Spontaneity Versus Formalization in East Europe: Some Problems of Bureaucratization under State Socialism

In: Nationalities papers: the journal of nationalism and ethnicity, Band 5, Heft 1, S. 22-66

Abstract

The dilemma of spontaneity versus formalization is more or less valid for all societies. Freedom as the availability of alternative courses of action has been a precious cultural and moral value in history. The functional requisites of societies, related to communication, production, distribution, defense, replacement of members, and social control (Lenski, Lenski, 1974:28) have provided a more or less convincing justification for the limitation of freedom. Specialization, hierarchy, rules, procedures, impersonality and cult of competence, all these bureaucratic characteristics have been treated for centuries as remedia for laziness, irresponsibility, and parochialism. The progress of formalization has historically contributed to the strengthening of authority, as a legitimized power which brings about compliance of people to behave according to the will of those who occupy crucial positions. However, rigidification of such structures has several negative side effects: dissolution of several important and useful human bonds, ineffectiveness against external change, internal struggle between various groups to preserve and enlarge their areas of discretion (Crozier 1963), keeping too much to the rules, over-adherence to organizational means (and not ends), spoiling of superiors by the power enjoyed by them, superiors spending too much of their time and effort in controlling subordinates, etc. Strict separation of office and incumbent, in the sense that the official does not possess his office, has been historically beneficial for the material well being of societies, but it also has limited the personal involvement of office occupants. In the bureaucracies people who occupy crucial positions tend to develop vested interests within the scope of their jurisdiction. The constituent parts of bureaucracies resist actions which do not serve their own purposes (the problem of recalcitrance), and people in control of these parts become the prime beneficiaries (Blau, Scott 1962) of them. The 'rules of the game' that apply to the bureaucratic organizations as human artefacts quite often prevent them from achieving a dynamic equilibrium, namely to react to forces of change in an adaptive manner. Those organizations easily transform themselves from goal-seeking entities into the security-seeking mechanisms. Following Etzioni (1965) it is possible to say that they follow a 'survival model' instead of an 'efficiency model'.