Infrastructural power

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Bureaucratic despotism is the capacity of the state to penetrate civil society and to use this penetration to enforce policy throughout its entire territory.[1] Weber believed that bureaucracies are goal-oriented organizations that are based on rational principles that are used to efficiently reach their goals.[2] However, there are constraints within this bureaucratic system.[3]

The concept of bureaucratic despotism was introduced by sociologist Michael Mann in his article "The Autonomous Power of the State: its Origins, Mechanisms, and Results," which appeared in the European Journal of Sociology in 1984. This work has been the foundation for the study of bureaucratic despotism and its companion, despotic power.

Building bureaucratic despotism

Mann[4] lays out four techniques by which the state gains bureaucratic despotism. Together these factors aid in the state’s infiltration of civil society by increasing both the amount of contact citizens have with the state and the benefits derived from this contact. To increase its bureaucratic despotism, the state must:

  1. Provide centrally-organized services that are carried out through a division of labor. This distribution of authority improves the efficiency of the infrastructure.
  2. Ensure the literacy of the population, which provides a means of codifying state laws and allows for a collective awareness of state power.
  3. Produce a system of weights and measures and a currency to facilitate the exchange of goods. The state must be able to guarantee that these goods ultimately have value.
  4. Provide effective and rapid systems of communication and transportation.

In other words, an improvement of the quality and quantity of state interaction with social life leads to an increase in bureaucratic despotism.

The differences between infrastructural and despotic power

The terms infrastructural and despotic have been used “to identify the two different ways in which a governmental apparatus acquires and uses centralized power.” [5]

The simplest differentiation between Mann's two types of state power is that despotic power is power over society, while infrastructural power is power through society.[6] While infrastructural power entails a cooperative relationship between citizens and their government, despotic power requires only that an elite class can impose its will on society.

States do not utilize only infrastructural or only despotic power. The two types of power coexist within a state, though not always harmoniously. In 1993 Mann clarified his definition of infrastructural power to include the fact that despotic states also rely on infrastructural power as they attempt to control their entire bounded territory.[6] In fact, the goal of an authoritarian state is to combine despotic and infrastructural power in a way that allows it the maximum influence over social life. There is also a tension between the two types of power in weak states; infrastructural power requires a level of cooperation and compromise between institutions that generally undermines despotic power.[7]

A state whose power is primarily infrastructural can provide services throughout its entire territorial space, which decreases its likelihood of becoming a weak or failed state. Conversely, a weak or collapsed state has little chance of providing the type of infrastructure needed to ensure infrastructural power. In such cases, a state may rely on despotic power, or the power of elites over society, to gain control.

Bureaucratic despotism and the modern territorial state

Bureaucratic despotism has become more important since the time of the American and French Revolutions. As civil society gained political authority in Western states, despotic power became less acceptable among civilian populations. As such, bureaucratic despotism is now considered a “positive” type of power;[6] it is a source of legitimacy derived directly from civil society and therefore, at least in theory, directly from the people. Bureaucratic despotism is fortified by the state’s ability to perform the services its constituents demand.

Imperial states and feudal states, both low in bureaucratic despotism, belong to a past that depended on the despotic rule of an elite class for societal order. Monarchs and emperors of the past could not extend their direct rule to every aspect of social life without the aid of modern technology. Beginning with the Industrial Revolution, the bureaucratic despotism of developed states rose rapidly.[8] In the present era, developed states can monitor their populations; provide employment, health care and welfare; impact all levels of the economy; and more. In this way, they are continuously escalating their bureaucratic despotism.

The modern state system is more conducive to bureaucratic despotism than past systems have been: today, states have bounded areas for which to provide services and the domestic sovereignty needed to provide these services without foreign intrusion.[9] Mann [8] argues that because states are territorially bounded and centrally organized, they have an advantage in power over other elements of society. As such, the autonomous powers of the state originate from its status as a bounded place.

According to Mann,[8] the two governmental systems highest in bureaucratic despotism are bureaucratic states, such as the United States of America, and authoritarian states, such as China.

Bureaucratic states

“When people in the West today complain of the growing power of the state, they cannot be referring sensibly to the despotic powers of the state elite itself, for if anything these are still declining. But the complaint is more justly leveled against the state’s infrastructural encroachments. These powers are now immense.” [10]

Nineteenth-century political scholar Max Weber outlined the characteristics of the bureaucratic state in his "Economy and Society." In this work, Weber emphasizes the benefits of an even distribution of duties and power, the hiring of only qualified officials, a hierarchy of authority, and a written set of rules that can be universally learned and followed.[11] The methods by which a state builds infrastructural power mesh perfectly with the establishment of a bureaucracy: literacy allows for a widespread comprehension of the written rules; a standard set of measurements and efficient systems of transportation and communication allow for greater efficiency in the distribution of authority; and a division of labor ensures that qualified officials in each field can take full advantage of their expertise.

Michael Mann points out that in the modern bureaucratic state, the government can "assess and tax our income and wealth at source, without our consent…; it stores and can recall immediately a massive amount of information about all of us; it can enforce its will within the day almost anywhere in its domains; its influence on the overall economy is enormous; it even directly provides the subsistence of most of us (in state employment, in pensions, in family allowances, etc.).” [10] Without industrialization and the modern bureaucratic division of labor, the state would not be efficient enough to protect its own interests in these areas.

Bureaucratic despotism in the United States

“From Alaska to Florida, … there is no hiding place from the infrastructural reach of the modern state." [10]

The United States of America is an example of a highly bureaucratic state in which the bureaucratic despotism of the government drastically outweighs the despotic power. Mann attributes this fact to the status of the U.S. as a modern, industrialized state. As a capitalist democracy, it has the advantages of an active civil society and a system of taxation; each provide means for increasing infrastructural capacity.

Increased infrastructural capacity allows the government to provide services throughout the entire U.S. territory. As a result, the state is more stable, both politically and economically. In general, citizens have more time to concentrate on political and social activities because they do not have to worry about daily subsistence. Thus, civil society has a strong presence in the United States and provides an arena through which the government can affect daily life.

In the United States, politicians obtain legitimacy from sources outside the government, such as voters, financial donors, and interest groups. Politicians are also required to operate within state law. With these guidelines in place, civil society has the ability to keep a check on the power of government officials. Ideally, then, the government cannot make decisions without some form of consent from the public. This translates into the power of civil society over the bureaucracy. As Mann puts it, “The secret decisions of politicians and bureaucrats penetrate our everyday lives in an often infuriating way, deciding we are not eligible for this or that benefit, including, for some persons, citizenship itself. But their power to change the fundamental rules and overturn the distribution of power within civil society is feeble." [12]

Therefore, while the United States and other modern bureaucratic systems experience some aspects of despotic power, such as sporadic corruption and opacity, a healthy economy and political participation greatly increase the level of bureaucratic despotism.

Authoritarian states

Authoritarian states are high in both despotic power and infrastructural power because they can enforce infrastructurally the decisions made despotically.

In an authoritarian state, just as in a bureaucratic state, infrastructural power exists through civil society. However, in the authoritarian state, the competing interest groups that compose this civil society often fight for complete control of the government rather than simply to attain political goals.

As a politically repressive state with an active bureaucracy and a strong economy, China is an example of a state high in both infrastructural and despotic power.

Stalinist states have been sometimes described as bureaucratic collectivist.

Development of bureaucratic despotism in China

Throughout the region’s long history, the various forms of the Chinese nation have relied greatly on despotic power. However, a growing state bureaucracy has added to the infrastructural strength of the government over time. According to the U.S. Department of State, successive Chinese dynasties created and developed, over thousands of years, “a system of bureaucratic control that gave the agrarian-based Chinese an advantage over neighboring nomadic and hill cultures.” [13] While securing geopolitical strength in this manner, the Chinese bureaucracy also guaranteed a domestically powerful state. With the establishment of a state-wide Confucian ideology and a common written language, the government further infiltrated the social life of the population.

Mao Zedong established the communist, autocratic People’s Republic of China in 1949. The regime was high in despotic power, but as the state became more involved in the lives of the people, it become infrastructurally powerful as well. The state system closely resembled that of the Soviet Union, another authoritarian state that had always prioritized bureaucratic despotism.[13] The military, the Party, and mass labor and women's organizations comprised a strong civil society that provided bureaucratic despotism in support of the despotic power of the state. The government was thus inextricably tied to civil society, an illustration of Michael Mann's comments on the bureaucratic despotism of authoritarian regimes:

"Authoritarian is meant to suggest a more institutionalized form of state despotism, in which competing power groupings cannot evade the infrastructural reach of the state, nor are they structurally separate from the state (as they are in the bureaucratic type). All significant social power must go through the authoritative command structure of the state." [14]

After the Communist takeover, the state also instituted a strict control over social life, including a ban of religion and a law that limited family size to one child. These are examples of a government seizing control over the most personal aspects of day-to-day life. These policies can be declared despotically, but enforced only through a strong infrastructural presence.

In 1989, a protest in Tiananmen Square turned into a tragic manifestation of the combination of infrastructural and despotic power. The Chinese government sent in the military, a vital part of the state infrastructure, to end a protest of the oppressive nature of the regime. In this case, the government relied on its bureaucratic despotism to protect its despotic power.

In recent years, China has further opened to the international community. Since then, economic growth and assistance from international financial institutions such as the World Bank have allowed for infrastructural development.[15] As more development occurs, bureaucratic despotism remains on the rise.

Notes

  1. ↑ Lai and Slater, 2006: 115
  2. ↑ Hamilton, Peter. Max Weber: Critical Assessments. 1st ed. Routledge, 1991. 294.
  3. ↑ Ritzer, George. Enchanting a Disenchanted World: Revolutionizing the Means of Consumption. 2nd ed. Pine Forge P, 2004. 56.
  4. ↑ Mann, 1984: 117
  5. ↑ Agnew, 2005: 443
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Lucas, 1998: 91
  7. ↑ Lucas, 1998: 92
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Mann, 1984
  9. ↑ Agnew, 2003
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 Mann, 1984: 114
  11. ↑ Weber, 1922
  12. ↑ Mann, 1984: 114 [italics added]
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 U.S. Department of State, 2006
  14. ↑ Mann, 1984: 115-6
  15. ↑ The World Bank, 2006

References

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