Bureaucratic efficiency and democratic accountability : conflict or compatibility

Abstract

There is a rising concern that the traditional mechanisms used to ensure bureaucratic Efficiency and accountability of public service have been eroded as a result of organizational structuring, complexities of governmental structure, and a blurry distinction between politics and administration. Bureaucracy has now become a focal point of criticism not only for its extensive power but also for its waste and mismanagement of resources, its obscurity in decision-making process, and its insulation from political control. Public outcry about inefficiency, red taped, detailed rules and regulations, and impersonalization of treatment bear the testimony of the growing distance between the people and bureaucratic organizations. The author argues that classical and contemporary models of accountability and theoretically and empirically inadequate to provide a justifiable framework that could ensure the attainment of bureaucratic and democratic accountability at the same time. In postulating this argument the author will rely heavily upon qualitative analysis of the relevant literature.

"Administrative action in any political system, but especially in democracy, must somehow realize two objectives simultaneously. It is necessary to construct and maintain administrative capacity, and it is equally necessary 10 control it in order to ensure the responsiveness of the public bureaucracy to higher authority. " (Garvey, 1995)