Division of power and social integration

Explanation of some of the recent challenges to western democracy may be found in a re-examination of Montesquieu's thought. Here we find the theory of the separation of power to be far more complex than is implied in the simple divisions of legislature, executive, and judiciary. For Montesquieu, the separation of power is more a social division than a political or juridical one. He contemplated returning the organs of political power to various social forces, e.g. monarchy, aristocracy, and bourgeoisie, and that then the self-assertion of forces would be restrained by the resistance of other social groups. The realization of its goals would require every important social group to integrate itself both to society and to the state and to seek its goals through realization of the general good.

Since Montesquieu's time, political structures would seem to have been very little changed even though social structures have been greatly altered by the rise of economic powers. Political institutions have been losing touch with the vital forces of society and these have had to find other channels of expression. The personalization of power, the rise of the executive, violence, and increasing paternalism may be viewed as phenomena of compensation by which attempts are being made to bridge the gap between the structures of political power and those of a society which has been restructured.

Revigoration of parliamentary democracy would seem to require that all vital social forces be reintegrated into the political system and be given meaningful channels of political expression. Failure to make such changes opens the way to identification of the political powers with technocracy and the increasing general use of violence in the resolution of social problems.

Concepts and Analytical Techniques of Administrative Phenomena

Among the phenomena inherent in administrative activities, four key categories may be distinguished: (1) the “duties” of the administration which give rise to whole families of activities and operations; (2) administrative “roles” which facilitate execution of these duties and provide the functional means for their execution; (3) administrative “organs” or institutions, charged with exercising the executive powers and which organize the agents assuming various administrative roles; and (4) the administrative “process” or information exchange circuits which inter-connect administrative duties, roles, and organs.

It is argued that the roles emerge from the type of operation, that the organs are, in several forms, postulated by the types of roles, and that the administrative processes are brought into being by the differing outcomes of the work of the administrative organs. We have here the embryo of a structural-functional theory of administration.

The thesis is presented throughout as a method of analysing the organization and operation of administrative institutions and as a means which may be used for reforming them. Such an analytical system could serve as a bridge facilitating comparative analysis of different administrative institutions and as the administrative element of a general theory of politics.