Bureaucracy () refers to both a body of non-elective
government officials and an administrative
policy-making group.
Historically, a bureaucracy was a government
administration managed by departments staffed
with non-elected officials.
Today, bureaucracy is the administrative system
governing any large institution, whether publicly
owned or privately owned.
The public administration in many countries
is an example of a bureaucracy, but so is
the centralized hierarchical structure of
a business firm.
Since being coined, the word bureaucracy has
developed negative connotations.
Bureaucracies have been criticized as being
inefficient, convoluted, or too inflexible
to individuals.
The dehumanizing effects of excessive bureaucracy
became a major theme in the work of German-language
writer Franz Kafka (1883–1924) and are central
to his novels The Trial and The Castle.
The 1985 dystopian film Brazil by Terry Gilliam
portrays a world in which small, otherwise
insignificant errors in the bureaucratic processes
of government develop into maddening and tragic
consequences.
The elimination of unnecessary bureaucracy
is a key concept in modern managerial theory
and has been an issue in some political campaigns.Some
commentators have noted the necessity of bureaucracies
in modern society.
The German sociologist Max Weber argued that
bureaucracy constitutes the most efficient
and rational way in which one can organize
the human activity and that systematic processes
and organized hierarchies are necessary to
maintain order, maximize efficiency, and eliminate
favoritism.
On the other hand, Weber also saw unfettered
bureaucracy as a threat to individual freedom,
with the potential of trapping individuals
in an impersonal "iron cage" of rule-based,
rational control.
== Etymology and usage ==
The term "bureaucracy" is French in origin
and combines the French word bureau – desk
or office – with the Greek word κράτος
(Kratos) – rule or political power.
It was coined in the mid-18th century by the
French economist Jacques Claude Marie Vincent
de Gournay and was a satirical pejorative
from the outset.
Gournay never wrote the term down but was
later quoted at length in a letter from a
contemporary:
The late M. de Gournay... sometimes used to
say: "We have an illness in France which bids
fair to play havoc with us; this illness is
called bureaumania."
Sometimes he used to invent a fourth or fifth
form of government under the heading of "bureaucracy."
The first known English-language use dates
to 1818.
Here, too, the sense was pejorative, with
Irish novelist Lady Morgan referring to "the
Bureaucratie, or office tyranny, by which
Ireland has so long been governed."
By the mid-19th century, the word was being
used in a more neutral sense, referring to
a system of public administration in which
offices were held by unelected career officials.
In this sense "bureaucracy" was seen as a
distinct form of management, often subservient
to a monarchy.
In the 1920s, the definition was expanded
by the German sociologist Max Weber to include
any system of administration conducted by
trained professionals according to fixed rules.
Weber saw the bureaucracy as a relatively
positive development; however, by 1944 the
Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises noted
that the term bureaucracy was "always applied
with an opprobrious connotation," and by 1957
the American sociologist Robert Merton noted
that the term "bureaucrat" had become an epithet.
== History ==
=== Ancient ===
Although the term "bureaucracy" was not coined
until the mid 18th century, organized and
consistent administrative systems are much
older.
The development of writing (ca. 3500 BC) and
the use of documents was critical to the administration
of this system, and the first definitive emergence
of bureaucracy is in ancient Sumer, where
an emergent class of scribes used clay tablets
to administer the harvest and allocate its
spoils.
Ancient Egypt also had a hereditary class
of scribes that administered the civil service
bureaucracy.The Roman Empire was administered
by a hierarchy of regional proconsuls and
their deputies.
The reforms of Diocletian doubled the number
of administrative districts and led to a large-scale
expansion of Roman bureaucracy.
The early Christian author Lactantius claimed
that Diocletian's reforms led to widespread
economic stagnation, since "the provinces
were divided into minute portions, and many
presidents and a multitude of inferior officers
lay heavy on each territory."
After the Empire split, the Byzantine Empire
developed a notoriously complicated administrative
hierarchy, and in time the term "Byzantine"
came to refer to any complex bureaucratic
structure.In Ancient China, the Han dynasty
established a complicated bureaucracy based
on the teachings of Confucius, who emphasized
the importance of ritual in a family, relationships,
and politics.
With each subsequent Dynasty, the bureaucracy
evolved.
During the Song dynasty, the bureaucracy became
meritocratic.
Following the Song reforms, competitive exams
were held to determine who was qualified to
hold a given position.
The imperial examination system lasted until
1905, six years before the collapse of the
Qing dynasty, marking the end of China's traditional
bureaucratic system.
=== Modern ===
==== The United Kingdom ====
A modern form of bureaucracy evolved in the
expanding Department of Excise in the United
Kingdom during the 18th century.
The relative efficiency and professionalism
in this state-run authority allowed the government
to impose a very large tax burden on the population
and raise great sums of money for war expenditure.
According to Niall Ferguson, the bureaucracy
was based on "recruitment by examination,
training, promotion on merit, regular salaries
and pensions, and standardized procedures".
The system was subject to a strict hierarchy
and emphasis was placed on technical and efficient
methods for tax collection.Instead of the
inefficient and often corrupt system of tax
farming that prevailed in absolutist states
such as France, the Exchequer was able to
exert control over the entire system of tax
revenue and government expenditure.
By the late 18th century, the ratio of fiscal
bureaucracy to population in Britain was approximately
1 in 1300, almost four times larger than the
second most heavily bureaucratized nation,
France.
Thomas Taylor Meadows, Britain's consul in
Guangzhou, argued in his Desultory Notes on
the Government and People of China (1847)
that "the long duration of the Chinese empire
is solely and altogether owing to the good
government which consists in the advancement
of men of talent and merit only," and that
the British must reform their civil service
by making the institution meritocratic.
Influenced by the ancient Chinese imperial
examination, the Northcote–Trevelyan Report
of 1854 recommended that recruitment should
be on the basis of merit determined through
competitive examination, candidates should
have a solid general education to enable inter-departmental
transfers, and promotion should be through
achievement rather than "preferment, patronage,
or purchase".
This led to implementation of Her Majesty's
Civil Service as a systematic, meritocratic
civil service bureaucracy.
==== France ====
Like the British, the development of French
bureaucracy was influenced by the Chinese
system.
Under Louis XIV of France, the old nobility
had neither power nor political influence,
their only privilege being exemption from
taxes.
The dissatisfied noblemen complained about
this "unnatural" state of affairs, and discovered
similarities between absolute monarchy and
bureaucratic despotism.
With the translation of Confucian texts during
the Enlightenment, the concept of a meritocracy
reached intellectuals in the West, who saw
it as an alternative to the traditional ancien
regime of Europe.
Western perception of China even in the 18th
century admired the Chinese bureaucratic system
as favourable over European governments for
its seeming meritocracy; Voltaire claimed
that the Chinese had "perfected moral science"
and François Quesnay advocated an economic
and political system modeled after that of
the Chinese.
The governments of China, Egypt, Peru and
Empress Catherine II were regarded as models
of Enlightened Despotism, admired by such
figures as Diderot, D'Alembert and Voltaire.Napoleonic
France adopted this meritocracy system and
soon saw a rapid and dramatic expansion of
government, accompanied by the rise of the
French civil service and its complex systems
of bureaucracy.
This phenomenon became known as "bureaumania".
In the early 19th century, Napoleon attempted
to reform the bureaucracies of France and
other territories under his control by the
imposition of the standardized Napoleonic
Code.
But paradoxically, that led to even further
growth of the bureaucracy.
==== Other industrialized nations ====
By the mid-19th century, bureaucratic forms
of administration were firmly in place across
the industrialized world.
Thinkers like John Stuart Mill and Karl Marx
began to theorize about the economic functions
and power-structures of bureaucracy in contemporary
life.
Max Weber was the first to endorse bureaucracy
as a necessary feature of modernity, and by
the late 19th century bureaucratic forms had
begun their spread from government to other
large-scale institutions.The trend toward
increased bureaucratization continued in the
20th century, with the public sector employing
over 5% of the workforce in many Western countries.
Within capitalist systems, informal bureaucratic
structures began to appear in the form of
corporate power hierarchies, as detailed in
mid-century works like The Organization Man
and The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit.
Meanwhile, in the Soviet Union and Eastern
Bloc nations, a powerful class of bureaucratic
administrators termed nomenklatura governed
nearly all aspects of public life.The 1980s
brought a backlash against perceptions of
"big government" and the associated bureaucracy.
Politicians like Margaret Thatcher and Ronald
Reagan gained power by promising to eliminate
government regulatory bureaucracies, which
they saw as overbearing, and return economic
production to a more purely capitalistic mode,
which they saw as more efficient.
In the business world, managers like Jack
Welch gained fortune and renown by eliminating
bureaucratic structures inside corporations.
Still, in the modern world, most organized
institutions rely on bureaucratic systems
to manage information, process records, and
administer complex systems, although the decline
of paperwork and the widespread use of electronic
databases is transforming the way bureaucracies
function.
== Theories ==
=== Karl Marx ===
Karl Marx theorized about the role and function
of bureaucracy in his Critique of Hegel's
Philosophy of Right, published in 1843.
In Philosophy of Right, Hegel had supported
the role of specialized officials in public
administration, although he never used the
term "bureaucracy" himself.
Marx, by contrast, was opposed to bureaucracy.
Marx posited that while corporate and government
bureaucracy seem to operate in opposition,
in actuality they mutually rely on one another
to exist.
He wrote that "The Corporation is civil society's
attempt to become state; but the bureaucracy
is the state which has really made itself
into civil society."
=== John Stuart Mill ===
Writing in the early 1860s, political scientist
John Stuart Mill theorized that successful
monarchies were essentially bureaucracies,
and found evidence of their existence in Imperial
China, the Russian Empire, and the regimes
of Europe.
Mill referred to bureaucracy as a distinct
form of government, separate from representative
democracy.
He believed bureaucracies had certain advantages,
most importantly the accumulation of experience
in those who actually conduct the affairs.
Nevertheless, he believed this form of governance
compared poorly to representative government,
as it relied on appointment rather than direct
election.
Mill wrote that ultimately the bureaucracy
stifles the mind, and that "a bureaucracy
always tends to become a pedantocracy."
=== Max Weber ===
The German sociologist Max Weber was the first
to formally study bureaucracy and his works
led to the popularization of this term.
In his 1922 essay Bureaucracy,[1], published
in his magnum opus Economy and Society, Weber
described many ideal-typical forms of public
administration, government, and business.
His ideal-typical bureaucracy, whether public
or private, is characterized by:
hierarchical organization
formal lines of authority (chain of command)
a fixed area of activity
rigid division of labor
regular and continuous execution of assigned
tasks
all decisions and powers specified and restricted
by regulations
officials with expert training in their fields
career advancement dependent on technical
qualifications
qualifications evaluated by organizational
rules, not individualsWeber listed several
preconditions for the emergence of bureaucracy,
including an increase in the amount of space
and population being administered, an increase
in the complexity of the administrative tasks
being carried out, and the existence of a
monetary economy requiring a more efficient
administrative system.
Development of communication and transportation
technologies make more efficient administration
possible, and democratization and rationalization
of culture results in demands for equal treatment.Although
he was not necessarily an admirer of bureaucracy,
Weber saw bureaucratization as the most efficient
and rational way of organizing human activity
and therefore as the key to rational-legal
authority, indispensable to the modern world.
Furthermore, he saw it as the key process
in the ongoing rationalization of Western
society.
Weber also saw bureaucracy, however, as a
threat to individual freedoms, and the ongoing
bureaucratization as leading to a "polar night
of icy darkness", in which increasing rationalization
of human life traps individuals in a soulless
"iron cage" of bureaucratic, rule-based, rational
control.
Weber's critical study of the bureaucratization
of society became one of the most enduring
parts of his work.
Many aspects of modern public administration
are based on his work, and a classic, hierarchically
organized civil service of the Continental
type is called "Weberian civil service".
=== Woodrow Wilson ===
Writing as an academic while a professor at
Bryn Mawr College, Woodrow Wilson's essay
"The Study of Administration" argued for bureaucracy
as a professional cadre, devoid of allegiance
to fleeting politics.
Wilson advocated a bureaucracy that "is a
part of political life only as the methods
of the counting house are a part of the life
of society; only as machinery is part of the
manufactured product.
But it is, at the same time, raised very far
above the dull level of mere technical detail
by the fact that through its greater principles
it is directly connected with the lasting
maxims of political wisdom, the permanent
truths of political progress."
Wilson did not advocate a replacement of rule
by the governed, he simply advised that, "Administrative
questions are not political questions.
Although politics sets the tasks for administration,
it should not be suffered to manipulate its
offices".
This essay became a foundation for the study
of public administration in America.
=== Ludwig von Mises ===
In his 1944 work Bureaucracy, the Austrian
economist Ludwig von Mises compared bureaucratic
management to profit management.
Profit management, he argued, is the most
effective method of organization when the
services rendered may be checked by economic
calculation of profit and loss.
When, however, the service in question can
not be subjected to economic calculation,
bureaucratic management is necessary.
He did not oppose universally bureaucratic
management; on the contrary, he argued that
bureaucracy is an indispensable method for
social organization, for it is the only method
by which the law can be made supreme, and
is the protector of the individual against
despotic arbitrariness.
Using the example of the Catholic Church,
he pointed out that bureaucracy is only appropriate
for an organization whose code of conduct
is not subject to change.
He then went on to argue that complaints about
bureaucratization usually refer not to the
criticism of the bureaucratic methods themselves,
but to "the intrusion of bureaucracy into
all spheres of human life."
Mises saw bureaucratic processes at work in
both the private and public spheres; however,
he believed that bureaucratization in the
private sphere could only occur as a consequence
of government interference.
According to him, "What must be realized is
only that the strait jacket of bureaucratic
organization paralyzes the individual's initiative,
while within the capitalist market society
an innovator still has a chance to succeed.
The former makes for stagnation and preservation
of inveterate methods, the latter makes for
progress and improvement."
=== Robert K. Merton ===
American sociologist Robert K. Merton expanded
on Weber's theories of bureaucracy in his
work Social Theory and Social Structure, published
in 1957.
While Merton agreed with certain aspects of
Weber's analysis, he also noted the dysfunctional
aspects of bureaucracy, which he attributed
to a "trained incapacity" resulting from "over
conformity".
He believed that bureaucrats are more likely
to defend their own entrenched interests than
to act to benefit the organization as a whole
but that pride in their craft makes them resistant
to changes in established routines.
Merton stated that bureaucrats emphasize formality
over interpersonal relationships, and have
been trained to ignore the special circumstances
of particular cases, causing them to come
across as "arrogant" and "haughty".
=== Elliott Jaques ===
In his book “A General Theory of Bureaucracy”,
first published in 1976, Dr. Elliott Jaques
describes the discovery of a universal and
uniform underlying structure of managerial
or work levels in the bureaucratic hierarchy
for any type of employment systems.Elliott
Jaques argues and presents evidence that for
the bureaucracy to provide a valuable contribution
to the open society some of the following
conditions must be met:
Number of levels in a bureaucracy hierarchy
must match the complexity level of the employment
system for which the bureaucratic hierarchy
is created (Elliott Jaques identified maximum
8 levels of complexity for bureaucratic hierarchies).
Roles within a bureaucratic hierarchy differ
in the level of work complexity.
The level of work complexity in the roles
must be matched with the level of human capability
of the role holders (Elliott Jaques identified
maximum 8 Levels of human capability).
The level of work complexity in any managerial
role within a bureaucratic hierarchy must
be one level higher than the level of work
complexity of the subordinate roles.
Any managerial role in a bureaucratic hierarchy
must have full managerial accountabilities
and authorities (veto selection to the team,
decide task types and specific task assignments,
decide personal effectiveness and recognition,
decide initiation of removal from the team
within due process).
Lateral working accountabilities and authorities
must be defined for all the roles in the hierarchy
(7 types of lateral working accountabilities
and authorities: collateral, advisory, service-getting
and -giving, coordinative, monitoring, auditing,
prescribing).The definition of effective bureaucratic
hierarchy by Elliott Jaques is of importance
not only to sociology but to social psychology,
social anthropology, economics, politics,
and social philosophy.
They also have a practical application in
business and administrative studies.
== See also ==
Adhocracy
Authority
Civil servant
Hierarchical organization
Michel Crozier
Power (social and political)
Public administration
Red tape
Requisite Organization
State (polity)
Technocracy
== References ==
== Further reading ==
Albrow, Martin.
Bureaucracy.
London: Macmillan, 1970.
Kingston, Ralph.
Bureaucrats and Bourgeois Society: Office
Politics and Individual Credit, 1789–1848.
Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.
On Karl Marx: Hal Draper, Karl Marx's Theory
of Revolution, Volume 1: State and Bureaucracy.
New York: Monthly Review Press, 1979.
Marx comments on the state bureaucracy in
his Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right
and Engels discusses the origins of the state
in Origins of the Family, marxists.org
Ernest Mandel, Power and Money: A Marxist
Theory of Bureaucracy.
London: Verso, 1992.
On Weber: Watson, Tony J. (1980).
Sociology, Work and Industry.
Routledge.
ISBN 0-415-32165-4.
Neil Garston (ed.), Bureaucracy: Three Paradigms.
Boston: Kluwer, 1993.
Chowdhury, Faizul Latif (2006), Corrupt Bureaucracy
and Privatization of Tax Enforcement.
Dhaka: Pathak Samabesh, ISBN 984-8120-62-9.
Ludwig von Mises, Bureaucracy, Yale University
Press, 1962.
Liberty Fund (2007), ISBN 978-0-86597-663-4
Lavie, Smadar (2014).
Wrapped in the Flag of Israel: Mizrahi Single
Mothers and Bureaucratic Torture.
Oxford and New York: Berghahn Books; ISBN
978-1-78238-222-5 hardback; ISBN 978-1-78238-223-2
ebook.
Schwarz, Bill.
(1996).
The expansion of England: race, ethnicity
and cultural history.
Psychology Pres; ISBN 0-415-06025-7.
Weber, Max.
The Theory of Social and Economic Organization.
Translated by A.M. Henderson and Talcott Parsons.
London: Collier Macmillan Publishers, 1947.
Wilson, James Q. (1989).
Bureaucracy.
Basic Books.
ISBN 0-465-00785-6.
Weber, Max, "Bureaucracy" in Weber, Max.
Weber's Rationalism and Modern Society: New
translations on Politics, Bureaucracy, and
Social Stratification.
Edited and Translated by Tony Waters 
and Dagmar Waters, 2015.
ISBN 1137373539.
English translation of "Bureaucracy" by Max
Weber.
