THE BUREAUCRACY

• The meaning of bureaucracy • Features of bureaucracy • Dysfunction of bureaucracy • Bureaucracy and public policy• Bureaucratic accountability• Bureaucratic reform

The meaning of bureaucracyThe bureaucratic institution has their origin in

ancient time and its developed to become most large organization both public and private. There are many meaning of bureaucracy. Generally it refers to organizing principles that are intended to achieve coordination of work in large organization. How bureaucracy has different connotations:

1. It refers to all government officesIt may refer to totality of government office or

bureau that constitutes the permanent government of the state. It is those public functions that continue irrespective of changes of political leaders

2. All public officialsThe bureaucracy refers to the entire public officials

of a government. They may constitute both high, low, elected and appointed bureaucrats.

3. General invective (negative sense)It may refer to inefficient organization full by red

tape and cumbersome procedures in government operation. However this does not mean that government operation is always inefficient. Many government agencies have long standing reputation of being efficient.

The structural features of bureaucracy

Bureaucracy has been central to public administration. It is because the characteristic of bureaucracy make it behave in predictable way

1. Specialized jurisdiction, office, task and division of labor and authority regarding the achievement of organization goal

2. Hierarchy of authority to coordinate the activities of the specialized office and to integrate their jurisdictional authority. In the most rational bureaucratic design, the organization is handle by single individual.

3. A career path

4. A bureaucratic structure tend to be permanent and remain intact regardless flow of the member in and out of it. Society become dependent on bureaucracy's functioning to the extend that chaos result if it is destroyed

5. By implication, bureaucracy is larger organization

Procedurally, bureaucracy is:

1. Impersonal and dehumanizingIt is important to eliminate emotional element from

the performance of the individual bureaucrats and the organization as a whole

2. FormalisticIt is because it does not operate on person but office.

Everything about its structure and operation is written down in a formal procedure. The written document are stored in files, access to which is limited

Rule-boundBureaucracy operates according to formal rules and

regulation that are in written forms and can be learned. The objective of rules is to specify proper office procedures and to assure regularities in dealing with the outsider. The rules also seek to ensure impersonality and enhance hierarchical authority.

4. Highly discipline, individual bureaucrats are bound by the bureaucracy,s rules and authority structures. They may be discipline for rules infraction or insubordination.

Because of these structure and procedural characteristic of bureaucracy is:

1. Highly efficient. Weber regarded bureaucracy as the most efficient form of organization. It acts with continuity, precision, rationality,expertise and discipline. It uses of discretion are predictable. Bureaucracy is reliable

2. Powerful. Its power derives from rationality, expertise and continuity. Weber claimed that well developed bureaucracy is uncontrollable by outsider and that society becomes dependent for its provision of goods and services

3. Ever-expending. Bureaucratic expansion is unavoidable because it is efficient, powerful that could serve the need of the complex society

Why need Bureaucracy?

1. Rationalization of modern life-age of science, (industries and technology)

require bureaucratic principles like specialization/ authority, discipline and performance, system of rules and regulation

2. Contemporary societyEnormous size of modern nation and modern

organization. In the absence of bureaucratization, large organization is impossible to maintain.

  Max Weber (1864-1920) in his book, The

theory of social and and economic organization gave the name ‘bureaucracy’ to describe a form of organization that applicable to both public and private sectors.

In his analysis he identifies three basic types of authority, which is useful in describing the legal rational authority/ legitimate authority in organization

  1.   Traditional authority: where acceptance

of those in authority arises from custom and tradition

  2.  Charismatic authority: where acceptance

of authority arises from qualities of the ruler. 3. Rational legal authority: where

acceptance arises out of the office, position of the person in authority bounded by the rules and procedures of the organization.

Dysfunction of bureaucracy

Weber’s contribution is central to our understanding of formal organization structures. However, It is undeniable that some of the principle of bureaucracy is the most efficient means of organizing. On the contrary, the recent scholars have identified a number of weaknesses (dysfunction) of bureaucracy. Dysfunction may refer to social system which is detracting from adaptation and adjustment (cannot play function it intended to perform).

Some of the dysfunctions of bureaucracy are as follows:

1. Rules originally designed to serve organizational efficiency however they have a tendency to become all-important in their own right.

2. Relationships between office holder are based on the rights and duties of each roles, so they are depersonalized and this lead to rigid behavior

 

3. Decision making tend to be programmed and this discourage the search for further alternatives.

 4. The effect of rigid behavior often is very damaging

for client and customer and also for management workers. Clients have to accept standardization.

5. Standardization and routine procedures make changes and adaptation difficult when circumstances change.

6. The exercise of control based on knowledge had led to the growth of expert, whose opinion may come in conflict with those of generalists (e.g. manager and supervisor).

Bureaucracy and public policy

It concerned with some of the important characteristics of the policy making process within the bureaucracy. It involves two aspects:

 1. Identify the principle group in

administrative agencies that participate in the determination of policy.

a)     Political appointees b)    Career administrator c) Outside expert .

2.     How does policy making change?

a)     Hierarchy and decision making b)    Strong influence of professional c)  Policy is considerably less public than it is in

legislature

Bureaucratic accountability

One of the defining features of democracies is the institutionalization of bureaucratic accountability and transparency (Matlosa, 2000). The concept of such a system is the ability of ordinary citizens to hold government officials accountable for their actions.

 Accountability also refers to the answerability. It

means organization must be answerable to someone or something outside itself. When a thing goes wrong, some one must be held responsible.

It is no doubt that is bureaucratic accountability is called the hallmark of public bureaucracy. Without the realization of such accountability, public bureaucracy loses its identity. However, a frequently heard charge/ criticism is that government often is accountable to itself rather than being accountable to the public.

 

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There are several ways of how to improve bureaucratic accountability:

1)    Regular comprehensive reports by ministerial, political, and administrative heads to parliament or the National Assembly on the activities of their agencies.

2) Grass roots briefing on ministerial and departmental activities in administrative districts and local government areas with the general public in attendance.

3) Publication and circulation of quarterly reports on ministerial and/or departmental fiscal programs and project operations.

4) Media briefings, where political and administrative heads interact with the press on the degree of accomplishment of set budgetary objectives or programs targets.

6) A "public commitment" should therefore be made essential in public bureaucracies. It contains among other things the following set of values:

i. Public office is a public trust; ii. Corruption is public enemy and should be

exposed wherever it is discovered; iii.   The public is supreme client and working

for its good is the primary duty of public bureaucracies;

iv. Searching for the most efficient and economical ways of getting tasks accomplished.

1.     Misconception of the public interest

There are several factors that could lead the civil servant or the bureaucrat to misunderstand the concept of public trust.

1. They may be influenced by their social background and interest.

2.They may develop a narrow outlook concerning the public interest. They may tend to exaggerate the importance of what they do, and down grade the importance of what others do. They may also develop a way of thinking that difficult to understand.

3.A close relationship with particular clientele group is another factor that may influence the perception of civil servant.

2.     CorruptionAs betray of public trust for reasons of

private interest. Many examples of bureaucratic corruption appear in press and publicly denounce by officials. Many countries throughout the word, corruption in the form of bribery, and the use of personal contact have become institutionalized.

 The main reason for this rampant corruption

in public bureaucracy is that the bureaucrats have something to allocates that other people wants and sometimes it is a part of the political culture.

3.     SubversionThe bureaucrats might also betray the public trust by

engaging in subversions. Though, the evidence is hard to point out, it becomes the major concern in today’s global competition.

Reasons why it is difficult to check the accountability of bureaucrats:

To find the means of establishing accountability is often difficult even in the most developed countries like in United States because of several reasons.

  1. The accumulation of special

expertise and information public administrators are often expert at

what they do. The outsiders are unable to match the information available to them that others have difficulty to obtain it. It other situation it may be the information that the administrator themselves decide to generate.

2. The advantage of full-time status.The bureaucrats do their job on full time basis. The

people who would hold them accountable usually engaged in other activities and cannot devote sufficient time to watch them.

 3. The protective nature of the personal systemBureaucrats often have job security. Discipline and

dismissal are possible but difficult to be applied. As a result, petty infraction like using of public resources for private purposes often go unpunished.

4. The fragmentation of agency

structures and function The structure of public agencies is often

fragmented and often the missions are overlapping. It makes it difficult to pin point responsibility for given administrative action.

  5. The larger size and scope of public

bureaucracy Government spends a lot of money to run

the public bureaucracy and its personnel, while at the same time handling a lot of activities and functions. It is difficult even with the help of advance computer to track everything from people, money, regulations, form and others.

 Conclusion There are lots of challenges to have so called

bureaucratic accountability. It seems that the formal theory of accountability in public administration is not working in reality

Means of ensuring bureaucratic accountability:

Different scholars have suggested different mechanisms to ensure accountability such as-

1. Formal (external) mechanism: legislative means, parliamentary question, budgetary means), executive means (control of political executive over matters and personnel investigation., judicial means ( regular and administrative court) other bodies advisory committees and ombudsmen.

2. Formal (internal) mechanism: performance evaluation, official rules and code of conduct

3. Informal (external) mechanisms: includes public hearing, interest group, opinion polls, media scrutiny

4. Informal (internal) mechanisms: such as organizational culture, norms and peer pressure.

BUREAUCRATIC REFORMIt involves efforts and manifestation to

improve to improve government. It may in include redesigning the organizational process to achieve significant improvement in critical measures of government performance cost, quality and efficiency of service delivery.

 In the case of Malaysia, many reforms to

public bureaucracy had been made. The critical major reform was conducted in 1990s with the aim to improve internal system and process in bureaucracy. It focuses on three broad areas, financial administration (out put based-computerized accounting), service delivery system and personnel management (new remuneration system)

 Major areas of bureaucratic reform  1.     The size of the public sector –which is

often too large, reform, can be expensive and time consuming. Right sizing of government bureaucracy is often desirable. It becomes a major concerned since the wide bureaucracy can drain government resources.

 High salaries, expenditure and operating cost,

inefficiency of civil service as a result of improper distribution of staff s among various ministries and department.

2. Decentralization-should be actively encourage with proper and adequate check from time to time. Decentralization has greater potential for facilitating more efficient delivery of services through greater local involvement. It is also important in promoting development, sustainable development and poverty elevation; however, it requires appropriate check and balance so that the process of decentralization is not subjected to the manipulation of center.

 In addition, administrative decentralization

should be combined with financial decentralization. Participation of local decision-making is also essential. Ensure, monitoring, training and capacity building.

3.   Corruption-is systemic and endemic requires strong enforcement of rules and regulation (law) ensuring power is balanced between executive, legislative and executive body and other public bodies.

 Corruption is critical factor in undermining the

functions of government. It resulted in high cost, lack of transparency, ineffective or wrong policies. Inadequate or weak regulation, major mistakes can lead to high economic losses. It creates a gulf between people and government.

4.    Accountability-remain a major constrain to achieve development objective, bodies such as NGOs, civil society organization, parliamentary committees, mass media should be empowered.

 It is necessary to promote good governance.

Adequate checked and balance is essential, so no one exceeds authority and dominates others. Parliament also shouldn’t be weak, besides strengthening various laws and regulation

5.     Provision of goods and services- is constrains by lack of resources, staffing and training of front line service provider, inadequate supervision, non existence of service delivery, poor investment in infrastructure.

 It is the most important responsibility of

government. However, it is always being hampered by lack of financial, resources, ineffective decentralization and lack of training. E.g. health sectors.

 Government should explore the involvement of

public sectors businesses

6.     Public participation remains low it is necessary to promote, sustainable human development and poverty reduction. The citizen should be encouraged to participate. Even though, there are legal provision and constitutional right, it doesn’t guarantee true participation

 Public isolation in policy making is evident

particularly in the area of fiscal and economic policy, which directly affect the life of citizen

7.     Globalization- has resulted in income inequalities among people, need to address social adjustment so that the issues of poverty commensurate with the increase in wealth.

It is concerning government capacity to deal with the issues of globalization on how and what to be done to restructure the public sector in order to compete. (Domestic industries and trade)

 WTO requires competitive market environment

that need effective and efficient public sectors. Most of the governments that practice unfair and informal competition must be regulated. Globalization should be able to bring human development instead of political and business interest.

In conclusion-   1. Government should take serious effort to

streamline the provision of good and services

2. Frequency and type of reform should be

monitored and carefully observed 3. Government also should ensure adequate

resources in term of finance and human resource for implementation