At a time of near-constant attacks on government bureaucracy, it is worth considering the role it plays in a world changed by technology.
In keeping with the general theme of this blog, I'll look at the issue through the prism of eDemocracy.
As a starting point, I think it is worth beginning with the description of a "post-bureaucratic age" set out by David Cameron.
In a speech in February 2010 he sought to give the phrase some definition, saying:
"Everyone can see that the old, top down, big government solutions aren't working.
"So it shouldn't be too hard to convince people that a completely new approach to solving these problems is necessary.
"And with the huge changes that are taking place in terms of information and technology and know-how, it shouldn't be too hard to convince people that such a new approach is possible.
"This is exciting for the centre-right because it is all about people power, not big government."
Cameron said technology "allows us to make big change in the relationship between government and citizens, giving power to people on an unprecedented scale".
But he added that the "post-bureaucratic age" is more about the potential for social change than technological change.
"You can see the nature of the change we want in the phrase itself, literally going from a bureaucratic world – where the old methods like regulation, laws and diktats allow elites in Westminster to control other people's lives – to a post-bureaucratic world, where instead of government telling people what to do or forcing them to do it, people themselves have far more power and control over their lives, and where we achieve change by trying to influence people by going with the grain of human nature."
And Cameron added that "the post-bureaucratic age is just as much about behavioural economics as data transparency, about social pressure as internet protocols, about communities meeting in a neighbour's front room as in an online chat room".
Reign of the bureaucrat
There has been some suggestion that the "post-bureaucratic age" has morphed into the Big Society idea.
But to take the comments as a relatively straightforward criticism of top-down government, I think the first thing to note is that this has nothing to do with bureaucracy at all.
Opting for a top-down approach is a choice made by politicians in an effort to push through a desired set of outcomes.
It seems perfectly fair to argue that this is an ineffective approach to achieving objectives, but it seems a bit harsh to blame it on those trying to administer what the politicians have asked them to.
Cameron also seems at times to conflate the two meanings of the word 'bureaucracy', sometimes using the pejorative sense of inflexible processes and sometimes the more neutral description of an organisation delivering policy objectives.
And these day's there may also be an 'extended bureaucracy' which consists of voluntary organisations, community groups, private companies, etc which are also involved in this delivery of services.
That said, examples of slow and inflexible services and processes abound.
So where does eDemocracy fit into attempts to make these services better?
The enhanced participation which can be achieved not just by eDemocracy tools but also by wider efforts to achieve greater offline engagement is a natural fit with bureaucratic processes.
Such reforms – whether it is crowd-sourcing, ePetitions, participatory budgeting or any other – allow public feedback into the policy-making process at the service design stage and later at the delivery stage.
So in this sense Cameron was right to say that "people power" becomes more important.
But it gains in importance not at the expense of bureaucracy (which actually becomes more effective and therefore by implication more influential as a result) but at the expense of representative democracy.
This is not entirely a zero-sum game, but take, for example, one of the reforms that the Conservative leader cited in his speech – giving people more control over the shape of their communities by changing the planning system.
This has little effect on bureaucracy, but it reduces the range of options available to local planning authorities, where decisions are taken by politicians.
Cameron said "you can see how a system that was controlled by a few can be run by the many" – in this case the "few" being the elected councillors his plan would by-pass.
Yet in this reformed world, the system of state administration becomes more important than ever.
Public participation and input into policy reduces the role and scope for action of representatives. And this is what makes eDemocracy and bureaucracy natural allies.
Whither politicians?
Beside the decline in respect for elected representatives, there are also other factors which exacerbate this trend.
As Catherine Howe has written:
"Most representatives have neither the skills nor the inclination to engage with the public in the way that the public is increasing engaging with each other – collaboratively, productively and socially."
But if officials take control of the eDemocracy tools that enable them to run this engagement agenda, they gain legitimacy, and more importantly influence, at the expense of the politicians.
A post by Adriel Hampton notes that a city manager or parks manager who connects with the public through social media can effectively represent the local authority to the public.
But I suspect the flip side of this is that the official also take on an implicit responsibility to represent the public back to their organisation.
So this potential for alliances between officials and public will, over time, undermine the position of politicians.
While nominal power still remains with the elected representatives, it will be difficult for them to overturn a consensus developed between officials and public.
Their best bet, really, is to make sure they take the leadership role in engagement with the public. But I'm not sure that this is going to happen.
So to return to Cameron's analysis, I would say that the changes the prime minister is actually encouraging amount to more of a 'post-democratic age' than a 'post-bureaucratic age'.
As I've noted before though, that is something a politician could never actually say (even if they shared the analysis).
Update 21/12/2010: See also this paper by on Bureaucracy and Democracy by B. Guy Peters of the University of Pittsburgh.
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