Suchergebnisse

There is an old aphorism that fire is a good servant but a bad master. Something like this aphorism is frequently applied to the appropriate role of the bureaucracy in government. Because bureaucracy is often viewed as tainted with an ineradicable lust for power, it is alleged that, like fire, it needs constant control to prevent its erupting from beneficient servitude into dangerous and tyrannical mastery.The folklore of constitutional theory relegates the bureaucracy to somewhat the same low but necessary estate as Plato does the appetitive element of the soul. In the conventional dichotomy between policy and administration, administration is the Aristotelian slave, properly an instrument of action for the will of another, capable of receiving the commands of reason but incapable of reasoning. The amoral concept of administrative neutrality is the natural complement of the concept of bureaucracy as instrument; for according to this view the seat of reason and conscience resides in the legislature, whatever grudging concession may be made to the claims of the political executive, and a major, if not the major, task of constitutionalism is the maintenance of the supremacy of the legislature over the bureaucracy. The latter's sole constitutional role is one of neutral docility to the wishes of the day's legislative majority.

US administration fails in many respects to conform to Weber's model of bur'cy: a professionalized civil service has not developed in America as in Europe. The development has been further handicapped by the traditional view that gov operations should be subject to continuous scrutiny through publicity, a tradition which has been mainly upheld by the operations of legislatures & their committees, & the media of communication, particularly the Press. The expanded scope of gov regulation in the econ sphere, the growth of personnel admin, the mere growth of bur'cy itself, & even the development of public relations as a specialized function, have all accentuated the trend towards greater secrecy. The rules developed by the judiciary provide ample protection for the practice of admin'ive secrecy. Protection is complete in the area of state secrets, & very substantial so far as confidential information is concerned. Admin'ive secrecy, in the long run, will depend on the shifting fortunes of the perennial conflict between President & Congress over this issue, & upon the continuing efforts of the media of communication to push back the frontiers of secrecy at present defended by the bur'cy. IPSA.