Confucius and the Moral Basis of Bureaucracy

Abstract

The moral justification for bureaucracy in systems of democratic self-government is stronger in Eastern thought than in Western philosophy and practice. In East Asia, moral justification for bureaucracy is broadly understood to be based on the work of Confucius and his followers. Modern scholars confirm that the primary countries of East Asia have distinctive bureaucratic cultures tracing to Confucian ideology. Distinctive elements of Confucian ideology include rule of man versus rule of law, distinctive characteristics of good public officials, the nature of moral conventions and practices in governing, the importance of education and merit for public officials, how good officials should deal with those in political power, the logic of civil reciprocity, and the nature of order in society. Following descriptions of each of these elements of Confucian moral justification for bureaucracy, the article closes with a comparison of Western and East Asian approaches to the moral justification for bureaucracy.