problems, limiting their attention to narrowly defined circumstances that
rules happen to define as significant. Bureaucrats are caught within a double-
bind. If they do not administer the rules rigidly in order to avoid appearing to
be inflexible and inhuman, they will be accused of abusing their power, exer-
cising too much discretion and moving outside their circumscribed jurisdic-
tion; if they apply the rules rigorously, they will be accused of being
bureaupathological. The bureaucrat treads a difficult path between those two
alternatives.
‘Bureaucracy’ can also mean a form of rule, a category of governmental
system along with democracy or aristocracy. Bureaucracymeans govern-
ment by officials rather than government by the people, a single person or a
hereditary class. In many Third World societies that is precisely the kind of
government that is in place, a kind of government that in many ways is very
reminiscent of colonial government, which was also government by
appointed officials, both military and civil. In such regimes, exemplified by
military oligarchies and dictatorships, the bureaucracy is not merely a pow-
erful political force within the political process. Government is virtually
coterminous with the bureaucracy, which may also take on some of the
characteristics of a ruling class as well as a ruling stratum.
The political power of bureaucracy
A major theoretical issue concerns the political power of the bureaucracy
and how this may be conceptualized. Ideological and methodological
choices have been important here. Functionalists and Marxists have both
had distinctive things to say about the bureaucracy in the Third World. What
they chose to focus upon and the way they have interpreted the role of the
bureaucracy has depended very much upon their wider views and theories
of society and the state.
One source of political power is knowledge. In the Third World, bureau-
cracies are often said to monopolise the knowledge and expertise relevant to
government. The concentration of technical, professional and administra-
tive expertise within the bureaucracy is unrivalled. Even when there is
strong parliamentary government and virile political parties and other cen-
tres of political power, and when the bureaucrats have a constitutional role
which only permits them to advise the political executive, they do so from
positions of great influence. In many developing countries there are no
political institutions which can compete with the bureaucracy in terms of a
monopoly of technical and professional expertise. In addition, the majority
Bureaucracy and Political Power 159