Bureaucratic Elite Research Articles

THE ROLE OF THE ECONOMIC RENTS IN THE POLITICAL TRANSFORMATION OF TURKEY AFTER THE 1980S*

It is claimed in this article that one of the main aims of the “bureaucratic tutelage” system in Turkey is to control the distribution of the economic rents created by the import-substituting industrialization. Thus, economic statism and the bureaucratic control over elected politicians were compatible with each other until economic liberalization in 1980. Even a limited economic liberalization created great opportunities for the politicians to weaken the power of the bureaucratic elites, particularly military officers. Thus, there is a strong relationship between economic liberalization and democratization in Turkey after 1980. However, even though, bureaucratic tutelage is regressed, Turkey is still far from having a transparent government and efficient public organizations. The conventional explanations are not adequate to grasp the intermingled relations between economic and political institutionalization in Turkey. Therefore, public choice may help to understand the role of the economic motivations of the political actors/elites in the context of shaping the political institutions. The political actors are seen as utility maximizers within the limits of institutional rules and practices, and the institutional change is explained with the help of changing interests and power relations of these actors. Enlarging economic liberties have gradually forced bureaucratic tutelage system to dissolve. For sure, dissolving the bureaucratic tutelage system is not a perfect or an intended process but examining this process from Turgut Ozal to Tayyip Erdogan gives us a theoretical framework to understand the political transformation of Turkey in the era of an open economy.

Construindo uma burocracia econômica de excelência: concursos de seleção para o Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social (BNDES), de 1955 a 2012

O artigo tem o objetivo de assinalar mudanças no perfil das elites burocráticas recrutadas para conduzir o desenvolvimento econômico brasileiro. Para tanto, faz uma descrição detalhada do processo de recrutamento dos profissionais de nível superior que integram o quadro de funcionários do Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social (BNDES). Por meio da análise dos editais dos concursos que o Banco fez de 1955 a 2012, pretende-se examinar de que modo inflexões no processo seletivo e nas características daqueles que o Banco pretende recrutar variam de acordo com a trajetória da própria instituição. Serão apresentados, portanto, eventos da história do Banco e alterações nas funções desempenhadas por ele que podem ter tido impactos sobre os procedimentos e conteúdos exigidos na seleção de pessoal. Procura-se, assim, adentrar o universo dos concursos de seleção, considerados requisitos essenciais para a produção de burocracias públicas de qualidade, a partir de uma instituição frequentemente mencionada como paradigma das ilhas de excelência da burocracia econômica do Estado brasileiro.

Between Scylla and Charybdis? Twenty-Five Years Administrating the Contested Region of Brussels

Although Belgian politics has experienced numerous political conflicts in the post-war period, the Brussels political system has, since 1989, remained relatively stable. This has led some scholars to suggest that Brussels may be experiencing a depolarization of its traditional linguistic cleavages. In this article, we analyze the possible realignment of these divisions and the possible emergence of an identity based on the urban territory. We trace the development of the public administrations at sub-state level in Brussels post 1989 and add new data on the often neglected elite-level bureaucrats and their individual attachment perceptions. This topic is most relevant as the organization and functioning of the public administrations have proven to be one of the major politically and socially divisive issues of the power-sharing agreement. The article draws on published and unpublished documents and interviews with 20 elite-level bureaucrats from four distinct public administrations operating in Brussels. The findings suggest that a regional urban attachment is emerging among the bureaucratic elite; however, this attachment would not prove robust if either community were to feel threatened. The likelihood of unintended policy making, which would have unintended consequences, is quite high given that the bureaucratic elite do not have confidence in the administrative structures of the city. The findings should be of interest to those interested in identification perceptions and to those studying other more fragile environments in and around Europe’s borders that may one day consider adopting the Brussels approach to conflict management.

The Social Lives of the Elite: Friendship and Power in Pakistan

The ways in which elite individuals perpetuate their power and privilege and so reinforce existing social inequalities within developing country contexts are analysed in this article. I argue that in highly politically and economically unstable environments, socialising between the uppermost bureaucratic, political, military and business elite serves to create intimacy and obligation between individuals who may be functionally useful to one another, and strengthens and reinforces elite privilege. In examining the motivations that drive the ways in which elites socialise, I contend that the blending of affective and instrumental relationships is reflective of the deep insecurity experienced by elites in contexts where they cannot expect their power and privilege to be upheld by the state.

The Performance of Forestry Human Resources in Licensing Forest Utilization, The Lease of Forest Area, and The Release of Forest Area

Performance assesment includes the quantity and quality measurements of individual or group works within organization in carrying out duties and functions. It is based on norms, standard operational procedure (SOP), and specified criteria in an organization. Factors affecting quality and quantity of individual performance in an organization are skills, experience, ability, competence, willingness, energy, technology, leadership, compensation, clarity of purpose, and security. This study aims to identify and analyze the performance of forestry human resources (HR) related to licensing forest utilization, releasing forest area, and leasing forest area. The results of the study are: (1) the performance of forestry HR in licensing forest utilization was relatively still poor; (2) the structure (rules, norms, cultural cognitive) of forestry HR was unclear and is not well developed; and (3) the culture of learning organization, including personal mastery, mental models, shared vision, team learning, and system thinking is still insufficient and needs to be developed at the ministerial, provincial, and district/city levels. Some suggestions for improving the performance of forestry HR are: (1) establishing an appraisal team/task force of forestry HR performance; (2) developing commitment for high quality service at the bureaucratic elites and their highest level networks; and (3) considering the development of one stop licensing supported by online system to promote transparency and public accountability.

Rising Powers and Regional Orders: China's Strategy and Cross-Strait Relations

The neo-Gramscian approach has become popular within academic debates to theorize processes of global neoliberal convergence. But, it has also been challenged in the context of the ever more pronounced regionalizing tendencies of the current multipolar global order. This is especially so with the rise of China which introduces an alternative logic to regional social order formation processes from a typical neoliberal capitalist social order convergence. This paper argues, however, that a Gramscian approach can precisely account for such regional social order formation processes through the concept of regional historical blocs. This is demonstrated through a case study of the social order shaping effects that a Cross-Strait historical bloc forged between China's ‘contender state’-wielding elite bureaucracy and Taiwan's ascendant social forces has had on fostering Taiwan's internationalization toward China. This illustrates that, in addition to a broader global social order convergence process, a neo-Gramscian approach is equally useful to explain similarly defined regional social order convergence.

Administrative reform in South Korea: New Public Management and the bureaucracy

This article analyzes the political dynamics of South Korea’s recent administrative reform. We argue that successive South Korean governments’ New Public Management-inspired reform programs have only achieved partial success. In particular, they have largely failed to attain their ultimate goal – i.e. significant weakening of the traditionally strong elite bureaucracy in policymaking. The bureaucracy in the country has not become weakened as a result of the reform. Rather, the central government ministries have augmented their power and institutional autonomy. Those who were in charge of designing and implementing reform measures were bureaucrats themselves who were supposed to be the ‘target’ of the reform. Such situation, in which the reformers were expected to reform themselves, has resulted in numerous incidences of sabotage, delay, obstruction, and distortion of the reform. This article concludes that it is crucial to consider the local contexts in which reform initiatives are adopted, interpreted, accepted, legitimated, and concretized for implementation.Points for practitionersAdministrative reform often brings unintended consequences. New Public Management-inspired reform, with its intention to weaken the strong elite bureaucracy, could ironically result in the augmentation of the bureaucracy. The main reason for this is because it is usually the bureaucrats themselves who design and manage the process of administrative reform. It is also the elite bureaucrats who define, operationalize, and implement specific reform measures. Therefore, it is crucial for the reform supporters to ensure adequate popular oversight mechanisms outside the bureaucracy at various stages of the reform process, such as citizen monitoring or civic participation.

Does Crowdsourcing Legislation Increase Political Legitimacy? The Case ofAvoin Ministeriöin Finland

Crowdsourcing legislation gives ordinary citizens, rather than political and bureaucratic elites, the chance to cooperate to come up with innovative new policies. By increasing popular involvement, representative democracies hope to restock dwindling reserves of political legitimacy. However, it is still not clear how involvement in legislative decision making affects the attitudes of the participants. It is therefore of central concern to establish whether crowdsourcing can actually help restore political legitimacy by creating more positive attitudes toward the political system. This article contributes to this research agenda by examining the developments in attitudes among the users on the Finnish website Avoin Ministerio (“Open Ministry”) which orchestrates crowdsourcing of legislation by providing online tools for deliberating ideas for citizens' initiatives. The developments in attitudes are investigated with a two-stage survey of 421 respondents who answered questions concerning political and social attitudes, as well as political activities performed. The results suggest that while crowdsourcing legislation has so far not affected political legitimacy in a positive manner, it has the potential to do so.

Cashing in on land and privilege for the welfare of the shah: Monetisation oftiyūlin early Safavid Iran and eastern Anatolia

The assignment of land as tiyūl to early Safavid military and bureaucratic elites was conditional on their emoluments being subjected to direct taxation on annual basis. Between 914 and 918/1508 and 1512, the money-based disposal of tiyūl land assignments boosted Shah Ismā‘īl’s control over fiscal resources in Iran. In the province of Diyarbakir, however, the Safavid practice of tiyūl expedited dynastic transition, enabling the new regime to uproot the regional allies and partners of the Aqquyunlu. A glimpse at monetisation of tiyūl brings necessary torch into the dynamics of bureaucratic centralisation and its political implications in this early phase of territorial expansion and political absolutism in the Safavid history. The principal primary source this study explores is an unpublished fiscal statement, kept as document E. 1071 at the Topkapi Palace Museum Archives in Istanbul, that details the taxes paid to central treasury by early Safavid tiyūl-holders in Iran and eastern Anatolia over the course...

The Institution of Russian Imperial Governorship in Historical Retrospective According to P. P. Stremoukhov's Memoirs

This article analyzes a high-ranking official's attitude toward the administrative system. Governor Petr Petrovich Stremoukhov provides a retrospective description of the bureaucratic elites, their qualifications, and the rules invoked in selecting personnel to fill various positions. It also analyzes how the authorities' attitude toward society affected the governor's work (a topic of special interest in an area populated by non-Russians).

Evaluation of the Population to the Elites as an Indicator that Reflects the State of the External and Internal Security of the State

This article analyzes the assessment of status and approaches the study of contemporary regional political elites influencing the decision of the administrative, political and administrative decisions in transitional societies, suggestions to improve the process of modernizing elites, discussed a number of problematic transit of elitology: to create an effective talent pool at all levels of political and administration, the openness of elites at all levels, the organization full control over the government and management structures, compliance with the law. Objective: To study the perceptions about the activities of the federal and regional political elites, the study characteristics of the formation of the Russian federal and regional elites, ways to improve the state personnel policy, the interaction of the elites in the domestic socio-political space, to improve the transparency of government. Methodology: used historical and legal, formal-legal, structural and functional and analytical methods. Results: Materials of sociological research on «Modern regional elites», which involved respondents from the Republic of Adygea, Dagestan, Bashkortostan, Komi, the Chechen Republic, the Altai, Krasnodar, Stavropol, Kaliningrad, Kurgan, Rostov, Ryazan, and Chelyabinsk Chita regions. The basic assessment of the status and prospects of development of modern Russian elitology problems recruiting Russian federal and regional political elites, the interaction of the elites in the domestic socio-political space. Reflects perceptions about the regional political elites considered as an indicator that reflects the status of the internal security of the regions. The analysis of the criteria of elitism, determine a set of personal and professional qualities of the persons recruited into the elite. A convergence of opinions and experts and respondents of the public that the elite must meet four main criteria: professionalism, education, high morality and patriotism. In this case, the respondents took the professionalism much larger proportion than the experts. The experience of the modernization of the American political elite, ensured the American withdrawal from the protracted socio-economic crisis in the first half of the last century and experience reformatting the national elite of the Republic of Korea, which was able to bring the country out of a deep crisis in the postwar period. Discussion: Discussions of modern elitology, quoted in the article, were part of the First All-Russian elitological Congress of Russia: Current State and Prospects of Development», held in Rostov-on-Don, 7-8 October 2013. There were suggested that the main problems lied in the absence of Russian «new» elite, ready to take on new roles and manage «in a new way.» Reasoned thesis that in societies in transition, what continues to be a Russian, generally one can not speak of the elite. There are only certain conditions for its occurrence, the starting material or protoelite that does not fulfill its basic function, but only seeks to remain in power. In other words, the country has the political class, but there is no elite, because its content does not match the form. Noted a discrepancy between elitism, understood in the traditional sense of the concept, and the possession of real political power, which ultimately determines the low competence of a significant number of defendants who have fallen into the elite, bringing them into the elite layer of corruption mechanisms of activity, lack of motives for self-improvement. It was stated that in today’s Russia in individuals who do not have sufficient funds, social support and family relationships with superiors, the chance to break into the elite is almost zero. As a result, the authorities are in the «average» of the second and third echelons of the bureaucratic elite, from which creativity is pointless to wait. Novelty / originality / value: the article is original, has scientific value, since it is one of the first attempts to objectively assess the real state of the federal and regional political elites, to analyze the level of development of the domestic building materials of First All-Russian elitological Congress.

OSMANLI İMPARATORLUĞU’NUN SON DÖNEMİNDE BÜROKRATİK ELİTİN MODERNLEŞME ÇABALARI VE MİSYONERLİK FAALİYETLERİ

The bureaucratic elite of the Ottoman Empire initiated a modernization process during the 19th century in order to prevent the decline of the Empire. However, the Protestant missionary schools that were established as part of the modernization process played a significant role for strengthening ethnic nationalism in general and Armenian nationalism in particular. As a reaction to the rise of ethnic nationalism, the bureaucratic elite tried to create a homogeneous nation thorugh eliminating ethnic nationalisms. This idea of creating a homogeneous nation has been the basic philosophy of the early Republican era.

Developing the Guts of a GUT (Grand Unified Theory): Elite Commitment and Inclusive Growth

Two key unanswered questions in theories of growth are (a) why some countries successfully initiate episodes of rapid growth while others suffer extended stagnation and (b) why some countries are able to sustain growth episodes over many decades of rapid (or steady) growth while other growth episodes end in reversion to stagnation or collapse. We create an analytical model that is capable of generating both transitory and sustained episodes of accelerated growth. The new feature is a feedback loop from existing economic conditions the pressures on policy implementing 'institutions.' This feedback loop can be positive (with economic growth leading to improved institutions for inclusive growth) or negative (with economic growth leading to worse conditions for further growth by shutting off the inclusiveness of growth and limiting economic opportunity to existing successes). Whether economic elites use their influence activities with political and bureaucratic elites to create more possibilities for economic structural transformation or, conversely, use their power to entrench their privileged position will, to a significant extent, determine whether episodes of rapid growth can be sustained or will peter out, or even be reversed. The mechanisms for elite commitment to sustained inclusive growth are discussed.

Audience and Rhetorical Presentation in the Variae of Cassiodorus

This article considers the extent to which Cassiodorus’ epistolary collection, known as the Variae, shows signs of rhetorical adaptation. In particular, the paper suggests that the fall of Ravenna to the emperor Justinian in 540 compelled Cassiodorus to fashion an ideological defense on behalf of the bureaucratic elite who had served the Gothic rulers of Italy. The Variae, as a collection of administrative and legal letters written during Cassiodorus’ public career at the Gothic court, were designed to provide a positive presentation of the record of bureaucratic service at Ravenna. Because the Variae were prepared for circulation in the volatile circumstances of the Gothic War, Cassiodorus had to anticipate audiences that were both receptive and hostile to the idea that the governance of Italy under the Gothic Amals had been successful. This article explores how Cassiodorus navigated audiences with mixed sympathies by examining the prefaces to the Variae and a sampling of the more ideologically charged letters of the collection.

Articulating Social Science in the Wild of Global Natures? On Economics and Anthropology in Transnational Environmental Politics

Building on multisited ethnographic case studies, this paper seeks to contrastively compare the demonstration and articulation formats of two social science expert cultures—economics and anthropology—enrolled ‘in the wild’ of transnational environmental politics. How, the paper asks, do different social sciences come to be configured within, and do performative work upon, heterogeneous assemblages of global natures? In the first case US economists translate carbon markets into a world of Indian ecoprofessionals, across serious North–South conflicts in climate politics. In the second case a group of anthropologists, mobilized by Japanese bureaucratic elites, deploy their methods to assemble whaling cultures, as part of global biodiversity conflicts. Whereas the first case builds on existing arguments on the ‘performativity of economics' (Callon), the second case expands this agenda, noting how the noneconomic social sciences (eg, anthropology) may also be consequential in enacting particular nature-cultures. Theoretically, the paper situates these inquiries at the intersection of science and technology studies (STS) and political anthropology, in addressing the question—important to environmental expertise and politics—of how ‘local’ (particular) and ‘global’ (universal) claims are linked in efficacious ways in ‘other-than-Western’ contexts? Here, the argument will be that, despite their differences, economic and anthropological performances of global natures share certain formal (aesthetic) similarities, related to credible expert demonstrations in transnational environmental contexts. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of this claim for STS self-reflection on its politics of methods.

Corruption and the Bureaucratic Elite in Pakistan: The 1960s and 1970s Revisited

AbstractThe present paper examines the growth of corruption in Pakistan in the 1960s and 1970s with particular emphasis on the factors that influenced changes in the behavioural norms of the officer cadres or higher bureaucracy of Pakistan. The main argument is that during the 1960s increases in development spending and the manipulation of local governments by civil servants to help the Ayub Khan military regime secure legitimacy led to a substantial increase in the level of corruption. However, while the increase was alarming, the higher bureaucracy was still fairly clean and, given leadership, training and resources, in a position to contain the spread of corruption. In the 1970s the first Pakistan People's Party government enacted a number of reforms aimed at asserting political control over the civilian bureaucracy while pursuing a socialistic development model that justified nationalisation of industrial and commercial assets. These substantially undermined the ability of the higher bureaucracy to fight back against corruption while dramatically increasing state penetration of society and the economy, thus making opportunities for corruption more abundant. After General Zia-ul Haq's military coup in July 1977, the new regime, though it received plenty of good advice, was not interested in enhancing the autonomy and prestige of the services as that would diminish Zia's personal power over the state apparatus.

The Grillini in Italy: New Horizons for Internet-based Mobilization and Participation

This article looks at the case of the Grillini movement and its emergence on the Italian political scene, and discusses its contribution to the growing literature on the increasing opportunities offered by the Internet for social movement participation and mobilization. My findings are that the movement is successful in both mobilizing and promoting open debate and participation because of its policies and its use of multiple, and fairly open platforms for participation and horizontal decision-making. The Grillini have been able to conciliate the characteristics of newly emerging, Internet-based, ‘internetworked movements’ as well as the more conventional use of the Internet on behalf of well-established social and political movements. They have been able to do so by articulating issues and mobilizing on a national scale, with an increasingly large bureaucratic elite, while retaining a vibrant, partly online- and partly offline-based public sphere and decentralized organizational forms. My conclusion is that the Grillini movement, with its peculiar structure and commitment to participation and inclusion, is a crucial example of how the Internet can be used to aggregate new political issues and foster continuous debate while consolidating a growing electorally driven organization, which is still mostly held accountable by the movement's public sphere.

Q Methodology as a Tool for Committee Governance Research

The allegiance of national bureaucratic elites to European, national, institutional and policy-specific identities or associations is the subject of a growing body of European integration literature. Reviewing the methods employed by committee governance research, Q methodology is suggested as an alternative mechanism for measuring bureaucrat norms, beliefs and values. Its application to research on European committee governance could therefore increase the robustness of the qualitative element of existing mixed methods approaches. This would provide further insight into policy-making processes at the international level.

Belfast Revisited: Everyday Policymaking in a Contested Environment

A year before the much celebrated 1998 Good Friday Agreement, the Belfast electorate returned a hung Council to govern their city. The following years facilitated a transition from hegemonic or domination mechanisms of conflict management towards the traditionally more acceptable approach of power-sharing. Such a change provides an opportunity to understand the nature of public policy within an emerging power-sharing environment. Drawing on evidence from interviews with Belfast's bureaucratic elite, this article investigates how power-sharing changes the nature of elite-level bureaucrat responsibilities within a contested society. If consociational power-sharing is to be the conflict management model of choice, it is necessary that the role of the supporting institutions in driving its success is understood. Existing public administration research would lead to the expectation of greater bureaucrat involvement in the traditionally more mundane aspects of policy formulation, while in areas of greater public and political interest greater political involvement in the decision-making process would be expected. Converse to these expectations, however, evidence from Belfast suggests that the bureaucratic elite are found to play a pivotal role in the day-to-day management of power-sharing. For this reason, developing administrative capacity is a necessary condition not only for good governance but also for conflict management. Conflict management research must therefore pay closer attention to the role of the bureaucrat in the conflict management process.

Sheikh Murād al-Bukhārī and the Expansion of the Naqshbandī-Mujaddidī Order in Istanbul

The article offers a fresh look at the career of Murād al-Bukhārī (d. 1720), one of the most influential Sufi leaders of the Middle East in the late 17th/early 18th century. By origin from Samarqand, he was initiated into the Naqshbandiyya-Mujaddidiyya by Aḥmad Sirhindī’s son and became one of his most successful successors in spreading this Indian branch of the Naqshbandiyya in Syria and Istanbul and Anatolia. The reasons for the formidable followership of Murād among the Ottoman scholarly and bureaucratic elite, including some of the sultans’ close circles are elucidated, and it becomes clear that this new ṭarīqa profited from being untarnished by the bitter controversies between the Ottoman ṭuruq and their adversaries which had raged until the Vienna campaign (1683). By its strong attachment to the Sunna, and by its promise of renewal (tajdīd) it became obviously of great importance for the reforming circles at the top of the empire, and for the general rise of piety during that period, thus showing the Islamic colouring of what is otherwise often regarded as a first movement of Westernization during the so-called “Tulip period”.