Bureaucracy and Public Administration

• Session 4 focuses on Bureaucracy and Public Administration.
• Participants should understand the types of legitimate authority in society, Max Weber's theory, characteristics, and internal/external conditions for the emergence of bureaucratic administration

The Basis of Legitimacy in Society

• Max Weber defined legitimate domination (or legitimate authority) as the probability that specific commands will be obeyed by a group.
• Weber's concept excludes the use of force or coercion.
• Legitimate domination implies voluntary compliance based on interest or genuine acceptance.

Three Types of Legitimate Authority

• There are three pure types of legitimate authority: traditional, charismatic, and rational-legal.

Traditional Authority

• Traditional authority rests on established beliefs in the sanctity of traditions and the legitimacy of those exercising authority

Charismatic Authority

• Charismatic authority rests on devotion to the exceptional sanctity, heroism, or exemplary character of an individual

Rational-Legal Authority

• Rational-legal authority rests on a belief in the legality of enacted rules and the rights of those elevated to authority under those rules

Bureaucratic Administration

• Bureaucratic Administration is a system based on rational-legal authority

Max Weber's View on Bureaucracy

• Max Weber believed that a "monocratic bureaucracy" is the best form of organized administration.
• This form promotes precision, efficiency, effectiveness, stability, reliability, and productivity.
• A bureaucracy is capable of attaining the highest degree of efficiency and is the most rational for exercising authority.
• It is superior in precision, stability, discipline, and reliability.

Justification for Bureaucratic Administration

• Bureaucracy's chief merit is its technical efficiency, emphasizing precision, speed, expert control, continuity, discretion, and optimal returns.
• Bureaucratic structures eliminate personalized relationships and nonrational considerations

Characteristics of Bureaucratic Administration

• Conduct of official business is rule-bound with stable, exhaustive, and regular rules
• Functions are specialized, and office management is based on thorough training.
• There is a principle of hierarchy of offices with a system of super-ordination and sub-ordination
• A clear delineation of official jurisdiction is a sphere of obligations to perform functions systematically.
• Specialized trained administrative staff are appointed to apply technical rules, and only those with adequate technical training are eligible
• Administrative acts, decisions, and rules are recorded in writing with record-based office management
• Administrative officials are separate from ownership of the means of production and must render an accountability of resources

Internal Conditions for Effective Bureaucratic Administration

• Employment based on technical qualifications
• Candidates must be selected based on technical educational qualifications
• Free contractual relationship exists
• There is free selection of officials, and officials are personally free
• Officials are subject to authority only concerning their official obligations
• Remuneration by fixed salaries in money provides a salary scale graded according to rank
• Security of tenure of office ensures the tenure of office should be secured for life
• Career promotion occurs based on seniority, achievement, or both and is dependent on superiors' judgement

External Conditions for Effective Bureaucratic Administration

• Creation of impersonal “other-worldly sacred values”
• Officials serve functional purposes beyond the individual personal self
• Reproduction of cultural values of impersonality in society
• Impersonality and its functional purposes must gain an ideological halo from cultural values
• Legal protection of the officials
• Special prohibitions of the criminal code exists against 'insults to the office' and 'contempt' of state and church authorities
• Development of a Capitalist Economy
• A developed money economy is the normal precondition for pure bureaucratic administrations
• The development of the money economy is a presupposition of a modern bureaucracy
• Compensation of officials takes the form of money salaries