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College of Education
School of Continuing and Distance Education 2014/2015 – 2016/2017
UGBS 105
Introduction to Public
Administration
Session 3 – Bureaucracy and Public Administration
Lecturer: Dr. Daniel Appiah, UGBS
Contact Information: [email protected]
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Dr. Daniel Appiah, UGBS
Session 3
Bureaucracy and Public Administration
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Dr. Daniel Appiah, UGBS
Learning Objectives
By the end of this session, students should understand:
i.Understand the concept of bureaucracy
ii.Identify and understand Max Weber’s principles of
Bureaucratic Administration
iii.Understand the advantages and disadvantages of
bureaucracy
iv.Propose solutions to problems of public sector Bureaucratic
Administration in Ghana
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Dr. Daniel Appiah, UGBS
What type of institutions of Public Administration can help public
administrators who have different values to work together to
achieve common organizational goals?
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Dr. Daniel Appiah, UGBS
What is a Bureaucracy?
The word bureaucracy is derived from two greek words;
“bureau” and “Kratos.” The word “bureau” refers to the
office, and the word “kratos” means power or rule
Generally, the concept “bureaucracy” can be
understood to mean the power of an office holder to
rule
There are public and private Bureaucratic organizations:
It is important to note that the concept cut across both
public and private organizations 5
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Three Forms of Organizational Authority
According to Max Weber, a German sociologist and
historian, the history of humankind is a struggle for
power and “It is useful to classify the types of
domination according to the kind of claim to legitimacy
typically made by each” to maintain power:
1.Charismatic authority
2.Traditional authority
3.Legal-rational authority
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Dr. Daniel Appiah, UGBS
Charismatic Authority
•Charismatic authority rests “…on devotion to the exceptional
sanctity, heroism, or exemplary character of an individual person, and
of the normative patterns or order revealed or ordained by him”
•A charismatic leader “…is considered extraordinary and treated as
endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically
exceptional powers or qualities”
•Charismatic authority According to Weber is not just the possession of
personal characteristics, but the extraordinary characteristics
attributed to the individual by others
•Dominant forms of orientation of action is mixture of effectual and
value-rational orientation
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Traditional Authority
•Traditional authority rests “…on an established belief in the
sanctity of immemorial traditions and the legitimacy of
those exercising authority under them”
•Examples of traditional authority:
Obeying your father not to bring a girlfriend home because
society says you have to respect his authority as your father
Obeying the customary rules of chieftaincy as a system of
authority because they have been upheld by the society
since time immemorial
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Chieftaincy Administration as a System of Traditional
Authority Supported by Local Communities in Ghana
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Dr. Daniel Appiah, UGBS
Legal-Rational Authority
Legal-rational authority rests “on the belief in the legality of
enacted rules and the rightness of those elevated to authority
under such rules to issue commands”
•This form of authority is equal to the rule of law where those who
issue the commands are themselves subject to the enacted legal
rules. Authority is administered in a bureaucratic manner where
there is impersonality
•Domination form of orientation of action is instrumental
rationality. It is not identical with democracy, it can be
democratic or it can be authoritarian. It can be a constitutional
monarchy. You obey the rules of the game rather than a person
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Principles of Bureaucracy
Max Weber outlined six principles that characterize a legal-rational
system of administrative authority which he referred to as a
bureaucracy:
1.Written legal rules of administrative conduct
2.Merit-based recruitment of administrative personnel
3.Impersonal administration of affairs
4.Hierarchy of Offices based on levels of graded authority
5.Specialization of work based on expert training
6.Security of tenure of employment until retirement 11
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Max Weber’s Justification for Legal-
Rational System of Bureaucratic
Authority
• "From a purely technical point of view, a bureaucracy is
capable of attaining the highest degree of efficiency,
and is in this sense formally the most rational known
means of exercising authority over human beings. It is
superior to any other form in precision, in stability, in
the stringency of its discipline, and in its reliability. It
thus makes possible a particularly high degree of
calculability of results for the heads of the organization
and for those acting in relation to it. It is finally
superior both in intensive efficiency and in the scope of
its operations and is formally capable of application to
all kinds of administrative tasks” (Weber, 1922)
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Max Weber and the Types of Institutions
of Human Organization
Max Weber’s legal rational authority is equal
to an organization with formal-legal rules of
authority
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Do the type of rules of organization matter
for administrative effectiveness & efficiency?
Do the type of institution matter for development? Do the type of
rules of organization that govern the actions of public officials matter
for administrative effectiveness and efficiency?
�Is Max Weber right? Weber argued that public administration systems
with formal-legal rules of bureaucratic authority are more effective,
efficient, transparent, accountable and promotes economic
development than those with formal non-legal rules, informal non-legal
rules, and informal legal rules
Comparative analysis of institutions and development: In the next
two pages is a table showing a ranking of the ease of doing business in
some countries. Try to find out whether the best performing countries
have well-functioning formal-legal rules of administration than the
worst performing countries 14
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Conclusion: Effective and Efficient
Bureaucracy Promotes Development
The countries that have
dysfunctional public
bureaucracies are unable to
effectively and efficiently
facilitate business start-ups,
enforce property rights,
adjudicate disputes and
ensure the rule of law have
failed to create capital for
the promotion of social,
economic and political
development!
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