Weber: Bureaucracy

Why Weber thought it superior

He was emphatic, and an answer that presents him as a critic of bureaucracy has him wrong.

Precision, speed, unambiguity, knowledge of the files, continuity, discretion, unity, strict subordination and reduction of friction and of material and personal costs. His comparison is with the administration it replaced, which was slower, personal, unpredictable and corrupt, and by that comparison bureaucracy is a liberation.

Three further merits worth naming for a law student.

It is the enemy of arbitrariness. Rules applied impersonally to all comers is the administrative form of equality before the law.

It makes the exercise of power reviewable, because a decision taken under a rule, recorded in writing, by an official with a defined competence, is a decision that can be tested.

It is indispensable at scale. No modern state, army, corporation or university can be administered any other way, and Weber's point is that there is no alternative rather than that it is pleasant.

The dysfunctions

The literature after Weber is largely about these, and a complete answer gives them.

Merton's bureaucratic personality, and this is the one to name first. Training in rules produces exactly the conduct the organisation requires, and that conduct then becomes an incapacity: trained incapacity. Rules that are means become ends in themselves, which is goal displacement, and the official who follows the procedure faultlessly while the purpose fails is the type case, which is [Explaining Deviance: The Sociological Theories] ritualism in Merton's own adaptation table.

Red tape and delay, the cost of the written record and of the hierarchy of approvals.

Rigidity. Rules cannot anticipate every case, and the unanticipated case is dealt with badly.

Impersonality's cost. The quality that guarantees equal treatment also produces the experience of being processed rather than heard, which is what people mean when they complain of a bureaucracy, and it is felt most sharply by those least able to navigate it, as [The Welfare State] notes.

Concentration of power. Weber himself feared that the permanent expert official would come to dominate the temporary political head, since the official has the knowledge and the files and the minister has neither.

Secrecy. Weber observed that bureaucracy tends to increase its superiority by keeping its knowledge and intentions secret, and the concept of the official secret is its specific invention. The right to information legislation of 2005 is the standing modern answer to exactly that observation, and naming the connection is a strong point in an answer.

Oligarchy. Michels's iron law of oligarchy belongs here: whoever says organisation says oligarchy, because the administrative apparatus of any large organisation, including a democratic party or a union, tends to become a self-perpetuating elite with interests of its own.

Displacement of the purpose in Parkinson's and later popular formulations, which are worth a mention and are not sociology.

Bureaucracy and democracy

The tension that a law student should be able to state.

Bureaucracy supports democracy by levelling: it treats all comers alike, it recruits by qualification rather than birth, and it makes government by general rules possible over a large territory.

Bureaucracy threatens democracy because it is hierarchical, permanent, expert and unelected, and because its permanence and knowledge give it an advantage over the elected head who is temporary and dependent on it.

The devices developed against that threat are the substance of administrative law, and listing them shows the sociology producing the legal subject: political control by ministers accountable to a legislature; judicial review of administrative action; the requirement to give reasons; the rules of natural justice; time limits; tribunals; the ombudsman idea; the audit; and the right to information. Every one of them is a response to a feature Weber identified, and a student who can make that mapping has connected the two subjects.

In India

The apparatus: the all-India services and the state services; ministries and departments arranged hierarchically; recruitment by competitive examination through public service commissions; the conduct rules; the file, the note sheet and the order as the units of work; and security of tenure with constitutional protection for civil servants in respect of dismissal and reduction in rank.

Its distinctive features and criticisms, stated as they are usually made rather than asserted: delay; the multiplication of approvals; formalism; the gap between the rule and the practice at the point where a citizen meets the office; the use of discretion; and corruption in the discharge of functions. The Administrative Reforms Commissions were constituted to address these, and the Right to Information Act 2005 was adopted against secrecy.

Two sociological observations worth making.

The Indian bureaucracy is not simply Weberian, because a legal-rational apparatus operates in a society where traditional and personal claims are strong, so an official is subject to kinship, caste and community expectations that the ideal type excludes. This is the modernity of tradition from [Modernization and Industrialization] appearing inside the state itself.

And the point of contact with the citizen is where the model fails, since it is there that discretion, information asymmetry and inequality of standing operate. Studying that point is socio-legal research, and it is done by the methods of Module III.

A worked example

A person applies to a government office for a certificate they are entitled to.

Where the model works. There is a rule stating who is entitled; a defined officer with competence to decide; a form and a file; a record of the decision; and a superior to whom an appeal lies. The applicant does not need to know anybody, which is precisely the achievement bureaucracy represents and which the arrangement it replaced did not provide.

Where it fails. The rule does not fit the applicant's situation, which is rigidity. The file moves through several desks, which is delay. The officer requires a document the applicant cannot obtain, which is formalism. Nobody explains the reason for the refusal, which defeats review. And the applicant, unable to read the form or to return three times, engages an intermediary, which is the point at which discretion converts into an opportunity.

The legal responses map onto each failure: prescribed time limits; a duty to give reasons; a right of appeal; the right to information; and service delivery guarantees where states have enacted them. Each is a legal remedy for a sociological defect, and setting them out in that order is the best possible way to end this book, because it shows the two subjects doing the same work from opposite sides.

Quick revision

1. Bureaucracy is the administrative apparatus of legal-rational authority, and an ideal type.
2. Six characteristics: hierarchy of offices; defined sphere of competence; written general rules; impersonality; appointment by technical qualification with salary, tenure, career and pension; and separation of the official from the means of administration. Add: administration by written documents.
3. Weber thought it superior: precision, speed, unambiguity, continuity, unity and reduced friction; and it is the enemy of arbitrariness, makes power reviewable, and is indispensable at scale.
4. Dysfunctions: Merton's trained incapacity and goal displacement; red tape and delay; rigidity; the cost of impersonality; concentration of power in permanent experts; secrecy, which the right to information legislation of 2005 answers; and Michels's iron law of oligarchy.
5. Bureaucracy supports democracy by levelling and by making rule-governed administration possible, and threatens it because it is permanent, expert and unelected.
6. The devices of administrative law map onto Weber's features: ministerial responsibility, judicial review, reasons, natural justice, time limits, tribunals, audit and information rights.
7. In India: all-India and state services, recruitment by examination, constitutional protection of tenure, the file as the unit of work; criticised for delay, formalism, discretion and corruption. It operates inside a society of strong traditional and personal claims, so it is not simply Weberian, and it fails most at the point of contact with the citizen.

Test yourself

1. State Weber's characteristics of bureaucracy. A defined hierarchy of offices, each supervised by a higher one; a fixed sphere of competence for each office, with duties assigned by rule and authority limited to them; administration governed by written and general rules learnt as a technical qualification; impersonality, the rule being applied without regard to the person; appointment on technical qualification with fixed salary, security of tenure, a career and a pension; and the separation of the official from the means of administration, so that the office is not the officer's property and official and private affairs are kept apart. Administration proceeds on the basis of written documents.

2. Why did Weber regard bureaucracy as superior to other forms of administration? Because of its precision, speed, unambiguity, continuity, unity, strict subordination and reduction of friction and of costs, judged against the personal, unpredictable and corruptible administration it replaced. For a lawyer three further merits follow: it is the enemy of arbitrariness, since rules are applied impersonally to all comers; it makes the exercise of power reviewable, since a decision taken under a rule by a defined officer and recorded in writing can be tested; and it is indispensable at scale, no modern state or corporation being administrable in any other way.

3. What did Merton add, and what is goal displacement? Merton described the bureaucratic personality: training in rules produces precisely the conduct the organisation requires, and that conduct becomes an incapacity when circumstances change, which he called trained incapacity. Goal displacement is its characteristic form: rules which are means to the organisation's purposes become ends in themselves, so that an official may follow the procedure faultlessly while the purpose the procedure existed to serve is defeated.

4. How does bureaucracy both support and threaten democracy, and what legal devices answer the threat? It supports democracy by levelling, treating all comers alike, recruiting by qualification rather than birth and making government by general rules possible across a large territory. It threatens democracy because it is hierarchical, permanent, expert and unelected, and its permanence and command of information give it an advantage over the temporary elected head who depends on it. The devices developed in answer are ministerial responsibility to a legislature, judicial review, the duty to give reasons, the rules of natural justice, statutory time limits, tribunals, audit, the ombudsman idea and rights of access to information.

5. Why is the Indian bureaucracy not simply Weberian, and where does the model fail? Because a legal-rational apparatus operates within a society in which traditional and personal claims remain strong, so an official is subject to kinship, caste and community expectations that the ideal type excludes, which is the persistence of tradition inside a modern institution. The model fails most conspicuously at the point of contact with the citizen, where discretion, asymmetry of information and inequality of standing operate, and where an applicant who cannot read a form or return repeatedly engages an intermediary. Studying that point of contact is socio-legal research, conducted by the methods of Module III.