Public Bureaucracy and Administrative Accountability

Goals:  be able to  

     - describe the characteristics of bureaucracy     

DESCRIBING BUREAUCRACY -

     Bureaucracy is observed in all large organizations in which
the numbers of employees or members are such that it is no longer
possible to run the organization on the basis of face-to-face
contacts with others in the organization.  This is true not only
for governmental administrative bodies but also of large profit-
making corporations (IBM, Lockheed, General Motors) as well as of
non-profit organizations (the Red Cross, large religious
denominations, Boy Scouts of America etc.).  

     This point is frequently missed by critics of bureaucracy who
like to contrast government bureaucracy with private businesses,
many of which are also bureaucratic.  Nonetheless as our focus is
largely on governmental and quasi-governmental bodies most of our
discussion of bureaucracy is tailored to governmental bureaucracy
[although much of it actually remains applicable also to non-
governmental bureaucracy.]  

     The "publicness" of a body or group is not so much a function
of whether it is formally a part of the governmental administrative
offices as it is a function of how sensitive the group's operations
are to political authority.  Therefore although Lockheed Corp. is
legally a "private" corporation it is very much a part of the
public administrative realm since so much of its business depends
on its governmental contracts.

Characteristics of An "Ideal" Bureaucracy:

     A Proposed Definition of Governmental Bureaucracy:  Those
offices created to carry out purposes mandated by the legislature
and executive branches of government which (offices) are staffed
largely by persons who are neither elected nor politically
appointed. (Larry Hill, 1989)


     Using Max Weber's description of bureaucracy as a guide, the
ideal bureaucracy should have the following characteristics:

     1)   Mission/Mandate given by law; the purpose of the agency
          is to accomplish some public purpose usually stated in
          the legislation creating the bureaucratic office.
     2)   Hierarchical Authority:  Authority is distributed top-
          down according to some organizational chart.  
     3)   Prescribed roles and routines:  Each position in the
          hierarchy has a job description (and corresponding job
          requirements which alone determine who may be hired to
          fill each position).  Each position has standard routines
          which are often described in a job description manual.
     4)   Paperwork:  All transactions are recorded.  Standard
          operating procedures require keeping records of actions
          taken within the organization as well as all dealings
          with persons outside of the organization.  This "paper
          trail" ensures that standard operating procedures and
          routines are in fact being followed as required.  They
          also serve to protect the agency's clients/customers and
          employees from arbitrary actions by others within the
          agency.
     5)   Professional codes of conduct:  Agency employees deal
          with each other, and with persons outside of the agency,
          according to clear standards of conduct.  These codes
          exclude family, personal or political favoritism,
          patronage, or prejudice in agency transactions.
     6)   Focus of Loyalty:  The ideal agency employee will view
          himself/herself as owing his/her job (and loyalty) to the
          agency rather than to a particular personal boss or to
          some political party or faction.
 

     ---------------------------------------------------------
     |    Quickie Way to Remember Max                        |
     |    Weber's Characteristics of Bureaucracy:            |
     |    Hi-Definition Pilfering                            |  
     |    Hi DeFinition PilFerinG                            |
     |    |  |  |       |  |    |                            |
     |    |  |  |       |  |    |--General Rules and Routines|
     |    |  |  |       |  |-------Files and Written         |
     |    |  |  |       |             Communications         |
     |    |  |  |       |----------Professionalism and       |
     |    |  |  |                     Specialization         |
     |    |  |  |                                            |
     |    |  |  |------------------Full-Time Devotion to Duty|
     |    |  |------------------------Division of Labor      |
     |    |---------------------------Hierarchy              |
     --------------------------------------------------------

     While saying these are "ideal" characteristics we admit that
in fact many public agencies may be faulted for not showing all of
these characteristics.  Among the Western industrial democracies
the United States has the highest proportion of positions within
the federal bureaucracy reserved for political appointees who in
fact do owe their jobs to their political boss (the President) in
return for political services.  These political appointees even
allow their personal politics to dictate much of their behavior
within the agency to which they are appointed.  Nonetheless since
these political appointees make up about one-tenth of one percent
of the federal service it may be said that most of the remaining
civil servants do behave as described by these characteristics.

     The above list of characteristics differs in some ways from
other lists of Weber's characteristics.  Characteristics 1) and 2)
describe what the bureaucracy is; points 3) and 4) describe what
sorts of things the agency does that are distinctively bureaucratic
actions (standard operating procedures; routine and paperwork),;
while points 5) and 6) describe inter-personal relations that are
distinctively bureaucratic.

Abstract of Weber's "Essay in Sociology"

   Weber seeks to describe the essential characteristics of bureaucratic
authority.  From this analysis he tries to predict the future impact of
bureaucratic authority on democratic political systems.

What are Weber's Ideas about 

     - the relation between Private and Public Administration,
     - the relation between taxation and bureuacracy
     - the relation between a free marketr economy and
        bureuacracy
     - the relation between democracy and bureaucracy?

p. 56. "Bureaucracy is a permanent structure that presupposes a
permanent source of income . . . taxation is te precondition for
the permanent existence of bureaucracy."


p. 67 'democracy' as such is oposed to the 'rule' of bureaucracy,
in spite and perhaps because of its unavoidable yet unintended
promotion of bureacractization.

p. 67 "The 'political master' finds himself in the position of
the 'dilettante' who stands opposite the 'expert' facing the
trained official who stands within the management of
administration."

     burauecracy is by itself only a tool and can serve whatever
political system appropirates it.

------    How do INEEL Employees differ from the Wberian
          Bureaucrat who has his life-time tenured, salaried
          sinecure?
------    What is the relationship of an INEEL employee to the
          government?