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BUREAUCRACY
Reported by: Ruth B. Nimo
PSHSS-OED
I. UNDERSTANDING
BUREAUCRACY
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is the collective organizational
structure, procedures, protocols, and
set of regulations in place to manage
activity, usually in large organizations
and government. It is represented by
standardized procedure (rule-following)
that guides the execution of most or all
processes within the body; formal
division of powers; hierarchy; and
relationships, intended to anticipate
needs and improve efficiency.
A bureaucracy traditionally does not
create policy but, rather, enacts it.
Law, policy and regulation normally
originates from a leadership, which
creates the bureaucracy to put them
into practice. In reality, the
interpretation and execution of policy,
etc. can lead to informal influence.
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Four structural concepts are central to any
definition of bureaucracy:
1. a well-defined division of administrative
labor among persons and offices,
2. a personnel system with consistent patterns
of recruitment and stable linear careers,
3. a hierarchy among offices, such that the
authority and status are differentially
distributed among actors, and
4. formal and informal networks that connect
organizational actors to one another through
flows of information and patterns of
cooperation.
1. A formal hierarchical structure
2. Management by rules
3. Organization by functional specialty
4. An “up-focused” or “in-focused”
mission
5. Purposely impersonal
6. Employment based on technical
qualifications
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 Governments
 Armed forces
 Corporations
 Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs)
 Hospitals
 Courts
 Ministries
 Social clubs
 Sports Leagues
 Professional associations
 Academic institutions
 Perhaps the early example of a
bureaucrat is the scribe, who first
arose as a professional on the early
cities of Sumer. The Sumerian script
was so complicated that it required
specialists who has trained for their
entire lives in the discipline of writing
to manipulate it.
 In later, larger empires like
Achaemenid Persia, bureaucracies
quickly expanded as government
expanded and increased its functions.
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 The most modernesque of all ancient
bureaucracies, however, was the Chinese
bureaucracy. During the chaos of the
Spring and Autumn Period and the
Warring States Period, Confucius
recognized the need for a stable system
of administrators to lend good
governance even when the leaders were
inept.
 Modern bureaucracies arose as
government of states grew larger during
the modern period, and especially
following the Industrial Revolution.
 Along with this expansion, though, came
the recognition of the corruption and
nepotism often inherent with the
managerial system, leading to civil service
reform on the large scale in many
countries towards the end of the 19th
century.
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II. BUREAUCRACY IN THE
PHILIPPINES
BUREAUCRACY IN THE PHILIPPINES
Bureaucracy refers to administrative instrument or
organization which exists in each modern political
community for the attainment of the community’s
social objectives (public policies). Broadly viewed, the
bureaucracy is equivalent
to the entire governmental
institution.
More restrictively
interpreted, the following
current usage, it refers to
the civil service.
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IMPORTANT PHASES IN THE EVOLUTION OF
THE BUREAUCRACY IN THE PHILIPPINES
A. The Pre-Spanish period – a period of cultural inadequacy, during
which the social and economic foundations for bureaucratic
organization and bureaucratic action had not been developed.
B. The Spanish Regime centralized the political life of the numerous
native communities in the archipelago.
 Introduced a system of public
revenues and public expenditures
 Introduced a social institution: the
bureaucracy
The paramount, and ultimately fatal, defect
of the Spanish bureaucracy, was the fact that
the private interests and personal behavior of
its members effectively subverted the
declared principles of the colonial
administration.
… EVOLUTION OF THE BUREAUCRACY IN THE
PHILIPPINES (continuation)
C. The Philippine Revolution of 1896 – an attempt by the leaders of
the Filipinos to practice the principles of government which the
Spanish regime consistently professed but could not execute.
D. The American Regime continued what the Philippine Revolution
started. Thorough reorganization of the bureaucracy was in fact
easily accomplished.
 There was much room for innovation
 For the first time, the principle that
public office was a public trust was
practiced
The principal concern of the American
colonial administration was the protection
of the civil service from the spoils system of
party politics, and not the training of
Filipinos for technical and administrative
positions.
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… EVOLUTION OF THE BUREAUCRACY IN THE
PHILIPPINES (continuation)
D. Japanese Wartime Occupation – conditions during this time
disrupted and corrupted the bureaucracy.
E. The Philippine Republic, 1946-1972
 A strong president, a bicameral legislature and an independent
judiciary comprised the tripartite democratic structure ordained
by the Philippine Constitution of 1935, and carried over into the
new Philippine Republic of 1946.
 The US continued to intervene in Philippine affairs.
The bureaucracy assumed the major responsibility for these
programs; the civil service continued to regard itself as an
arsenal of means and not the articulator of values.
 The Philippine civil service could be characterized as highly
trained and professionalized even though it continued to be
inefficient and ineffective.
CHARACTERISTICS OF PHILIPPINE BUREAUCRACY
1. Vulnerability to Nepotism
2. Perpetuation of the Spoils System
3. Apathetic Public Reaction to Bureaucratic Misconduct
4. Availability of External Peaceful Means of Correcting Bureaucratic
Weaknesses
5. Survival of Historical Experience
6. Non-special Typing of Bureaucracies
7. Lack of Independence from Politics
8. An Instrument of Social Change and Innovation
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III. BUREAUCRACY FOR
DEMOCRACY
 The inevitable friction between
the new political leadership and
the holdovers of the past
government, especially the
permanent bureaucracy.
Nevertheless, the success or failure
of the new ruling group rests, to a
significant extent, on how this
underestimated relationship with
the career service is resolved.
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Two Main Forms of the Struggle:
1. Executive Ascendancy (or Bureaucratic Subordination)
The political leadership bases its claim to supremacy on
the mandate of God or of the people, or on some notion
of the public interest. This might be legitimated by
elections, force, or de facto acceptance by
the citizenry. Under the liberal model,
control runs through a single line from the
supreme authority through its
representatives (the political leadership)
to the bureaucracy. Where power is derived
from the people, this is called “overhead
democracy”.
2. Bureaucratic Sublation of, or Co-equality with, the
Executive
The bureaucracy of any country is not merely an
implementing mechanism and have power apart from
that delegated by the political leadership.
A bureaucracy that recognized its power may
attempt to be on an equal footing with the
executive by expecting its ready-made policy
proposals to be accepted without question
and its demands for recognition and benefits
supported generously by its formal superiors.
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The basic distinguishing factor of the democratic-
authoritarian axis is power concentration.
1. Democracy – Power is supposed to reside in the citizenry
in a democracy. Those designated as “power-holders”
are accountable to the people and govern in their name.
Power is thus distributed in a democracy;
those who want to exercise power
compete freely and openly for it. Transfer
of power to others outside the incumbent’s
circle is supposed to take place peacefully
and according to accepted rules.
2. Authoritarianism – While democracy tends toward
openness and alternation, authoritarianism “is excluding”,
concentrating power in one person or clique. The
government is inaccessible to groups outside of the
dominant clique except when it mobilizes the
citizenry for its own ends. Power relations
are organized in favor of the executive.
Authoritarianism puts repression in the
front of the cart, relying on state violence
to control dissent. Such display of state
power is justified in the name of stability
and order, which in that system are values
prized over individual liberty.
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 Administrative development recognizes the civil service as
a political body which not only has its own values and
commitments but also acts on them. However, not all of
its political activities are necessarily developmental: it is
developed only to the extent that it husbands its
resources and actively seeks to bring what it
considers to be the public good.
 Administrative development must also involve the delicate
job for maintaining the balance of power between
bureaucracy and other political actors. Normally, this
would refer control by the political leadership which is its
legal and institutional superior.
 is the turnover of power which is peaceful and without any
untoward incident. The civil service was transferred from one
president to the next with little upheaval.
The first move of the political leadership is to deal with its bureaucracy,
and the usual first option is to try to change it.
Each president put his stamp on the bureaucracy through
 Personnel and organizational changes (the executive appointed
agency heads and aides)
 Summarily remove political transients and casuals (the vacancies
created become convenient openings for followers of the new gods)
 Other recourse was to restructure the bureaucracy (created offices
directly under their supervision to identify what would be their main
thrusts)
 Reorganization commissions (to inject some order into the government
corporate sector)
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The bureaucracy has its own means of fighting back.
 First, it draws on its institutional memory and expertise to make
itself useful and indispensable to the new team
 The bureaucracy may use the same sources of its strength against
fledging leaders (the higher civil service may not provide the
political leadership the information it needed for policy
formulation)
 A bureaucracy may become more active in looking out for itself
(Other civil servants find in the entry of a new regime the
opportunity to legislate proposals to protect their turf and enlarge
their powers)
 Holding back on performance may also be seen as another
bureaucratic strategy
REFLECTING DEMOCRACY
 Undemocratic means for democratic ends
Many leadership taking over from defeated democrats or
delegitimated dictators have used short cuts to improve the
bureaucracy.
Clear guidelines, procedures in good-faith, a just and effective
appeal machinery, and fair compensation packages can help to
quiet the critics and validate a government’s claim to democracy.
 Social justice for the rank-and-file and for the poor
As the state authoritatively allocates values in society, so does it
create and maintain an internal structure of rewards and benefits
to the people in the government service. An executive that takes
power-pledging justice to everyone is expected not to exploit its
partners in the endeavor.
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REFLECTING DEMOCRACY (continuation)
 Dispersing power
A democracy by definition is a government that disperses power, or
more accurately, one that encourages, nurtures and allows many
people to wield power.
The advocate of bureaucracy find in its increasing strength vis-à-vis the
leadership a hope that it can serve as guardian of the public interest.
The model is the bureaucratic reformer who charges forth to bring
democracy to the people – with or against the leadership.
However, this reformist bureaucracy stance presents certain danger:
1. Weakening the link between the leadership and the bureaucracy
will not necessarily push the latter to seek guidance from popular
groups.
2. The implicit assumption seems to be that the bureaucracy can lead
in the transformation of society because of its expertise and good
knowledge of development issues.
3. The problem of accountability is not solved by allowing one group
to make unrestrained decisions, no matter how well meaning.
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The bureaucracy is a problem-solving system; it
has a whole arsenal of technology for every
imaginable problem. Its development along
technical lines has been the usual prescription of
administrative reformers.
The best bureaucracy is one whose
expertise is utilized and tamed for
higher democratic purposes.
The best imaginable system is one
where an executive with the will to
substantiate democracy is assisted by
a bureaucracy that believes in this
goal and does all it can to achieve it.
Therefore it must develop the
democratic means that will enable the
bureaucracy to fulfill its mission, even
as the latter from its own view tries to
modify its policies.
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