Discuss the changing perspectives of Weber’s Bureaucracy.

Following Weber, both the proponents and opponents have generally assurned that only anadvanced socicty. culturally arranged on rational principles, would be compatible enough to sustain such legal-rational administration. This means it was presumed that a legal-rational organisation can seldom achieve maximum efficiency in less advanced societies. However. during the mid-twentieth century, increase in complexities of societal existence of individuals on democratic and equity principles has brought about greater dependence on government agencies both in advanced as well as in less advanced countries. While this phenomenon had hetped bureaucracy to achieve an all-pervasive status, concurrently, it grappled with administrative dysfunctions, suchas inert, inefficient, corrupt. unmanageable, unresponsive, unaccountable, invasive procedures etc. These dysfunctions are collectively called ‘bureaucratisation’.

 

Drawing evidence from research findings, Caiden (1991) attempts to reflect the systemic and organisational deficiencies in terms of bureaucratic inertia and complacency. In the early [970s, a unique experiment was conducted at the Institute of Administration, University of Ife, Nigeria, where 72 Nigerian civil servants took part in evolving case studies of maladministration. The study revealed six dysfunctions of bureaucracy that prevented officials from taking initiatives vis-a-vis corruption and lack of integrity. community conflict and aggression, sectarian conflict, incfficiency, misconduct and indiscipline and poor authority relationships. Further, few chronic problems were identified by scholars and activists. such as inordinate delays, nor-availability of officials at all levels, lack of concern towards the grievances of citizens or groups, lack ofa humane approach and the like.

 

Post-Weberian view has been people-oriented us against structure-onented and there has been a tectonic shift from the mechanical impersonalised Weberian structure to human development paradigm. This means inclusion of more flexible structures and giving up the obsession for productivity and secrecy. as it was believed that organizational productivity sans human development was meaningless. At the level of the organisation, it was recommended to develop qualitative factors, such as new ethos, situational response, greater accessibility, greater openness and transparency and above all inter- personal relationships. Over the last few decades, governments’ role has become increasingly complex, equal credit has also been given to the role of bureaucracy, as it touches the quality of lift on citizens on everyday basis. On one end of the continuum, there has been a widespread acknowledgement of ‘people's participation’ with goverment and bureaucrats for eflective governance but on the other end, there is an increasing concern about how the bureaucracies are using ‘power’.

 

According to Bhattacharya (2008, op.cit.), at the heart of these concerns is ‘accountability’: for what and to whom are bureaucracies answerable? How the bureaucracies are held accountable? As the most important solution to the chronic

problems faced by the government in general and bureaucracy in particular, there has been a growing demand for ensuring new ethos, such as, ‘accountability’ and ‘transparency’in administration. ‘Openness’ ‘accountability’, ‘responsibility’, ‘answerability’, ‘responsiveness’ all represent pretty much a similar process. Both scholars and practitioners believed that increased application of this new ethos could overcome the dysfunctional aspects of bureaucracy, wherein ‘performance’ could greatly outweigh procedures and rule of thumb.

 

Any discussion on ‘bureaucracy’ for the 21“ century is indeed thought provoking. Based on the past experiences and current realities, we could reasonably conclude that bureaucracy for the forthcoming decades calls for reorienting and reprioritising our goals and strategies. Bureaucracy did suffer from social hiccups, which have been highlighted by thinkers and activists as ‘bureaucratic leviathan’. To overcome these lacunae, a number of tools and strategies have also been implemented, both in advanced and less advanced countries, some of which worth mentioning are: introduction to Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in administration and governance, Right to Information(RT1), decentralisation of authority (as against centralised authority), strengthening of local governance through gram sabha, citizens’ charters, citizens’ report cards, grievance redressal mechanism, and the like. Thus, in spite of'so many pros and cons, one is not bewildered to find that bureaucracy has justified its inevitability in accordance with today’s realities.

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