Representative Bureaucracy

Classic Readings and Continuing Controversies

Julie Dolan, David H. Rosenbloom

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• eBook ISBN:
  9781134898893
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The readings in this collection provide a comprehensive guide to the established knowledge and emerging issues regarding democratizing public bureaucracies by making them socially representative. The book includes both classic and cutting-edge works, and presents a contemporary model for analyzing representative bureaucracy that focuses on the linkages between social origins, life experiences, attitudes, and administrators' decision making. The selections address many of the leading concerns of contemporary politics, including diversity and equal opportunity policy, democratic control of administration, administrative performance, the pros and cons of the new public management, and reinventing government. Many of the field's most cited works are included. Each chapter starts with an introductory summary of the key questions under consideration and concludes with discussion questions. With it's extensive selection of classic and contemporary readings, the book will have wide application for courses on bureaucracy, public administration, and public sector human resource management.

Chapter 1
Theoretical Underpinnings

Why Does the Social Background of Public Administrators Matter?

All modem governments have large-scale administrative components. The units within them—departments, ministries, agencies, bureaus, and so forth—are routinely called “bureaucracies,” regardless of how they are organized. These units make some public policies and participate in the development of others. They also affect the impact of many governmental programs and initiatives by making choices when implementing or enforcing them. American bureaucracies make more rules, which are the functional equivalent of legislation, than Congress and the state legislatures make laws. More disputes are adjudicated in administrative hearings than civil matters decided by the courts. In one way or another, bureaucracies are the part of government most responsible for executing laws, rules, judicial and other governmental decisions, and foreign and domestic policies. This raises some obvious questions to which this chapter is devoted: Can public bureaucracies be representative institutions? That is, can they represent the public, or portions of it, in terms of policy preferences or interests, ideologies, characteristics such as race, ethnicity, gender, and social class, or other dimensions? If so, how and with what limitations? Is it important for democracies to promote bureaucratic representativeness? These and related questions are subsumed under the label, “representative bureaucracy.”

Since 1944, when J. Donald Kingsley coined the term, representative bureaucracy has become a major concern in the study and practice of public administration and administrative policy making. The idea that public bureaucracies should or can be representative has been hotly contested, as the selections in this chapter explain.

One key issue is whether public administrators, aside from those at the very top levels, have the opportunity or flexibility to do anything other than strictly follow dictates from above. In the chapter’s first selection, Max Weber sets forth the classic view of the bureaucrat as a discretionless, “single cog in an ever-moving mechanism which prescribes to him an essentially fixed route of march” (1958, 228). But Weber is describing a theoretically constructed “ideal type” or “pure type” of bureaucracy that intentionally extrapolates bureaucratic tendencies to formulate a clear, if extreme, portrayal of bureaucratic organizations. In his ideal type, bureaucracies are very hierarchical and highly specialized, formalistic, and impersonal. For him, the “special virtue” of bureaucracy is that it is “dehumanized” by “eliminating from official business love, hatred, and all purely personal irrational, and emotional elements” (1958, 216). Nevertheless, he notes that bureaucracies do have a tendency to represent themselves by promoting their own interests in obtaining and retaining power.

Weber’s model is important because it is the very antithesis of representative bureaucracy. For Weber, the idea that government bureaucracies and bureaucrats can independently represent the public is self-contradictory. Weber’s bureaucracy is tightly controlled from the top down. Bureaucrats in the middle and lower levels have insufficient discretion or independence to represent anyone. A cog is a cog, whether Democrat or Republican, black or white, male or female, from this region or that, or from a poor or wealthy family. If Weber is correct with regard to real-world bureaucracies, as many have believed him to be, then representative bureaucracy is a nonstarter. His model is often invoked by those who argue that bureaucracies simply cannot be politically representative institutions. They contend that if unelected, specialized, hierarchical, politically powerful bureaucracies are to operate compatibly with democracy, it will be by other means, such as external controls. By contrast, contemporary representative bureaucracy scholars emphasize that individual bureaucrats can have a significant impact on administrative choices and their acceptance by the general population or specific segments of it.

In the next selection, Kingsley presents a major challenge to Weber’s conclusions. Without directly confronting the notion that bureaucracies are impersonal and staffed with “cogs,” Kingsley contends that the civil service as a whole can have a particular outlook, set of values, and overall culture. In studying British national administration, he finds that “administrators are drawn overwhelmingly from the upper and middle classes of the population and that they have been educated according to the traditional pattern of the ruling class” (1944, 151). He then asks questions that underlie a great deal of the interest in representative bureaucracy: “What does this mean in terms of Civil Service mentality? What are its effects upon the outlook and orientation of the Administrative Class?” (1944, 151) After searching for answers—some of which are not happy—Kingsley concludes that “bureaucracies, to be democratic, must be representative of the groups they serve” (1944, 305).

Kingsley is primarily concerned with the consequences of the British bureaucracy’s social class composition, but he also addresses another central concern of representative bureaucracy—equal opportunity to obtain positions in the civil service. In this context, he focuses on overt legal and implicit social discrimination against women. This not only deprives women of equal rights and full citizenship, it also denies the state the benefit of their full participation in government: “The democratic State cannot afford to exclude any considerable body of its citizens from full participation in its affairs. It requires at every point that superior insight and wisdom which is the peculiar product of the pooling of diverse streams of experience. … In a democracy competence alone is not enough. The public service must also be representative if the State is to liberate rather than to enslave” (1944, 185). It follows that public personnel practices, that is, recruitment, selection, promotion, and retention, are closely related to democratic governance as well as to technical administrative performance in the Weberian sense.

Writing in the 1940s, Kingsley did not develop the theoretical links among his claims or test them empirically the way contemporary social scientists would. Greater analytical clarity was brought to the study of representative bureaucracy by Frederick C. Mosher. In the chapter’s next selection, he straddles the competing interpretations of Weber and Kingsley. Mosher agrees with Kingsley that making the public service compatible with democracy is a central administrative and political problem. However, siding more with Weber, he doubts representative bureaucracy is an answer. Mosher demands empirical evidence of the linkage between the social backgrounds of civil servants, which he calls “passive (or sociological)” representation, and their “active (or responsible) representativeness wherein an individual (or administrator) is expected to press for the interests and desires of those whom he is presumed to represent, whether they be the whole people or some segment of the people” (1968, 11–12).

Mosher’s distinction between passive and active representation has informed subsequent analysis and theoretical development of representative bureaucracy. Today, there is growing consensus among researchers that there are links between the two. A general contemporary model would assume that social groups with distinctive status or identities (such as women and minorities) have life experiences that lead them to adhere to outlooks and values differing from those of other groups. Given the opportunity, when civil servants drawn from such groups are confronted with issues of high salience to their group’s welfare they tend to become active representatives. Just what affects this tendency is the subject of both chapters 3 and 4.

In the next and final selection, Samuel Krislov further develops the theoretical underpinnings of representative bureaucracy in five ways. First, he emphasizes that passive representation is not only a question of equal rights and opportunity. It is directly related to administrative legitimacy and therefore to performance: “A major task of governance is to gain support for policies. No matter how brilliantly conceived, no matter how artfully contrived, government action usually also requires societal support. And one of the oldest methods of securing such support is to draw a wide segment of society into the government to convey and to merchandise a policy” (1974, 4–5). Second, he reminds us that neither passive nor active bureaucratic representation needs to be perfect in order to be valuable: “the bureaucracy is still at least potentially more representative than other arms of government and … in at least some senses it does in fact manage to be just that—more representative than other units” (1974, 63).

Third, Krislov confronts Weber head on in arguing that trying to turn bureaucrats into impersonal cogs is a mistake: “the human potentialities brought by bureaucrats to their jobs are inevitable and advantageous. Far from being solely liabilities they may have advantages that far outweigh the alleged—and exaggerated—benefits of neutrality. … The qualities of judgment, information, and fervor that bureaucrats do bring as they aid decision-makers are in fact resources of immense social advantage” (1974, 81). This insight has very substantial implications. If active representation is to be encouraged, “ideal type” bureaucracies are undesirable. Instead, hierarchical authority and impersonality should be diminished in order to promote more participatory and collegial decision making. Moreover, rather than detracting from efficiency, as Weber argued, many believe that employee empowerment and team building promote it (Osborne and Gaebler 1992; Gore 1993).

Fourth, Krislov argues that because public bureaucracies are large and powerful, their employment practices can “effect change with spillover into the broader society” (1974, 130). A public bureaucracy that prizes passive representation may serve as a model for private firms; one that discriminates against women or minorities can exacerbate inequality in the society at large.

Finally, taken as a whole, Krislov places a normative value on representative bureaucracy. Representative bureaucracy is desirable because it makes government as a whole more representative, can help counteract defects in the representativeness of other institutions, such as legislatures and courts, and it symbolizes as well as promotes equal opportunity and equality.

The selections in this chapter raise central questions about the role of the individual bureaucrat in governance. In Weber’s ideal type model, bureaucrats do not bring any individuality to the job. Krislov, by contrast, argues that as individuals, bureaucrats make important contributions to public policy and administrative decision making. Mosher’s view lies somewhere in between. He is skeptical about the interest and capacity of individual bureaucrats to represent the groups from which they are drawn. However, he does not rule out the possibility that an individual bureaucrat may sometimes act in a representative capacity. Kingsley has little to say about bureaucrats as individuals. His focus is overwhelmingly on them as members of social groups whose values and outlooks have a major impact on the overall culture of bureaucracies.

Weber, Kingsley, Mosher, and Krislov frame the key components and issues associated with representative bureaucracy. Their ideas are complex and full of insights that have become the basis of much research and discussion. Unfortunately, for all their brilliance, the reader must be forewarned that they are not all easy reads. Mosher and Krislov present no problem. However, Weber is no page-turner and Krislov referred to Kingsley as “somnambulistic” (1974, 13). Nonetheless, investing effort in them will yield a rich return.

References

Gore, Al. 1993. From Red Tape to Results: Creating a Government that Works Better & Costs Less: Report of the National Performance Review. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Kingsley, J. Donald. 1944. Representative Bureaucracy. Yellow Springs, OH: Antioch Press.

Krislov, Samuel. 1974. Representative Bureaucracy. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Mosher, Frederick C. 1968. Democracy and the Public Service. New York: Oxford University Press.

Osborne, David and Ted Gaebler. 1992. Reinventing Government. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

Weber, Max. 1958. Essays in Sociology. Trans, and ed. by H.H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills. New York: Oxford University Press.

Bureaucracy

Max Weber

Technical Advantages of Bureaucratic Organization

The decisive reason for the advance of bureaucratic organization has always been its purely technical superiority over any other form of organization. The fully developed bureaucratic mechanism compares with other organizations exactly as does the machine with the non-mechanical modes of production.

Precision, speed, unambiguity, knowledge of the files, continuity, discretion, unity, strict subordination, reduction of friction and of material and personal costs—these are raised to the optimum point in the strictly bureaucratic administration. … As compared with all collegiate, honorific, and avocational forms of administration, trained bureaucracy is superior on all these points. And as far as complicated tasks are concerned, paid bureaucratic work is not only more precise but, in the last analysis, it is often cheaper than even formally unremunerated honorific service. …

Bureaucratization offers above all the optimum possibility for carrying through the principle of specializing administrative functions according to purely objective considerations. Individual performances are allocated to functionaries who have specialized training and who by constant practice learn more and more. The “objective” discharge of business primarily means a discharge of business according to calculable rules and “without regard for persons.” …

… When fully developed, bureaucracy also stands in a specific sense under the principle of sine ira ac studio [without either resentment or favoritism]. Its specific nature … develops the more perfectly the more the bureaucracy is “dehumanized,” the more completely it succeeds in eliminating from official business love, hatred, and all purely personal, irrational, and emotional elements which escape calculation. This is the specific nature of bureaucracy and is appraised as its special virtue. …

The Permanent Character of the Bureaucratic Machine

Once it is fully established, bureaucracy is among those social structures which are the hardest to destroy. Bureaucracy is the means of carrying “community action” over into rationally ordered “societal action.” Therefore, as an instrument for “societalizing” relations of power, bureaucracy has been and is a power instrument of the first order—for the one who controls the bureaucratic apparatus.

Under otherwise equal conditions, a “societal action,” which is methodically ordered and led, is superior to every resistance of “mass” or even of “communal action.” And where the bureaucratization of administration has been completely carried through, a form of power relation is established that is practically unshatterable.

The individual bureaucrat cannot squirm out of the apparatus in which he is harnessed. In contrast to the honorific or avocational “notable,” the professional bureaucrat is chained to his activity by his entire material and ideal existence. In the great majority of cases, he is only a single cog in an ever-moving mechanism which prescribes to him an essentially fixed route of march. The official is entrusted with specialized tasks and normally the mechanism cannot be put into motion or arrested by him, but only from the very top. The individual bureaucrat is thus forged to the community of all functionaries who are integrated into the mechanism. They have a common interest in seeing that the mechanism continues its functions and that the societally exercised authority carries on.

The ruled, for their part, cannot dispense with or replace the bureaucratic apparatus of authority once it exists. For this bureaucracy rests upon expert training, a functional specialization of work, and an attitude set for habitual and virtuoso-like mastery of single yet methodically integrated functions. If the official stops working, or if his work is forcefully interrupted, chaos results, and it is difficult to improvise replacements from among the governed who are fit to master such chaos. This holds for public administration as well as for private economic management. More and more the material fate of the masses depends upon the steady and correct functioning of the increasingly bureaucratic organizations of private capitalism. The idea of eliminating these organizations becomes more and more utopian.…

The objective indispensability of the once-existing apparatus, with its peculiar, “impersonal” character, means that the mechanism—in contrast to feudal orders based upon personal piety—is easily made to work for anybody who knows how to gain control over it. A rationally ordered system of officials continues to function smoothly after the enemy has occupied the area; he merely needs to change the top officials. This body of officials continues to operate because it is vital to the interests of everyone concerned, including above all the enemy. …

… The mere fact of bureaucratic organization does not unambiguously tell us about the concrete direction of its economic effects, which are always in some manner present. At least it does not tell us as much as can be told about its relatively leveling effect socially. In th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Tables and Figures
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter 1. Theoretical Underpinnings: Why Does the Social Background of Public Administrators Matter?
• Chapter 2. Public Personnel Policy and Social Representation: How Do Policies for Recruitment, Selection, Promotion, Pay, and Retention Affect Representative Bureaucracy?
• Chapter 3. Social Representation and Public Administrators’ Worldviews: What Is the Linkage Between Social Background and Civil Servants’ Policy Preferences?
• Chapter 4. Social Background, Life Experience, and Policy Advocacy: Why Do Civil Servants Act on Policy Preferences Derived from Their Social Backgrounds and Life Experiences?
• Chapter 5. “Reinventing Government” and Representative Bureaucracy: The Impacts of Employee Empowerment, Outsourcing, and Entrepreneurship
• Index