An Unbound Prometheus? Bureaucracy, Technology, Technocracy, and Administrative Innovation

Along with the expansion and diversification of government in terms of tasks and personnel that began in the 19^th century, a need for the application of new bureaucratic techniques and technologies emerged.

Antoon Kerkhoff / Peter Wagenaar / Mark Rutgers (red.): Duizend Jaar Openbaar Bestuur, Bussum 2011.

To use a rather modern expression, change and innovation in public administration have always included ›software‹ – bureaucratic techniques – and ›hardware‹ dimensions. The hardware dimension refers to an increasing mechanization of work processes, not only in core administration and implementation agencies but also in state enterprises. The software innovations came about through transformation of internal work routines, management procedures, and public service delivery.

Change and innovation can be viewed through either an empirical or a normative conceptual lens.

For the normative and negative aspects of (social) innovation, see Ola Larsson / Taco Brandsen: The Implicit Normative Assumptions of Social Innovation Research. Embracing the Dark Side, in: Taco Brandsen et al. (eds.): Social Innovations in the Urban Context. Non-Profit and Civil Society Studies (An International Multidisciplinary Series), Cham 2016, pp. 8–24.

A conceptual history of innovation, technology, technocracy, and how innovation became a normative concept for examining change in administration is too extensive a topic for this contribution. We will therefore focus on the intensifying technologization of government affairs and the ensuing question: does this lead to a bureaucratically dominated technocratic government?

Below, we will examine past and present debates on positive and adverse effects of technocracy on governance. The latter pertain to effects on the scope for democratic governance and thus the position of political leaders, bureaucrats and citizens in decision-making. Will technologization lead to an impairment of the position of citizens and politicians within the system of governance? These questions are often thought to be of principal relevance only to present-day government and society. In fact, this has not historically been the case, as we will demonstrate below. We will concentrate on developments since the 1880s, illustrating our discussion with examples from the Dutch context. However, this discussion has wider temporal and cross-national ramifications. First, we need to examine the related concepts of ›bureaucracy, bureaucratic change, technology, and technocracy‹«. How does change in the public sector relate to technocracy? What does that imply for the formulation and application of good governance criteria? This raises a further point to consider: the connection of technocracy with political power; more explicitly, the interrelations of bureaucracy, technocracy, the administration of change and political power, especially the power of the citizenry and democracy – a long established field of historiography. This is not only relevant to the responsibility of political leaders and representatives to absorb and transmit technological changes in public administration and society, but also and especially to the position and authority of political officeholders. Is this position marginalized, since the word ›technocracy‹ seems also to involve a reduction of the position of politics, regarding the need and space for political choice? Are political choices being made redundant by – administrative – technology and bureaucratic technocrats? To answer these questions, we must begin with a conceptual analysis.

In the past, just as in the present, people have been consistently gripped by a fascination with impending future changes.

John Potts: Futurism, Futurology, Future Shock, Climate Change. Visions of the Future from 1909 to the Present, in: PORTAL Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies 15:1/2 (2018), pp. 99–116, online: https://doi.org/10.5130/portal.v15i1-2.5810.

This fascination with the future and progress has gradually been put on a more systematic footing by the search for a scientific and rational basis for prediction. Since at least the 1850s, an array of publications has been issued containing explorations and predictions of what awaits the world and, in the slipstream, what is expected of government and bureaucracy to guide these changes. That new prominence also can be seen in the technocracy movement in the USA, which we will discuss in more detail below. The appreciation of technology is situated in the outcomes of the industrial revolution, industrial production, and the innovations accompanying and supporting this change process.

See for instance the showcasing of new technology during the Great Exhibition in London in 1851. Jeffery A. Auerbach: The Great Exhibition of 1851. A Nation on Display, New Haven 1999.

Concepts such as change, reform innovation, technology, and technocracy are interconnected; but are intrinsically vague, indeterminate, ambiguous, and in need of more precise definition. That imprecision may in fact be a key feature in the attraction of these concepts. However, for our analysis, it is rather problematic, as the myriad of concepts and the conceptual complexity, ambiguity, and changeability of their definitions over time obstruct a clear understanding. In addition, these concepts are highly charged and normative in nature, though this normative nature is often buried beneath a veneer of – political – neutrality. It has been argued that this transpires through a process of ›depoliticization‹.

For the origins of the concept, see Carl Schmitt: The Age of Neutralizations and Depoliticizations, in: Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political. Expanded Edition, trans.: George Schwab, Chicago 2007 [1929], pp. 80–96.

How is the relationship between innovation and technology to be assessed? Innovation occurs in multiple arenas: societal, bureaucratic, technological, and so forth. The concept of innovation has particularly strong links to technological improvement and, above all, to engineering and inventions. That technological connection becomes apparent in the public response to the tangible inventions that coincide with a process of innovation. That connection is associated with the Industrial Revolution and the work and lives of its engineers, to cite the title of a work by 19^th-century biographer and moral philosopher Samuel Smiles.

Samuel Smiles: Lives of the Engineers. With an Account of their Principal Works, London 1861–1867.

Technocracy is currently viewed in public administration – PA – and political science literature as a rather negative phenomenon, but this has not always been the case. Technocracy can be defined as government by technocrats. The coining of the concept of ›technocracy‹ is attributed to the engineer William Henry Smyth in 1919: »The rule of the people made effective through the agency of their servants, the scientists and engineers«.

https://www.kandyy.org/ABOUT-US/technocracy (12. 04. 2022).

Finally, innovation and change through the application of a new technology can/will have disruptive consequences. In the ambition to make widespread use of technological innovation and change, an opening for the occurrence of disruptive effects emerges. The concept ›disruptive technologies‹ was introduced by Clayton M. Christensen and Joseph Bower in 1995 in their article »Disruptive Technologies: Catching the Wave«.

Clayton M. Christensen / Joseph Bower: Disruptive Technologies. Catching the Wave, in: Harvard Business Review January-February (1995).

Modern government is premised on normalizing change, innovation, reform, technology, and the application of technological solutions. By normalizing, we mean two things: that change, innovation, reform, technology, and the application of technological solutions come to be seen as normal, routine, and expected; and that they are seen to be good and positive, as things or states to be embraced and indeed encouraged, culminating in the recent celebration of contrived ›disruption‹ and its positive effects. These twin assumptions are typically presented as neutral, but they are, in fact, political. Change depends on choice and, in government, choice is always political, because it depends on choices between different values. The drive to change, modernize, innovate, and reform society and government stems from the perceived necessity of dealing with economic, societal, organizational, and other environmental pressures.

Jos C.N. Raadschelders / Frits van der Meer / Theo A. J. Toonen: Comparative Civil Service Systems. Comparative Perspectives, Houndsmill 2007, 2015.

Innovation and the application of new technologies in private and public organizations entail the prospect of making the best use of the opportunities provided by technological change. This is made apparent in the work of Frederick Taylor (1856–1915). A mechanical engineer by training, Taylor was a founder of the scientific management movement.

Frederick Winslow Taylor: The Principles of Scientific Management, New York 1911.

Towards the end of the 19^th century, these Delft-trained engineers were increasingly involved in engineering projects for – predominantly local – government, Rijkswaterstaat and the private sector, due to the industrialization process mentioned above. In addition to engineering, they became involved in managing these projects. A number of these engineers became attracted to so-called economic rationalization efforts

Delft engineers such as Ernst Hijmans and Berend Berenschot were founding members of influential economic advisory and consultancy firms.

Technology can nevertheless be perceived as a double-edged sword. The idea that knowledge and control cannot be attained without paying a heavy price is ancient.

There are similarities to the account of Adam and Eve in Genesis, but these can also be found in other creation narratives. A penalty must be paid by Adam and Eve after eating the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. After losing their innocence through the acquisition of knowledge and perception, they are exiled from the Garden of Eden.

The growth of government in terms of tasks, powers, number of civil servants, and the diversification of the knowledge and skills needed in the civil service was a direct response to an accelerating process of industrialization and increasing demands for social emancipation.

Frits van der Meer: Voorwaarden, waarborgen en ambtenaren, Leiden 2012.

It is thus hard to deny that technology and digitalization have had a deep and lasting impact on government and bureaucracy. The digital change process that began in the late 1980s and 1990s had an external dimension, transforming the relationship between government and society by changing the character of their interaction. It shifted what had primarily been a human form of interaction towards more distanced, digital contact.

van der Meer: Openbaar bestuur en het ambtelijk apparaat.

The impact of technological innovations such as digitalization and IT on the structure and operations of government organizations can, however, be exaggerated. The prediction of the demise of bureaucracy and the emergence of an ›infocracy‹, as proposed by Zuurmond,

Arre Zuurmond: De infocratie. Een theoretische en empirische heroriëntatie op Weber’s idealtype in het informatietijdperk, Den Haag 1994.

Though much is expected of government by digital enthusiasts and IT consultants, the idea of ›digitizing government‹ provides few clues to the solution of these access disparities. Making things even more complicated, digitalization, in addition to the digital literacy issue, reinforces, through the development of standardized procedures and protocols and through the use of algorithms, a dehumanized e-relationship between government and citizens. Assessment of the wishes, needs, and possibilities of citizens is based on the needs, abilities, and skills of the political and bureaucratic designers of these e-governance systems.

van der Meer: Openbaar bestuur en het ambtelijk apparaat.

At the start of our discussion, we said that attention would – also – be directed to the implications of technological change for the relationship between politics, civil servants, and society. Central to our discussion has been the concept of technocracy, as, on the positive side, a source of innovation and an instrument of change for the better. Public officials are perceived as the experts par excellence, the professional, permanent government officials with knowledge of and experience in bureaucratic work processes and governance technology.

Guy B. Peters: The Politics of Bureaucracy. An Introduction to Comparative Public Administration, New York 2018.

In a technocracy, technical experts supplant the role and power of political and social leaders. Politics, however, involves determining value judgments and making binding choices about them. These choices are inherently arbitrary, while the civil service role is one of a rational combination of purposes and means. Politics is ›messy‹ and the activities of the ›rational‹ public official are, according the technocratic view, essentially objective and value-neutral. This normative vision explains the appeal of technocracy and planning. This can be seen in recent Dutch administrative history. It may be observed, for instance, in the Netherlands, in many State Commissions on the running of government and, in the UK, in the British Fulton Report of 1968. Technocratic dimensions of government are emphasized in the pursuit of further rationalization of governance through planning, application of advanced instruments, and identification of desirable characteristics in officials to be recruited.

The question of whether all decisions and decision-making procedures can be reduced to technical and purely rationally based decisions remains. The popularity of ›new public management‹

New Public Management has been mockingly rephrased as New Scientific Management.

Bureaucratic innovation through the introduction of new technologies, such as the digitalization of internal work processes and public service delivery, has had undeniable benefits in terms of efficiency, predictability, and convenience. This is, however, not the whole picture, as there are also undeniable drawbacks attached to the change. Through digitalization, work processes have become increasingly driven by protocol and standardization. One could even say they have become more bureaucratized, perhaps not in purely Weberian terms, but from a scientific-management perspective. Two potential negative side effects of digitalization as a bureaucratic innovation – strategy – merit special mention. First, citizens must have ample bureaucratic and digital competencies in order to access public services. In addition, one can, especially if one is not a standard case, be lost in the system. The Dutch Council of State and the National Ombudsman have pointed out these issues regularly over the last decade, and they are also clearly apparent in the recurring political-administrative crises discussed above.

Perhaps the normative consequences of bureaucratic innovation have been the most crucial ones. These pertain to the relationship between officeholders, the legislature, and society on the one side and unelected technocratic bureaucratic officials on the other. By rationalizing government decision-making and performance through a predominant emphasis on a technological and hard-science take on governance, the idea of an apolitical and value-neutral government has been enforced. That technocratic and hard-science take on government and bureaucracy is, as we have argued, highly political in nature, entailing paradoxical denial of the fuzzy and partly subjective nature of policy issues and diversity in political, bureaucratic, and societal thinking. The idea of technological change is connected in both cultural myth and scientific work to the titan Prometheus of Greek mythology. The word ›Prometheus‹ is sometimes used as a symbol for organizations and associations in the technical realm. By stealing fire from the gods, humanity can control nature and escape the power of the gods – nature. Humankind can determine its own destiny.

Koselleck: Futures Past.

However, on the flipside of the coin, there are potential drawbacks for society, government, and bureaucracy: the gifts of Pandora’s Box, the ancient, deep-rooted belief that knowledge and control are not to be had without paying a price. Modern-day dystopian perspectives provide ample examples of this line of thought; this implicit bargain must be taken into account by public officials, academics, and the public.

Central to our discussion has been the temporality of technology and technocracy and a political vision of the necessity and desirability of bureaucratic and government change and innovation. At the same time, technology, technocracy, and scientific expertise root their authority in their – apparently – nonpolitical status. Paradoxically, this can also be a part of their political attractiveness, allowing the shedding of political responsibility by government and bureaucracy. This use is also highly political. Ultimately, technology is not a neutral instrument for public sector organizations. In conclusion, we argue that the promotion of change, technology, and the rise of technocracy in the Netherlands has only led, in fact, to an intensification of bureaucracy and thus the disempowerment of society, not its liberation. The point seems to be that it is impossible to reduce policy-making and policy-implementation to technical-bureaucratic considerations alone without invoking the peril of grave public dissatisfaction.