Bureaucracy

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For other uses, see Bureaucracy (disambiguation).

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A bureaucracy (/bjurkrsi/) is "a body of non-elective government officials" and/or "an

administrative policy-making group".[1]Historically, bureaucracy was government
administration managed by departments staffed with non-elected officials. [2] Today, bureaucracy is
the administrative system governing any large institution.[3][4][5][6][7][8][9] The public administration in many
countries is an example of a bureaucracy.

Since being coined, the word "bureaucracy" has developed negative connotations. [10] Bureaucracies
have been criticized as being inefficient, convoluted, or too inflexible to individuals. [11] The
dehumanizing effects of excessive bureaucracy became a major theme in the work of German
writer Franz Kafka, and are central to his novels The Trial and The Castle.[12] The elimination of
unnecessary bureaucracy is a key concept in modern managerial theory[13] and has been an issue in
some political campaigns.[14]
Others have noted the necessity of bureaucracies in modern life. The German sociologist Max
Weber argued that bureaucracy constitutes the most efficient and rational way in which one can
organize human activity, and that systematic processes and organized hierarchies were necessary
to maintain order, maximize efficiency and eliminate favoritism. Weber also saw unfettered
bureaucracy as a threat to individual freedom, in which an increase in the bureaucratization of
human life can trap individuals in an impersonal "iron cage" of rule-based, rational control. [15][16]
Contents
[hide]

1Etymology and usage

2History
o

2.1Ancient

2.2Modern

3Theories
o

3.1Karl Marx

3.2John Stuart Mill

3.3Max Weber

3.4Woodrow Wilson

3.5Ludwig von Mises

3.6Robert K. Merton

4See also

5References

6Further reading

Etymology and usage[edit]

The term "bureaucracy" is French in origin, and combines the French word bureau desk or office
with the Greek word kratos rule or political power.[17] It was coined in the mid-18th century
by the French economist Jacques Claude Marie Vincent de Gournay,[18] and was a satirical pejorative

from the outset.[19] 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."
Baron von Grimm[10]
The first known English-language use dates to 1818. [17] 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."[20] 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.[21] 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.
[21]
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,"[22] and by 1957 the American sociologist Robert Merton noted that the term
"bureaucrat" had become an epithet.[23]

History[edit]
Ancient[edit]

Students competed in imperial examinations to receive a position in the bureaucracy of ancient China.

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.[24] Ancient Egypt also had a hereditary class of scribes that
administered the civil service bureaucracy.[25]
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 in Roman bureaucracy.[26] 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." [27] 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. [28]
In Ancient China, the Han dynasty established a complicated bureaucracy based on the teachings
of Confucius, who emphasized the importance of ritual in family, relationships, and politics.[29] 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
could hold which positions.[30] 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. [citation needed]

Modern[edit]

The 18th century Department of Excise developed a sophisticated bureaucracy. Pictured, the Custom House,
London.

A modern form of bureaucracy evolved in the expanding Department of Excise in the United
Kingdom, during the 18th century.[citation needed][original research?] 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".[31] The system was subject to a strict hierarchy and emphasis was
placed on technical and efficient methods for tax collection.[citation needed]
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.[32] 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.[33] The implementation of Her Majesty's Civil Service as a systematic,
meritocratic civil service bureaucracy, followed the Northcote-Trevelyan Report of 1854.[34] Influenced
by the ancient Chinese Imperial Examination, Northcote-Trevelyan Report 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'. [35] This system was
modeled on the imperial examinations system and bureaucracy of China based on the suggestion of
Northcote-Trevelyan Report.[36] Thomas Taylor Meadows, Britain's consul
in Guangzhou, China argued in his Desultory Notes on the Government and People of China,
published in 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.[36]
Under Louis XIV of France, the old nobility had neither power nor political influence, the sum of their
privileges being confined to their exemption from taxes. Their spokesmen complained about this
"unnatural" state of affairs, but as they were forbidden to express their criticism in France, their
writings being published in the Dutch Republic. These aristocrats discovered similarities
between absolute monarchy and the bureaucratic despotism of despotic monarchies.[37] France also
saw a rapid and dramatic expansion of government in the 18th-century, accompanied by the rise of
the French civil service; a phenomenon that became known as "bureaumania," in which complex
systems of bureaucracy emerged. 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 ancient regime of Europe.[38] Voltaire and Franois Quesnay wrote favourably of the idea,
with Voltaire claiming that the Chinese had "perfected moral science" and Quesnay advocating an
economic and political system modeled after that of the Chinese. Napoleonic France adopted this
meritocracy system.[38]

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, this led to even further growth of the bureaucracy.[39]
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. [21]
The trend toward increased bureaucratization continued in the 20th century, with the public sector
employing over 5% of the workforce in many Western countries.[citation needed]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, a powerful class of bureaucratic administrators
termed nomenklatura governed nearly all aspects of public life.[40]
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. [41][42] In the
business world, managers like Jack Welch gained fortune and renown by eliminating bureaucratic
structures inside the corporations themselves.[43]
Still, in the modern world practically all 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.[44]

Theories[edit]
Karl Marx[edit]
Karl Marx theorized about the role and function of bureaucracy in his Critique of Hegel's Philosophy
of Right, published in 1843. In his Philosophy of Right, Hegel had supported the role of specialized
officials in the role of public administration, although he never used the term "bureaucracy" himself.
Marx by contrast was opposed to the bureaucracy. He saw the development of bureaucracy in
government as a natural counterpart to the development of the corporation in private society. Marx
posited that while the corporation and government bureaucracy existed in seeming opposition, in
actuality they mutually relied 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."[45]

John Stuart Mill[edit]

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 thought bureaucracy as a 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." [46]

Max Weber[edit]
Bureaucratic administration means fundamentally domination through knowledge

Max Weber[15]

The German sociologist Max Weber described many ideal-typical forms of public administration,
government, and business, in his 1922 essay Bureaucracy,[47] published in his magnum
opus Economy and Society. His critical study of the bureaucratisation of society became one of the
most enduring parts of his work.[15][48] It was Weber who began the studies of bureaucracy and whose
works led to the popularization of this term.[49] Many aspects of modern public administration go back
to him, and a classic, hierarchically organized civil service of the Continental type is called
"Weberian civil service".[50]
As the most efficient and rational way of organizing, bureaucratization for Weber was the key part of
the rational-legal authority, and furthermore, he saw it as the key process in the
ongoing rationalization of the Western society.[15][48] Although he is not necessarily an admirer of
bureaucracy, Weber does agree that bureaucracy constitutes the most efficient and (formally)
rational way in which human activity can be organized, and that thus is indispensable to the modern
world.[51]
Weber listed several precondititions for the emergence of bureaucracy. The growth in space and
population being administered, the growth in complexity of the administrative tasks being carried out,
and the existence of a monetary economy requiring a more efficient administrative system.
[52]
Development of communication and transportation technologies make more efficient
administration possible but also in popular demand, and democratization and rationalization of
culture resulted in demands that the new system treats everybody equally.[52]
Weber's ideal-typical bureaucracy is characterized by hierarchical organization, delineated lines of
authority in a fixed area of activity, action taken on the basis of and recorded in written rules,
bureaucratic officials need expert training, rules are implemented by neutral officials, career
advancement depends on technical qualifications judged by organization, not individuals. [15][52]
Weber specifies[53] that both the public and private bureaucracy is based on specific competencies of
various offices. These competencies are specified in various rules, laws, and administrative
regulations. This means there is
1. a rigid division of labor
2. a chain of command is established in which the capacity to coerce is specified and restricted
by regulations
3. there is a regular and continuous execution of the assigned tasks by people qualified by
education and training to perform them
While recognizing bureaucracy as the most efficient form of organization, and even indispensable for
the modern state, Weber also saw it 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.[15][16]

Woodrow Wilson[edit]
(1856-1924) Writing as an academic while a professor at Bryn Mawr College, his essay "The Study
of Administration" [54] argued for a bureaucracy as a professional cadre, devoid of allegiance to
fleeting politics of the day. 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 "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 the foundation for the study of public
administration in America.

Ludwig von Mises[edit]

In his 1944 work Bureaucracy, the Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises was highly critical of all
bureaucratic systems. He believed that bureaucracy should be universally opposed, and noticed that
in the political sphere it had few defenders, even among progressives. 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. He wrote that "No private enterprise will ever fall prey to bureaucratic methods of
management if it is operated with the sole aim of making profit." [22]

Robert K. Merton[edit]
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 considered the dysfunctional aspects of bureaucracy, which he
attributed to a "trained incapacity" resulting from "overconformity." He saw bureaucrats as more likely
to defend their own entrenched interests than to act to benefit the organization as a whole. He also
believed bureaucrats took pride in their craft, which led them to resist changes in established
routines. Merton also noted that bureaucrats emphasized formality over interpersonal relationships,
and had been trained to ignore the special circumstances of particular cases, causing them to come
across as "arrogant" and "haughty."[23]