Governmental Bureaucracy

Governmental Bureaucracy

Introduction

Albert Einstein is credited with stating, "Bureaucracy is the death of all sound work," which illustrates the public perception of government bureaucratic institutions. The public views bureaucracies as inefficient, uncaring, stagnant, unsuccessful, and a waste of both taxpayer time and money. In fact, government institutions that serve the public, such as taxing authorities and documentation services, are viewed as bureaucratic nightmares where customers must fight through long lines of red tape to obtain service and where employees are bound and immobilized by hundreds of rules and regulations that virtually guarantee poor or incomplete service. This generally amounts to frustration on the part of the customer and a cry for governments to redesign services to better meet the needs of customers (Bilgin, 2007). The more a customer fights for service, the more entangled in the web of bureaucracy and the more frustration mounts against the agency. Where bureaucracies fail is in distribution of services to customers, in that a bureaucracy's greatest weakness is in the belief that policies and procedures are everything and outcomes are nothing.

This paper aims at presenting a detailed analysis of the concept of “Bureaucracy”, as well as, its performance and reception by the public over the years and recent times. The research seeks to explore the causes that have contributed to the decline in the popularity of the phenomenon amongst the general public. Lastly, the paper seeks to determine measures and actions that may help in building trust and confidence amongst the public for Bureaucracy.

Decline in Public Support for Governmental Bureaucracy

Bureaucracy, since its introduction and formation by Weber, has often been criticized as being both stagnant and limited in functionality. While Weber felt and proposed that bureaucracy was the fundamental form of the organizational structure because of its ability to be highly efficient, many highlighted the inherent flaws with the bureaucratic structure and pinpointed the many known and perceived issues (Stillman, 2004). Many experts mocked the bureaucracy and stated it would fail because to enable a bureaucrat to function successfully, it is necessary to give him maximum operational freedom. Since bureaucracies are designed around limited autonomy and rigid rules and structures, opponents claim functionality would be limited within such a structure. Early in the formation of bureaucracy, studies argued bureaucracies rigidity, overemphasis on rules and regulations, and lack of class consciousness and public relations would lead to a very limited functionality of any organization that adopted the structure and would ultimately lead to stagnation on the part of employees, managers, and the organization.

Cynicism about government and bureaucracy has become widespread, and the general public, those who are to be served by government, feel the system has flaws, rife with local issues, and does not have the ability to perform its functions and duties to the public (Anderson, Carter& Lowe, 1999).

Public Support for Bureaucracy in The Past

Bureaucracies meant to provide efficient, reliable, smooth-flowing, and steady outputs. However, to accomplish their goals of strict and reliable efficiency and production, bureaucracies rely on rules, specialization, meritocracy, ...