Bureaucracy and Democracy

The Role of Bureaucracy & Administration in a Democratic Political System

Introduction

The relationship between politics and bureaucracy has been constant and recurring theme in discussions of public administration and organization of the State. From Woodrow Wilson, to late nineteenth century, with his theory of the separation of politics and administration, to the sociologist, with their theory of organizations, have attempted to explain individual and collective behavior within organizations and as bureaucratic phenomena in the state administration (Dodd, 1994). There are various analysts along with a dozen other authors who try to scrutinize policy and American bureaucracy in order to understand the relationships between them in a democratic context. These studies are a brief explanation to the understandings of those analysts and define what role bureaucracy and administration play under the democratic political system.

Discussion

The discussion between bureaucracy and politics in a democratic context presented in the study of various analysts is related to the link between bureaucracy and society, where new concepts emerging public management (NPM) as the efficiency and effectiveness in the provision of public goods and services, along with concepts such as performance evaluations, results monitoring, transparency and accountability, which give meaning to the government action and strengthen the link with the public. However, for this to be possible in a positive framework, it is necessary to understand the link with the political system and, therefore, the legal constitutional system.

The areas of study presented in American Bureaucracy and policy discussions not only address traditional public administration, but delve into contemporary issues that pose an evolution in citizen-government relations in U.S. The goal of breaking the myth is to generate a proposal on how to run the dynamic relationships between politics, bureaucracy and society, in which the public interest is the main guide. Policy linked to a company organized and professionalized bureaucracy in the analyst sense in their services, which requires daily exercise controls.

The study about democracy and bureaucracy in U.S reflects a theoretical framework which guides the new public management, whose main premise is that the mechanisms used by private organizations for efficiency purposes may be imitated in public organizations. This current concepts stick as contracts and creation of inter-organizational competition, performance evaluations and control budgeting and results. This stream has received endless criticism, as the legitimacy and public organizations in creating democratic systems have a different origin than in private as well as accountability has different direction, as applicable. The representative system of public servants and elected within bureaucracies obey incentives than those offered by a private organization. However, leaving aside the critical current, the book analyzes the bureaucracy through these boundaries and, despite the current President is the new public management; one can see a scan you want to overcome the theoretical and practical limits government action (Basu, 1990).

The study describes two major parts; first is the dealing of bureaucracy and the democratic order in U.S, and the second is the relationship between the bureaucracy, political parties and interest groups, and the controls of democratic public administration ...