Where Do High-Level Administrators Come From? The Social Origins Of Bureaucratic Elites

Abstract

The scarcity of studies on the social origins of bureaucratic elites and their consequences for organizations and societies primarily stems from the insularity of bureaucracy and the threat posed by the social scientist as an outsider to the legitimacy of a rule-based and highly structured system. On the other hand, the democratic control of bureaucracy, its actual level of representation of social diversity (the heterogeneity of top-level positions), the relationship between social origins and organizational behavior, and the interaction between elite formation, prestige, and political power make the examination of this subject both challenging and intriguing. This study reviews a few research studies, emphasizing the importance of focusing on the social origins of bureaucratic elites. The primary aim of this review is to compare the social backgrounds of individuals in top-level positions in state bureaucracies of different countries, and identify key patterns. The findings indicate that top-level bureaucratic positions worldwide are occupied by individuals from middle and upper classes. The findings have significant implications for representative bureaucracy, the current state of bureaucracy, bureaucratic reforms, and social policy in general. The study is concluded with an emphasis on the need for a comprehensive assessment of top-level bureaucratic cadres, especially in Turkey.

Keywords

• Bureaucracy
• bureaucratic elites
• high-level administrators
• social origins
• representative bureaucracy

Üst Düzey Devlet Yöneticileri Nereden Geliyor? Bürokratik Elitlerin Sosyal Kökenleri

Abstract

Bürokratik elitlerin sosyal kökenlerine, bunların organizasyonlar ve toplumlar açısından sonuçlarına odaklanan çalışmaların seyrekliği başta bürokrasinin dışa kapalılığından ve sosyal bilimcinin yabancılığının kuralcı ve son derece yapılandırılmış bir sistemin meşruiyetine tehdit olarak algılanmasından ileri gelir. Ancak diğer yandan, toplumsal yaşamı şekillendirme gücü olan bürokrasinin demokratik denetimi ve toplumsal çeşitliliği temsil etme düzeyi (üst düzey pozisyonların toplumsal heterojenliği), sosyal kökenler ve organizasyonel davranış arasındaki ilişki, elit formasyonu ile prestij ve politik güç arasındaki etkileşim gibi hususlar bu konunun incelenmesini zor olduğu kadar ilgi çekici de kılmaktadır. Bu çalışma bürokratik elitlerin sosyal kökenlerine odaklanmanın önemine yönelik bir vurguyla alanyazındaki az sayıda çalışmanın bir taraması niteliğindedir. Bu taramanın aslî amacı, farklı ülkelerdeki devlet bürokrasilerinin üst kademelerindeki insanların sosyal kökenlerini karşılaştırmak, temel örüntüleri tespit edebilmektir. Elde edilen bulgular, dünya genelinde üst düzey bürokratik kadroların orta ve üst sınıflardan bireylerce işgal edildiğini göstermektedir. Bulguların temsilî bürokrasi ve bürokrasinin günümüzdeki konumu, bürokratik reformlar ve genel olarak da sosyal politika açısından çok önemli içerimleri bulunmaktadır. Çalışma, başta Türkiye’de olmak üzere, üst düzey bürokratik kadroların bu anlamda etraflı bir değerlendirmesine yönelik ihtiyaca vurgu ile tamamlanmaktadır.

Keywords

• Bürokrasi
• bürokratik elitler
• üst düzey devlet yöneticileri
• sosyal kökenler
• temsilî bürokrasi

References

1. Aberbach, J., Putnam, R. D., & Rockman, B. (1981). Bureaucrats and politicians in western democracies. Harvard university press.
2. Aberbach, J. D., Krauss, E. S., Muramatsu, M., & Rockman, B. A. (1990). Comparing Japanese and American administrative elites. British Journal of Political Science, 20(4), 461-488.
3. Armstrong, J. A. (1972). Old-Regime Administrative Elites: Prelude to Modernization in France, Prussia, and Russia. International Review of Administrative Sciences, 38(1), 21-40.
4. Bernstein, B. (1960). Language and social class. The British Journal of Sociology, 11(3), 271-276.
5. Birnbaum, P. (1981). State, centre and bureaucracy. Government and Opposition, 16(1), 58-77.
6. Boreham, P., Cass, M., & McCallum, M. (1979). The Australian bureaucratic elite: The importance of social backgrounds and occupational experience. The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Sociology, 15(2), 45-55.
7. Bottomore, T. (1993). Elites and society. Routledge.
8. Bouquet, O. (2011). Old Elites in a New Republic: The Reconversion of Ottoman Bureaucratic Families in Turkey (1909–1939). Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, 31(3), 588-600.

9. Bourdieu, P. (1996). The state nobility: Elite schools in the field of power. Stanford University Press.
10. Bourdieu, P. (2018). The forms of capital. M. Granovetter & R. Swedberg (Eds.), The sociology of economic life (ss. 78-92). Routledge.
11. Bourdieu, P., & Passeron, J. C. (2015). Yeniden üretim: Eğitim sistemine ilişkin bir teorinin ilkeleri. Heretik Yayınları.
12. Bozkurt, Ö. (1980). Memurlar: Türkiyeʹde kamu bürokrasisinin sosyolojik görünümü. Türkiye ve Orta Doğu Amme İdaresi Enstitüsü:Ankara.
13. Bukodi, E., Goldthorpe, J. H., & Zhao, Y. (2021). Primary and secondary effects of social origins on educational attainment: New findings for England. The British Journal of Sociology, 72(3), 627-650.
14. Cicco, J. A. (1975). Japan's administrative elite: Criteria for membership. International Review of Administrative Sciences, 41(4), 379-384.
15. Côté, S. (2011). How social class shapes thoughts and actions in organizations. Research in organizational behavior, 31, 43-71.
16. De Cienfuegos, I. A. (1999). Spain: still the primacy of corporatism? E. C. Page & V. Wright (Eds.), Bureaucratic Elites in Western European States: A Comparative Analysis of Top Officials (ss. 32-54). Oxford University Press.
17. Demin, A., Libman, A., & Eras, L. (2019). Post-socialist transition, authoritarian consolidation and social origin of political elites: The case of Russian regional governors. Eurasian Geography and Economics, 60(3), 257-283.
18. Derlien, H. U. (1990). Continuity and change in the West German federal executive elite 1949–1984. European Journal of Political Research, 18(3), 349-372.
19. Dhiravegin, L. (1982). The Socio-economic Power-bases of the Thai Bureaucratic Elite. Kasetsart Journal of Social Sciences, 3(1-2), 46-57.
20. Dodd, C. H. (1965). The social and educational background of Turkish officials. Middle Eastern Studies, 1(3), 268-276.
21. Dubois, D., Rucker, D. D., & Galinsky, A. D. (2015). Social class, power, and selfishness: when and why upper and lower class individuals behave unethically. Journal of personality and social psychology, 108(3), 436.
22. Ellersgaard, C. H., Lunding, J. A., Henriksen, L. F., & Larsen, A. G. (2019). Pathways to the power elite: The organizational landscape of elite careers. The Sociological Review, 67(5), 1170-1192.
23. Emirbayer, M., & Johnson, V. (2008). Bourdieu and organizational analysis. Theory and society, 37, 1-44.
24. Fachelli, S., & Navarro-Cendejas, J. (2015). Relationship between social origin and labor insertion of university graduates. Revista Electrónica de Investigación y Evaluación Educativa, 21(2), s1.
25. Heper, M. (1976). Political Modernization as Reflected in Bureaucratic Change: The Turkish Bureauracy and A “Historical Bureaucratic Empire” Tradition. International Journal of Middle East Studies, 7(4), 507-521.
26. Hofstede, G. (1985). The interaction between national and organizational value systems [1]. Journal of management studies, 22(4), 347-357.
27. Huskey, E. (2010). Elite recruitment and state-society relations in technocratic authoritarian regimes: The Russian case. Communist and post-communist studies, 43(4), 363-372.
28. Inoki, M. (1964). The civil bureaucracy: Japan. R. E. Ward & D. A. Rustow (Eds.), Political modernization in Japan and Turkey (ss. 283-300). Princeton University Press.
29. Jacob, M., & Klein, M. (2019). Social origin, field of study and graduates’ career progression: does social inequality vary across fields? The British Journal of Sociology, 70(5), 1850-1873.
30. Jensen, H. N., & Knudsen, T. (1999). Senior officials in the Danish central administration: from bureaucrats to policy professionals and managers. E. Page & V. Wright (Eds.), Bureaucratic Elites in Western European States: A Comparative Analysis of Top Officials (ss. 229-249). Oxford University Press.
31. Kennedy, B. (2014). Unraveling representative bureaucracy: A systematic analysis of the literature. Administration & society, 46(4), 395-421.
32. Kessler, M.-C. (1978). Recruitment and Training of Higher Civil Servants in France: the Ecole Nationale d'Administration. European Journal of Political Research, 6(1), 31-52.
33. Kish-Gephart, J. J., & Campbell, J. T. (2015). You don’t forget your roots: The influence of CEO social class background on strategic risk taking. Academy of Management Journal, 58(6), 1614-1636.
34. Kraus, M. W., Côté, S., & Keltner, D. (2010). Social class, contextualism, and empathic accuracy. Psychological science, 21(11), 1716-1723.
35. Krygier, M. (1979). Saint-Simon, Marx and the non-governed society. E. Kamenka & M. Krygier (Eds.), Bureaucracy: The career of a concept (ss. 34-60). St. Martin's Press.
36. Maman, D. (1997). The elite structure in Israel: A socio-historical analysis. Journal of Political & Military Sociology, 25-46.
37. Mangset, M. (2015a). What Does it Mean to be Part of the Elite?: Comparing Norwegian, French and British Top Bureaucrats’ Understandings of the Elite Concept when Applied to Themselves. Comparative Sociology, 14(2), 274-299.
38. Mangset, M. (2015b). Contextually bound authoritative knowledge: A comparative study of British, French and Norwegian administrative elites' merit and skills. World Yearbook of Education 2015 (ss. 201-216). Routledge.
39. Martin, S. R., Côté, S., & Woodruff, T. (2016). Echoes of our upbringing: How growing up wealthy or poor relates to narcissism, leader behavior, and leader effectiveness. Academy of Management Journal, 59(6), 2157-2177.
40. Mastekaasa, A. (2004). Social origins and recruitment to Norwegian business and public sector elites. European Sociological Review, 20(3), 221-235.
41. Matthews, A. T. J. (1955). Emergent Turkish Administrators: A Study of the Vocational and Social Attitudes of Junior and Potential Administrators. Türk Tarih Kurumu Basımevi.
42. Meyer, J. W., & Rowan, B. (1977). Institutionalized organizations: Formal structure as myth and ceremony. American journal of sociology, 83(2), 340-363.
43. Mills, C. W. (2000). The power elite. Oxford University Press.
44. Mosca, G. (1939). The ruling class. McGraw-Hill.
45. Muramatsu, M., & Krauss, E. S. (1984). Bureaucrats and politicians in policymaking: The case of Japan. American Political Science Review, 78(1), 126-146.
46. Nachmias, D. (1991). Israel's bureaucratic elite: Social structure and patronage. Public Administration Review, 413-420.
47. Opello, W. C. (1983). Portugal's administrative elite: Social origins and political attitudes. West European Politics, 6(1), 63-74.
48. Paalgard Flemmen, M., Jarness, V., & Rosenlund, L. (2019). Class and status: On the misconstrual of the conceptual distinction and a neo‐Bourdieusian alternative. The British Journal of Sociology, 70(3), 816-866.
49. Pareto, V. (2009). The rise and fall of elites: Application of theoretical sociology. Transaction Publishers.
50. Peters, B. G. (2010). Bureaucracy and the State. S. Immerfall & G. Therborn (Eds.), Handbook of European Societies: Social Transformations in the 21st Century (ss. 39-57). Springer.
51. Pierre, J., & Ehn, P. (1999). The welfare state managers: senior civil servants in Sweden. E. Page & V. Wright (Eds.), Bureaucratic Elites in Western European States: A Comparative Analysis of Top Officials (ss. 249-265). Oxford University Press.
52. Porter, J. (1958). Higher public servants and the bureaucratic elite in Canada. Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science/Revue canadienne de economiques et science politique, 24(4), 483-501.
53. Raadschelders, J., & Meer, F. M. V. d. (2014). Administrative elites in the Netherlands from 1980 to 2011: Making the invisible visible. International Review of Administrative Sciences, 80(4), 726-745.
54. Rich, H. (1975). Higher Civil Servants in Ontario, Canada: An Administrative Elite in Comparative Perspective. International Review of Administrative Sciences, 41(1), 67-74.
55. Rouban, L. (1999). The senior civil service in France. E. Page & V. Wright (Eds.), Bureaucratic Elites in Western European States: A Comparative Analysis of Top Officials (ss. 65-89). Oxford University Press.
56. Rouban, L. (2009). The political and administrative elites. P. Perrineau & L. Rouban (Eds.), Politics in France and Europe (ss. 121-142). Palgrave Macmillan.
57. Ruostetsaari, I. (2007). Nordic elites in comparative perspective. Comparative Sociology, 6(1-2), 158-189.
58. Schneider, B. R. (1993). The career connection: A comparative analysis of bureaucratic preferences and insulation. Comparative Politics, 331-350.
59. Secker, W. P. (1995). Political-administrative elites in the Netherlands: profiles and perceptions. Historical Social Research/Historische Sozialforschung, 61-86.
60. Semenova, E. (2011). Ministerial and parliamentary elites in an executive-dominated system: post-Soviet Russia 1991–2009. Comparative Sociology, 10(6), 908-927.
61. Soria, K. M. (2021). The social class barriers to engagement in leadership experiences. New directions for student leadership, 2021(169), 33-41.
62. Sotiropoulos, D. A. (1999). A description of the Greek higher civil service. E. Page & V. Wright (Eds.), Bureaucratic Elites in Western European States: A Comparative Analysis of Top Officials. Oxford University Press.
63. Spanou, C. (2014). Administrative elites and the crisis: what lies ahead for the senior civil service in Greece? International Review of Administrative Sciences, 80(4), 709-725.
64. Spence, C., Carter, C., Husillos, J., & Archel, P. (2017). Taste matters: Cultural capital and elites in proximate Strategic Action Fields. Human relations, 70(2), 211-236.
65. Spencer, G. (1973). Methodological issues in the study of bureaucratic elites: A case study of West Point. Social problems, 21(1), 90-103.
66. Suleiman, E. N. (1978). Elites in French society: the politics of survival. Princeton University Press.
67. Szyliowicz, J. S. (1971). Elite recruitment in Turkey: The role of the Mülkiye. World Politics, 23(3), 371-398.
68. Theakston, K., & Fry, G. K. (1989). Britain's Administrative Elite: Permanent Secretaries 1900–1986. Public administration, 67(2), 129-147.
69. Traini, C. (2021). Like parents, like children. Does the stratification of education systems moderate the direct effect of origins on destinations? Contemporary Social Science, 16(3), 344-358.
70. Van der Meer, F. M., & Raadschelders, J. C. (1999). The senior civil service in the Netherlands: A quest for unity. E. Page & V. Wright (Eds.), Bureaucratic Elites in Western European States: A Comparative Analysis of Top Officials (ss. 205-229). Oxford University Press.
71. Van der Wal, Z. (2014). Elite ethics: Comparing public values prioritization between administrative elites and political elites. International Journal of Public Administration, 37(14), 1030-1043.
72. Van Zanten, A., & Maxwell, C. (2014). Elite education and the State in France: Durable ties and new challenges. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 36(1), 71-94.
73. von Beyme, K. (2001). Elite relations in Germany. German Politics, 10(2), 19-36.
74. Zafarullah, H. (2007). Bureaucratic elitism in Bangladesh: The predominance of generalist administrators. Asian Journal of Political Science, 15(2), 161-173.