Korpri: Government body or state apparatus?

Korpri: Government body or state apparatus?

By Ignas Kleden

JAKARTA (JP): The debate on the role of the Indonesian
bureaucracy was enlivened at a seminar at the department of
political and area studies of the National Institute of Sciences
(LIPI) on Feb. 26. The issue of whether or not the monoloyalty of
civil servants would be maintained or should be reviewed was
raised.

There are many important questions pertaining to the rights
and obligations of Indonesian civil servants (Korpri), but first
the theoretical status of bureaucracy should be examined. The
question arises: Is bureaucracy basically a government body or a
state apparatus? The Indonesian language has a very pertinent
word for it: alat negara, which literally means state apparatus.
The term is mostly used to refer to the role and function of the
army. However, one can ask with good reason whether the term may
be used to designate Indonesian bureaucracy as well.

The existence of the army for example is justified because the
state is allowed to monopolize the use of violence in order to
guarantee the security of the people and society. In the same
way, the state has bureaucracy at its disposal in order to
provide citizens with the service they deserve. For the service
it renders, bureaucracy is entitled to use the money the people
pay through tax.

Modern bureaucracy is differentiated from traditional
patrimonialism in that it does not belong to the realm of
personal property of the powerholders (the king). It becomes
autonomous, impersonal and is subject to procedural rationality.
In traditional patrimonialism the servants are subject to the
will and even to the whim and favor of the king. The success or
failure of bureaucracy, however, depends not on its goal-oriented
rationality but rather on its instrumental rationality.

As a machine it is detached from the changing political goals
as well as volatile political situations, and bases its
achievement on other criteria. This includes the efficiency and
effectiveness of its personnel, the correctness of its
procedures, and its distance from personal and power relations.
It justifies its existence not by outside criteria but by the
criteria from within like a machine.

Bureaucracy could be compared with the engine of a car. The
government is the driver. The driver can not only take the car
where he wants to go, but he has to adjust himself first to the
internal mechanism and the conditions of the engine. The engine
is to serve the running. It is not to serve the driver. The
driver can only benefit from the engine as long as he makes it
serve the running of the car.

In this way, members of the bureaucracy do not belong to a
political party but rather to the realm of state power. Their
political engagement cannot be carried out on behalf of belonging
to the bureaucracy but rather on their personal behalf. Given the
above assumption, there are two important consequences for
Indonesian civil servants.

First, there should be enough freedom of choice for the
members of bureaucracy to give their political loyalty to the
political party they want to support. In this case monoloyalty,
which might have been an appropriate measure at the beginning to
stabilize the government, should be treated as an emergency
action which is only transitional and provisional in nature. It
is now high time to ask whether or not emergency action should
and could be terminated in order for Indonesian bureaucracy to
return to its normal situation, namely back to its status as a
state apparatus and not as a government body in the first place.

Second, the question arises, whether or not the members of
other political parties can work and have a place within the
Indonesian bureaucracy. Presently, only those who declare
themselves loyal to the dominant ruling party Golkar, are allowed
to be dedicated civil servants. This is what is happening in line
with the constitution, though it is difficult to say to what
extent.

Since bureaucracy is more a state apparatus than a government
body, its commitment should be directed to all existing political
parties, by means of rendering the same service to those who are
looking for it. In modern states, bureaucracy differentiates
itself categorically from political parties and even competes
with political parties.

In Japan for example, it is said that bureaucrats are supposed
to be better qualified than politicians. This is partly due to
the training they receive during their service. They are expected
to be ready and willing to serve in different positions in
different places (in order to have an overview of their job)
before they are considered capable enough to assume a leading
position.

The high qualifications of Japanese bureaucrats are
discernible in the fact that for a very long time (now it is
changing) more than 50 percent of them were recruited from the
top university in the country, the University of Tokyo.

The fact that the Japanese bureaucrats were recruited from the
top university is indicative of the importance the Japanese give
to the qualifications of the bureaucrats. But the question most
often asked in Japan is why the bureaucrats have to be that
qualified. The answer is simple. Because political parties and
the government come and go but the bureaucracy remains.

The writer is a sociologist based in Jakarta.