PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION UNDER PRESSURE: THE ROLE OF THE EXPERT IN THE MODERNIZATION OF TRADITIONAL AGRICULTURE
Authors: Jacobsen Knut Dahl 
Published: April 2008

The results of the present investigation can be summed up under six points:

 The officials themselves, to a great extent, had to formulate the problems they were to solve.

The general train of thought has been that the goals the administration carries into effect are presented in such a way that the administration's task consists of solving problems which are already formulated. This description is not applicable to the administrative organization under investigation. Although very precise definitions could be set up of technically rationalised agriculture, the problems which the administration had to solve were not completely formulated. Rationalization could occur in several ways — there was room for a number of productivity models. The agronomists themselves took part in formulating the problems they were to solve. They could take the dlemands for the administration's decisions for granted, as Smitt did, or try to increase the demand by establishing voluntary associations and other modernizing mechanisms.

 The definition of the problems took place under the influence of the official's “private” aims and social identifications.

The appropriate procedures selected for the ratiionalization work altered according to the social values it was based upon, aned the agronomists chose the productivity models which were in accordance with their general social attitudes. In the same way, the conflicts in which the agricultural administration was involved were caused not by disagreement over the technical efficiency of the measures but by the evaluation of the social consequences of the different methods.

 The roles of the employees were not given but the employees themselves to a greater or lesser extent took part in forming them.

The description of the administration's positions and roles as given is not applicable to the administrative organization we have examined. The officials' freedom of choice during the structuring of the role varied according to the clientele the agronomists decided to work with.

 The structuring of the roles took place in accordance with the official's “private” aims and social identifications.

It was Smitt's “private” aim to build up a bureaucratic organization recruited from officials with a strong professional orientation, and these roles functioned best when the organization served a high status clientele. Conversely, the officials working with lower status clientele developed roles with a strong element of agitation.

 The structuring of the roles took place in close connection with the structuring of the problems.

The roles Smitt evolved suited the problems which in his opinion ought to be solved. They appeared to be both the least expensive and most labor‐saving because they were based upon a division of labor between clientele and employees. The clientele provided capital and motivation, the organization knowledge and modern production equipment. Everything points to Smitt being blind to the connections which can arise between rationalization and social discrimination. His considerations concerning efficiency were that most of the work which technical rationalization involved could be transferred to the clientele. If the organization was relieved of the task of motivating the clients, it could achieve more without increasing costs.

When in the last half of the 1880's this notion of economy was put into a wider social perspective it was easy to demonstrate that this sort of rationalization in fact involved a tremendous waste of public means. Srnitt's methods were, without doubt, labor‐saving from a narrow organizational point of view, but meaningless when seen in consideration of the need for an urgent modernization, which required great social support among the farmers if the new co‐operative efforts were to survive. The motivating task, which Smitt had rationalized away, became the centre of the organizations' activity.

This shows not only how meaningless narrow efficiency considerations can be, but also how purposeless it can be to build up a wealth of knowledge about public administration without at the same time increasing our knowledge of the society in which the administration functions.

 The structuring of the organization's problems and roles took place in accordance with traits of the political system.

The agronomists' freedom in structuring their problems and roles varied not only from situation to situation but also over a period of time. Smitt's freedom of action became curtailed during the last half of the 18803, and the reduction was connected with the new types of demands and support and with the administrative system's reactions to these alterations. While “in‐puts” and the system's inner processes at first pulled together, they were later in conflict. The low adaptability evoked external adjustment mechanisms which deprived the administrative system of initiative and responsibility, weakened its technical authority and widened its political obligation. An additional explanation — which, it is true, cannot be tried out without bringing in material of much larger proportions — is the assertion that the changes in the role‐structure were also a link in a general re‐arrangement of the relationship between theStorting, government and administration.

An alteration took place in the distribution of initiative, responsibility, obligation and authority in the relations between the director of agriculture and the political authorities. These changes can be described in relation to two ideal types of distribution patterns. We have mapped out one movement in the direction of a bureaucracy which has initiative, responsibility and authority and is strongly Committed to the cause. Conversely, the other movement goes in the direction of an ideal type where the bureaucarcy is deprived of initiative and responsibility, where it is under strong obligation to political authority and its professional authority is weak.

These findings can be generalized by connecting them with the bureaucracy model sketched out by Eisenstadt. The core of this model is the tensions between the need for a relatively autonomous bureaucracy and the need for a bureaucracy which is under control of the environment wherein it functions. By giving the bureaucracy an area where it can work relatively independently one ensures that the officials have a strong goal orientation but, at the same time, one risks losing control over the values the bureaucracy implements. By putting the bureaucracy under strict control, one has greater chance of deciding which goals are implemented, but one also risks the bureaucracy becoming impotent and formalistic. (Eisenstadt, 1958, pp. 100–103; Bendix, 1949, p. 12).

The tensions between the needs for autonomy and independence have to do with the basic principle of bureaucratic organization:; that the officials do not own the means of administration. Morroe Berger has shown how the needs are built‐in in the bureaucratic organization: the organization is hierarchial, and at the same time every official has been given his own area where he rules with a varying degree of independence. (Berger, 1957, p, 49) We shall maintain that the tensions between these two needs are expressed in continually changing distributions of initiative, responsibility, obligation and professional authority.

An autonomous bureaucracy is rich in initiative, it takes the responsibility for its own decisions, it is committed to its cause and the decisions can be easily legitimated by the official's technical competence. A dependent bureaucracy takes less initiative, outwardly others carry the responsibility for its decisions, it is not committed to a cause and the professional legitimacy of its decisions is weak. Because both needs cannot be completely satisfied simultaneously, there will always be tensions between them. The distribution of the components is not very stable and will change over time. Consequently, there is a basic lack of stability in the role relationships between the administration and political authority and the bureaucratic roles are being constantly redefined in one or the other direction in step with more far‐reaching changes in the political system.

The increase of Smitt's dependence upon the political authorities occured during a period when theStortingincreased its influence. We will call this a political contraction process, characterised by drawing together initiative, responsibility and obligation‐potential in theStorting. A bureaucratic role developed which stressed the official's loyalty, his ability to conform according to the politician's changing aims, his abilities as “the good counsel”.

These tendencies stand strongly opposed to a development which has occurred in Norway after the Second World War, and which in many ways had for its object the spreading of intiative, responsibility, professional authority and a weaker obligation to the political authorities outwardly and down through the administrative organization. A period where bureaucratic roles of this kind develop and where tendencies are also expressed in the formal organization, we will call a detraction process.

These movements which succeed each other in time, have bearing upon the officials' role‐learning. Director Smitt was taught to take the initiative, to accept criticism, to be strictly responsible to his profession and to expect that great consideration would be given to his professional skill. When he was drawn into a contraction process it was difficult for him to follow. The opposite would be the case of the official who had his role‐learning in a contraction period ‐he would not find it so easy to adapt himself to the role expectations met in a detraction process. On account of these upheavals in the official's role the picture of the ideal official in one period will resemble the distorted picture of an official in another period. The enterprising, responsibility conscious and cause‐committed official would be an ideal in a detraction period but a frightening picture in a contraction period.

The theory of political contraction‐ and detraction processes has therefore certain consequences for the accumulation of verified knowledge of bureaucratic behaviour, for the building up of a systematic theory of bureaucracy. It does not dismiss the possibility of making general assertions concerning bureaucratic behadour, but it stresses the need for cultural references for specification of time and place. In the words of Lasswell and Kaplan: “Empirical significance requires that the propositions of social science, rather than affirming unqualifiedly universal invariances, state relations between variables assuming different magnitudes in different social contexts. To omit this context is not to universalize the proposition, but rather to hide its particularized reference to the situations characteristic of our own culture.” (Lasswell and Kaplan, 1958, p. XXI)

This says, among other things, that one cannot generalize about bureaucratic organizations from intra‐bureaucratic data alone. Assertions that the bureaucracy will attract persons who wish to take responsibility or assertions to the opposite, that the bureaucracy will attract persons who wish to escape from responsibility, can both be confirmed and denied, because bureaucratic organization in a contraction process will appeal to people who wish to avoid responsibility while the same administration in a detraction process will attract the responsibility conscious and enterprising. Neither can it be generally said that officials in a bureaucratic organization will strive after independence or “power”. The opposite can be the case, all depending upon the pattern of distribution between administration and political authorities. The officials' independence will change with time, in step with social changes.

The greater part of common sense‐notions concerning bureaucratic behaviour are contradictory and this is not remarkable, the prebstige of popular wisdom rests entirely upon its probability to provide a proverb to suit every occasion. (Krech and Crutchfield, 1948, p. 41) Meanwhile, the same applies to many social science hypotheses and findings concerning bureaucratic behaviour; their area of validity has not been limited by data concerning the system‐situations in which the administrative organizations have worked. The official's behaviour cannot be explained by studies of internal administrative processes alone. The official's position will be defined by the expectations of the clientele in the widest sense — the public, press, associations and political authorities, i.e. the society with which the official comes into contact. These expectations move with the alterations in society and in the political system.