1. Lecture 4 Debates over Public Bureaucracy: Necessary evil?
Introduction to Public Bureaucracy

2. Public Bureaucracy Polemic
The purpose of this controversial argument over public bureaucracy is to explain why and how the quality of public administration has been misrepresented in the popular commentary and academic discourse of public bureaucracy.
In conclusion, the assumption that public bureaucracy does not work is labeled a great falsehood about our government.

3. Bureaucracy Despised, Disparaged, and Defended
A Brief for Bureaucracy
- Governmental administration may be regarded as generally competent and effective.
Depictions in Popular Culture
- Popular culture tend to be anti-bureaucratic (“bureaucratic bashing”)
- Pundit columns, horror stories, and stacked surveys as evidence of bureaucratic malfunction??

4. Academic Debate over Bureaucracy: The Opponents
Depictions in Academic Writing
1) delivering unacceptable performance
2) mobilizing dangerous political power
3) oppressing the individual

5. Bad Performance Public Choice Economists
- Public managers as “budget maximizers,” not profit maximizers demand more funds despite actual needs.
- In consequence, unlimited budgetary expansion and an inefficient allocation of resources within the public sector
Sociologists
- Bureaucracies are to be “dysfunctional” and to have “pathological” behavioral patterns: obsessive conformity to rules; goal displacement; conflict between superiors and subordinates; communication blocks and distortions; resistance to change; dehumanization and deteriorating human relationships
- A list of 178 “common bureaupathologies” (Caiden)

6. Sources of Bureaucratic Power
Knowledge (internal information): the information and expertise possessed by the agency
Cohesion (strong hierarchy and chain of command): the commitment of the bureau’s personnel to the organization and its goals
Leadership: the effectiveness of the agency chief in managing the agency

7. Dangerous Political Power
Weber
- Once bureaucracy is established, it becomes almost impossible to destroy; “out of control”; “closed corporation”
Michels
- An “elitist bias,” which is inherently oligarchic and conservative, supports a ruling regime often associated with powerful interest groups, not public interests.
Expansive Growth
- External factors that have a growth-perpetuating effect, such as political intentions to maintain welfare state

8. Oppressive Quality Employees
- Due to authoritative direction and mechanistic rules, employees in public bureaucracy are degraded to passive agents of the system
Clients
- Bureaucrats treat the individual as an impersonal object within the context of rules; repression of the disadvantaged
Social control
- Bureaucracy imposes a paradigm of rational authority, positivist science, materialist capitalism, and masculine power

9. Counter-arguments of the Supporters: Rebuttal over Bad Performance
Performance: According to many studies, government performs better than business
Efficiency: An Untested Hypothesis
- The argument for government inefficiency is often based more on the assumption of classical economic theory than on fact.
Is Efficiency a Goal?
- Government programs have goals of equity, fairness and other value that take precedence over the goal of efficiency.

10. Rebuttal over Administrative Power
Administrative Power as Political Power
- Administrative power is perceived as legitimate and backed by the coercive power of the state.
Beetham argues that the concentration of information and organizational capacity help politicians make policy and serve as a bulwark against corruption.
Active administrative agencies are legitimate institutions in accord with the spirit of the national Constitution and forces in the polity acting in behalf of the public interest.

11. Whose fault is it?
One reason for the poor public image of the bureaucracy is that it is blamed for many problems that others create
The large number of problems with political executives suggests that the process of hiring political executives is inherently flawed. Bureaucracy becomes demoralized by constant criticism for results outside its control.
Public Service: Attacking bureaucracy makes it difficult to attract the best of young talent.