Public Management and Administration - Owen E.hughes

The Traditional Model of Public Administration 35
Weber noted: ‘every bureaucracy seeks to increase the superiority of the professionally
informed by keeping their knowledge and intentions secret’, adding
that ‘the concept of the official secret is the specific invention of bureaucracy’
(p. 233). This concern still exists today. Bureaucracy is regarded by some as
abrogating the power of the citizen or the politician and thereby making political
accountability problematic. To some in society this poses a problem as they
see unelected officials having wide powers over their lives.
The early 1990s saw the fall of regimes in the former Eastern bloc, regimes
where bureaucracy was carried out to a far greater extent than in the West.
Detailed bureaucratic control over markets and individuals did not seem to provide
the goods and services wanted by citizens in the former Eastern bloc and
it is likely that this apparent failure may be a failure of the theory of bureaucracy
itself. According to Jacoby (1973, p. 156):
Wherever bureaucratic control becomes all-encompassing it also creates an obsession
with power which overshadows rational tendencies as has been shown by the Russian
example. But what developed to its fullest extent under special historical conditions is
everywhere inherent in the bureaucratic mind.
Although writing many years before the fall of communist regimes, Jacoby
points to a general problem with bureaucracies unconstrained by a suitable system
of accountability. Also, the existence and apparent failure of the most
extreme of bureaucratic governments – such as the Soviet Union and East
Germany – is used as an argument by opponents to reduce the size and influence
of bureaucracies in general.
The second problem of bureaucracy was one Weber did not foresee. This is
the supposed technical superiority of the bureaucratic model that Weber saw as
greater than any other conceivable process. Such confidence in the technical
superiority of bureaucracy is no longer generally accepted.
There are two reasons for bureaucracy no longer being considered to be particularly
efficient. First, there were always some extreme interpretations of
Weberian principles, particularly in the personnel system, which was made
more rigid, more formal and less elitist than Weber imagined, and this tended
to reduce its efficiency. The principle of hierarchy was implemented to a ridiculous
extent with dozens of levels, each with several sub-levels and with barriers
established to restrict progress beyond certain points. The principle of
employment for life came to mean it was practically impossible to dismiss anyone,
despite manifest incompetence. Even the idea of a separate pension
scheme for old age had deleterious side effects. Generous government pension
schemes attracted complaints from private sector managers who felt governments
were more generous than they could afford for their own employees.
They also led to the problem of the ‘timeserver’, the person who did not work
effectively, who was impossible to dismiss, and merely waited for retirement
day. The seniority principle was commonplace, where promotions were
decided purely by length of service. This, too, survives in some areas but it