Max Weber, while referring to the choices facing the post-War Germany in 1918, outlined the following powerful currents of history running beneath the surface of events:

(1) Emergence of modern bureaucracy led by professional career administrators

(2) Rise of a new class of professional politicians whose influence was not based on inherited social status but on the suffrage of lakhs of ordinary citizens.

At the levers of power in the modern Government stand two uncertain partners-the elected party politician and the professional civil servant. The problematic relationship between these two is the dis­tinctive puzzle of the contemporary State reflecting as it does, the clash between the dual and conflict­ing imperatives of technical effectives and democratic responsiveness.

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Both civil servants and politicians participate in policy-making but they make distinctive contribu­tions. Civil Servants bring in fact and knowledge, and politicians interest and values. Civil servants bring natural expertise-will it work? – while politicians bring political sensitivity-will it be acceptable?

The conventional concept of relationship between the administrator and the politician visualises such a relationship purely in terms of a neat division of labour between the two, the politician formulates the policy and the administrator executes it.

In the process of decision-making and implementation, collection of facts, formulation of policy alternatives, discharges of responsibilities – like allotment of sites or giving of loans, release of grants or issue of licenses or permits-the administrators are sup­posed to be impartial and neutral.

The conventional maxim lays down that the administrator has an instrumental role and ultimate determination of policy is the politicians’ cup of tea.

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In the Indian context, during the two decades after independence, the ice of the supposed lack of trust melted away with the warmth of repeated emphasis on the necessity of close coordination be­tween the two peer groups by the utterances and conduct of Pandit Nehru and Sardar Patel.

Prudence, practicability, moderation, and avoidance of risk comprise the preferred work culture of civil servants. Only a politician could term extremism a virtue, and moderation a vice.

(a) The real distinction between politicians and bureaucrats is that whereas politician’s articulate broad- based interests of unorganised clientele, bureaucrats mediate narrow focused interest of the organised clientele. Politicians are passionate, partisan and idealistic; bureaucrats by contrast are prudent, centrist, practical and pragmatic. Politicians seek publicity and raise innovative issues, whereas bu­reaucrats prefer the backroom, to manage incremental adjustments.

(b) In both the pre and post legislative stages, civil servants are in contact with pressure groups, likely to be affected by proposed changes, obtaining detailed information on the anticipated effects of proposed changes-gathering information on likely ramifications of the new rules, bargaining for the knowledge of what is likely to be their Minister’s final position, getting consent in advance wher­ever possible, testing for their minister the temperature of the political water about to be stirred up.

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(c) A striking difference between bureaucrats and politician observed on cross-national basis is one of temperament. Politicians-quite a good number of them-have ideals and party passions to a degree quite alien to civil servants.

The relationship between administrator and politician has, necessarily, a behavioural dimension. The Kothari and Roy Study rightly assume that there is occasionally a very thin line between policy determination and policy implementation resulting between the two in a very confusing and complicated manner.

(1) While the administrators do not perceive their role as subservient to political leaders and yet they have to reconcile themselves to their pre-requisites of representative politics; political leaders, on the contrary, seem to be more alive to the operational conditions of representative politics and are more willing to establish cooperative relationship with administrators.

(2) The inapplicability of conventional notion of distribution of responsibility between administrators and political leaders in concrete empirical situations. For example, with regard to matter relating to distri­bution of loans, grants and subsidies or allotment of sites programme for the poor, both the groups have different perceptions.

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The question of disposal of public grievances, according to administra­tors, should either be the responsibility of the administrator or of both.

(3) According to administrators, the three most popular items that political leaders bring to them include administrative delays, economic problems of the people, and problems arising from group conflicts falling in the areas of law and order.

(4) When confronted by the refusal of the administrator to concede their demands, the politicians feel that it is either due to the defect of the system or it is due to administrators’ prejudice or disinclination to do real hard work.

Each group will try to reinforce its position by attempting to improve its power base. This led, and in fact has increasingly led, to a relationship between the two which is riddled with conflict, tension, misun­derstanding and consequently adverse impact on the administrative policy process and its implementa­tion.