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Bureaucracy and Democracy

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Abstract

The public bureaucracy is becoming an increasingly important locus for democratic activity. This shift of democratic activity is in part a function of the declining relevance of traditional forms of democracy, and changes within the public bureaucracy itself. In particular, the emphasis on performance and the links with output legitimation have led to greater participation through the bureaucracy.

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Notes

  1. These views are, of course, stereotypes and do not reflect the real nature of many or even most public bureaucracies (see Goodsell 2004; Du Gay 2000).

  2. Weber’s model of bureaucracy, for example, attempted to ensure equality of treatment as well as greater transparency in the public sector.

  3. Suleiman (2003, 32) quite rightly notes that a constitution democracy depends upon an effective public bureaucracy.

  4. Of course, in non-democratic political systems that legitimacy must be conferred by some other political process such as charisma or the control of hegemonic political party/caste.

  5. One indication of the changing nature of this relationship is the large number of articles found in major public administration journals that are attempting to conceptualize the nature of contemporary democracy in the complex of changing patterns of service delivery (see Fung 2006).

  6. I am indebted to Muiris MacCarthaigh for emphasizing this point to me.

  7. The decline of this representational function for political parties accentuates the emphasis on output democracy. If the political parties do less tot facilitate input democracy then citizens may as well use their participation to get what they want from the bureaucracy.

  8. To some extent the “post-material” politics of Inglehart have been achieved and participation in an important value, in the abstract. In practice, however, many members of the public do not appear interested in the participation opportunities conventionally available in the public sector.

  9. Indeed the clients might be very explicitly excluded in the case of many social policies that might have some control as well as beneficial functions. Of course, for policies such as taxation

  10. One of the assumptions of the use of agencies with single functions is that monitoring their performance and their use of funds is easier than with large multi-service ministries.

  11. The hierarchical forms of accountability have been dominant, but the alternatives are hardly completely new. Indeed, some of the oldest forms of accountability have depended upon mutualism, or two or more actors or institutions watching each other.

  12. For this reason the notion of services publiques in the French model has tended to create a clearer picture of responsibility and to prevent some of the excesses associated with Anglo-Sxon reforms.

  13. The good news is that most evidence shows that citizens tend to regard these contacts positively, although unfortunately at the same time they may not generalize from those positive contacts to a generally positive view of the public sector.

  14. No Child Left Behind in the United States, on the other hand, did not have the mobilizational assumptions as much as individualistic assumptions that parents would exercise the option of moving their children to better performing schools.

  15. The devolved organizations are in much the same position as independent regulatory organizations in the classic models of capture in the United States and elsewhere (see James 2000). That is, the organizations are divorced from political linkages to the ministries or departments and must develop their requisite support by serving, perhaps

  16. Much of the political effectiveness of legislatures comes from their ability to provide “constituency service”, and to assist their constituents with the problems generated by the bureaucracy ( Chubb 1963). If the accountability regimen changes and that role is played more directly then some of the already weakened political support for legislatures as institutions will be eliminated.

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  1. Political Science Department, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, 15260, USA

    B. Guy Peters

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Peters, B.G. Bureaucracy and Democracy. Public Organiz Rev 10, 209–222 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11115-010-0133-4

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