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College of Education
School of Continuing and Distance Education2014/2015 – 2016/2017
UGBS 105
Introduction to Public
Administration
Session 3 – Bureaucracy and Public Administration
Lecturer: Dr. Daniel Appiah, UGBS Contact Information: [email protected]
Session 3: Part 2
Bureaucracy and Public Administration
Dr. Daniel Appiah, UGBS Slide 2
Learning Objectives
By the end of this session, students should understand:
i. Understand the concept of bureaucracy
ii. Identify and understand Max Weber’s principles of bureaucratic administration
iii. Understand the advantages and disadvantages of bureaucracy
iv. Propose solutions to problems of public sector bureaucratic administration in Ghana.
3Dr. Daniel Appiah, UGBS
What is Public Administration?: Enactment, Execution, Adjudication of State Rules
4
.
Max Weber (1947:644) said “In its widest sense, the expression “public
administration” includes not only legislation and adjudication but also
those other residuary activities which here we want to call “government.”
Making state rules Implementing state rules
Adjudication of state rules
How should the Public Administration System be Organized for Development?
Slide 5
o Executive
o Legislature
o Judiciary
o Military/Police
o Local Government
o 23 (?) Ministries
o Semi-autonomous public agencies (e.g. NDPC, NPA, Audit Service, etc)
o Council of State
o Chieftaincy Administration
• .
Max Weber’s Theory of Bureaucracy: The Role of Technical Knowledge & Competence
o According to Max Weber, a “bureaucracy” offers the best form of organization and public administration to promote efficient, effective, stable and reliable development in a society.
Max Weber said that a bureaucracy is, “from a purely technical point of view, capable of attaining the highest degree of efficiency, and is in this sense formally the most rational known means of exercising authority over human beings. It is superior to any other form in precision, in stability, in the stringency of its discipline, and in its reliability. … It is finally superior both in intensive efficiency and in the scope of its operations and is formally capable of application to all kinds of administrative tasks.” (Weber, p.223)
What is a Bureaucracy?
The word bureaucracy is derived from two greek words; “bureau” and “Kratos.” The word “bureau” refers to the office,and the word “kratos” means power or rule.
Generally, the concept “bureaucracy” can be understood to mean the power of an office holder to rule.
There are public and private Bureaucratic organizations: It is important to note that the concept cut across both public and private organizations.
The important issue is that Max Weber gave six main principles that define the nature of this office holder who has been given authority to rule.
7Dr. Daniel Appiah, UGBS
Weber’s Six Principles of Bureaucracy
1. There is the principle of official jurisdictional areas, which are generally ordered by rules, that is, by laws or administrative regulations.
2. There are principles of office hierarchy and of channels of appeal that stipulate a clearly established system of super-and subordination in which there is a supervision of the lower offices by the higher ones.
3. The management of the modern office is based upon written documents (the ‘files’), which are preserved in their original or draft form, and upon a staff of subaltern officials and scribes of all sorts.
Weber’s Six Principles of Bureaucracy
4. Office management, at least all specialized office management, usually presupposes thorough training in a field of specialization.
5. Official activity demands the full working capacity of the official, irrespective of the fact that the length of his obligatory working hors in the bureau may be limited.
6. The management of the office follows general rules, which are more or less stable, more or less exhaustive, and which can be learned.
Slide 9
Weber’s Six Principles of Bureaucracy
Slide 10
Question:
To what extent does Ghana’s Public Administration system conform to Max Weber’s principles of bureaucracy?
• .
The Position of the Official Within and Outside of the Bureaucracy
Impersonality in the performance of official functions
According to Weber (p.959), “It is decisive for the modern loyalty to an office that, in the pure type, it does not establish a relationship to a person, like the vassal’s or disciple’s faith under feudal or patrimonial authority, but rather is devoted to impersonal and functional purposes [a purpose which appears at once impersonalized and ideologically sanctified].”
o Also, entrance into a bureaucratic office is considered “an acceptance of a duty of fealty to the purpose of the office in return for the grant of a secure existence.” (p.959)
Slide 11
Bureaucracy and Impersonality
Three Key Conditions for Ensuring Impersonality:
1. There should be an ideology that transcends the self-interest of the individual office holder: The official is servant to some “other-worldly sacred values” of a group beyond the individual personal self’ (Weber, p.959)
2. There should be shared cultural values among public officials: The purposes of bureaucracy “of course, frequently gain an ideological halo from cultural values, such as state, church, community, party or enterprise, which appears as surrogates for a this-worldly or other-worldly personal master and which are embodied by a given group.” (Weber, p.959)
Slide 12
Bureaucracy and Impersonality
3. The social position of the official should be legally Elevated for protection in carrying out official duties: In the public bureaucracy, the modern public official “always strives for and usually attains a distinctly elevated social esteem vis-à-vis the governed.” (Weber, p.959)
How to legally protect the official:
According to Weber, the social position of the official “is protected by prescription about rank order and, for the political official, by special prohibitions of the criminal code against “insults to the office” and “contempt” of state and church authorities.” (Weber, p.959)
Slide 13
What kind of politicians can help to create an impartial bureaucratic official of public administration?
14Dr. Daniel Appiah, UGBS
‘Monetary and Financial Presuppositions of Bureaucracy’: Implications for Poor Countries
o There is a relationship between the development of a modern bureaucracy and the development of a capitalist economy.
Weber emphasized that “The development of the money economy is a presupposition of a modern bureaucracy in so far as the compensation of officials today takes the form of money salaries.” (Weber, p.963)
“A certain measure of a developed money economy is the normal precondition at least for the unchanged survival, if not for the establishment, of pure bureaucratic administrations.” (p.964)
o But, bureaucracy requires more than money to build & sustain: “The money economy is of very great importance for the whole bearing of bureaucracy, yet by itself it is by no means decisive for the existence of bureaucracy.” (Weber, p.964-5)
Slide 15
‘Multi-Party Democracy’ and ‘Bureaucracy’: Are They Incompatible?
Democracy:
According to Max Weber (p.961), “Popular election not only of the administrative chief but also of his subordinate officials usually endangers, at least in very large bodies which are difficult to supervise, the expert qualification of the officials as well as the precise functioning of the bureaucratic mechanism, besides weakening the dependence of the officials upon the hierarchy.”
According to Max Weber, there is a “basic contradiction” between bureaucracy and electoral democracy. And no legal guarantees can eliminate “the basic contradiction” between a ‘bureaucracy’ and competitive multi-party democratic government (Weber, p.957). Do you agree? Give reasons.
Slide 16
Creating a Bureaucratic Public Service Organization in a Multi-Party Democratic Country is Difficult
Slide 17
o Question: Is it possible for a
democratic country bureaucratic organizations to deliver public service?
o 23 (?) Ministries
o Semi-autonomous public agencies (e.g. NDPC, NPA, Audit Service, etc)
o Council of State
o Chieftaincy Administration
.
Conclusion: Effective and Efficient Bureaucracy Promotes Development
The countries that have dysfunctional public bureaucracies are unable to effectively and efficiently facilitate business start-ups, enforce property rights, adjudicate disputes and ensure the rule of law have failed to create capital for the promotion of social, economic and political development!
Dr. Daniel Appiah, UGBS Slide 18
