No. 110/2019

Professor Bouckaert, Professor Jann, why does everyone complain about bureaucracy? JANN: That’s a difficult question. Part of the problem is that it’s not at all clear what people actually mean when they complain about too much bureaucracy. Do they mean there are too many regulations, or that there are super- fluous regulations? This then raises the ques- tion of what you define as superfluous. And different people – quite rightly – see things very differently. For example? JANN: When a federal state government in Germany wanted to relax the standards for nursery schools, there was an outcry from par- ents precisely because they didn’t want to leave certain arrangements to the discretion of the individual providers. When the German gov- ernment wants to liberalise the fee structure for architects or the regulations governing dis- pensing chemists, the professional associa- tions concerned invariably protest. But the number of laws and the degree of intervention is a political issue, not a bureaucratic one. Bureaucracy often gets the blame when in actual fact state intervention is the real culprit. BOUCKAERT: Another quite different point of criticism is levelled at bureaucratic behav- iour, that is unintelligible jargon, unfriendly staff, impersonal attitudes, dogmatism and impenetrable processes. This criticism is valid, or it certainly was, but it is often very stereo- typed and no longer reflects reality. OUR ADMINISTRATION IS NOT BLOATED AT ALL Everyone has cursed them at some stage, though German authorities are better than their reputation according to administrative science specialists Geert Bouckaert and Werner Jann. A conversation about modern administrations, friendly officials and persistent stereotypes. Interview  MAREIKE ILSEMANN Photo ROBERT BARTHOLOT 28 HUMBOLDT KOSMOS 110/2019 FOCUS