Bureaucracy Reading III: Ian Kershaw's "'Working Towards the Führer.' Reflections on the Nature of the Hitler Dictatorship"
I apologize for the delay in continuing this series: the combination of a heavy dose of breaking news and a looming feature have kind of eaten up my time over the past couple of weeks. For those of you just joining us, this is the third in a series of posts on classic readings about how bureaucracy works. The first was on DiMaggio and Powell's "The Iron Cage Revisited," the second on James Q. Wilson's Bureaucracy. This week, I want to talk about Ian Kershaw's "'Working Towards the Führer.' Reflections on the Nature of the Hitler Dictatorship" (JSTOR access required, apologies).
While both of the pieces I've written about prior to this impressed me because they placed things I'd noticed through observation and reporting into coherent, systemic accounts of why bureaucracy works the way it does, Kershaw's piece does the opposite, deconstructing common ideas about a very famous bureaucracy. It feels somewhat odd to think of the Nazi government in the company of the bureaucracies in democratic countries I've read about in other works. But once I got past that conceptual obstacle, it makes a lot of sense as a frame of analysis. I think most of us, when we think about the Nazi regime think of an extremely high degree of coordination, systemic action, and centralized coordination. The plans required to carry out the Holocaust, and to coordinate a massive, multi-front war effort at the same time are extremely detailed, complicated and interactive. The extensive records of the Holocaust required a major bureaucratic effort.
All of which is what makes Kershaw's piece so fascinating. The Nazi bureaucracy may have been sophisticated and complex, but he argues that rather than emanating from the detailed instructions of a centralized authority, Hitler governed more by koan than by directive. His subordinates were charged with anticipating and interpreting his wishes, rather than implementing them according to detailed protocols he issued. When Kershaw talks about "working towards Hitler," what he means is that Nazi officials designed programs and policy with the goal of those plans embodying Hiter's ideals.
It's an interesting way of governing, and one without I think a lot of analogues. In the United States at least, politicians seem more concerned with discouraging bureaucrats from freelancing rather than with encouraging them to innovate towards large goals. In Marissa Martino Golden's What Motivates Bureaucrats?, about different agencies' reactions to the directives of their political appointees, it's clear that some Reagan appointees, like the ones at the Justice Department, were working with relatively broad directives and designing policy based on intentions. But I think there's a difference between interpreting ideals to, for example, choose standards that make it harder to bring legal cases in a contemporary democratic environment, than to bring about a massive expansion of bureaucracy. Kershaw's explanation is extremely useful in the context of Nazi Germany. But I think it would need to work in conjunction with other theories to be useful and applicable in a contemporary, democratic context.
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Government Executive Editor in Chief Tom Shoop, along with other editors and staff correspondents, take a fresh look at news affecting the management and operations of the federal bureaucracy.
Wow, comparing our current Bureaucracy to Hitler and Stalin does illuminate part of the continuing problem of execution in the Federal government Bureaucracy. The Federal Bureaucracy has a lack of focus. The short-lived organizations created by the brutal focus of Stalin and Hitler galvanized an organization that had an explicit purpose of coalescing a disparate group of people into focusing on a single goal. This high level of fear provided the single motivating force to keep everyone rowing in one direction, whether they wanted to or not. Bureaucracies substitute a diffuse hierarchy of rules to replace this driving force that brings clarity of purpose at a horrific price. The Fear driven organization lasts long enough for that driving force to dissipate and be replaced by Bureaucracy. We would be better served to study the Romans.
John W. Davis Posted Tuesday, March 16, 2010 7:49 AMThe overall subject of your book has many analogs to present-day realities, comparisons that might make a good thesis topic. National Socialism was the teutonic take on fascism, fascism being a form of government and economy in which the means of production are privately owned, but stringently guided via government control. National Socialism became popular largely due to a charismatic speach maker who could enthrall a crowd.
Any of that sound familiar?
Also, as to your statement, Hitler's "subordinates were charged with anticipating and interpreting his wishes, rather than implementing them according to detailed protocols he issued," that sounds like what most bureaucrats do on a daily basis, especially when their bosses are of the I'll-know-it-when-I-see-it type. In fact, in today's column by Scott Eblin, he states: "If you can learn to think like your boss and anticipate her needs, you'll find a much more receptive audience." Hmmm...looks like another analogous item for your thesis.
EJC in ATL Posted Tuesday, March 16, 2010 8:37 AM"It's an interesting way of governing" ?? You seem to gloss over the fact that the purpose of this management style was to slaughter over 6 million people. save me the rest please. Read you post one more time and try to see how this could be viewed as offensive.
Jeff Posted Tuesday, March 16, 2010 10:12 AMJeff,
I do understand what you're saying. But I don't think the fact that the Nazi regime was genocidal exempts it from political science scrutiny. In fact, I think it makes it even more important to understand how the regime worked beyond its intentions so we can see how such means of governance and administration might lead to disaster in the future. I do think it's interesting that the popular conceptions of how the Nazi bureaucracy worked are wrong, and I find the model that Kershaw lays out interesting, even as I find the results disgusting and horrifying.
Alyssa Rosenberg Posted Tuesday, March 16, 2010 10:53 AM“His [Hitler’s] subordinates were charged with anticipating and interpreting his wishes, rather than implementing them according to detailed protocols he issued.”
A quick contrast between Nazi bureaucracy and American bureaucracy identifies one overarching distinctive: Where Hitler’s subordinates “anticipated and interpreted,” American bureaucrats are more interested in protecting turf. Wistful thoughts of “thinking outside the box” and “initiative” are just that in contemporary American federal workplaces – wistful, which then translates to wasteful. Instead of addressing problems agencies were created to address and/or alleviate, the “turf mentality” is focused on expansion. Thus, instead of American public schools becoming better under the Department of Education, they’ve devolved into impediments to American progress, as states (beaten into submission by federal bureaucrats and the NEA’s henchmen) lower standards, tolerate indiscipline within the classroom, and focus on politically-correct societal “norming” versus educating. Within HHS, the entitlement mentality rules supreme and still remains 2.5 times larger than the Defense Budget in peace and 1.7 times larger during war. Defense itself is saddled with turf “wars” called intra-service rivalry, but is just as emblematic of the “protect turf via expansion” credo that dominates the federal government. It appears it’s merely a slower process than a totalitarian regime can achieve but, at end state, the expansion and control of the federal bureaucracy over individual citizens grows daily – to the peril of American freedom and liberty.
Mark Epstein Posted Tuesday, March 16, 2010 11:23 AM