Bureacracy: Culture and organization

Stephen M. Lyon, UKC

The following notes served for a talk given at University College Islamabad. Thanks must go to the University of Chicago Sociology department for their helpful literature summaries (in particular for providing me with a very handy reminder of Crozier's book-- well done U of Chicago!).

I presented this to a class of sociology students on Thursday 22 April. My thanks for the kind reception I received and for allowing me to come speak. Those present at the talk will notice immediately that I deviated from these notes on more than one occasion. I resist the temptation to modify the notes as a result of the feedback as the purpose of putting them up is to allow the 'thinking trail' to be clear. I will of course take on board the feedback when I get time to write this up more completely.

Bureacracy: Culture and organization

Weber:

division of integrated activities which are regarded as duties inherent in the office



Bureacracy is fundamentally of distributing decision making, resources and ultimately responsibility. Traditionally hierarchical but in recent years some corporate structures are experimenting with less hierarchical models (example software industry-- 'empowerment' at lower levels).

Negative connotations in popular usage but serves a function. Ideally people at top level should not be involved in details of policy implementation. Top level formulate policy. Policy delivered to lower levels who decide how it can be implemented.

Role of culture in bureacracy. Michael Crozier in The Bureaucratic Phenomenon argues that the particular form of bureacracy in France is a result of French culture:

-''bureaucratic vicious cycle.'' It has four elements: the impersonality of
the rules, the centralization of decisions, the strata isolation, and the development of parallel power relationships.

He defends this by making the following arguments about french culture.

- the French seldom participate in positive
group activities, they lack a collective spirit in that sense

- The isolation of the different strata and their perennial fight for rank and status is linked to the isolation of the individual and the lack of a collective spirit; there are reflected in intra- and inter-organizational relations.

-The French avoid direct face-to-face authority relationships and open conflict; this is reflected in the impersonality of rules, and the centralization of decisions.

-The whole structure of authority is so devised that whatever authority cannot be eliminated is allocated so that is at a safe distance from the people who are affected.

-Impersonal rules and centralization make it possible to reconcile an absolutist conception of authority and the elimination of most direct dependence relationships (this resolves a fundamental French cultural tension).


Without necessarily agreeing with Crozier's assessment of French culture it is useful to look at culture and bureacracy as interrelated entities. Culture imposes itself on bureacracy.

Pakistan has inherited a bureacracy from another culture. British bureacracy is an overlay onto an indigenous bureacracy-- remember bureacracy as a system of distributing decision making and resources down or as a way of dividing what is otherwise an integrated set of activities.

Some of the borrowed elements patently inappropriate.

-Ex. name problem. In Pakistan no real surnames for most people. The British got around this by including a box for father's name. Pakistan continues to do this but given the relatively restricted number of Islamic names this is not an ideal solution either. Name order can change.

In Bhalot-- Malik Asif Nawaz can write his name as Choudry Asif Nawaz, Asif Nawaz Khan, Malik Asif, Asif Nawaz. In government documents his name is regularly changed around. His father's name is the same. In this case the bureacracy is unable to idenitfy who they are dealing with without some additional information.

-Ex. DOB. Most Pakistanis don't have an exact DOB. They don't know which day they were born and often have only a vague notion of which year they were born. Instead they guage age by life events. A single unmarried man still studying is young-- he may be thirty by chronological measures but his social age will be mid twenties. Likewise a married man with children is in his thirties. People's ages can jump in leaps based on life events. This is a box to be filled on every form we ever fill out for the government but it is relevant for a minority of Pakistanis.

Difference in assumptions about bureacracy

in the West (Euro and North America) we assume our bureacracy is neutral (particularly government but also corporate). Even there it isn't always neutral but the assumption is there. Bureacracy have rules that are the same for everyone.

In Paksitan this assumption is absent. This is because the indigenous bureacracy (which existed under Mughals, and Sikh kingdoms and before) was not intended to be neutral. It was be organisation a faction of the society. Today in bureacracies in Pakistan you can find sections of government which are dominated by single families. In order to get things done through bureacratci channels here it is not enough to simply show up at the appropriate government office and ask for a form, fill it in, return it and wait for the result. That is the norm in Europe. If you want an identity card in continental Europe for example you go to the city hall, you request a form which they give you along with a list of required documents. You supply the documents and the form and whatever fee is required. You then wait for your ID card to arrive. In Pakistan this is not so straightforward. In Bhalot to get an ID card first you must get the form-- the easiest way to procure a form is to pay or ask someone who has a relative or a friend in the appropriate office to get the form for you. If you go directly the clerks are highly reticent to give out their forms directly. The structure of society in Pakistan is predicated in third party intervention.

Once you have the form for the ID card you must fill it in and get the signature of one fo the designated people in your local community (numberdar, zakat committee member) who signs the form verifying that you have told the truth. You can then return the form and wait. In many cases there are then more forms required. In short the procedure is highly tortureous if you don't have the right third party intervention.

Example of my own. My visa extension. Not me who signed the documents. By myself I could not have gotten the police registration document or the stamp in my passport. Thanks to the vouchsafe given for me by the Malik who came with me that I was able to register with the police. In theory this was not an optional thing for the police. It was straightforward pro forma action. I had been accepted by the Ministry of the Interior and there was no problem with my visa extension-- but the local bureacracy is operating under a different model-- one that requires third party intervention of a personal nature.

Pakistani bureacracy does work-- I don't want to criticise though I admit to frustration. However it works in a prejudicial way. It's not enough to be impersonal and anonymous s in the west. In order to make Pakistani bureacracy work for you you must enter into a more personal relationship with someone who is either a part of that bureacracy or someone who has access to that bureacracy. This fits in general with strategies of survival in this area. People cannot survive as individuals here. Without the support network of kin groups and other social networks life is significantly more difficult here.

Back to Crozier's argument:

- the French seldom participate in positive group activities, they lack a collective spirit in that sense

Pakistanis tend to do everything as a group. Joint family housing, travelling, even dating is facilitated by group efforts. Ex. young man wants a date borrows friends car, clothes, after shave and upon return shares most of the details with his mates.



-The French avoid direct face-to-face authority relationships and open conflict; this is reflected in the impersonality of rules, and the centralization of decisions.

Punjabi culture allows direct confrontation-- allows people to have heated exchanges which do not result in physical violence. Ex servants in the villages I work in talk back to their employers sometimes heatedly-- in the end they do what they are told but arguing is not reason for employers to dismiss or punish servants. Arguments between cousins can get very heated. I worked as a manager of a group of photographers in a studio. Had any of them spoken back to me the way some of thes servants speak to their zamindars they would have been looking for a job.

-The whole structure of authority is so devised that whatever authority cannot be eliminated is allocated so that is at a safe distance from the people who are affected.

The structure of authority in Pakistan is designed to give access to people. In Pakistan the poorest person potentially has access to the highest levels of power. Ex. I have had appointments with ministers through village zamindars. These men are responsible for garnering votes for ministers so the ministers give them time. These same zamindars are in intimate contact with poor villagers. While the poorest villager will probably not have an interview with a minister-- his problem may be dealt with directly by the minister as a favour to the zamindar who intervenes. -- Again the third party intervention is still an element.

-Impersonal rules and centralization make it possible to reconcile an absolutist conception of authority and the elimination of most direct dependence relationships (this resolves a fundamental French cultural tension).

Personalised relationships and localization of bureacracy reconcile weak state structures which are modelled on a foreign bureacratic organisation with strong local groups (zamindars, biraderis, caste/quaum).

The local groups are very strong. They are certinaly not operating as they did three hundred years ago (South Asia is not a stagnant culture with no change) but they are operating on fundamentally different principles than the overlaid bureacratic ideal.

They are predicated on group loyalties, partiality, and personalised relationships. The idealised imposed model is predicated on idividuation, impartiality and impersonal relationships.

I see no real need to make a value judgement on these different systems. Pakistan works as a country. If we want to criticise bureacracies in teh west we don't have to go far. I would argue that while I often don't like Pakistani bureacracy and find it amazingly complicated to get thigns done through the bureacracy I do not believe that it's necessarily less efficient than the French or Italian bureacracies-- it's simply that it goes by different rules and when dealing with local bureacrats I must abide by local norms-- which require some personalised relationships and third party intervention. Even for a foreigner it is possible to become a part of the society enough to enter into those kinds of relationships to get things done.