Bureaucracy

Bureaucracy (/bjʊəˈrɒkrəsi/) refers to both a body of non-elective government officials and an administrative policy-making group. Historically, a bureaucracy was a government administration managed by departments staffed with non-elected officials. Today, bureaucracy is the administrative system governing any large institution, whether publicly owned or privately owned. The public administration in many countries is an example of a bureaucracy, but so is the centralized hierarchical structure of a business firm.The late M. de Gournay... sometimes used to say: 'We have an illness in France which bids fair to play havoc with us; this illness is called bureaumania.' Sometimes he used to invent a fourth or fifth form of government under the heading of 'bureaucracy.'–Max Weber Bureaucracy (/bjʊəˈrɒkrəsi/) refers to both a body of non-elective government officials and an administrative policy-making group. Historically, a bureaucracy was a government administration managed by departments staffed with non-elected officials. Today, bureaucracy is the administrative system governing any large institution, whether publicly owned or privately owned. The public administration in many countries is an example of a bureaucracy, but so is the centralized hierarchical structure of a business firm. Various commentators have noted the necessity of bureaucracies in modern society. The German sociologist Max Weber argued that bureaucracy constitutes the most efficient and rational way in which human activity can be organized and that systematic processes and organized hierarchies are necessary to maintain order, maximize efficiency, and eliminate favoritism. On the other hand, Weber also saw unfettered bureaucracy as a threat to individual freedom, with the potential of trapping individuals in an impersonal 'iron cage' of rule-based, rational control. The term 'bureaucracy' originated in the French language: it combines the French word bureau – desk or office – with the Greek word κράτος (kratos) – rule or political power. The French economist Jacques Claude Marie Vincent de Gournay (1712-1759) coined the word in the mid-18th century. Gournay never wrote the term down but a letter from a contemporary later quoted him: The first known English-language use dates to 1818 with Irish novelist Lady Morgan referring to the apparatus used by the British to subjugate their Irish colony as 'the Bureaucratie, or office tyranny, by which Ireland has so long been governed.' By the mid-19th century the word appeared in a more neutral sense, referring to a system of public administration in which offices were held by unelected career officials. In this context 'bureaucracy' was seen as a distinct form of management, often subservient to a monarchy. In the 1920s the German sociologist Max Weber expanded the definition to include any system of administration conducted by trained professionals according to fixed rules. Weber saw bureaucracy as a relatively positive development; however, by 1944 the Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises opined in the context of his experience in the Nazi regime that the term bureaucracy was 'always applied with an opprobrious connotation,' and by 1957 the American sociologist Robert Merton suggested that the term 'bureaucrat' had become an 'epithet, a Schimpfwort' in some circumstances. The word 'bureaucracy' is also used in politics and government with a disapproving tone to disparage official rules that make it difficult to do things. In workplaces, the word is used very often to blame complicated rules, processes, and written work that make it hard to get something done. Socio- bureaucracy would then refer to certain social influences that may affect the function of a society. Although the term 'bureaucracy' first originated in the mid-18th century, organized and consistent administrative systems existed much earlier. The development of writing (c. 3500 BC) and the use of documents was critical to the administration of this system, and the first definitive emergence of bureaucracy occurred in ancient Sumer, where an emergent class of scribes used clay tablets to administer the harvest and to allocate its spoils. Ancient Egypt also had a hereditary class of scribes that administered the civil-service bureaucracy. A hierarchy of regional proconsuls and their deputies administered the Roman Empire. The reforms of Diocletian (Emperor from 284 to 305) doubled the number of administrative districts and led to a large-scale expansion of Roman bureaucracy. The early Christian author Lactantius (c. 250 – c. 325) claimed that Diocletian's reforms led to widespread economic stagnation, since 'the provinces were divided into minute portions, and many presidents and a multitude of inferior officers lay heavy on each territory.' After the Empire split, the Byzantine Empire developed a notoriously complicated administrative hierarchy, and in the 20th century the term 'Byzantine' came to refer to any complex bureaucratic structure. In China, the Han dynasty (202 BC - 220 AD) established a complicated bureaucracy based on the teachings of Confucius, who emphasized the importance of ritual in a family, in relationships, and in politics. With each subsequent dynasty, the bureaucracy evolved. During the Song dynasty (960–1279) the bureaucracy became meritocratic. Following the Song reforms, competitive examinations took place to determine which candidates qualified to hold given positions.The imperial examination system lasted until 1905, six years before the Qing dynasty collapsed, marking the end of China's traditional bureaucratic system. Instead of the inefficient and often corrupt system of tax farming that prevailed in absolutist states such as France, the Exchequer was able to exert control over the entire system of tax revenue and government expenditure. By the late 18th century, the ratio of fiscal bureaucracy to population in Britain was approximately 1 in 1300, almost four times larger than the second most heavily bureaucratized nation, France. Thomas Taylor Meadows, Britain's consul in Guangzhou, argued in his Desultory Notes on the Government and People of China (1847) that 'the long duration of the Chinese empire is solely and altogether owing to the good government which consists in the advancement of men of talent and merit only,' and that the British must reform their civil service by making the institution meritocratic. Influenced by the ancient Chinese imperial examination, the Northcote–Trevelyan Report of 1854 recommended that recruitment should be on the basis of merit determined through competitive examination, candidates should have a solid general education to enable inter-departmental transfers, and promotion should be through achievement rather than 'preferment, patronage, or purchase'. This led to implementation of Her Majesty's Civil Service as a systematic, meritocratic civil service bureaucracy. Like the British, the development of French bureaucracy was influenced by the Chinese system. Under Louis XIV of France, the old nobility had neither power nor political influence, their only privilege being exemption from taxes. The dissatisfied noblemen complained about this 'unnatural' state of affairs, and discovered similarities between absolute monarchy and bureaucratic despotism. With the translation of Confucian texts during the Enlightenment, the concept of a meritocracy reached intellectuals in the West, who saw it as an alternative to the traditional ancien regime of Europe. Western perception of China even in the 18th century admired the Chinese bureaucratic system as favourable over European governments for its seeming meritocracy; Voltaire claimed that the Chinese had 'perfected moral science' and François Quesnay advocated an economic and political system modeled after that of the Chinese.The governments of China, Egypt, Peru and Empress Catherine II were regarded as models of Enlightened Despotism, admired by such figures as Diderot, D'Alembert and Voltaire.