Bureaucratic Decision A Complicated Process

Published by the Atlantic Publisher and Distributors, New Delhi.

 

The colonial rulers established the Imperial Services (bureaucratic system) as a mechanism to rule the Indian subcontinent. Imperial Civil Service (ICS), Imperial Forest Service (IFS), and Imperial Police Service (IPS) were established to serve the imperial interests of the England. These Crown services were strengthened exclusively for the aggressors to rule the Indian masses perpetually, with the purpose to consolidate and expand the land under their control. Later on, under political pressure from Independence Movement, these services were renamed as Indian Administration Service (IAS), Indian Forest Service (IFS), and Indian Police Service (IPS) along with some other services. Remotely controlled officers of these services governed the operations in India to serve the imperialist rulers in England. The imperialistic rulers achieved their objectives of maximisation of revenue collections and wealth maximization; retention of strategic powers, maintaining law and order to serve self-ends.

Centralisation in decision-making was its key feature. Indian Civil Service members as a rule manned all the leadership positions, at all levels and all sectors of administration. The administration was based on a system of rules, procedures and regulations. Secretariat got the role of policy making and executive for the operational and implementation responsibility. Stratified Indian Society entrenched with institutionalised inequalities. This colonially created imperialistic institution based on disparities has to be readjusted in harmony with emerging new socio-economic- political situations. Bureaucrats are power elite everywhere, so India cannot be an exception. For their decisions, it is commonly whispered in the corridors of power, ‘You show me a person, I will quote the rules and deliver the decision to serve the clientele needs’.

Politics is the fact of life, so as the political pressure is the necessary evil in the bureaucratic system. People love it, to use this for own goal maximization. It is not possible that any system can be free from politics and pressure tactics. Political pressure is the compulsory compulsion of the bureaucratic systems. Activities under political pressure are not carried out according to rules, regulations, and procedures, it is considered to be brought under the influence or an attempt to influence the outcome of a decision to meet their self/ own goals or interests from public administration at the cost of the public. Illegitimate political pressure violates the well laid down rules, regulations, and procedures of the bureaucratic systems.

Prevalent working in the bureaucratic system reminds us Murphy’s Law (1956)

• If something can go wrong, it will. (AIS will go wrong)
• When left to themselves, things always go from bad to worse. (So, as Indian Bureaucracy and All India Services) Parkinson’s Laws (1957)
• Officials multiply subordinates, not rivals. (AISO wants the whole country as subordinate to them only, no rivals, please)
• Officials make work for each other. (Different services, fight with each other)
• Delay is the deadliest form of denial. (That is the ultimate decision) Peter Principle (1969)
• In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his maximum level of incompetence. (All India Services tends to be) Gershman’s statement
• Trivial matters are handled promptly—important matters are never solved
• Peter Drucker (1980), “Mal-performance is increasingly being taken for granted.”

Bureaucracy is a class of power-elites which exercise control over society to meet their own goals or ideology or a combination of both. In bureaucratic systems, a strong social and economic base for the support for modern bureaucratic organization remained more or less non-existent. The social subsystem goes into group dynamics and individual behavioural traits for the social satisfaction of its members. Power influences the decision-making process. Power holders enjoy a status in accordance with their ability, to carry out orders according to their wishes.

 A strong social and economic base for the support for the modern bureaucratic system remained more or less non-existent in India. The caste-ridden stratification of Indian society is increasingly reflected in the administrative behavior of the All-India Services also. The basic character of Indian society is reflected in the political administration, and a particular class-supporting politician in power may get linkage and benefits from the All India Services Officers.

Conceptual Perspective

The present study has described the emergence of specific forms of economic organization and behavior of economic decision-makers in that institutional structure. Various processes that tend to elaborate or change departmental forms are interwoven with public administration systems to include power, authority, status, the role of position, motivation, task, perceptions, value, culture, locus of control, conflict, innovations, exchange, bargaining, ubiquitous, system, change, restructuring/de-layering of departments.

Self-goals mostly influence the outcomes of the decisions, in such situation’s choices are computed and exercised by these bureaucrats as directed by the most motivating factors of the outcome. Rationality in decision-making or choices, therefore, involves individual internal consistency. An individual is assumed to be always acting to maximise own utility. Problems are recognised and solved by individuals. Individual officers with a different specialism and demographic background identify different problems, or see a different facet of the same problem, or they will give a different definition of a similar problem (Deaborn and Simon).

Problems are structured in line with individuals’ values, prejudices, and beliefs. Decision-maker does not have to be thought out from scratch on each occasion, previous experience and organisation history is used to filter out alternative considerations. Goals will change when an individual sees scope for improving one’s benefits by means of goal change, dominate-goal is toppled in the power struggle.

In any government departmental structure, the number of relationships and interrelationships available at any point of time, in actuality modify individual All India Services Officers behaviour, from formal relationships, non-formal and informal relationships, tend to develop in the process. The process of bureaucratic control on pivotal positions is used as the process of bargaining. Continuous modifications and the coalition of politicians and All India Services Officers proving to be an effective tool for own interest maximization.

In the present bureaucratic process, authority, power, and status have fused together. The concept of authority, power, and status proves the relevance of the Wolfe statement, “Power induce force on another person towards, movement or change in a given direction with a given behavior region, at a given time”. Politicians have contested and cornered the power, in this process ethics and goals have been lost. According to Brown’s theory, uncertainties wield the power, which can influence the outcome of any decision. Colonially created unequal All India Services have been ruining and hampering the psychological growth of the nation continuously at a steady pace.

The British want mobile elites, who can deal ruthlessly with Indian kings and rulers on one side and exploit masses on other hand to enrich the coffers of the Imperial Crown. All comforts and facilities these bureaucrats enjoyed were made available at the cost of the Indian masses. These comforts stimulated the feeling in these All India Services Officers to ruthlessly suppress Indians, so that they can continue to avail their perquisites and enjoyment.

Indian bureaucracy has lost rationality, efficiency, uniformity, and predictability. In the present-day scenario, non-conformance with rules, nepotism, favouritism, personal interest, inefficiency, and incompetence prevails. Indian bureaucrats take decisions on their whims, fancies, prejudices, caprices, and idiosyncrasies of individuals (R.A. Sharma). In such a bureaucratic setup, incompetent officers enjoy the aura around them with political patronage and good officers struggle to meet
frustrating challenges. The system itself is the adversary.

The criticism of bureaucracy has received strength because of the fast-changing environment and evils overflowing over it. Bureaucracy has failed to bring a social change as envisaged by the framer of the constitution (S.R. Maheshwari). Bureaucracy has not kept its pace in learning challenges pertaining to the dynamic environment. Over time, competitiveness has increased and stiff’s competition in grabbing and retaining the key positions. Authority, power, and status have coalesced in the furnace under the pressures of lusts, lulls, and favors. This has enhanced and aggravated the political expectations, which have manipulated over changing government policies/laws.

Decision-Making Process

The All India Services Officers in the decision-making process under political pressure have to make a choice from adherence to bureaucratic system rules, regulations, and procedures or twist the system according to politician’s expectations to meet individual goals. The choice is between merit-based objectivity and politically propelled desires for subjectivity. The decision-making process under political pressure is a dilemma as it causes the inconsistency between adherence to the current system or adherence to individual politician desired expectations. Individual All India Services Officer arrives at decisions according to their own choices, which are influenced by individual perceptions, beliefs, and past experience in doing so. In every decision, individual All India Services Officer receives, perceives, screens, processes, interprets, and evaluates the information to develop alternatives according to own preferences in the decision-making process to arrive at a decision. The bureaucratic decision-making process mainly comprises the following nine steps: (a) Problem (b) Intensions c) Options (d) Rationality (e) Alternatives (f) Conflicts (g) Decision (h) Monitoring (i) Modifications

Individual All India Services Officer does not get much time to ponder, deliberate, and evaluate alternatives courses of action. Based on their own perceptions, experience, knowledge, values, attitude, and situations, individual officer explores various options. Individual All India Services Officer decisions are based on situations reasonably optimizing political or public interest, at the cost of someone else. Choices are confined to system parameters and individual officer limitations. Most of the All-India Services Officers’ decisions are judgmental, spur-of-the-moment, and sentimental rather than based on any model or concept.

Individual persons follow intuitive decision-making (W.H. Agor, 1989; H.A. Simon, 1987) and mostly operate independently of rational analysis due to high uncertainty, unpredictable variables facts don’t indicate solutions, no time is allowed, alternatives are plausible, and every decision is independent of previous decisions. Very limited information is made available to the individual officer, which signifies the tremendous role of manipulations in the outcomes. Dimensions of the pressure in the decision
comprise the All-India Services Officers cognition, thinking, processing of information, perceptions, tolerance to uncertainty, minimizing the conflict and risk, structuring the pressure sources and modes in the system.

 The individual officer has to work with high tolerance towards uncertainty. They have to be logical and rational in thinking. The officers has to be efficiency-oriented. They must have the ability to derive a decision with minimal information and the least alternative evaluation. With the passage of time individual officers develop the capability to cope with pressure and tolerate uncertainty, play safe, and collect full information about pressure so that they can examine possible alternatives. Innovative officers arrives at decisions based on long-range implications and explore creative options.

Individual Orientation towards Pressure

Individual bureaucrats` personal orientation determines the handling of political pressure in the decision-making process. Individual officer desires induce oscillation in one’s life. The amplitude of such oscillation invariably determines the composure and calmness of an individual mind, which decides the direction of individual actions in the decision. Internal discomforts and high oscillations sabotage the decision made by an individual officer. When materialistic temptations in self and family members generate goals of conflict for achievement, the self-destructive process derails the decision process. Failure in self-goal achievement induces failure complex in individual, and individual intensifies the efforts to meet own objectives. Individual officer personal orientation influences the extent and nature of handling of political pressure in the decision-making process.

An individual person is growing in a social system, watching the aura of power and flaunting arrogance of the All India Services Officers. Power and authority induced arrogant behavior of the All-India Service Officers in society to leave a traumatic impression and experience on an individual person. Thus, every individual person tends to develop own ideas towards power and devise own ways and means to defend self from the arrogance and such abusive power occurrences. Every individual person has inbuilt concern for self, family, service, society, and surrounding environment, where he is living and working. Present states of affairs automatically leave scars on an individual mind, personality, and growth. Individual devises ways and means to defend self only. Most of the persons tend to avoid any kind of trouble threats to self and family.

 Individual officers show a desire to retain control over the situations and enhance the chances for self-involvement in the surrounding decisions. Non-fulfillment of desires generates inbuilt resentment in the individual. Any individual does not like unfavourable outcomes and tries to avoid, what to avoid and avoidance or pretension behavior dominant in the circumstances beyond own control. Initially, a person reflects a reactive responsive orientation and then responsive behavior. Ultimately, reactive orientation in an individual person becomes a habit.

One has to appreciate the word ‘self’, every individual carries out computations according to self only, which cognition in turn is processed in the background of self-knowledge, situations, and conditions at that time of action. It is self-understanding, which equips an individual officer to deal with prevailing conditions in any decision. Individual self-confidence is crucial for the effectiveness of the individual officer in the decision-making process. The potential effectiveness and individual officer’s competence are related to the self (Brockner, 1988).  

Individual officers self-nurture the self-esteem in him, try to influence the situations in near surroundings. Self-esteem is a trait reflecting an individual’s characteristic, effective evaluation, i.e., self-worth or self-liking, Gist and Mitchell (1992). Individual All India Services Officers handles the political pressure according to own self-esteem, which determines the individual efficacy in the decision-making process. “Self-efficacy refers to beliefs in one’s capacities to mobilize the motivation, cognitive resources and courses of action to meet given situational demands,” Wood and Bandura (1989).

The self-efficacy of an All India Services Officer will be related to the perceived capability of an individual to perform a given task. Decisions will not be static, new information will lead to a differential performance in the decision. Conceptually (McClelland and Winter, 1969), efficacy has a relation with goals, an individual officer’s self-being will have a relation with his decisions and inherent initiative, and actions will be related to compliance achievements. Individual officer approach to solve the pressure problem in the decision will be related to avoidance behavior. An individual officer efficacy is the sense of adequacy and contributes to individual effectiveness in working for task related to own goals.

Every individual officer shows serious concern for own identity among various services. Many individuals with proactive orientation feel that they can change things in the bureaucratic system through the decision-making process. Such persons will invariably determine own course of actions in the decision. A proactive person will not wait for any outside help or avoiding the problem, he will solve the problems within the available environmental setup. Individual officers with McCllend (1975) “activity inhibition” will work hard, he will not succumb to immediate gratification to some of his desires, he will be future-oriented and try to deliver a decision in that direction.

Locus of Control in Decision

The behavior researchers believe that it is desirable to change a person in the direction of
internality. Gist and Mitchell (1992) proposed a model of determinants with three-dimensional efficacy. External determinants are task-related. Performance, ability, and personality are related to internal determinants. Any program towards changing control orientation will bring change in an individual and his immediate surroundings. In internal locus of control, the All India Services Officers will have low perceptions about the contingencies and they feel that actions taken by them will have bearing on the decision outcomes. An officer with internal control will be directed more towards goals and an officer with external control will be more emotional.

According to Lefcourt and Wine (1969), persons with high internal are more sensitive towards information, are better observant, and help in resolving the uncertainties in the decision process. Officers with internal control will demonstrate a better ability to acquire more information regarding political pressure, they will try to understand the pressure and solve it. Franklin (1963) indicated that perseverance and internality show a high and positive correlation. Such an individual officer devotes more time in office, he involves himself to find solutions for difficult problems. They derive greater satisfaction in their job and believe in a participatory approach in management.

The bureaucrats, who recognize their own capabilities and actions, experience stress due to failures in managing the political pressure. They consider themselves responsible for such lapses and become self-punitive in the process. High internality observed among the Indian Administrative Service officers can be attributed to their location on top positions in the hierarchy and excellent rapport and support provided by the seniors. The internal or external locus of control indicates the extent to which any person will perceive a contingency relationship between their actions and their outcomes. The officers with high internals think they have control over their destiny and they can control their actions in decisions and outcome from it.  

Self-efficacy is an officer is indicative of individual beliefs that he can perform the given task under a given environment. The higher self-efficacy of an officer originates from his confidence in his abilities. An individual All India Services Officers with lower self-efficacy will be easily amenable to pressure or will give up resistance to political pressure in the early stage itself. An individual officers with high self-efficacy put efforts to face the challenges, and increase one’s efforts when politician give negative feedback. The success of desired outcomes in the process of decision by the All India Services Officers can be attributed to changeable or adjustable efforts put in by an officer. When an individual All India Services Officers get success in managing the political pressure, he will put more effort to gain more mileage out of it.

Any kind of non-fulfillment of goals or failures, an individual All India Services Officers will attribute them to chance, luck, or grace of God. An individual All India Services Officers attributing one’s failures to chance were found to be more amenable to various kinds of direct and indirect political pressures. The Indian Administrative Service officers with high internality were observed and they felt that they could successfully influence the results and grounds, both. Slowly, they have exaggerated their belief in their capabilities. They perceive their abilities as a stable and powerful service they belong to. Among the Indian Administrative Service officers, internality has become a service variable. In a bureaucratic system, where the Indian Forest Service officers found that they are powerless to influence the decision outcomes, they attribute such failures to the present bureaucratic system and other people located in the hierarchy. Some of them located away from power attribute failures to fate, destiny, and luck.

Locus of control orientation indicates the All-India Services Officers behavior and approach adopted in handling the political pressure, their feelings related to happenings occurring in service and department they work. This indicates concern for the top persons, politicians, senior bureaucrats, and bosses, who exercise control over the decision. The All India Services Officers` show tremendous concern for any decision, which has bearing on their effectiveness, promotions, career progression, resource control, rewards acceptability, power allocation, and status distribution in the bureaucratic decision process.

Motives Stimulate Decision

A motivated individual officer will deliver high personal efficacy in the decision. The All India Services Officers with high motives (needs) will show a high need for efficiency/excellence towards the achievement of the needs. The power motive will arouse the need to influence others; under extension motive officers will help many individuals to meet their own needs of pursuing goals. The All India Services Officers with achievement motivation will show concern for competition; this will improve the performance of the officer in the decision process. All the All-India Services Officers have some innovation, creativity, discretion, liking for status, motivation to use power, the intensity of desires, opportunities, use of them will vary from individual-to-individual officer. Enjoyment of power related to socio-economic conditions and location in the hierarchy of bureaucratic administration.

Extrinsic factors, as government policies and administration co-ordination, inter-personal relations, working conditions, etc. are related to dissatisfaction within the decision. Status, power, and influence by virtue of being the All India Services Officers, they get more opportunities to serve people to satisfy extrinsic needs. The All India Services Officers get freedom in working so that they can show their professional competence, which serves as an extrinsic motivator to them. The All India Services Officers get timely promotions and chances are better than other services, this career progression, and reputation they enjoy in the society motivate them. The All India Services Officers` get sustained motivation in a decision from rewards given by politicians but such rewards are not perceived as equitable. Motivation and sense of competition among the All India Services Officers mutually influence each other. Experience of success in political pressure is sensed as competence by the All India Services Officers. This motivates individual officers to interact with the work environment. Erratic and irregular successes motivate individual All India Services Officer desires for engaging with pressure in behavior with the decision-making process. 

Intrinsic rewards are not sustainable in the bureaucratic system as a politician at the top is changed frequently. The need for achievements motivates the All India Services Officers to strive for success and they succeed in the attainment of goals. Financial security, the best salary structure, and availability of such financial benefits after retirement intrinsically motivate the All India Services Officers. The All India Services Officers` occupy senior positions where they enjoy lesser responsibilities and accountability in other ways motivates them intrinsically.

Power Base as Motivator

Individual All India Services Officer with power motivation will try to influence others, such officer can incorporate changes to meet and fulfill the need of power motive. Power emanates from control and ownership of means of production, mastery of rules, tasks are fragmented, skills are diverse, and knowledge is deferentially confided, held, and valued (O. Claus. 1976). Power provides the ability to get others to do what you want them to do, if necessary, against their will (Weber, 1978). Different bases of power operate for information, expert knowledge, status, prestige in the system, resource control (Pettigrew, 1973), uncertainty control (Crozier,1964), develop contacts in the higher hierarchy, issue of sanctions, rewards, financial control (Benfari et al., 1986), mobilize politics (Hickson et al., 1986) and many more aspects work in the bureaucratic system.

Differential power is legitimately vested in hierarchy layers, where an individual officer has the temperament and temptation to exercise power for the maintenance of own goals and interests. Slowly realization will come, how long the elite officers` can retain concentration of potential power, which reduces or limit the capabilities and capacities of their subordinate employees, and how long other departments will accept such a system of regulatory control over them? The larger the gap in power discretion, the sooner realization will come to other departments’ employees for control of power by them. Power discretion is bound to deflect and will ultimately harm the monopolizers. Only self-discipline can prolong the position of elite power holders.

In the hierarchy of the All-India Services, power structures are uneven and concentrate at the district level and secretary level. Individual officers of the elite services develop a tendency to misuse and abuse power and monopolize it solely by them. They devise ways and means to keep other officers away from power, which creep in frustration and powerlessness among the other bureaucrats. The Indian Administrative Service officers approach politicians with a lust to increase uncertainties in the bureaucratic system; to increase their own power, relative to formal assigned power in a hierarchy.

Differential power is slowly but surely hurting the system. Strategically in a very well-planned manner, the Indian Administrative Service officers invest all powers to its sub-units; secretary/ commissioners at the secretariat, at district to Deputy Commissioner /District Magistrate, and down to subdivision to Sub-Divisional Magistrate, etc. They make other departments dependent on their units to create uncertainty at all times, to retain power, they keep their sub-units cohesive in nature and illegitimate power overflows from them. Voices of dissent start oozing out. Whenever anyone is marginalized but the internal mechanism of power by the Indian Administrative Service officers and their sub-units allow representation to the Indian Administrative Service officers at the top only to silence the conflicting voices.

Elite services misuse discretionary power, they like to sustain their full dominance and in due course to reduce the ability of other services. Accumulated frustration and powerlessness among services, other than Indian Administrative Service will revolutionize the other services for their share of power. Political power is the safest barrier available to other services officers (less powerful) to participate in the decision process, prevent the IAS from invocation all rules and procedures in their favor, and manipulating decisions in their favor behind the scene. Position of dominance, surveillance, and control of the IAS has lineage to colonial rule in Indian historical perspective. Power is used as a convenient, manipulative, and deterministic resource. If politicians delegate their authority to the All India Services Officers, delegation entails rules and regulations. Rules and regulation interpretation necessarily involve discretion, discretion gives birth to negotiated order to self-interests. Power is used as a means by which legitimacy is created for the incarnation of illegitimate actions.

Power is used consciously and deliberately mobilization of resources to pursue self-
interests. Power motivates the All India Services Officers to use political pressure to provide legitimate cover to their informal actions to achieve desired results. Power motivates the All India Services Officers to use resources and avoid conflict in the decision to meet self-goals. Political pressure and power influence the process of social inquiry, social justice, and used in an illegitimate manner to attack political opponents as emancipators’ tools. Raven (1959, 1992, and 1993).

Lifestyles Orientation and Decision

The All-India Services Officers’ mode of living and behavior pattern relate to service working condition realities, officer internal dispositions, and individual officer pattern of preferences, values, and beliefs. Everyone grows with a certain social-environmental set up within and around one’s home. In the same way, every service has its own working environment, where officers grow. When the All India Services Officers are recruited by the UPSC, all officers come from the spatially similar and comparable social set up. Attitudes, values, perceptions, aspirations, and approach to life and their behavior are akin to that social setup. Their mental makes up or their behavior is similar irrespective of the service they are selected. Respective service peers and training institutes impart training to the All India Services Officers for grooming them for their orientation towards future needs of that service.

The young officer is malleable; we can call it second birth or reinventing oneself in a new role model identity. New behavior patterns and norms are re-imposed, boundaries for behavior are drawn, limits are fixed for society, the concept of new family and friends is codified, an entirely new world of mystery engulfs the personality of the officer. Officers are sacrificed on the sanctum sanctorum altar of word ‘Elite’, for rest of their life, ‘word’ ‘elite’ eats them and devour them completely, but in the form of smallest particles. ‘Elite’ becomes the molecular state of these officers. They are taught now you are above God, and God only created you, now onward you will create and control the whole society. So, the Elite God let loose one’s reins of terror throughout their rest of life. Feeling of crushing anyone come in their way, they all will remain united and support any such whimsical act by any member of the Elite class. Grab as much you can, no rule is applicable to you. Rules are for fools; any way rules are framed for other than the Elite class.

 If you do not fall in line with service expectations, it will become threatening for you. As officers grow in their service career, they continue to conduct an experiment with their service and own behavior. Most of the learning pertains to avoidance or prevention behavior, negative consequences are repeatedly told to them and avoidance behavior becomes an automatic lifetime habit. The All India Services Officers` imbibe that in a bureaucratic system, circumstances are the dominant force, fear of disapproval response dominant and in case of any kind of pressure, the All India Services Officers first response to succumb under it. The bureaucratic system is such that it cultivates reactive responsive orientation among the All India Services Officers, which makes them selfish and goal-oriented. Training and grooming of the All India Services Officers have to be value and merit oriented. Continuous pressure from peers, seniors, politicians, and any other source forces the individual officer to recondition one’s behavior with respect to time and place. Gradually, officers learn how to draw desired attention and full fill their own goals.

The All India Services Officers` demonstrate their skills and knowledge in their respective services. Bureaucratic systems leave them alone or reward them as an outcome of their decisions. As officers grow in service, one’s interests also grow and start relying more and more on self and interests group developed by him. In enlarging lifestyle officers shift away from service traditions and place more emphasis on adaptation of development of self. The officers` searches for the position of influence in his department and slowly their earlier relations with family and parents start weakening. Newfound position and power change the officers` values and he no longer enjoys the company of his college and university friends.

As officers grow old, they show highly unpredictable and unstable behavior. Some of the officers find the system very dangerous, they learn to defend themselves to survive in the system, the methodology adopted may be right or wrong, and officers do not bother to adhere to departmental norms for their survival. Inbuilt frustrations in bureaucratic system force, even upright officers to accept political pressure or any other pressure exerted on them. Bureaucrats find the present bureaucratic system unjust, unfair, biased, immoral, opportunist, self-seeking, bargaining, yielding, threatening, malice, distrust, and self-serving. The system motivates them to adopt pressure.

Behaviour Dynamics in Decision

Individual officer behaviour gets modifications and change under political pressure or due to continuous impending threats of pressure. Incidences of frequent political pressure in routine decisions induce a change in the thinking of the All India Services Officers. In due course of time, individual All India Services Officer becomes highly intolerant towards uncertainties. In course of time, the All India Services Officers do not attend pressure properly or develop a lack of interest in his work or such decisions. The All-India Services Officers start behaving defensively, excessive defensiveness makes them no risk-taker. Go safe, decision or no decision, let the system go to hell.

Continuous political pressure makes officer insensitive towards public, department and official work. Such Officers show restlessness in working and get frequently irritated on small issues. Continuous pressure may lead to poor interpersonal relations and officers may adopt risky behaviour. A lot of officers have been seen resorting to heavy drinking or chain-smoking, rely on drugs and body language/gestures indicative of nervous stress due to continuous conflict and pressure on them. We have interacted with a number of officers with hypertension, depression, loss of appetite and anxiety due to heavy doses of pressure-generated conflict in the decision process.

An individual All India Services Officer reactions and interactions with political pressure in the decision process are related to the personality of the officer, which in turn related to the molecular structure of genes in chromosomes. Satisfaction with the outcome of the decision is related to personality in particular environmental and situational setup and personality traits of the officer. Extroverts officer, who is sociable, talkative and assertive, spend more time in enjoying political relationships and friendships with a large number of persons outside the sphere of their duty. This provides them with a sense of security in the job and makes them comfortable with unexpected pressure in the decision. Introverts’ solitude makes them uncomfortable towards pressure and more amenable towards acceptability of pressure. It is believed that co-operative, trusting and well-mannered individual bureaucrats value harmony more than own needs, they try to manage pressure in a mutually acceptable form.
Many officers have no desire to endanger their opportunities to rise to heights/pinnacles of name and fame. The consciousness of fear, perhaps this gives rise to aberrant behaviour, evaporates initiatives. Political pressure does infest mechanism of negative incentives, animosities among groups, individuals, or services, which do not enthuse for the betterment of public administration. First few years’ experiences of an individual officer during initial career plays a crucial role and decide the determinants of future behaviour of officers. Political and social influence of the bureaucrats is across the spectrum of civilian opinion. Excessive insulation of these services has created the apprehensions The strategy of centralizing policy power with elite services creates euphemism for diversion of control for pertinent issues, which is reflected through the embarrassment of political leadership. The dominance of elitist view in policy generates opposition among bureaucracy and public, both. Distortions generate public animus against the policy, which thwart the good intentions of political leadership.

Risk Management in Decision

Risk in the decision-making process under political pressure involves a number of payoffs (utilities) from the outcomes, one utility for each possible state of nature. Individual officer decision criterion under risk will be based on all possible utilities for each strategy. Individual officer may select one or more utility based on his experience with political pressure. Individual officers, who can take a moderate risk or calculated risk, are found to have high internality. Individual All India Services Officer perceived attributes reflect a way in which risk is handled in the decision process. Perceived attributes of the All India Services Officers are related to the service culture and departmental working conditions, where the officer is located.

Individual officer orientation for the pressure and his concern for the risks are important, how one can handle the risk in decision. Individual officers with excellent interpersonal relationships with colleagues, seniors, and juniors are more successful in handling the risk in decision. Individual officer’s excellent relationships with the top hierarchy are the greatest morale booster for him to manage risk. Individuals with positive orientation visualizes risk as a challenge, elicits, and seeks views from hierarchy to handle it. The similar nature of pressure and risk is managed by different officers in different ways and styles. Individual officers’ assessment of the conflict in risk is significant in the management of the problem.

 Individual officer trust, capability to extract desired information and selectivity in sharing information with concerned in bureaucratic decision process is crucial for risk handling. Individual officer adopts different approaches in decision making to achieve results through risk management according to own capabilities. Politicians influence the officer to achieve their goals and in this process values, attitudes, and behavior of individual officers are influenced. Officer realizes risk and fear from the outcomes of pressure, such officers put various explanations to the politician, narrate different excuses to avoid the risk from the decisions. Highly goal-oriented officer has focused on the self-goals, enter into bargaining with the politician in lieu of risk undertaken in the decision.

Most of the officers` pass on problems down to juniors, who become scapegoats. The intelligent way used by the officers to stretch the decision and pose as if they are occupied with the problem and decision may be taken during ensuing any time. Keep papers pending under process, or ensure objections are got raised through juniors that decision gets lost in the papers and risk is averted.  The officers indulge in rigorous documentation collection of information, pass time until politicians get changed or get lost in the ocean of information. Even the officers take shelter under the misrepresentations, distortion, deception, obstruction, and present only selective information to the politician to avoid risk in the decision process.

Innovations and Pressure Management

In rarest of rare innovative ideas come to the All India Services Officers, their dominant emphasis is on caution, especially in matters related to political pressures. Eventually, the officers dictate the policy of minimum change and show maximum concern for the status quo. The All India Services Officers feel that innovations in policy discussions may have serious repercussions on their career advancement. Due to a lack of creative orientation among the All India Services Officers, they become a habitually negative thinker. Inner forces get weakened or left without inner force, so they move in direction of the dominant force either they like it or not.

A small number of officers, who are creative essentially report to self, irrespective of prevailing circumstances in the system, a decision will be in direction of inner conscious. The officers largely commit to bureaucratic process rather than the results; what the public can expect from them. The whole apparatus of the bureaucracy is operating in a manner, which discourages creativity among officers of different services and subordinates.

Various aspects related to team innovations are sharing values, team ideology, skill, resources, structure, roles and rules, and leadership process. Any departmental decision outcomes influence the innovative capabilities building that system. Any decision is influenced by the factors spurring innovations, innovations facilitating structures; control to facilitate innovations, culture building for innovations, conflict resolution for innovation, and innovative success. Not all these factors are allowing innovations to grow in the bureaucratic system, where these officers operate.

Conflict Management under Pressure

The All India Services Officers` frequently have to make decisions under a state of conflict, where rational opponents are involved. Opposition carefully considers the various means and ends involved in the decision process. Taking a decision under conflict is like playing a game in other court. Any gains for one group are the losses for the other group. In competing goals, the officers have to decide in a win-win position for all the stakeholders.

Conflict management is the art of understanding the conflict itself. Negative pressure on the officers creates dissonance with the self-image of the officer, maybe threatening to one’s ego. When an officer receives negative pressure, an individual officer tends to be defensive and defensive behavior is used to deal with such pressure. Such a defensive behavior will create the delusion that he has dealt with the pressure. Through training and other means, we try to modify the behavior of the All India Services Officers without changing the underlying behavior pattern, which causes that behavior to incorporate change in behavior of individual officers. We have to change the cognitive contents, which determine the behavior of an officer. Underlying self-goals and interests generate fluctuations in the makeup of psychological structure and oscillations due to differential tension in each part of the structure of structural conflict prevalent in tension resolution systems. Desires and beliefs individual officer want to accomplice generate disagreements in the system. Any change of structure produces emotional change, a lot of the officers fail to cope up with emotional pressure. They try to minimize the prevailing conflict and stay in an area of contradictions, which they can tolerate. The system continues to produce changes but individual officer feels he can manage the conflict in process of decision.

An individual officer has a different degree of tolerance and can tolerate conflict up to a point (elasticity or elastic limit of tolerance). When conflict crosses that point one shift in the direction, which determines the outer limit of tolerance for conflict. Even slight pressure beyond this limit, the officer will feel uncomfortable. The best approach to manage conflict in public administration is to minimize the aspirations level, goals, or interests of individual officer. Time tested Upanishad’s philosophy to minimize individual aspirations and needs has been directed towards reducing conflicts in one’s daily life.

Political pressure continues to increase and accrue conflict among the All India Services Officers. Individual officers experience conflict to a critical limit (elasticity), beyond which, an officer is unable to manage the conflict in the decision process. Then officer is forced to make a decision in direction of least resistance, which is invariably controlled and directed by the pressure. The outcome may be short-termed but it releases the accumulated tension in the individual officer and the officer feels relieved irrespective of the consequences of the decision. How long individual officers can manage to cope with this situation of conflict in the decision process? In due course of their career, officers feel powerlessness in front of pressure. They try different approaches to manage the pressure, but all without any result in their desired direction.

Conflict is perceived in the decision-making process under political pressure when the officers feel that they themselves or another party is adversely affected by protecting the interests of the source of pressure. Conflict is natural and inevitable over the outcome of any decision. Even if, the officers perform absolutely and necessarily with the utmost fairness, then also conflict will remain associated with the decision. It is not proper to visualize conflict as a dysfunctional outcome

 Sources of Pressure and Impact on Decision

The politicians occupy the position from where he can influence the decision process and behavior of the officers to serve their own political goals. By location and constitutional authority, politicians continue efforts to influence the distribution of rewards, advantages, and disadvantages according to their own needs in public administration. Officers` behavior is own goals oriented, politician is aware of this fact and maximizes political efforts to influence the goals, criteria, rules, procedures, and process of decision-making.

The politicians’ location is supreme in public administration. Politicians have connections and rapport with the masses at the lowest level and control over bureaucrats from the top, which is a unique power in itself. The politician has access to confidential information, which he can use for spreading rumours against the individual officer, particularly while in opposition, the same politician indulges in whistle blowing and approach media to misguide the public. While in power same politician busy in exchanging favors, maximization of personal benefits, lobbying for alternative decisions to own advantage, and misuse of position and power for personal gains. Make hay while sunshine’s, mudslinging, when out of power is commonly adopted approach.

Officers experience that for politicians, everything is legitimate and his words carry weight. Politicians can resort to any method to exert pressure and intensify it until targets are achieved. Politicians engage in false complaints to the top bosses, form coalition with top bosses, develop syndicate with a group of politician or ministers, bypass chain of command, obstruct departmental policies, inaction in law, delay in the decision, excessive adherence to a particular rule/law, use different jugglery tricks to mobilize pressure to get things done. The illegitimate behavior of the politician is the real risk for public administration. However, the politician is the constitutional head and the executive is to implement policy/law for public administration under them.

The politicians and bureaucrats have to co-exist with each other in prevailing circumstances. If politicians are essentially required nuisance, then the bureaucrats are the compulsive exploiters for the system (parasitic behavior). Resources are limited, everyone desires to maximize resources for self-gains, and this generates conflict for self-goals. Such perception of self-goals fulfillment intensifies competition for scarce resources, which improve in the direction of dominant pressure. Various sources of pressure on policy framework at various levels and influence allocation, delivery vehicle, and distribution of resources from government administration.

Political Pressure Management

Political pressure from various sources is being exerted on the lowest, village-level government functionaries to the highest level at Chief Secretary/Cabinet Secretary. Government functionaries at all levels bargaining with the political pressure are related to the individual and system factors. A multi-pronged process of bargaining may be laterally and vertically within the department, across the departmental channels with the public, and with the known/unknown third-party interventions. Political pressure management is the process, where two or more parties attempt to trades the interests of self or group to agree upon some trading benefits for the one or more parties.

Under political pressure, it is not necessary that political pressure sources carry out trading for self, it may be for the third party or may be chain of benefits delivery system at various levels. Prime Minister/Chief Minister/Minister may direct Cabinet Secretary/Chief Secretary for a particular benefit delivery down to the hierarchy of Secretary to departmental head than to functional heads may ultimately affect grassroot level public immediately or in long run. Such pressures perceived at the top level and conceived as top-level pressure spread its manifestations and tentacles like a virus in the bureaucratic system. On occasions, the Cabinet Secretary/Chief Secretary may not perceive it as pressure, as their own interests are not immediately affected, but in a real sense, a chain of so-called small decisions have long-term deleterious impact and implications on the whole social system and country. When we think about ramifications at the national level, officers/officials in different levels of hierarchy may not realize that by accepting particular political pressure for self-goals, they are transferring its adverse impact on many other A Complicated Process places. But according to the law of nature, the slightest advantage to any individual will be a disadvantage to someone else in the bureaucratic system.

When common people, who have approached politicians for helping themselves indicates in the first place that the bureaucratic system has violated merit and objectivity in the decision. Secondly, that a common person has lost faith in the hierarchy of the government. Thirdly, All India Services Officers have failed to deliver goods up to commoner expectations and system parameters; otherwise, that person could have approached immediate seniors in that bureaucratic system. When such officers go to the next place in the bureaucratic system, they will work to protect the interests of that politician, who has helped them. His colleagues and other employees are bound to be affected by such abnormal behavior. In due course slowly, others will also lose faith in the seniors and bureaucratic system. Ultimately, discipline, rules, regulations, and procedures are sacrificed.

Causational Factors for Accepting Pressure

 Reasons for accepting political pressure are invariably dynamically associated with the position and posting of the individual officer in government administration. Different reasons for accepting political pressure are also variable according to respective services environment related to IAS, IPS, and IFS cadre cultures and conditions prevalent in respective services at any given space, time, and place. Among the Indian Administrative Service officers due to their large cadre strength, there is neck-to-neck and stiffest competition for the prize (wet) postings. This is the reason that immediately after any change of any political leadership, a transfer list for the Indian Administrative Service officers is brought out and most pliable officers with situational choice are posted in all key positions. For the All India Services, transfers and postings are the single most important reason for accepting political pressure. Personality traits and value analysis of individual officers influence the acceptance of political pressure.

The All India Services Officers` have to traverse through an ocean of uncertainty and discontinuities with ever-changing technology. Competition for retention and sustenance of power is becoming stiffer to unmanageable day by day or with every change of wind direction. Fellow colleagues use newer innovative tricks and methods to defend their position, power, and status. Ethics and values have evaporated from the bureaucratic system. The All India Services Officers` are bound to adopt a new flexible and responsive approach to retain power. Social values had metamorphosed under the pressure of lulls and lusts. World politics have undergone a sea change, so as domestic political leadership has changed, cheap politics have shaded off all values and norms exposed to nudeness and drought for values.

In the process of change and uncertainty, politicians change parties like changing clothes. So as voter perceptions have changed the electoral calculations and process. These continuous changes have left the All India Services Officers under tremendous multi-directional pressure. Some self-goal-oriented All India Services Officers are devoid of values and fight for self-needs, all the time waiting for fish like a goose on the bank of a pond. Such opportunist All India Services Officers` eagerly wait for the right moments to strike at the door of a politician to win over their confidence to meet self-needs. Ever-available politicians, who are invariably interested in self-goals, readily enter into a bargaining process with such All India Services Officers. The process of mutual understanding has become the process of plundering government resources; they rinse the last drop of blood from the bureaucratic system. Self-goals motivate both parties; time is not far off when they will kill the hen laying golden eggs.

Opening of the market, globalization of borderless world of information and technology, invasion of multinationals is reflected in the behavior of the officers. We have started feeling that external intervention can improve the situation. Political authority relations, power holder behavior, job structure, work environment variables are changing to force the modification of the system vis-à-vis officers. Responsibilities and spans of control are under attack, which induces flattery and uncertainty in the decision-making process

Political pressure in the bureaucratic system has initiated the erosion of state power. Collectives’ bargaining in the bureaucratic system serves self-goals and objectives. Under political pressure bureaucratic system pay a relative price to explain resource allocation in the market. The power and control relationship of politicians and bureaucrats is working as a cause for political pressure acceptance. Enormity in the size of public administration itself is the cause of generation for political pressure. Every political pressure is dealt with in isolation and even illegal actions taken under pressure or distribution of benefits get lost in the largeness of the department. Vastness encourages favoritism and lack of transparency covers it. Government culture of use of immoral power itself promotes the mobilization of political pressure

Government culture of non-accountability, expenditure-oriented targets, prevalent mistrust among the officers, frequent dislocations related with role ambiguity, biased and motivated review system, lack of transparency, ambiguity in policy and rules, the concentration of excessive decision making with the officers, ever-changing performance criteria, high pressure on the All India Services Officers for delivery of results, self-seeking seniors, goal motivated hierarchy, officers discretion in resource allocation, large-scale disparities in use of power by officers of various levels, monopolization of closeness of politicians by one service induce others to mobilize political pressure. Employees lose nothing if political pressure is not materialized but gain from pressure are enormous. Autocratic behavior of the All India Services Officers, misuse of position by the officers, use of political power by the top officer is the greatest motivating factors for approaching political pressure. Individual officer likes to be perceived by others as powerful and the person with influence motivates them to accept political pressure. In our research, fifteen major areas/types have been discussed with 76 pressure points in Unit 12, all these pressure points are breeding ground for political pressure acceptance in the bureaucratic system.

Cultural Dimensions in Decision

Officers violate normative aspects of socially desirable behavior and people attribute it as a total loss of ethics from the All India Services. Values, beliefs, attitudes, and norms are the greatest casualty in the present-day administration system. Continuous erosion and interaction between beliefs and values under pressure have produced selfish and self-goal oriented attitudes with resulting in total evaporation of ethical norms among the officers. Goal or self-interest norms have been institutionalized in government administration. Spatial openness, information sharing, and free flow of feedback in government hierarchy are not encouraged, which cultivate growing acceptance of pressure for survival of goal-oriented bureaucrats.

Indian bureaucratic colonial culture is continuing but considered obstructive in development by many people. “If something is simple, it’s made more complicated in India. The system (bureaucratic) does not seem to allow simplicity. If you are trying to do something from a business standpoint, it is very frustrating.” Indian bureaucracy legacy and culture are frustrating to new entrepreneurs as reported in the same article. “India is one place where you can never separate the regulatory from reality,” Nicolas Berggruen, The Economic Times, 25.11.2015. The cultural milieu of Indian bureaucracy is complex, colonial cultural evolution raises many questions, and such questions will continue to arise in the future also. “How should our bureaucracy evolve to navigate the challenge? J. Sinha, The India Express, 6.10.2017. Indian bureaucracy colonial culture has been a debatable issue since independence

Workplace Environment Impact on Decision Behaviour

In the workplace, how seniors show interest in the juniors to build their capacities and grooming? In many services junior respect seniors and repose faith in them or feel protected under them. In any service work environment, hierarchical relations are necessary for their survival and sustenance. Any service can retain and preserve knowledge and power only through an atmosphere of unity and harmony. In case of low tolerance for power, service members question their seniors and develop a critical attitude towards them.

The departmental environment is associated with some fundamental consistencies in the behaviour of an individual member of service that can be modified to reflect individual service member differences. In the workplace environment, what motivates officers, and do they feel comfortable to work? The workplace environment motivates them or they feel suffocated to work. Political pressure and politician location in public administration provide them opportunities to influence the work environment. There is tremendous competition for power among the officers, this makes politicians’ word more crucial for the growth of any service. With the passage of time, politicians are getting more awareness and higher pressure from voters in the direction of their goals and interests. Awakened people mobilize direct pressure on the officers. Slowly, they are realizing the power of pressure groups to get things done in their favour.

Any happening at the workplace and its environment has a direct relationship with the officers’ self-worth and happiness. Negative political pressure and its negative consequences are manifested through poor job satisfaction, which in turn leads to low performance and negative emotional attitudes towards the decision process. Ever-increasing and goals-oriented political pressure has crumbled and toppled the service norms. A goal-oriented work environment has an impact on the structure, hierarchy, promotions, postings, policies, and career progression of the Services and process of decision, thereupon. Bureaucratic processes and hierarchy have an impact on individual officers’ psychological needs and expectations. The same work environment produces a different degree of impact on the decision among different officers depending upon individual officers’ values, beliefs, and perceptions.