No. 110/2019

The administrative scientists PROFESSOR DR GEERT E. C. BOUCKAERT (right) from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium and PROFESSOR (EM.) DR WERNER JANN from the Potsdam Center for Policy and Management (PCPM) at the Uni- versity of Potsdam jointly head the European Perspectives for Public Administration project at the PCPM. It is financed through the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation’s Anne- liese Maier Research Award, which Bouckaert was granted in 2014. The project aims to de- velop a joint European perspec- tive on the process of constant change in public administrations in Europe and looks at how to communicate this in research and teaching. Why? BOUCKAERT: Since the mid-1990s, all over the world – including in Germany, by the way – there has been a considerable push for modernisation, for example through the intro- duction of modern management methods through e-government services and new options like customer centres. Time and again, empirical studies show that, in the vast major- ity of cases, direct contact between people or companies and administrations is unproblem- atic. The stereotype of the slow, unfriendly, inflexible administrative employee is, however, difficult to eradicate. Where does the impression of a bloated and bureaucratic administration come from? JANN: Well, to begin with, there is no real evi- dence of a “bloated” administration in Ger- many. If you consider public sector employees as a percentage of all employees, we fall below the OECD average. This doesn’t mean that it wouldn’t sometimes be possible to manage with fewer staff. But public demand veers in precisely the opposite direction. People demand more police, more teachers, more judges – in Germany these are all public service positions, but at the same time it is claimed that the public sector is bloated. To be honest, the conversation here is sometimes a bit schiz- ophrenic. So, administrations don’t actually need to change at all, they just need more staff? BOUCKAERT: Of course, administrations constantly have to be modernised – just like any other organisation that wants to survive. But at the same time, we mustn’t abandon the achievements of Max Weber’s classic bureau- cracy, like predictability, fairness, legal cer- tainty and so on. We can observe such an interrelationship and joint development in many European countries and have coined the term “Neo-Weberian State” to refer to them. It is the best summary of the consensus in modern administrative science. In our survey, it is the Americans who are most bothered by the German system. Is bureaucracy in the United States so very dif- ferent from bureaucracy in Europe? JANN: Quite honestly, I don’t think German bureaucracy is any worse than American. I lived in the US for two years and some aspects of American bureaucracy nearly drove me to distraction. It starts with the problem of open- ing a bank account and continues with immi- gration authorities and visa regulations. In comparison with the IRS, the American tax authority, German tax offices are the embod- iment of cooperation and friendliness. The problem seems to be that one knows one’s own bureaucracy and its quirks, but a foreign one seems much more inaccessible. BOUCKAERT: I can only confirm that. Argu- ing with American bureaucracy is no picnic. I’ve known German bureaucracy for years and yes, it has its faults, but in the end you can rely on it. Photo: Humboldt Foundation/Karla Fritze I lived in the US for two years and American bureaucracy nearly drove me to distraction.” “ 29 HUMBOLDT KOSMOS 110/2019