Weberian Bureaucracy: What that means ?

Today, I attended an Indian Graduate Student Association(IGSA) meet. One of the agenda items was the election for the position of Event Director. Elections are organically linked to the concept of ‘Power’. Henry Kissinger once defined power as the ultimate aphrodisiac - one that governs the behavior and actions of human beings. While talking about power in the context of an organization(in the present case, IGSA), it is critical to look at what doyen on the subject has to say. The doyen I am talking about is Max Weber, one of the fathers of sociology, who provided us with the model to conceptualize organized power. In this series of essays, I will develop on this theme of power and move into the broader agenda of organizations - in particular, bureaucracy.

Weber defines ‘Power’ as the ability to execute one’s will over another individual or social group despite their resistance. Power can be coercive or non-coercive. For instance, Khap panchayat exercise the former and parental moulding of child’s behavior belongs to the latter category. Thus, the shaping of behavior of others as willed is power. On the other hand, the concept of ‘authority’ is distinguished from ‘power’ in that the former refers to a type of power that is legitimized - i.e. the follower of order obeys a command from power-holder due to inherent belief in the legitimacy of such command. An illustration of this can be found in the modern organization where an employee follow his/her boss who wields authority.

These two concepts and their distinction is central to understanding the weber’s ‘ideal model’ of authority systems and, eventually, the much-celebrated Bureaucratic ideal model. Weber calls them ideal model in the sense that these systems are mental constructs which are not to be found in reality but are crucial to understanding it. In simple words, these are just guides for analyzing the reality which is not pure or ideal as these models are. It is the same as in economics where various macroeconomic models are drawn to understand the reality even if the models are not fully commensurate with the real world. Thus, weber’s authority systems and bureaucratic system are ideal models(and it has some implications which we shall see in a moment.).

With the authority defined as the power that is legitimized, weber constructs three systems of authority on the basis of legitimacy. These are Traditional, Charismatic, and Legal-rational type of authority systems. Traditional authority system is based on acceptance by ruled of age-old belief in traditional order. For example, various gurus/rahim's/pandits exercise traditional authority in India. Charismatic authority system comes into existence due to a belief that a person has some supernatural powers. An example of this is andh bhakti of present Indian prime minister or chamchagiri of ex-president of Congress party. In both these(and also the third one we will be discussing), the authority exists because people believe so and accepts it.

The third type of authority - Legal Rational Authority - is the real focus of weber (and ours in this essay). This authority is based on a belief in the legitimacy of a set of legal rules, exercised by the members chosen via some legal procedures, and who themselves are equally subject to the same rules as everyone else. Understandably, we are talking here of an authority system on which modern government(and non government) organizations are based. Weber preferred, for obvious reasons of democracy, legal rational authority as the basis of governance and terms the administrative body that implements the authority as Bureaucracy.

Weberian model of Bureaucracy is characterized by features such as rule-based impersonal order, hierarchy, delineated responsibility and authority, permanent salaried officials with graded careers, system of accountability and appeals, merit-based appointments, written documents and so on. Of course, one can associate these features(at least some) with the everyday usage of the term ‘bureaucracy’ in our real life. But it is important to note that weber’s model is the ideal model - not to be confused with the mess of a bureaucracy we deal with in our daily lives.

Even so, weber did make some claims about bureaucracy that stands as the starting point for the discussion that follows below. According to weber, Bureaucracy represent humankind’s most rational type of organization and moreover he regarded it as the most efficient type. For him, the choice for modern organizations was between bureaucracy or dilettantism. Furthermore, while recognizing the problems that bureaucracy may create for democracy, he reconciles the conflict in favor of the former for its advantages(as he saw it). When he says “Democracy promotes that reason demands but democratic sentiments hate”, he is referring to that dilemma.

The question that arises now is whether Weber’s analysis was right as far as claims regarding efficiency & rationality is concerned. I define efficiency as ‘doing more with less’ and rationality as acting on means that leads to a predefined ends. As I remarked before, even an ordinary person dealing with government organizations will be able lament about bureaucracy. However, here, we are interested in dealing with bureaucracy as an ideal model and try to understand the implications of bureaucratization.

So, what these critiques are ? More on this next time.