A public household in general and public resource allocation in particular would be impossible without the existence of a structure of bureaux at various levels of government making and implementing decisions as to which goods and services are to be supplied in what amounts to various groups of citizens/consumers. Public resource redistribution depends on the existence of administrative personnel who handle transfer payment tasks in accordance with a publicly enacted system of rules. In the welfare states the role of bu.reaux is extensive as a considerable part of the total resources is allocated over the budget (Dunleavy, 1985, 1991).
Public regulation is conducted by means of bureaux monitoring those whose behaviour the state wishes to control or govern. The concept of the bureau seems to be at the very heart of the public sector as James Wilson argues in Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do and Why They Do It (1987), but the basic problem is to come up with a plausible theory about the logic of bureau operations that has empirical support (Aberbach et al., 1981).
Although there is unanimous agreement about the necessity of bureaux in the welfare state, there is wide disagreement about the basic characteristics of bureau behaviour or bureaucracy. It is readily recog
nized that 'bureau' and 'bureaucracy' are not synonymous; whereas the meaning of the word 'bureau' tends to be rather unambiguous, 'bureaucracy' presents quite a semantic predicament.
The Oxford English Dictionary states as one of the meanings of 'bureau': 'an office for the transaction of public business; a department of public administration'. Sometimes 'bureaucracy' has the same deno
tation. However, often 'bureaucracy' does not stand for some object or entity like a set of people, but refers to some institution or a set of properties of organization.
In the extensive literature on public authorities or agencies one may discern mutually inconsistent propositions about bureau operations such as:
1 Bureaucracies are capable of the highest level of rationality or efficiency (Weber, 1978).
2 Bureau behaviour is characterized by economic inefficiency as well as administrative waste (Tullock, 1965; Niskanen, 1971).
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3 The logic of bureau operations is irrationality (March and Olsen, 1976; Hogwood and Peters, 1985).
The basic issue of contention concerns how efficient bureaux tend to be or could be. How do we test these propositions in order to find out which one has greatest empirical support (Goodsell, 1983)? It seems important to insist upon an empirical procedure to find out how bureaux operate, but it is impossible to by-pass theoretical problems as to how bureaucracies are conceptualized in opposing theories. What is the meaning of the key terms 'bureau', 'bureaucracy behaviour' and , efficiency'?
By looking at the concept of bureaucracy implied in general statements about bureau characteristics, not only may we find out how the key terms are defined, but also such an examination will give us clues to the kind of test that is appropriate to such statements. It cannot be taken for granted that these terms are employed in similar senses.
There are two main types of distinct approaches to bureaucracy: the organizational framework and the public choice approach. Theories of bureaux and bureaucracy behaviour derived from mainstream public choice theory tend to be individualist, atomistic and economic in their assumptions (McLean, 1987); the organizational approach displays an emphasis on structure, wholes and power (Benson, 1982). How to integrate these two research traditions is a major task facing the study of bureaux, as the one proceeds from the assumption of individual utility maximization, whereas the other emphasizes complexity and unintended functions (Chisholm, 1987).
THE SEMANTIC APPROACH TO BUREAUCRACY
A look at usage or definitions reveals ambiguity as well as confusion between the descriptive and normative employment of 'bureaucracy' which is shown in Martin Albrow's Bureaucracy (1970). Fred W. Riggs (1979) examines the variety of meanings of 'bureaucracy', concluding that the concept may denote aggregates or systems, wholes or parts as well as a variety of properties having various emotive connotations. It is unlikely that such a set of different meanings may be reduced to a common conceptual core.
It appears that 'bureaucracy' is what is referred to as a 'theoretical term', that is, it derives its meaning from the theoretical context in which it operates and as an abstract concept it needs the elaboration of indicators to be applied to observable phenomena (Kaplan, 1964). The theoretical nature of the concept of bureaucracy means that it is necessary to look at the specific context in which propositions concerning bureaucracy behaviour are stated. Let us begin with the classical bureaucracy analysis: the Weberian 'idealtypus'.
CONCEPTS OF BUREAUCRACY 51
BUREAUCRACY AS RATIONALITY
Max Weber is considered to be the chief spokesman of the theory of bureaucracy as efficiency. He makes a number of claims in Economy and Society that point towards a theory about bureau rationality or efficiency, for example:
Experience tends universally to show that the purely bureaucratic type of administrative organization - that is, the monocratic variety of bureauc
racy - 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. (Weber, 1978:
223)
The association of bureaucracy with efficiency is clear in Weberian administrative theory; yet, there are some key problems of interpret
ation in relation to the quotation that must be resolved (Rudolph and Rudolph, 1979). What is meant by 'bureaucracy', 'experience' and 'capable of'? Note that Weber did not state that bureaucracy is efficiency, but that bureaucracy is capable of efficiency; the use of the phrase 'experience tends universally to show' indicates that the theory is intended as an empirical generalization about the contribution of various administrative forms to efficiency.
Weber's is not an absolute concept of efficiency, but a relative one, comparing the historical evidence about various types of authority structures (Herrschaft) in order to rank three types in terms of their relative efficiency (traditional, charismatic and legal authority).
The Weberian claim about bureau efficiency rests on his famous model of bureaucracy - an ideal-type comprising the following properties (Weber, 1978: 220-1): impersonal authority structure, hier
archy of offices in a career system of specified spheres of competence, free selection based on achievements in accordance with specified rules, remuneration in terms of money based on clear contracts, discipline and control in the conduct of office. The formal model of bureaucracy contains nothing about bureaucratic motivation, but Weber's notion of Beruf or vocation is assumed.
Of course, bureaucratic efficiency cannot simply be a function of the formal structure of the bureau, but depends crucially on what goals are expressed in the behaviour of bureaucrats as well as what means are considered. Maybe the lack of any requirements concerning the motivation of bureaucrats in the model explains the phrase 'capable of', since it opens up the possibility that bureaucracies that are close to the Weberian ideal-type characteristics nevertheless perform poorly simply because the bureau officers do not care too much about efficiency or productivity.
How bureaux operate will depend on more factors than those specified in the model, though we are not told what these other factors are. Formal bureaucratic organization in accordance with the model
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makes bureaux only 'capable of . . . the highest degree of efficiency'.
The missing link is supplied in the Weberian theory of bureaucratic behaviour as a vocation:
Rather, entrance into an office, including one in the private economy, is considered an acceptance of a specific duty of fealty to the purpose of the office (Amtstreue) in return for the grant of a secure existence. 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 discipline's faith under feudal or patrimonial authority, but rather is devoted to impersonal and functional purposes. (Weber, 1978: 959)
Weber argued from a historical perspective comparing modern bureaucracy with other types of government or authority; judged in relation to other types of authority and government modern bureauc
racy is more efficient, but it does not follow that modern bureaucracy is efficient according to other criteria. Thus, Weber may be both right and wrong: the relative efficiency judgement may be correct depending on experience, but the strong efficiency judgement that modern bureaucracy is capable of 'the highest degree of efficiency' - an absolute comparison as it were - does not follow from experience.
The basic Weberian idea is that the transition from a personal relation to a impersonal one establishes the concept of an office to which the office holder is more devoted than to any person (the ethics of Beruf). This may be a step towards more efficiency, but it does not make modern bureaucracy efficient in an absolute sense. We have here a sort of fallacy: the fact that a bureaucrat is devoted to his/her office does not entail that the motivation problem is solved; it is still possible that the office holder is thus devoted because it maximizes his/her own personal utility or because he/she wishes to maximize the utility of the bureau. Both these objectives may not be conducive to efficiency.
The emphasis in the Weberian analysis is too much focused on formal institutional structure emerging from a historical perspective;
what is crucial to efficiency in bureaucracy behaviour is the ends and means of bureau behaviour. And it does not follow that bureaucrats pursue ends and means that are in the public interest simply because they are oriented more towards their office than towards personal loyalty to someone else.
The Weberian ideal-type of bureaucracy makes no claim with respect to descriptive realism. It is an open question how it relates to reality.
The model may be employed for the purpose of evaluating actual practices in two distinct senses: it may identify deviants from the rationality or efficiency requirement or it may hold up an ethical challenge that may be conducive to changes in existing practices. The model is in no way a realistic one claiming that public administrative bodies typically or on average have the properties specified.
Weber's model may also be employed for comparative purposes in order to pin-point the range of variation in the bureaucratic
CONCEPTS OF BUREAUCRACY 53 phenomenon by looking at how the basic properties in the model vary from one country to another (Page, 1985). Even if it is true that public agencies are not bureaucracies in the Weberian model sense, the relevance of the model may in no way be affected by the lack of correspondence between model and reality. As an ideal-type it could direct the reform zeal in the public sector, if indeed it rightly identifies the efficiency mechanism in public authorities.
DYSFUNCTIONS IN BUREAUX
Much of the research about bureaux and bureaucracy behaviour has been conducted within the framework of the Weberian model. It has been the starting point for numerous investigations within public administration and organizational sociology. Although the Weberian model was used as a framework for analysis, it did not meet with unanimous agreement, because several findings indicated that there was a gap between theory and reality. Not questioning the basic mechanism of the Weberian model - bureaucracy as a neutral and rational machinery - several scholars revealed that bureaucracies could display other traits than rationality and efficiency. There was a risk of so-called dysfunctions in bureau operations.
Robert K. Merton argued that the sharp distinction between means and ends typical of the Weberian model tends to be blurred in bureau operations. The older a bureaucracy is the stronger the tendency to a displacement of means and ends. From the beginning the bureau was a means to promote external social ends, but as a result of organizational inertia the interests of the bureau itself tend to replace the promotion of external goals. The bureau itself becomes the end of its operations.
Merton stated in Social Theory and Social Structure (1957) that bureaux cannot be understood if one does not pay attention to unintended consequences of bureaucracy behaviour: dysfunctions.
Philip Selznick in TVA and the Grass Roots (1949) came to a similar conclusion. Selznick showed that a bureaucratic apparatus tends to develop in a democratic organization. The drive towards autonomy of the bureaucracy derives, according to Selznick, from its possession of specialized knowledge about the operations of the organization.
Technical expertise and the specialization of the knowledge base of the organization is typical of bureaux, which can be conducive to a vicious circle where the bureaucracy within the organization tends to over
emphasize the need for expertise. In due time the experts will take over the organization - one of the dysfunctions of bureaucracy. Selznick suggested a number of methods to counteract this, including a broad composition of the board of the organization and an explicit emphasis on the democratic ideology of the organization.
It may be generally argued that the Weberian model did not fully
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realize the implications of expertise for the structuring of bureauc
racies. It is necessary to introduce another distinction between two kinds of personnel within bureaux: administrative personnel and pro
fessionals (Parsons, 1947).
Harold Wilensky showed in Organizational Intelligence (1967) that bureaux cannot operate without strong elements of specialists and expertise knowledge, which counteract the tendencies of bureaucracies towards centralization and homogeneity. There is an inherent conflict between the professionals in a bureau, on the one hand, who base their position on the possession of a monopoly of expertise knowledge, and the administrative staff, on the other, who conduct the bureau on the basis of their authority. Since the employment of knowledge has become increasingly important for bureaux, the tension between administrative power and expert knowledge within bureaucracies may lead to dysfunctions.
In Patterns of Industrial Bureaucracy (1954) Alvin Gouldner critiqued the emphasis on subordination in the Weberian model. According to Gouldner this element in the model by-passes the negative conse
quences of control of the behaviour of the subordinates. A strong surveillance of people within a bureaucratic organization may lead to a severe dysfunction: control strengthens the tensions already in existence in the organization which surveillance should counteract.
Gouldner argued that it is not possible to direct the organization towards goals upon which all would agree. Organizations consist of different groups of individuals with varying interests and goals that only partly complement each other.
The theme of dysfunctions was developed into a general reaction against the Weberian administrative theory in the human relations school. Criticizing various organizational theories - scientific manage
ment, theories of division of labour and the Weberian administrative perspective - various authors developed a number of hypotheses about the individual in the organization which broke off from the prevailing notions about rationality and mechanization.
Instead of hierarchy they emphasized the informal structure of the organization and the need of the individual for integration into the organization. 'Bureaucracy' denoted the inhuman, the formal external framework of the organization, whereas what really happened in an organization was what Weber had not noticed: implicit norms, personal individual motivation and satisfaction, group integration and identification (Likert, 1961; Pfeffer, 1982; Morgan, 1986).
The idea that bureaucracies may be plagued by dysfunctions amounts to a minor criticism of the Weberian perspective. The idea that bureaucracy is a predictable machine that operates in a rational mode under normal circumstances had to be revised. Bureaux display inherent tendencies to operate sub optimally due to unintended and unrecognized consequences of behaviour in a complex structure.
CONCEPTS OF BUREAUCRACY 55 However, the theme of the human relations school implies a more serious criticism of the Weberian model, because it denies the basic mechanism implicit. Crucial for the capacity of the organization to accomplish its goals is the informal structure, according to Chris Argyris in Understanding Organizational Behavior (1960).
There exists according to Argyris an undeniable conflict and tension between the demands of the formal organization and the legitimate needs of the individual. What characterizes bureaucracies - division of labour, subordination, hierarchical structure and control - is not in agreement with the needs of the individual in his/her mode of functioning in an organization. Informal behaviour systems compen
sate for the inhuman and mechanistic nature of organizations. These informal behaviour patterns are more crucial for the capacity of the organization to operate successfully than the formal characteristics of the Weberian model (Argyris, 1964).
BUREAUCRACY AS RIGIDITY
Contrary to Weber's position, bureaucracy is often equated with rigidity. To some scholars, who interpret 'bureaucracy' pejoratively, the distinguishing feature of bureaucracy and of bureau behaviour is rigidity. The following few quotations claim that bureaucracy behaviour is characterized by inflexibility, whether this may be true of the concept of bureaucracy as a definition of the term or as a general matter of fact concerning how bureaux function:
Bureaucracies tend to reduce administration to the application of a set of rigid rules and formulas and to insist on a slavish devotion to routine, with the effect of exasperating the people and delaying public business. (Smith and Zurcher, 1944)
Bureaucratism is usually characterized by adherence to routine, more or less inflexible rules, red tape, procrastination, unwillingness to assume responsibility and refusal to experiment. (Fairchild, 1955)
The third usage corresponds to the vulgar and frequent sense of the word 'bureaucracy'. It evokes the slowness, the ponderousness, the routine, the complication of procedures, and the maladapted responses of 'bureaucratic' organizations to the needs which they should satisfy. (Crozier, 1964: 3) In Inside Bureaucracy (1967) Anthony Downs developed a public choice theory of bureaucracy behaviour in which rigidity looms large.
Downs identifies two sources of rigidity in bureaux, one is called 'normal', the other 'abnormal'. There will be a normal increase in rigidity as bureaux grow older and augment their size; however, there may also be a rapid abnormal outgrowth of rigidity when bureaux enter a rigidity cycle exemplifying the ossification syndrome.
The inherent tendency of bureaux to expand is, according to Downs,
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counteracted by an opposite force - the decelerating effect. As new bureaux reach their mature age further expansion becomes increasingly difficult due to a loss of their original function, to growing hostility from other bureaux, to difficulties in maintaining efficient output, to internal problems of recruiting talented people and of handling conflict.
The reaction on the part of the bureau to the 'inevitable' stagnation of the growth period is to resort to various expressions of rigidity in order to maintain the status quo and protect the organization against the threat of bureau death. The move towards rigidity measures takes different forms: for example, development of more formalized rule systems; shifting the emphasis from carrying out the goals of the bureau to protecting its size and autonomy; less capacity for innovation and more emphasis on routines and administration.
The combined effect of these rigidity trends is to make bureaux 'conservative' (Downs, 1967: 5-23), which means that large bureaux are seldom abolished and that the older the bureau the less likely is it that it will die. This theory about the normal development of rigidity in bureaucracy behaviour is certainly open to empirical test.
We may take a longitudinal perspective on the development of a bureau in order to investigate the extent to which there is a goal displacement from external objectives towards internal goals as well as to look at the relationship between innovation and administration in the bureau. This requires the construction of empirical indicators, but the test should be possible to carry out. The literature on adminis
tration includes empirical studies of innovation, formalization and administrative routines (Blau, 1955; Blau and Scott, 1963; Kaufman,
1976; Hogwood and Peters, 1983; Kaufman, 1985; Merritt and Merritt,
1985; Hill, 1992).
It is not clear if such a test of the rigidity hypothesis also covers the hypothesis about abnormal rigidity. Some bureaux tend to run into the so-called rigidity cycle. The hypothesis about the rigidity cycle implies that the rigidification of bureaucracy behaviour may be so severe that the bureau no longer produces any output and that it will face strong demand for reorganization or even that it be abolished. The answer to the rigidity cycle is the reorganization cycle, according to Downs. As there may be reasons for bureau reorganization other than ossification, it is hard to tell when there is a normal process of rigidification and an abnormal one.
Case studies in bureau development may be employed to find out what is going on in bureau growth: mere size expansion, rigidification or ossification. The basic problem is to separate the amount of formalization or rigidity that is neutral in relation to bureau operations, or that may even be eufunctional in relation to some bureau tasks, from the type of routinization that is dysfunctional for bureau operations (Shihlberg, 1987).