also in centralized and decentralized unitary states.
- Can be organized on a functional basis, territorial basis, and depending on the type of clients it targets. For example, an administrative organization in charge of issues related to migrants.
2) Pay attention to what he calls bureaucratic elites, excluding others:
- Social background and status of those bureaucratic elites: Suggests that there are, for example, countries where the elites are fed by the upper classes of the population and their career is prestigious, such as Germany and France, and others where their career enjoys less prestige, for example, Spain, the USA, and Italy.
- Models of careers: There are services that require their members not to move, and there are bureaucratic services that allow very frequent changes.
- Invokes the open or closed nature of the bureaucratic elite: There are three different situations:
- Elites are closed at the inlet and closed at the outlet; you cannot access them from other elites, and you cannot access others from them. No significant exchanges between elites.
- Elites closed at the entrance and open at the exit; you cannot access them from other elites, but instead, it is reachable from them to others, for example, the world of politics or private enterprise.
- Elites open at the entrance and open at the exit, with an exchange of elites.
7. Transformation in Public Bureaucracies
1) Along with the traditional bureaucracy of the ministries, characterized as the guardian of the law, with the passage of time, an interventionist bureaucracy has emerged, which is the result of the greater state presence in the economy and the emergence of endless new structures.
2) Changes that have occurred in the composition of public bureaucracies:
- Again, with the traditional bureaucracy of the ministries, government officials today are business leaders, scientists, professors, or doctors.
- Autonomous agencies have proliferated, separated from the ministerial structures.
- Traditional ministerial structures themselves have become more complex.
- Much of bureaucratic services have the task of hosting the demands of private pressure groups.
3) Process that explains what government bureaucracies are today:
- We have witnessed a progressive fragmentation of democratic bodies that some have described as neo-feudal, and in some cases, it has led to centralized flows in the opposite direction.
- Inter-bureaucratic competition, primarily between services related to defense and security and services related to economic and social welfare. This competition is usually higher in times of crisis.
- Collective bargaining and unionization have relaxed to some extent the bureaucratic discipline, and hierarchical flows have mitigated the traditional bureaucracy.
4) Current status of public bureaucracies:
- Primacy of the effectiveness of the law.
- Task of intermediation between private lobbying, politicians, and rulers.