| Summary: |
Can the imperatives of an administrative system be reconciled with the norms of
democratic governance? Or is bureaucracy, with its expertise, insulation, and byzantine
procedures, the enemy of popular control? These questions have been raised
wherever administrative institutions have been a key element in a broader pattern
of purportedly democratic rule. Deep suspicions have typically been aroused in
situations in which anonymous bureaucrats and their managers make decisions that
affect the outputs and outcomes of public policy. Bureaucrats themselves, on the
other hand, have been known to treat political overseers with some suspicion, if not
outright disdain and evasion.
These tensions have not dissipated with the rise of more complex patterns of
“governance†that encompass multiple organizations and stakeholders in networks
to co-produce policy results—a set of developments receiving particular attention
recently in Western Europe and North America. Indeed, the challenges posed by
such broadened notions of “bureaucracy,†loosely speaking, for democratic governance
are even greater
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