dependent on a salary. They do not own the means of administration. They
cannot take personal possession of a share of any tax revenues that they
might be empowered to collect. Officials are merely paid a salary in return
for their services to the state.
This reinforces the demarcation of official jurisdictions. There is a clear
division of labour within a bureaucratic organization. It is divided into dif-
ferent offices to which attach certain clear-cut powers – regular, stable and
precisely defined authority. This is sometimes represented graphically in an
organigram or organizational chart set out as a pyramid of offices. The offi-
cials occupying such offices have clearly defined powers laid down in
abstract rules. Their authority will be closely prescribed by those rules.
They will be engaged in applying general rules to specific cases. This is a
particular feature of government bureaucracies and especially those bureau-
crats who encounter members of the public on a face-to-face level. They
deal with the public as claimants or people who feel they are entitled to
something that the state has to allocate, and that they fall within the category
that the state has defined as being in need of, and entitled to, some benefit.
The task of the bureaucrat is to make the allocation in a fair, impersonal and
impartial way, treating like cases alike and having regard for nothing other
than the factors that the regulations deem to be relevant. The bureaucrat is
interested in nothing about a claimant other than what the regulations define
as significant for arriving at a decision. If, for example, the official works
for a small farmers development programme which defines entitlement in
terms of size of land-holding, all the official needs to know is how much
land the applicant occupies. All other aspects of the claimant’s life – age,
gender, race, tribe, caste, language, family size, place of origin – are irrele-
vant unless the law brings one or more of them into the calculation.
This brings us to another meaning of bureaucracy and one which most
readily occurs to the ordinary person if they use the term. That is inaccessi-
ble administration, rigid decision-making bound up in ‘red tape’, and insen-
sitivity to personal circumstances and needs as defined by the applicant
rather than the bureaucracy. This is what Robert Merton referred to as the
‘dysfunctional’ or ‘pathological’ traits of bureaucracy. Rational organization
and procedures deteriorate into inefficiency. In particular, ‘strict adherence to
regulations’ induces ‘timidity, conservatism and technicism’ as well as con-
flict with clients (Merton, 1952, p. 367). Bureaucracy becomes an end in
itself and thus self-defeating. It becomes characterized by buck-passing,
red tape, rigidity, inflexibility, excessive impersonality, oversecretiveness,
unwillingness to delegate and reluctance to exercise discretion (Heady,
1959). Such bureaucrats are perceived as being unconcerned with personal
158 Understanding Third World Politics