Bureaucratic Power

Bureaucracy, defined as “rule by the bureau,” entails the power of career officials in large organizations and can be considered a form of government. Max Weber defined the bureaucratic organizational form as allocation of competencies within a hierarchical body, continuity of office, impersonality of treatment, working according to rules, and expertise entailing selection by merit and training. Bureaucratic power comes from authority vested in particular positions and technical expertise acquired through training and official sources of information available only through administrative channels. A further form of ideational power arises from the domination of a bureaucratic mind-set, an “iron cage” of reason, permeating from the bureaucracy across society. Bureaucratic power limits political elites' capacity for control, and limits individuals' freedom in society. Weber saw multiple sources of power in society, oversight by Parliament, and effective political leadership as ways of curbing bureaucratic power, and his work contains a critique of socialism as empowering bureaucracy both by creating more of it and removing countervailing forces. In contrast, Marxists see bureaucratic power emanating primarily from class power.

In contemporary research on public organizations within the liberal democratic state, most attention focuses on power relations between the bureaucracy and elected politicians, citizens, interest groups, and others, and on the blurred boundaries between “politics” and “administration.” Bureaucrats exercise discretion in implementing laws, make secondary laws in areas delegated to them, and exert influence through advice—particularly to politicians. Multiple stakeholders are variously seen as constraining bureaucracies' autonomy or enabling bureaucrats to use conflicting demands to exercise greater autonomy. Policy development often involves complex learning in networks across public and private boundaries, with bureaucrats sharing power with other actors. Research has examined political control and delegation to bureaucracies, including the role legislatures play in this activity and bureaucratic “regulatory” oversight of other parts of the bureaucracy. Sources of power from personal and professional positions, as well as from formal bureaucratic posts, have been noted, especially the discretion of street-level bureaucrats in public services involving direct contact with citizens. Challenges to bureaucratic power from the use of competitive quasi-markets, private sector contractors, and target regimes have been a focus of recent research.