Abstract
The modern bureaucratic system replaced the previous patriarchal system which had some flaws that slowed down the further development of the society. The administrative bodies make decisions and realize them, resorting to enforcement matters when it’s needed, within their authority. The bureaucracy tries to satisfy the needs of those people that it administrates, while those people are taking care of other things: production of material and spiritual goods, bringing up the new generation, health care, and their own professional and personal development. The bureaucracy acts in behalf of those people who empowered it to manage the public affairs.
The term “bureaucracy” is often used as synonym of management, administration. This term means a certain layer of authority, administrators, rational organized management service that solves the cases on a high professional level by fully qualified specialists, according to law, certain instructions and other rules. And it is quite understandable: it is impossible to manage economic and cultural development without well-organized apparatus.
Bureaucracy is a historical phenomenon. The evolution of the bureaucracy phenomenon is in the way of convergence of the science in Europe and America. The amount of the bureaucracy meanings can be formulated in four main types: Weber’s bureaucracy, Marx’s bureaucracy, imperial or Asiatic bureaucracy and realistic bureaucracy. In this research paper we take a closer look at the development of the bureaucracy as a rational system.
STATENMENT OF A PROBLEM
The essential question of our study is to examine classic theories of bureaucracy and administration in order to reveal their main characteristics and track the phases of their development and changing in the scientists’ minds in different periods of time.
Some scientists see the theories of bureaucracy and administration as a perfect apparatus in terms of managing staff, determination of the politics role in life of a state which helps to find the ways of administration all organizations and government bodies; but some of the researchers are sure that bureaucracy is corruptive system that satisfy only the needs of authority and officials, without even paying attention to the needs of the citizens of a certain state. In each and every period of time we can see that the systems of administration were very different. In this research paper we observe scientific literature, looking for the scientists’ relations to the classic theories of bureaucracy; we find the differences between them and define what influence these theories had on people’s minds in different time periods.
LITERATURE REVIEW
For our study we use the works of such eminent researches in the field of classic sociology as Karl Marx, John Steward Mill, Max Weber, Woodrow Wilson, Frank Johnson Goodnow and many others.
Karl Marx discussed the theory of the bureaucracy function, calling it the “state formalism”. He based his theory on the Hegel’s thoughts in this field. Marx explained that “state formalism” constitutes itself as a real power and comes to have a material content of its own and it is self-evident that bureaucracy is a web of “practical illusions” or “the illusion of the state”. He said that the bureaucratic spirit is a Jesuitical, theological spirit and the bureaucrats are the Jesuits and theologians of the state (Marx, 2000, p. 117). Marx believed that bureaucracy constitutes an imaginary state beside the real state and is the spiritualism of the state. Bureaucracy holds in its possession the essence of the state, the spiritual essence of society. But within bureaucracy the spiritualism turns into the mechanism of fixed and formal behavior, fixed principles, attitudes, traditions. The aim of the state becomes the private aim of the individual bureaucrat, in the form of a race for higher posts of careerism. Marx wrote that the political state is the revealed mystery of the true worth and the essence of the elements in the states. The individual elements of the state relate to themselves as to the being of their species, their “species-being”; for the political state it is the sphere of their universal determination, their religious sphere (Hamilton, 2003, p. 283).
John Stuart Mill addressed in his essay the question about the relationship between bureaucracy and representative government, which has been a subject of concern to public administration since its inception. Mill explained his theory of government. He suggests a role for public administration is not only legitimate, but also necessary for good government. Mill recognized the dangers of bureaucracy, including the potential for abuse of power. He recognized many benefits for representative government and emphasized the importance of the education that citizens receive when they participate in government (Reeta, 1995, p. 770).
Max Weber’s discussion of bureaucracy is generally taken as descriptive of organized social structure within a rational-legal society. Weber’s central concept in his sociology is bureaucracy. He gives three elements that constitute “bureaucratic authority”:
There is the principle of fixed and official jurisdictional areas, which are generally ordered by rules, laws or administrative regulations.
The regular activities required for the purposes of the bureaucratically governed structure are distributed in a fixed way as official duties.
Methodical provision is made for the regular and continuous fulfilment of these duties and for the execution of the corresponding rights; only people who have the generally regulated qualifications to serve are employed.
In Max Weber’s mind, bureaucracy is fully developed in political communities only in the modern state, and, in the private economy, only in the most advanced institution of capitalism (Weber, 2009, p. 118).
Woodrow Wilson is famous as the only president of the United States who had a doctorate degree. In his “Study of administration” he tried to reorient the political science on researching of the organization and working methods of all government offices. It was extremely important for him to emphasize that the public administration is its own political sphere from the outside. In spite of the fact that the politics determines the issues for the operating control, it cannot interfere in the process of controlling (Sager & Rosser, 2009, p. 1140). The main aim of the public administration is making the political leaders’ decisions possible. In Wilson’s mind, the relationship between administration that fulfil the laws and the authority that creates these laws is the government system itself. Wilson also elaborated the model of administrative efficiency that offers using the methods of business organization and management in public administration. He also proved the effectivity of competent work in the public administrative system (Warner, 2002, p. 410).
The American scientist Frank Johnson Goodnow shared the Wilson’s ideas. He thought that the functions of politics and administration must be differentiated. The politics control the activity of the administration and the administration submits to the politics (Lynn, 2009, p. 810).
Weber, Wilson and Goodnow formulated two essential ideas of the theory of public administration:
In order to make an administrative machinery work, you must know it well and that’s why it has to be explored from the scientific point of view.
It must be separated from the political sphere.
The first book about state administration appeared in 1926, by L. White. It says that the state administration must be as close to reality as it possible. The most significant ideas in the theory of state administration at that period of time were the “classic school” and its representatives: L. White, L. Urwick, J. Mooney, T. Woolsey). And the new classic school – the “school of human relations” corrected the flaws of the “classic school”. The founders and followers of the “school of human relations” were R. Merton, D. Easton and others (Eisenstadt, 1959, p. 312).
THEORY
The theory of our study is that the classic theories of bureaucracy and administration were completely or partly changed during different time periods, some social interaction provoked those changings and considering society as a living organism: it can create an administrative apparatus that would function like a rational mind.
HYPOTHESIS
After reviewing some scientific literature in terms of classic theories of bureaucracy and administration, we find it interesting to answer the following questions:
How the researchers’ relation to bureaucracy and administration has been changing over the centuries in different parts of the world?
How different were the scientists’ thoughts and what provoked argues in this question?
How did the researchers see the perfectly working state apparatus?
Can a bureaucratic state function as a rational system?
METODOLOGY
In our research paper we use mixed methods of social research – content analysis; as non-sampling method – purposive sampling; the subject matter of our research is organizations as rational system and the scope of our research is classical theories of bureaucracy and administration.
FINDINGS
The structural non-random analysis of literature in a sphere of sociology let us make the following findings:
Karl Marx bases his theory of bureaucracy on the Hegel’s thoughts in this field. Marx explains that “state formalism” constitutes itself as a real power and comes to have a material content of its own and it is self-evident that bureaucracy is a web of “practical illusions” or “the illusion of the state”.
Marx believes that bureaucracy constitutes an imaginary state beside the real state and is the spiritualism of the state. The aim of the state becomes sometimes the private aim of an individual bureaucrat, in the form of a race for higher posts of careerism.
John Stuart Mill suggests a role for public administration is not only legitimate, but also necessary for good government. Mill recognized the dangers of bureaucracy, including the potential for abuse of power.
Max Weber’s central concept in his sociology is bureaucracy. He gives three elements that constitute “bureaucratic authority”.
In Max Weber’s mind, bureaucracy is fully developed in political communities only in the modern state, and, in the private economy, only in the most advanced institution of capitalism.
Woodrow Wilson tried to reorient the political science on researching of the organization and working methods of all government offices.
The main aim of the public administration is in making possible the decisions of the political leaders, in Wilson’s mind.
Frank Johnson Goodnow thought that the functions of politics and administration must be differentiated.
Weber, Wilson and Goodnow formulated two essential ideas of the theory of public administration.
The most significant ideas in the theory of state administration at that period of time were the “classic school” and its representatives: L. White, L. Urwick, J. Mooney, T. Woolsey). And the new classic school – the “school of human relations” corrected the flaws of the “classic school”. The founders and followers of the “school of human relations” were R. Merton, D. Easton and others.
DISCUSSION
In the beginning of XX century M. Weber created the concept of rational bureaucracy as a basis for organization of a modern type that replaced the patriarchal system. It was a very important step in development of civilization. By the patriarchal system it was impossible for an ordinary person to get justice without having big money or contacts. And the new system of organization dictated the equality of rights for all people. Weber gave the main characteristics of the bureaucracy:
Bureaucratic jurisdiction is strictly regulated, meaning it’s regulatory fixated.
The hierarchical organization of the bureaucratic structure is based on the well-established principles of official subordination.
All formal activity is realized in the form of written papers, that are further stored.
All officials must be highly qualified in the field of administration.
In the American administrative science the same paradigm was developed by future president of USA Woodrow Wilson. His main work “Study of administration” was published in 1887. Its basic idea is the unified management center in any system of administration which leads to efficiency and responsibility. Weber and Wilson formulated one and the same conception: bureaucratic organization is the most perfect one among all organizational forms. Its superiority is in clarity, competence, unity, subordination, stability and relative cheapness. The main ideas of Weber’s model are:
Bureaucracy is effective for every political authority, without interfering into politics.
Bureaucracy is the best organizational system of all possible ones.
One of the main benefits of bureaucracy is its independence from the subjective influence in terms of decision-making.
Karl Marx’s saw bureaucracy as a negative matter. He compared bureaucracy, organization and administrative apparatus with procrastination, disregard to the essence of the issue due to formal observation. Taking about bureaucracy, Marx mentioned the priority of the public interest to the private, meaning the interest of authority and a certain official. He said that bureaucracy lacks ability to solve real problems; it lacks the state rationality and distorts reality comprehension (Hilbert, 1987, p. 73).
According to Asiatic model, all citizens were like a big family, leading by an emperor. Or, using another comparison, an emperor was like the Pole star and his ministers – stars and constellations around it. So, the main issue of the Asiatic bureaucracy was not serving the public interest but softening the negative consequences that were caused by public vices in order to realize the effective authority of the emperor. There was a strong authority system in China. It lasted for more than two thousand years. The secret of this unique stability was authority inability to realize their independent political power (Stivers, 1994, p. 352).
The literature review showed that bureaucracy’s activity doesn’t mean just one side of the political-administrative structures’ functioning. The administrative apparatus is the bureaucratic apparatus. Bureaucracy is a complex of administrative apparatus officials, hierarchical management system that defines the levels of competence, decision-making, according to actual laws and instructions. The people and organizations, that the bureaucratic apparatus includes, are dealing directly with citizens from one side and with laws from the other side. The apparatus, involved into formal and informal relations, is in a certain socio-cultural environment, that’s why the bureaucracy can’t define its own type or its functioning form. Its place and role depends on political system’s character and political regime. Bureaucracy is one of the most important parts of a political system and political regime.
Under certain conditions, there can be some bureaucratic transformations that lead to bureaucracy getting a position where politics play the main political role (bureaucratic-political monopoly). The bureaucratic-political monopoly isn’t so different from political-bureaucratic authority. The second one includes “unity” of administration and politics, with only difference that politics is responsible for administrative sector and the basic administrative role is in the politics’ hands.
Rational bureaucracy is an immanent component of every regulation system. The organization of the state apparatus work must be formalistic, meaning bureaucratic. As long as the administrative apparatus exists, there will be bureaucracy.
The state apparatus is a secondary phenomenon. Building a strong hierarchical system, it can lead to over-centralization, to authority usurpation in a state. That’s why it is so important for the state apparatus to actualize independence and the partition of sovereignty into legislative, executive and judicative power of the local government. In this case, the limitations of each named powers won’t dominate among the others and won’t repress the citizens. The apparatus must possess the high level of competence and qualification, business and moral qualities for its proper work.
Poor-organized or incomplete system of working with staff in all spheres of the public body is the main reason of official’s unprofessionalism. It can be also caused by the ideology-driven way of dealing with staff or demand’s lack of professional competence and specialists with high level of knowing economics, law, sociology, staff management and cultural science.
CONCLUSION
During our research of such eminent researches’ work in the field of classic sociology as Karl Marx, John Steward Mill, Max Weber, Woodrow Wilson, Frank Johnson Goodnow and many others we can make the following conclusions:
M. Weber created the concept of rational bureaucracy as a basis for organization of a modern type that replaced the patriarchal system. It was a very important step in development of civilization.
Weber and Wilson the following conception: bureaucratic organization is the most perfect one among all organizational forms.
Bureaucracy is effective for every political authority, without interfering into politics.
Bureaucracy is the best organizational system of all possible ones.
One of the main benefits of bureaucracy is its independence from the subjective influence in terms of decision-making.
Karl Marx compared bureaucracy, organization and administrative apparatus with procrastination, disregard to the essence of the issue due to formal observation.
The main issue of the Asiatic bureaucracy was softening the negative consequences that were caused by public vices in order to realize the effective authority of the emperor.
The administrative apparatus is the bureaucratic apparatus. Bureaucracy is a complex of administrative apparatus officials, hierarchical management system that defines the levels of competence, decision-making, according to actual laws and instructions.
Rational bureaucracy is an immanent component of every regulation system.
References
Eisenstadt S. N. (1959). Bureaucracy, bureaucratization, and debureaucratization. Administrative science quarterly 4(3), 302-320. doi: 10.2307/2390912
Hamilton F. (2003). American Sociology Rewrites its history. Sociological theory 21(3), 281-297. Retrieved from journal http://philpapers.org/rec/CALCST-2
Hilbert R. (1987). Bureaucracy as belief, rationalization as repair: Max Weber in a post-functionalist age. American Sociological association, 5(1), 70-86, doi: 10.2307/201996
Lynn L. (2009). Restoring the rule of law to public administration: what Frank Goodnow got right and Leonard White didn’t. The American society for public administration, 69(5), 803-813. doi: 10.1111/j.1540-6210.2009.02030.x
Marx, K., McLellan D. (2000). Karl Marx: Selected Writings. Retrieved from https://books.google.ru/books?hl=ru&lr=&id=yTWcAQAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP2&dq=karl+marx+theory+bureaucracy&ots=X8WOLbaNxf&sig=CL4fEeNa-_BI5gdIlrMVVkISA4M&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false
Sager F., Rosser C. (2009). Weber, Wilson, and Hegel: theories of modern bureaucracy. The American society for public administration, 69(6), 1136-1147. doi: 10.1111/j.1540-6210.2009.02071.x
Stivers C. (1994). The listening bureaucrat: responsiveness in public administration. American society for public administration, 54(4), 364-369. doi: 10.2307/977384
Reeta C. (1995). Review of Donald J. Savoie: Thatcher, Reagan, Mulroney in search of a new bureaucracy. Canadian journal of political science, 28, 767-769. doi:10.1017/S0008423900019454
Warner B. (2002). John Stuart Mill’s theory of bureaucracy within representative government: balancing competence and participation. The American society for public administration, 61(4), 403-413. doi: 10.1111/0033-3352.00044
Weber M. (2009). From Max Weber: essays in sociology. Retrieved from https://books.google.ru/books?hl=ru&lr=&id=lIb69vVaQRUC&oi=fnd&pg=PR1&dq=max+weber%27s+theory+bureaucracy&ots=sT6COwZTpV&sig=ObINRV8fCQmAO1cl0AxCqff7K2Q&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=max%20weber's%20theory%20bureaucracy&f=false
