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THINKER OF THE DAY | J. S. MILL
Work – Considerations on Representative Government
Views
- Bureaucracy as professional government – Mill understood bureaucracy as government conducted by “governors by profession”, emphasising specialised knowledge and professional administration.
Expertise is its strength – Bureaucratic administration accumulates experience, develops tested practices and provides officials with practical knowledge.
Bureaucracy promotes administrative competence – Mill recognised that trained officials can perform technically complex governmental functions more effectively than an untrained political body.
But bureaucracy suffers from routine Its major weakness is the tendency to become excessively rule-bound. Mill identified routine and immutability of established practices as a fundamental bureaucratic disease.
Risk of pedantocracy – Excessive adherence to established procedures can suppress individual initiative, creativity and originality.
Bureaucratic spirit can overpower individuals – Mill warned that corps spirit may subordinate the individuality of capable officials to organisational conformity.
Bureaucracy needs democratic control – Professional administration and representative government should complement each other. Bureaucrats provide expertise, while democratic institutions provide control and accountability.
Balance is essential, Mill did not simply reject bureaucracy. His argument was for combining trained and skilled administration with popular control.
KEYWORD OF DAY | BUREUCRATIC ROUTINE
It means a regular or fixed way of doing something, especially one that is repeated frequently or Doing things again and again in the same established manner.
A government office repeatedly demanding the same documents despite information already available through digital databases illustrates bureaucratic routine overriding administrative efficiency.
PUB AD PYQ VAULT | Day 60 | 2024
“Bureaucracy in developing countries faces several challenges and tackling of these will make them more responsive, adaptive and align with development needs.” Discuss.
