Weberian Bureaucracy Research Articles

The digital society and provision of welfare services

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to: first, explain why a new model of the provision of welfare services to citizens arises from the digital society; second explore some core elements of the competition between the new model of the provision of welfare services and the classic ideal model of the professionals’ provision of welfare services; third, suggest why it is most likely that the two models of the provision of services are combined into a symbiotic co-evolution scenario; and fourth, examine why and how this symbiotic co-evolution scenario results in new participatory spaces for the main actors associated with the provision of welfare services. Design/methodology/approach The review of the literature examines how the new model for the provision of welfare services facilitated by big data challenges the traditional professional model for the provision of welfare services. The authors use the Danish case to illustrate a number of themes related to this looking at the hospital sector as an example. Findings The proposition is that a symbiotic co-evolution scenario will emerge. A mix of the classic ideal model and practice of the service professionals’ provision of services and the digital society’s model of the provision of services is the most likely scenario in the years to come. Furthermore, Data-driven management (DDM) as an integrated key element in a symbiotic co-evolution creates (opens up) participatory environments and spaces for the main actors and agents associated with the provision of welfare services to the citizens. Research limitations/implications DDM’s impact on the provision of welfare services is still being realised and worked out, and more empirical research is needed before it is possible to point at the most likely scenario. However, according to the authors’ analytical framework, the institutional logics perspective, as presented in Section 2, a symbiotic co-evolution is most likely such that DDM will constitute a new logic within the provision of welfare services on the basis of which citizens as end-users could be provided with welfare services, but it is not likely that the new logic of DDM can displace the classic service professionals’ model of the provision of welfare services. Therefore, the new logic of DDM will be combined with and integrated into the existing logics within service provision, such as the Weberian bureaucracy, the Street-Level Bureaucracy, the New Public Governance and the Market. In spite of this, DDM can successfully be promoted by international management consulting firms, as a management concept which can remedy all the problems of the classic service professionals’ model of the provision of welfare services to citizens. Practical implications As a consequence of this, new relationships among professionals, data analytics, (middle) managers and citizens will be created regarding the provision of welfare services. Considering the new participatory environments and spaces and the new relationships among the classic service professionals, the data analytics, the (middle) managers and the citizens as end-users, the provision of welfare services may become an arena for negotiation of a new future model of the provision of welfare services to citizens. Originality/value The digital society has emerged from and developed further via: digitising, online information in almost real time, algorithms, data-informed decision-making processes, DDM and, ultimately, big data. The authors expect to see further digitising, more sophisticated algorithms and more big data. The authors suggest that a new model of the provision of welfare services to citizens will emerge from the development of the digital society. The authors also suggest that this new model will compete with the classic model of the provision of welfare services.

Aid and state-building, Part I: South Korea and Taiwan

Under what conditions does foreign aid in the aftermath of war foster state-building? This article argues that institutional legacy and continuity and the politics of aid may matter. In the aftermath of war, for an aid regime to reinforce state-building, it may need to ensure continuity in the strength of the state and to use recipient mechanisms and finance policies that generate a greater state capacity. The existence and continuity of a Weberian state may increase the likelihood of effective state-building. If the state is relatively strong, with a Weberian bureaucracy, aid can further reinforce it when aid is spent through national systems or is aligned with local priorities, with efforts to ensure that the recipient leaders reinforce state effectiveness by implementing policies that may require greater state capacity. Evidence for this argument is provided through pairwise comparison of state-building patterns between South Korea and Taiwan.

How a demanding employment relationship relates to affective commitment in public organizations: A multilevel analysis

It has recently been recognized in the public administration literature that multiple reforms coexist in public organizations, ranging from the Weberian bureaucracy to New Public Management and, more recently, new public governance. This study develops a typology of the employment relationship with features of these macro‐level changes and tests their impact on the civil servant's affective commitment by including the individual‐level social exchange relationship. This multilevel model is tested with data from 936 employees in a public organization. The findings confirm the existence of different approaches to the employment relationship: overdemanding, mutual investment and moderately demanding. Civil servants in a mutual investment employment relationship are most affectively committed, and civil servants in a moderately demanding employment relationship benefit most from a positive social exchange relationship. Implications for public management theory and practice are discussed.

Do the Advantages of the Weberian Bureaucracy Outweigh Its Disadvantages?

Bureaucracy is a highly misunderstood and infamous concept which has been taken in varied perspective by public at large. For a state, the rule of law is the most important prerequisite to its contributory existence and bureaucracy act as a tool to it. This essay attempts to bring out the good and bad part of Weberian model of bureaucracy and then analyzing them to find out whether the benefits outweigh the disadvantages or not. There are various schools of thoughts which are having different ways of looking at bureaucracy and finding its pros and cons as per their interpretations and convenience. People of a society enjoy the benefits of the civilized system by virtue of the effective role of the bureaucracy, however they are always finding themselves comfortable in coming out with negative and positive criticism of the bureaucracy. This essay attempts at finding out both the sides of the arguments and leaves with the readers the scope of interpreting them as per their extent of understanding them.

From Power Elites to Influence Elites: Resetting Elite Studies for the 21st Century

The dominant theory of elite power, grounded in Weberian bureaucracy, has analyzed elites in terms of stable positions at the top of enduring institutions. Today, many conditions that spawned these stable ‘command posts’ no longer prevail, and elite power thus warrants rethinking. This article advances an argument about contemporary ‘influence elites’. The way they are organized and the modus operandi they employ to wield influence enable them to evade public accountability, a hallmark of a democratic society. Three cases are presented, first to investigate changes in how elites operate and, second, to examine varying configurations in which the new elites are organized. The cases demonstrate that influence elites intermesh hierarchies and networks, serve as connectors, and coordinate influence from multiple, moving perches, inside and outside official structures. Their flexible and multi-positioned organizing modes call for reconsidering elite theory and grappling with the implications of these elites for democratic society.

Patchwork Leviathan: How Pockets of Bureaucratic Governance Flourish within Institutionally Diverse Developing States

Within seemingly weak states, exceptionally effective subunits lie hidden. These high-performing niches exhibit organizational characteristics distinct from poor-performing peer organizations, but also distinct from high-functioning organizations in Western countries. This article develops the concept of interstitial bureaucracy to explain how and why unusually high-performing state organizations in developing countries invert canonical features of Weberian bureaucracy. Interstices are distinct-yet-embedded subsystems characterized by practices inconsistent with those of the dominant institution. This interstitial position poses particular challenges and requires unique solutions. Interstices cluster together scarce proto-bureaucratic resources to cultivate durable distinction from the status quo, while managing disruptions arising from interdependencies with the wider neopatrimonial field. I propose a framework for how bureaucratic interstices respond to those challenges, generalizing from organizational comparisons within the Ghanaian state and abbreviated historical comparison cases from the nineteenth-century United States, early-twentieth-century China, mid-twentieth-century Kenya, and early-twenty-first-century Nigeria.

Bureaucratization in a Changing Society: Administrative Reforms in Late Nineteenth Century Chile

ABSTRACTDuring the 1880s, a significant number of Chilean administrative services were reformed following the characteristics of the Weberian bureaucracy. From the analysis of two cases of administrative reform (the so-called Prussianization of the Chilean Army and the creation of institutions in the field of public health), this article seeks to understand why bureaucracy gained ground in nineteenth century Chile. Specifically, the article discusses how social conditions led policy makers to choose bureaucracy as a model for administrative organization. Through this analysis, the article aims to contribute to the theoretical discussion on the causes of bureaucratization.

Administración pública comparada: análisis de laboratorios públicos de Brasil y Argentina

In recent decades, influenced by the crisis of the weberian bureaucracy and by the ideals of the New Public Management (NPM), the public administration has sought to implement a management model that tends to the effectiveness of state action and the delivery of the desired results to the population. In the perspective of the NPM applied to public health policies, in particular those related to the production of medicines, there are government actions aimed at reaching their necessary supply, among which stands out the investment in the infrastructure of public laboratories that mainly aim at the autonomy in the production of medicines for public health systems, guaranteeing proper quality and fair prices. Given the need to compare different realities within the public administration, it was observed that the situation in Brazil is not far from the one in Argentina regarding the public production of medicines. In this scenario, the main objective of this paper is to compare the management of the processes carried out by the public pharmaceutical laboratories of these countries. To do this, the following public laboratories are analyzed: Institute of Drug Technology (Farmanguinhos), located in the State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and Pharmaceutical Industrial Laboratory S.E. (LIF) of the Province of Santa Fe, Argentina. Based on a process approach that comes from three models of excellence in public management from Brazil and Argentina, different categories are generated. They reveal the need and importance of comparatively analyzing the process management of these organizations, as well as identifying dimensions of the process management literature present and absent in the phenomenon studied.

El uso de las cartas de servicio en la administración local: el caso del Ayuntamiento de Torrent

Las Administraciones Públicas han sufrido una serie de cambios fruto de su adaptación a un contexto cambiante y lleno de incertidumbre. Teniendo en cuenta estos aspectos, el Ayuntamiento de Torrent ha desarrollado la estrategia Torrent INNOVA englobada dentro de un sistema de gestión de calidad que sigue el modelo EVAM. Dentro de este, las cartas de servicio son un instrumento importante para contestar al entorno y aplicar las nuevas innovaciones administrativas.

“Undocumented and unafraid”? Challenging the bureaucratic paradigm

ABSTRACTAmong immigrant rights activists, journalists, and scholars the term “undocumented” has gained support as an alternative to the criminalizing and dehumanizing “illegal.” By contrast, this essay critiques so-called DREAMers' articulation of an “undocumented” subjectivity, arguing that the term, invoking a Weberian bureaucracy, undermines activists' cooptive intent and subversive agenda. To be undocumented in what Robert Hariman calls “a polity of offices,” which privileges the written text, is to be both unintelligible and powerless. These constraints, however, may be circumvented by the use of web-text for mobilization, recruitment, and networking. Informed by Gregory Ulmer's notion of “electracy,” I posit web-text as transitional, potentially capable of contesting the authority of the bureaucracy.

Value-Based Integrity Management and Bureaucratic Organizations: Changing the Mix

ABSTRACTThis article examines integrity management initiatives designed to introduce more value-based elements in public bureaucracies. Incorporating value-based practices, which emphasize the personal ethical responsibilities of individual public servants, into a hierarchical, rule-based system may present difficult organizational problems. A central issue is to determine whether any change has actually occurred or whether the organization is simply functioning as it did previously. In addition, there are problems of implementation: new value-based initiatives may conflict with the pre-existing system; they may not be adequately reflected in training programs; and there may be differential impacts on departments and agencies. We analyze problems in this new organizational mix in a classical Weberian bureaucracy, the Hong Kong civil service. The findings are based on a 2011–2012 administrative ethics survey of 355 senior public servants, a separate survey of 70 Ethics Officers, and semi-structured interviews with 32 senior public servants.

In Defense of Weberian Bureaucracy Against the Ideology of Anti-Bureaucratic(or Neo-Liberalism) Administrative Reform: Focusing on the Concept of ‘Rationality’

In Defense of Weberian Bureaucracy Against the Ideology of Anti-Bureaucratic(or Neo-Liberalism) Administrative Reform: Focusing on the Concept of ‘Rationality’

What’s Wrong with Patronage?

Patronage is treated as a discrete phenomenon through which political, bureaucratic, and wider social behaviour may be analysed and explained. As such, it is commonly seen as an obstacle to (or as a stopgap for) effective administration; as a feature that is in some respects compatible with (and may aid) democracy; and as behaviour that is quite simply different from practice within Weberian bureaucracies. I wish to point this debate along a slightly different path. I suggest that a more nuanced approach (and one closer to everyday experience) is yielded when patronage is recognized as an aspect of social relationships. Viewed in this light, there is more than enough material in the existing literature to reveal a link between patronage, formal organizations and democracy. I then go on to discuss briefly why relationships modulate such that certain aspects are brought to the fore; and to consider the implications of this explanation for existing views on patronage and the genesis of organizations and democratic patterns.

The developmental state in Brazil: comparative and historical perspectives

The record of successful developmental states in East Asia and the partial successes of developmental states in Latin America suggest several common preconditions for effective state intervention including a Weberian bureaucracy, monitoring of implementation, reciprocity (subsidies in exchange for performance), and collaborative relations between government and business. Although Brazil failed to develop the high technology manufacturing industry and exports that have fueled sustained growth in East Asia, its developmental state had a number of important, and often neglected, successes, especially in steel, automobiles, mining, ethanol, and aircraft manufacturing. Where Brazil's developmental state was less successful was in promoting sectors like information technology and nuclear energy, as well as overall social and regional equality. In addition, some isolated initiatives by state governments were also effective in promoting particular local segments of industry and agriculture. Comparisons with East Asia, highlight the central role of state enterprises in Brazil that in effect internalized monitoring and reciprocity and bypassed collaboration between business and government (that was overall rarer in Brazil).

Opening a Non-exit State

This article presents the passport policy of communist Poland, from the late 1940s to 1980. In the late 1940s, the policy and the institutions that implemented it were given objectives and forms similar to those in the USSR. This Soviet-type policy was in principle a non-exit policy; issuing a passport was an exception that required a solid justification. However, after 1953, following the Soviet Thaw, Polish leaders gradually relaxed the restrictions on exit, which allowed for massive outflows, mainly to Germany and Israel, and for development of temporary mobility, mainly within the Soviet bloc. In the late 1950s, the Polish party restricted emigration but it did not return to the Stalin-era non-exit model. The party developed a new, complex passport policy, which favorably viewed mobility within the bloc and was selective toward travel to the West. This allowed international mobility to expand to a mass scale and become part of the lived experience of millions of Poles. The police apparatus that implemented the policy also expanded and evolved into a complex bureaucratic machinery, but to its end it combined the features of a Weberian bureaucracy with the characteristics of a revolutionary, extralegal “secular arm of the party.”

Policja typem biurokracji Weberowskiej w zarządzaniu

Policja typem biurokracji Weberowskiej w zarządzaniu

The Chinese Paradox of High Growth and Low Quality of Government: The Cadre Organization Meets Max Weber

Much research has argued for the importance of state's administrative capacity for development. Disregard for the rule of law and failure to get corruption under control are seen as detrimental to economic and social development. The China paradox refers to the fact that in all commonly used measures of levels of corruption and the quality of government, China is a country that scores quite low. China also lacks the Weberian model of bureaucracy that is seen as central for development. It is argued that this paradox is the result of disregarding the existence of a different public administration model in China—the cadre organization. Instead of rule following, this organization is marked by high commitment to a specific policy doctrine. The argument is that while very different from Weberian bureaucracy, this organization is well suited for effectively implementing policies for economic and social development.

Administrative values in the mainland Chinese and Hong Kong public services: a comparative analysis

Public bureaucracies shape the values of their officials in ways that affect performance and behaviour. By contrasting those administrative values in mainland China and Hong Kong and how they impact on such issues as attitudes towards the organisation, superior–subordinate relationships, conflict and conflict avoidance and responsiveness to change, the character of the bureaucracy and the dynamics of interactions within it can be better understood. From the findings, the most important determinant of differences is that the prevailing conception on the mainland is of a bureaucracy where authority is lodged in the person (“rule of man”), whereas in Hong Kong, Weberian bureaucracy (“rule of law”) is the dominant form. The study draws both on quantitative material derived from the same survey conducted among senior civil servants on the mainland and in Hong Kong and on qualitative material from interviews with officials.

A Cross-Country Study of the Relationship between Weberian Bureaucracy and Government Performance

This paper challenges the long-term criticism of the efficiency of the Weberian model of bureaucracy, on the hypothesis that its performance or competitiveness might be context specific, as what works best in some bureaucratic settings is unlikely to work to the same degree in others. To perform this assessment, this study analyzes relationships between characteristics of the Weberian model of bureaucracy and government performance in nations possessing different levels of democratic development. The key finding of this research is that the Weberian characteristic of bureaucratic professionalism is most strongly and positively associated with good government performance in nations where democracy is less developed. This can have special implications for developing countries, where democracy is usually not well established and furnishing good governance with a well-functioning bureaucracy is an urgent goal for effective implementation of development programs.

Administrative Rationalization and Economic Performance in some South-Eastern European States

The field literature establishes an intrinsic connection between administrative rationalization and economic performance of a state. Dahl (1947) and Simon (1976) conclude that the rational model of administration influences both the governance and corporate bureaucracy. Rationality and performance become the bases of good governance. Recent studies of Evans and Rauche (1999) or Matei and Matei (2011) emphasise relevant statistical analyses that demonstrate the interdependency between bureaucracy and economic growth. In this context, the current paper aims to achieve and present a study on the quality of bureaucracy, emphasised by the features of rationality specific to Weberian bureaucracy and economic performance, expressed, for example through synthetic indicators, such as GDP per capita. The target group of states analysed comprises Romania, Croatia, Bulgaria and Greece. The research methodology includes the valorisation of results in the framework of other European projects and their statistic and economic interpretation in view to highlight the changes determined by the European Union enlargement.