Theories of Political Control of

Bureaucracy
1 BACKGROUND
Politic is an art and science for someone to gain authority constitutionally
and unconstitutionally. An authority is an institution of the citizens of a State
and as such constitutes an implement for the achievement of community
objectives. The right of an authority to exist located in its obligation to act in
accordance with the directives of those whom it is supposed to serve.
Political people called a politician, which is a person holding or seeking a
position within a government, obtained by means of an election, voted for
either by people or by a definitive group in the government, for example
people's representatives, Mayor or Regent (legislative).
It is said that government institutions exist to satisfy the intellectual and
material needs of the community, but community needs usually exceed the
resources available for their satisfaction. Effective, efficient and economical
action is therefore expected of legislative and executive institutions. A major
proportion of the responsibility for ensuring that optimum results are
obtained with the expenditure of resources therefore rests with the
bureaucracy.
Bureaucracy is as an organization which has a chain of command with the
shape of a pyramid, where more people are below than the upper level,
usually found in the institution of administrative. Bureaucracy people or
bureaucrats are the person who is appointed as one of the people who run
a government and does everything according to the rules of that government
(executive).
Politic and bureaucracy are two very different things but both are linked to
each other by a relationship called political control and they cant be unbind.
Political Control is the control given through power of position held by
influential political personnel. Might give them the authority to appoint an
individual to an office, allow or refuse participation in any formal group or to
give additional benefits (thelawdictionary.org).
Control of bureaucracy theorist accept some form of the politicsadministration (or policy administration) dichotomy. The dichotomy is
described and accepted explicitly; other time it is simply assumed. But the
logic of political control of bureaucracy theory is difficult, if not impossible,
without
assuming
significant
distinctions
between
political
and

administrative phenomena in democratic government. The dichotomy was in

the separation of legislative and executive power.
The separation of powers was altered by the emergence of a merit-appointed
professional and permanent civil service. Woodrow Wilson (1887/1941) wrote
in his essay in regards to Public Administration: The field of administration is
a field of business. It is removed from the hurry and strife of politics....
Administration lies outside the proper sphere of politics. Administrative
questions are not political questions. Although politics sets the tasks for
administration, it should not be suffered to manipulate its offices
(Wikipedia), so he clearly stated that politic should not meddle in
administration and administration should not meddle in politics. This is
stated in the early stages of civil service and made the dichotomy was
accepted by public for a while until it was challenged by Dwight Waldo
(1946) and Herbert Simon (1947/1997) for each different reason. Waldo said
all administrative acts were political at a fundamental level, and Simon set it
was difficult empirically to unbundle politics from administration, and vice
versa. This challenge made the dichotomy disappear for a couple decades
only to reemerge and alive well until now and found in control of bureaucracy
theory.
What is Political control of bureaucracy theory? It is an approach to the public
administration theory, especially related to the problem of agreements or
willingness to act. The main sources of bureaucracy power include the ability
of bureaucrats to control the flow of information and thereby determine what
their political masters know, the benefits they enjoy as permanent and fulltime officials, and their status as specialists and guardians of public interest.
It is even more important that, according to Andrew Heywood "... unchecked
bureaucratic power spells the demise of representative and responsible
government. For political democracy to be meaningful, appointed officials
must in some way be accountable to politicians who, in turn, are accountable
to the general public. Indeed, one of the longstanding criticisms of liberal
democracies is that behind the facade of party competition and public
accountability lies the entrenched power of bureaucrats who are responsible
to no one. Guarantees against corruption, maladministration and the
arbitrary exercise of government power must therefore be established"
(1997:182). The above quotation makes clear beyond doubt that control
must be exercised over the bureaucracy.
The significance of control of bureaucracy theory is that it provides for the
analysis of public administration by making distinctions between political and
administrative acts or actions and/or between political and administrative
actors. The second important assumption in the control of bureaucracy
theory, elected officials, including legislators and executives (presidents,

governors, mayors), should control the decisions and actions of appointed

(usually civil service).
Theory of political control of bureaucracy basic purpose is to clarify and
ascertain how the administration can be accountable from subordinate to the
institutions designated official of democratic decision making. Wood and
Terman (1994) stated that the bureaucracy which is highly responsive to face
changes in the political environment and sometimes purposing to refuse the
control from their political actors, but when this happens, it may simply fight
on behalf of the public interest rather than as an attempt to weaken the role
of policy makers.

2 THEORY
The theory of political control of bureaucracy in Public Administration is
primarily based on the assumption of dichotomy or distinction between
political and administrative acts or actions or actors. As long as this
distinction holds, the theories that support political control of bureaucracy
can clearly explain about public administration as a guide to take actions for
public services. The second important assumption in this theory is the
control decisions and actions on appointed officials engaged by elected
officials, both legislatures and executives. Two assumptions mentioned above
are still debatable due to the proper range of discretion given to bureaucracy
to carry out public services. Donald Kettl explains that some students seek
vigorous state vested with strong administrative apparatus, while the other
seeks balance of power to protect from tyranny.
Are bureaucracies responsive to the elected officials?. Are bureaucrats out of
control?. These questions appeared as political control over bureaucracy
main assumption is politics administrations separation. Thus, it needs
several supporting theories to describe dichotomy logics in bureaucratic
control.
It is already known that elected officials are responsible for setting law and
policy, while appointed officials or bureaucrats are responsible in carrying out
policies. In contrast, what mostly happened in this era is the mixture of
policy engagement between elected and appointed officials as shown in the
graph. The graph describes the control limitation of policy over
administration and vice versa. But, the graph doesnt explain the pattern of
politics administration relationship.

James H. Svara used each party responsibility to depict the pattern of politics
administrations interaction. But, again, it is hard to presume who
responsible in making policies and carrying out administrations. Then, Svara
set out four categories of governmental activity to illustrate each party tasks.
The categories consist of Mission, Policy, Administration and Management.

Drawing mission and policy are eleted officilas responsibility, and conducting
administration and management are under appointed officials authority.
Greg J. Potasel also used Svaras functional categories in explainng the
bureaucrats responsiveness toward elected principals. He found there was a
gap of leadership that would drive the elected appointed officials
relationship and the degree of political control of bureaucracies or
bureaucrats.

Theories of bureaucratics role and behaviour are needed to explain the

second question. Theories of bureaucratic capture explains clearly the
political control toward bureaucracies. The scope of this study is in regulatory
process and independent regulatory commissions. There are three versions
which form this theory, they are:
1. The influence of regulated/licensed industries over the regulator
2. The domination of triumvirate policy actors in bureaucratic process
3. Elites control over bureaucracies.
This theory refers to the interaction among regulated industry, regulatory
agencies and relevant legislature committee. What is regulatory agency? It is
an agency created by legislatures which given wide discretion in particular
field of business.
The implementation of bureaucratic capture in local government area is
called theories of client responsiveness. It is assumed that elected prinipals
create agencies to employ professional bureaucrats to carry out direct public
service. Those bureaucrats have different client-serving orientations and
wide discetion in responding their needs. In short, these proffesional
bureaucrats are captured by their clients.
Contrary to the assumption of client responsiveness theory in local
government, Michael Lipsky (1980) found that street-level bureaucrats are
not si much aptured by clients due to limited resources and daunting social
tasks. They also tend to not so responsive to elected principals due to
ambigious and conflicting goals in public services. But, these bureaurats are
not out of control as they carry on services based on clear laws and policies.

Appointed officials behaviour toward political control is also explained by

Judith Gruber (1987) who found that they are likely to be self-serving and
control resist. These bureaucrats define political control as winning election,
passing statutes, making policy and approving budget. Gruber also found
that professional association and development of technology greatly
influence the discretion of street level bureaucrats.
The question about political control over bureaucrats also reviewed by theory
of agency which studies the influence of principals and agents. This theory
assumes the hierarchical connections between elected officials or principals
and appointed afficials or bureaucrats or agents. The connection can be
reffered to the transaction between buyer and provider of services. Both
parties have their own interest and their relationship is dynamic through
time. The important tool to control bureaucracies is reporting card to hold
their performances accountability. This card can be used as control
maintenance and establishment as it has standardized format and provide
simultaneous data.

3 EXAMPLE
34 ministers of Kabinet Kerja which had been announced by Joko Widodo, 13
ministers of whom are professionals of political parties and 21 ministers from
the other is purely professional.
Minister of the political parties, they are the leaders and cadres of the party
supporters Jokowi-Jusuf Kalla, Partai Demokrasi Indonesia Perjuangan (PDI-P),
Partai Kebangkitan Bangsa (PKB), Partai Nasional Demokrat (Nasdem), Partai
Hati Nurani Rakyat (Hanura) and Partai Persatuan Pembangunan (PPP).
From PDIP, a number of politicians appointed as minister is Puan Maharani,
Yasonna H Laoly, Tjahjo Kumolo, and AAGN Puspayoga. Of the PKB, the
minister representing Imam Nahrawi, Hanif Dhakiri, and Marwan Jafar. Of
Nasdem, ministers representing Ferry Mursyidan Baldan, and Siti Nurbaya. Of
Hanura, representing the minister Saleh Husin and Yuddy Chrisnandi. While
the PPP is representing Lukman Hakim Saifuddin.

4 SWOT ANALYSIS & CONCLUSION

Theories of political control of bureaucracy have a basic objective to explain
and ensure how administration can be accountable and subordinate to the
formally designed institutions of decision making (Frederickson, et al, 2012).
This objective would maintain that one could separate administration from
politics. This thought alone, represents both the fundamental strength and
fundamental weakness of this framework. As long as the dichotomy holds,

the theories in this chapter can provide solidly, explanation of public

administration that serves as a guide to action for public engagement.
In thinking about public administration theory, the dichotomy of politicsadministration separation is helpful in that it provides parsimony to theory
development and application; to the contrary however, sometimes the real
world doesnt act dichotomously in this regard and overlap or poisoning of
the dichotomy occurs. One powerful reason to include this theology into the
coursework is that Dwight Waldos foundation writings (1947) come into play
here, particularly from the aspect that it isnt possible for the fundamental
level of administration to be separated from politics. Frederickson (2012)
points out that an attack by Waldo is one that presents a difficult challenge
to the rooting of any dichotomous ideal in the past or in the future and
represents a cornerstone for any student studying public administration.
Strength:
Provides for the analysis of public administration by making distinction
between political and administrative acts or actions and/or between political
and adminitrative actors. These distinctions are especially useful analytically
because they provide for the parsing of variables on the basic of politics
(usually independent variables) and administration (usually dependent
variables)
Weakness:
The logic of political control of bureaucracy is difficult, if not impossible,
without assuming significant distinction between political and administrative
phenomena in democratic government.
Opportunity:
In the reform era and the early decades of public administration, it was
probably assumed that administration entailed a generous range of
discretion that held open the doors for technical expertise and administrative
efficiency. And it was further assumed that the line between policy/politics
and administration was a firewall. The empirical critique of the differences
between policy and administration could be
As theories of political control of bureaucracy indicate, to unbundle politics
and administration is a key to understanding how politics control
bureaucracy and how bureaucracy influence politics and policy. Therefore, it
is wrongheaded to approach the subject of public administration on the
assumption that politics and administrations are more or less the same thing.
The preceding review indicates that the many and richly varied forms of
politics and policy and the equally varied forms of public administration can,
when put into the same equation, advance the development of verifiable
theory.

Unfortunately, the political control literature rarely measures any

bureaucratic variables, let alone bureaucratic values (Political Control Versus
Bureaucratic
Values:
Reframing the Debate, Laurence J. OToole, Jr 2005). In general goal conflict
between politicians and bureaucrats is assumed rather than measured,
despite evidence that many relationships are marked by goal consensus
(Meier, Wrinkle and Polinard 1999). In a few cases, some authors use the
notion of revealed preferences and infer bureaucratic values from agency
outputs (Scholz and Wood 1999; Krause 1996) or assume that values are
captured in a lagged dependent variable (Wood 1992). Three exceptions can
be noted. Sabatier, Loomis and McCarthy (1995) use proposed forestry plans
to estimate bureaucratic values; Eisner and Meier (1990) employ
professional training; and Gormley, Hoadley and Williams (1983) use
surveys. For the most part, however, the political control literature fails to
measure bureaucratic values adequately, thus, limiting what can be said
about how well political officials direct bureaucratic actions.
Conclusion
Theory of political control over the bureaucracy was born on the basis of the
dichotomy between politics and administration in which the main objective is
to separate between the political tasks which in this case is represented by
the legislator and administrative tasks conducted by bureaucrats. But along
with the times, the separation between political and administrative tasks is
seen ambiguous. As theories of political control of bureaucracy indicate, to
unbundle politics and administration is a key to understand how politics
control bureaucracies and how bureaucracies influence politics and policies.