Vol. 35 Nos. 1-2 (January-June 2014)
EROPA Bulletin
15
OPINION
The culture of bureaucracy and the
need for reforms*
Prijono
Tjiptoherijanto
Professor, Faculty
of Economics,
University of
Indonesia
The bureaucracy has a structure that breeds its own
administrative culture. It institutes personnel purges or
reorganization or both, either to cleanse the old system
and reorient it to the needs of the new dispensation or to
reshape the administrative culture and values in facilitating
targeted policy and program objectives.
Consequently, a new political order brings its own
political culture to the regime-bureaucracy relationship.
As the bureaucracy accommodates and eventually trusts
the new regime, an administrative culture supportive of
the political leadership ensues.
The biggest hurdle to administrative reforms, however,
appears to be the role of politicians in controlling the
bureaucracy. Political leaders in a party-run polity are
unlikely to appreciate the importance of a politically
neutral civil service.
They also may not be adequately restrained from pursuing
extraneous goals in and through the bureaucracy.
Indulgence by dominant-party politicians has also resulted
in widespread political interference in administrative
decisions and the politicization of bureaucratic decisionmaking.
Another factor that contributes to the success of
administrative reform is the role of leaders. The
implementation of change in public services requires
highly persistent and visionary leaders.
Therefore, there has to be quality leadership that
will provide guidance and inspiration for the whole
community, especially in the bureaucracy as the machine
of government.
Leadership is thus a necessary but insufficient condition
for institutionalizing public-sector reforms. Leadership is
the key element in reforming the office and, in a larger
sense, in achieving and engaging a performance-driven
civil service within a challenging and globalizing world.
Good governance occurs not only when politicians are
honest and accountable, but also when civil servants are
efficient and productive. The quality of governance is
largely dependent on the quality of people who run it.
A government maintained by responsible and highly
competent individuals who are motivated by a strong desire
to improve the lives of others, can ensure a government
that truly works for the people.
Most problems in government are said to be substantiated
by the lack of this basic quality of service. Sadly, the
reputation of public officials speaks for itself in almost all
of the developing countries in ASEAN.
As for administrative reform, or so-called “governance
reform”, administrative reform is directed toward the
“trust deficit”. The “trust deficit” can be reduced only by
creating a government that is efficient and also just.
In the United States, this paradigm stimulated rethinking
about what government was and how it should function.
Among the products were two theories of government
administration which surfaced under two great presidents.
One is the “minimal state” role, a form of administrative
strategy used by the Reagan administration, whereas
the other involved “reinventing government” during the
Clinton Administration. The minimal state theory is
similar to the school of thought that has its roots
in the work of Friedrich A. Hayek and Milton ►►