To what extent are national ministers constrained by bureaucracy?

Résumé du document

The chairman of the Dáil Public Accounts Committee, John McGuinness stated in a recent newspaper said that, "actually protected by status, knowledge and powerful unions, [senior public servants] had no difficulty keeping under control those few ministers who wanted to make a difference, as distinct from those who wanted to make a career." He also denounced the fact that "the power of senior public servants expanded and their respect for ministers, and politicians generally, diminished. Balance was lost and arrogance and lack of accountability crept into the system." However, the term bureaucracy itself suggests that civil servants have a kind of power as it is made up of the French term for office ("bureau") and the Greek term for power ("cratos").

Thus, there have been many criticisms on the power of the bureaucracy ever since the development of a large, disciplined and well-organized bureaucracy in the nineteenth century in Germany, as highlighted by the economist and sociologist Max Weber. More precisely, the key relationship between elected politicians making the political decisions and non-elected senior civil servants in charge of their implementation has always been a polemical feature of democratic politics.

Extraits

[...] The potential problems are of three types: corporatism, efficiency and accountability. First of all, bureaucracies in modern democracies are suspected to adopt a corporatist behavior and to serve its own interest rather than the interest of the state. Indeed, the fact that ministers delegate their powers of elected representatives to civil servants in order to implement policies can potentially result in so-called “principal-agent problems”. These occur when an agent (the civil servants) has to execute tasks in the name of the principal (the ministers) but doesn't necessarily have the same interests. [...]

[...] On the one hand, the nature of the bureaucracy a large and complex organization makes it widely non flexible, and on the other hand one may mention the argument that the social backgrounds of top civil servants make them more likely to be conservative. In consequence, political shift are potentially undermined. Finally, the growing power of non elected bureaucrats raises a concern about their accountability. The justification of the role of senior civil servants in policy making lies in their technical expertise. But the growing complexity of the institutions made their role as advisers even more important. [...]

[...] In 1998 the Presidential Review Commission redefined the roles of director-general and ministers. This definition is useful for all European countries. According to this definition useful for all European countries, directors- general are recommended to inform and advice ministers “accurately, completely and on and implement policies “efficiently and effectively”. Ministers are recommended to “provide political leadership, vision and policy direction” as well as “oversee and monitor the implementation of policy”. Directors-general are accountable to ministers, and ministers are accountable for the performance of the ministry as a whole. [...]

[...] The first element suggesting an evolution of the relationship between ministers and senior civil servants is the new phenomenon of the cabinet du ministre, emulating the model of French ministries. Ministers across Europe have an increasing tendency to employ temporally special staff to inform and counsel them, as senior civil servants are supposed to do. The latter are then just restricted to the implementation of ministers' decisions and thus are progressively discharged of the day-to-day assistance of ministers (such as counseling, writing speeches, etc) that makes their influence so great. Though this habit is not systematical, the number of cabinets de ministre might well grow in the future. [...]

[...] It suggests adapting traditionally private methods of management to the public administration in order both to improve the efficiency and to reduce the costs of the bureaucracy. What is interesting in this concept it that it claims for a better and clearer division of roles between the political power and the administration. Indeed, the government should set the objectives while delegating power to attain those objectives to the administrative organizations and agencies. This is truly different from the Weberian model of bureaucracy where the decision of the politician cannot be taken without the expertise of the top administration. [...]