Et demokratisk paradoks: Byrkratisk organisasjon Utskjelt og velbrukt

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Et demokratisk paradoksByråkratisk
organisasjonUtskjelt og velbrukt

• Johan P. Olsen
• Arena Center for European Studies, University of
  Oslo, Norway

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Det første partipolitiske program i Norge
(Uelands, 1840-årene)

• ... At formindske Embedsmændenes Skriveri ved at
  afskaffe unødvendigt Regjereri, ved at ophæve den
  embedsmæssige Deltagelse i alle Sager, som uden
  nogen væsentlig Fare kunne overlades til Folkets
  egen Forvaltning.
• F. Sejersted Norges Historie Vol. 10, Den
  vanskelige frihet 1814-1850. Oslo Cappelen 1978,
  s. 356.

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Sparsomhet, lokalt selvstyre og klasse-makt

• streng og kraftig Kontrol med Rigets
  Embetsmænd.
• at indskrænke den unødige Vidløftighed i () det
  bureaucratiske System.
• F. Sejersted Norges Historie Vol. 10, Den
  vanskelige frihet 1814-1850. Oslo Cappelen 1978,
  s. 356, 378.

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The Ups and Downs ofBureaucratic Organization

• Annual Review of Political Science 2008, 11
  13-37, editor Margaret Levi
• http//polisci.annualreviews.org

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The puzzle

• Why do democracies give birth to bureaucracies
  and bureaucrats?
• How and why has a seemingly undesirable and
  unviable organizational arrangement been able to
  weather the criticism and predictions of its
  demise over so many years and is possibly
  experiencing a renaissance?

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Outline

• The puzzle
• Bureaucracy and democracy
• Revisiting Weber
• De-bureaucratization as opening up towards
  society
• Rediscovering bureaucracy
• The main lesson Shifting mixes of enduring
  organizational forms
• Explaining the ups and downs of bureaucracy

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Democracy and bureaucracy

• An uneasy relationship both a threat and a
  functional necessity?
• Normative democratic theory An ambiguous guide

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Administrative dynamics driven by

• Functional performance
• Cultural prescriptions and normative validity
• Power distributions

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Bureaucracy

• A composite organization hierarchy, rules and
  knowledge
• Embedded in three gate-keeping institutions The
  legislature/executive, the Courts of law and the
  University

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De-bureaucratization as opening up towards society

• Results, not rules
• Citizens participation, not a dominant center
• Mixed trust in expertise

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Rediscovering bureaucracy

• Reasons for rules
• Quest for democratic leadership
• Demands for merit-based public administration

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Identifying trends is a complicated task

• the composite nature of bureaucratic
  organization, in which change along different
  dimensions is not always positively correlated.
• large-scale reform efforts are multi-faceted and
  based on partly contradictory aims and ideas.
• reform implies intervention in established
  institutional arrangements, and there were many
  starting points, not a single one.
• the precise consequences of organizational
  reforms have not been well documented, and they
  are difficult to disentangle.

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A preliminary conclusion

• In contrast to the currently popular idea of a
  post-bureaucratic world, contemporary democracies
  live with enduring tensions among institutional
  principles and behavioral logics - dilemmas to
  which there are no agreed-upon, enduring answers.
  Even moderately complex polities use a repertoire
  of overlapping, supplementary and competing
  forms, and it is unlikely that there will be an
  end to bureaucracy, markets, or participatory
  networks in the near future.

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The main lesson shifting mixes

• not administrative convergence and a monotonic
  development towards bureaucratization, as argued
  by Max Weber
• not de-bureaucratization, as argued by his
  critics
• neither a simple sequence of dominant forms
• several normative and organizational principles
  have co-existed. Yet while the components have
  been fairly stable, the significance of each
  component and their relationships has varied over
  time

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Return to the puzzle

• There is a loose coupling between bureaucratic
  rhetoric and practice, between what is said and
  done.
• At the rhetorical level Weber has lost
• At the practical level the old dog is well and
  alive

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Exploring explanations

• There is no agreed-upon empirical theory that
  identifies the mechanisms and determinants of
  (de)bureaucratization and the conditions under
  which public administration works well according
  to democratic standards.

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Distrust in holistic models

• Holistic visions such as Weberian bureaucracy,
  markets, and participatory networks predict and
  prescribe a single dominant model
• Yet, there is little reason to believe that a
  single set of principles for organizing public
  administration is functionally and normatively
  superior and that one form will replace the
  others and result in convergence

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Importing theoretical ideas

• Interpretations of public administration have
  relied upon ideas from public law, market
  economics, and democratic politics
• In search of elements of a genuine administrative
  theory

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Understanding the changing mix of endurable
and legitimate forms

• Possible processes driving the ups and downs of
  bureaucracy?
• Partly autonomous institutions, human agency, and
  macro-historical forces all matter, but there is
  no agreement regarding under which conditions one
  matters more than the others and how their
  mutual influence of can best be theorized.