L12 - Modern Bureaucracy

Question 1

What is modern bureaucracy?

Answer 1

• Modern bureaucracy is an essential part of the modern state.
• Bureaucracy = extended the ‘arm’ of the government in policy advancements and implementation.

Question 2

What is the concept of Bureaucracy ? by Max Weber

Answer 2

Concept developed by Max Weber, comparing the function of bureaucracy among the Prussian Army and the ancient Russian state. Weber pointed out three key features that make bureaucracy so important in the rise of the state’s infrastructural powers:

1. Hierachical organization with carefully defined divisions of tasks
2. Career-based personnel recruited on the basis
3. Impersonal application of rules

Question 3

What are the three main feature of the concept of bureaucracy?

Answer 3

• A hierarchical organization
• Career-based personnel recruited on the basis of merit
• Impersonal application of rules

Question 4

Explain: Hierarchical organization

Answer 4

Each part of the state administration has a clearly defined task ‘specialization’, and there is a chain of command between each organization.

Question 5

Explain: Career-Based personal recruited on the basis of merit

Answer 5

Weber believed that bureaucrats should be hired based on

• The merit system: Bureaucrats hired based on their professional qualifications and competence and not for political reasons.
• In contrast, the political (patronage) system: bureaucrats being hired and fired based on their political affiliations.

Question 6

Explain: Impersonal application of rules

Answer 6

Public officials or bureaucrats should conduct their business based on rules and regulations and NOT based on personal or political preferences.

Important: Citizens should be treated equally irrespective of where they are from or who they are.

Question 7

What are the promise of Weberian bureaucracy

Answer 7

Effectiveness: things get done
Efficiency: thing get done at a low cost
Equal treatment of citizens - (supposed to prevent class inequalities)

Question 8

What are 3 main problems with modern bureaucracy?

Answer 8

• Dictatorship of the officials
• Fragmentation
• Proliferation

Question 9

Explain: Dictatorship of officials:

Answer 9

Situation where civil servants become ‘masters’ of politicians.
- Bureaucrats become so powerful that they decide or rule what politicians do, undermining democratic principles.

• Bureaucratic resistance to change: Weberian bureaucrats are experts and may therefore have superior knowledge, which can result in them being reluctant or undermining the implementation of policies encouraged by politicians.
• The creation of a privileged class: Create a class of people that stand above the rest of people that stand above the rest of people that stand above the rest of society.

Question 10

Explain Fragmentation:

Answer 10

• A negative consequence of specialization
• Following processes and ways: Bureaucrats are trained to follow specific processes and ways of doing things within their departments. As a result, they may focus solely on their assigned tasks, leading to fragmentation of the hierarchy.

Question 11

Explain Proliferation:

Answer 11

The expansion of bureaucratic apparatus (number of institutions and people that often exceeds the growth of productivity, the growth of population or outpaces the functional necessity of the state.

Question 12

What are 3 reforms of Modern Bureaucracy ?

Answer 12

• Increase Politicization
• Introduce New Institution and Policies
• New public Management (NPM)

Question 13

Explain: Increase in politicization

Answer 13

• Undermine the principle of merit and introduce political parties in the appointment, hiring and firing of bureaucrats (i.e. go against the ‘dictatorship of the official’).

Three extreme types include:

• ‘SpoilsSystem’: Those who win elections can hire based on their political ideology (“to the winner, the spoils”). This increases the representation and political responsibility of bureaucrats.
• Clientelism: State jobs are distributed on a large scale based on who voted for a particular party.
• ‘Nomenklatura’: The system whereby influential posts in government and industry are filled by party appointees (seen often in the USSR).

Question 14

Explain: Introduce new institutions and policies, including:

Answer 14

• Ombudsman: State officials that are supposed to investigate administrative misconduct → this protects citizens from administrative misconduct.
• Affirmative action: Policies designed to increase bureaucracy’s representativeness of the population (increase equality)

Question 15

Explain: New Public Management (NPM)

Answer 15

-The introduction of market and business principles to public administration.
- Competition within public sector
- Performance-based employment
- Managerial methods of administration