Weber's Scorecard. State Development, Bureaucracy, and Officialdom Since CharlemagneBy Edward C.Page, Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2024, p. 320 (hardback). ISBN‐13: 978‐0198904298

Within the study of government and governance—which includes attention to the nonprofit and private sectors—the concept of bureaucracy holds a primary but contested place. Since its emergence at the end of the eighteenth century, the concept of bureaucracy has been associated with multiple neutral and positive meanings but also, above all, with negative stereotypes (Joukovskaia 2023). It is often assumed that the neutral connotation was introduced by Max Weber in Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. Both the phenomenon and its various connotations have more ancient roots. The background and course of the development towards a bureaucratic organization in relation to state development, societal structure, and societal interpersonal relations thus date far back in history, as is argued, for instance, in the brief but perceptive overview of Albrow. With Weber's Scorecard, Page's predominant goal is understanding the course of state and government development and its relation to bureaucracy—particularly secretariat, service, and territorial officialdom or, in German, Beamtentum—through a historical and cross-country analysis. The central aim is to research to what extent the Weberian analysis of state and bureaucratic development holds true in Weber's wide-ranging, often disconnected writings. This adverb “true” is suggested, though Page is careful to avoid an explicit statement in this direction. However, he seems to be en route to test the Weberian ideal type through a scorecard approach; we will return to this later. It has been argued that due to the to a certain extent nonintegrated nature of Weber's work on rational legal authority and bureaucracy, the concept of legal Herrschaft, or rational legal authority, opened up the construction of new ideas and research avenues. To be a bit more cynical, what one wants to read—whether positive or negative—into Weber's writings can easily be ascertained. This applies both to Weberian supporters and devotees and to his critics. See for instance the seminal articles by Renate Mayntz (1965) and Martin Albrow (1970) on the concept, though the latter is not cited in Albrow (1970) and Mayntz (1965) Page's literature overview. Weber helped authors to formulate their own insights and theories using the kaleidoscope of the Weberian corpus as a starting point—even to the point of operating as a straw man. This has led again to a Weberian defense from Weberian protagonists. That debate is fine, conducted in the spirit of open academic exchange—when it does not lead to partisanship and recriminations. The recent book by Page fits into the critical stream of literature, particularly in relation to Weber's take on bureaucracy. Page's analysis depends on and follows (Page 1990; Hintze 1975) the footsteps of Otto Hintze's historically oriented approach and is reminiscent of Wolfgang Seibel's analysis in Seibel (2010) his article “Beyond Bureaucracy.” The wide and in-depth historical analysis Page has undertaken is based on a critical analysis of Weber's approach and formulation of the ideal types of bureaucracy and legal authority, and the development of this over time. This critical analysis makes Page's administrative historical approach all the more interesting. The feasibility of Weber's formulation, along with the usefulness and appropriateness of what Page calls the “Weberian Scorecard,” is another issue, which we will return to at the end of the review. What is most interesting in this volume is the extensive and detailed historical approach, covering a period of almost a thousand years. This offers an outstanding and careful demonstration of professional scholarship, which bridges political science, public administration, and history. Given the long time covered and the requirements of accessibility and readability, the author has chosen for the periodization of the timeframe a division into three-century intervals. Each is explored from a defining angle stemming from Page's conceptual approach: patrimonialism and ninth-century officialdom in the Carolingian era, twelfth-century feudal officialdom, a growing intensity of that in the fifteenth century, the issue of absolutism, bureaucracy, and eighteenth-century fiscal-military states, and constitutional officialdom since the 1950s. The study concentrates on Spain, Sweden, Hungary, England, and France. The motives behind the selection of these countries remain somewhat unsatisfactory. The low countries and the Burgundian state are unfortunately missing given their specific development (Pirenne 1909; Schnerb 1999). Given the long time-range ambitions of Page in his empirical chapters, this dissatisfaction is deepened by the question of the degree of state continuity with early predecessor states (see for instance Al-Andalus and Spain). This remains an issue of concern in discussing a state and its history: to what extent can we talk of the same entity? We would have preferred a more extensive argumentation supporting this choice from a theoretical and/or a practical research point of view. These empirical chapters provide interesting information but, especially with the earliest periods, one has to be careful drawing conclusions based on rather scarce and scanty information, metrics, and sources. Even in the later periods this is the case, albeit to a lesser degree. Thus, the issue of availability of material leads to the necessity of careful and cautious conclusions, which do not overstretch what can be read from the available sources of information. Within the empirical chapters. Page observes this caution admirably. See for instance on page 146 such qualifications as “it is not clear that the wider changes…were…even predominantly driven by military concerns” or on the same page “And one has not to deny…,” etc. This caution is unfortunately less evident in Page's application of the results of his analysis in chapter 7 on the “validity” of Weber's scorecard and chapter 8, “If not Weber, then what?” A noticeable and regrettable omission is a thorough discussion of the longer nineteenth (from the Napoleon era onwards) and early twentieth century, seen by most bureaucracy scholars as a period of intensification of public service and policies, and growth of bureaucracy in whatever manifestation. Page argues that some data regarding the nineteenth century return in his final analytical chapters. However, these discussions are fairly limited, and thus we also miss an integrated analysis. The same criticism applies to Page's treatment of nineteenth-century discussions on bureaucracy and their implications for Weber, both in his text and in the omission of relevant literature. This omission is to be deplored (see below). The interesting historical chapters provide the basis for Page's true ambition: an evaluation—to use perhaps rather too crude a term in this case—of the Weberian account of state development and the role of bureaucracy. The term “scorecard” used in the title is somewhat confusing and seems misplaced. It appears to suggest that the author is going to test Weberian ideal types of bureaucracy and legal authority in terms of domination and control. As Page knows well and mentions in his text, an ideal type is a methodological instrument that cannot be assessed, which the author sees as a drawback. One could argue that to formulate Weber's bureaucracy as an expression of legal rule/authority is placing this ideal type outside of an empirical discussion—to the irritation of some critical scholars. This point has been argued in (methodological) literature over and over again, often to no avail. Page has developed a scorecard on the basis of a classification of elements in Weber's bureaucratic ideal type. The scorecard is based on making quadrants of elements of the Weberian ideal type of bureaucracy and legal authority. However, the connections between these elements, even in Weber's writing, have—as often argued—the character of a related but non rigid coupling. Page distinguishes the clusters of professionalism, monocracy, structural differentiation, and formalism. His test puts a question mark above the usefulness of Weberian insight on partial formalism and, in particular, monocracy. Page points out that that latter receives −1.5 on his scorecard, which delivers a negative outcome for Weber's approach. However, equating territorial integration with bureaucratization as an instrument for domination or hierarchical control from the center in Weber's concept of monocracy is going a bit too far. Part of the problem is situated in translating and equating Herrschaft with authority and in particular domination. Domination has a second, more hidden connotation of control. Within the competency concept, however, there is room for maneuver by officials within a hierarchy. Every official has certain duties, rights, and task areas, which do not reduce him or her to puppet status, but which allow the official to function in a chain of command. As we have argued above, given the extent and nature of the empirical material provided in this book, this conclusion is only partially convincing. The evidence provided in the empirical chapters should make us a bit more guarded. The section on what to do next (chapter 8) follows this partial refutation of the Weberian account of state development and bureaucracy. Page points correctly to (early and continuing) processes of routinization, institutional integration, and the instrumentalization of law. The emphasis on these three elements is welcome and deserves further debate. As Page also argues, within organizations themselves, there is a movement towards a pyramidal hierarchical structure, growing out of a more collegial form. Of course, the collegial organizational type remained—especially at the level of elected (political) officeholders—and its supersedure is a matter of degree. Regarding the topics of routinization and instrumentalization of the law, these are already situated in the ideal type of legal authority. This criticism directed at the theoretical implications of Page's discussion is not intended to provide an uncritical defense of the Weberian bureaucratic approach in relation to his ideas on long-range state development but to emphasize in an evenhanded manner what Weber actually proposed. As we stated above, the emphasis on these processes by Page is welcome and could provide a basis for further research. A new volume could usefully expand on this to develop a deeper understanding. In addition, an argument made by Page is that the development towards bureaucracy in fact constitutes a long-term development and is altogether not revolutionary. One could argue that events often do have long roots, but that their development can accelerate due to societal and political changes and thus have a revolutionary effect. Studying the nineteenth century could have shed more light on this. That perspective is unfortunately missing, which makes Page's objection to the revolutionary nature of the processes of the bureaucratic revolution less valid. From this perspective one could speak of a bureaucratic revolution in nineteenth-century Europe and the United States (der Van Meer 2009). With all due respect, the alternative perspectives formulated in this interesting volume are a bit disappointing. Some alternatives mentioned have been discussed in earlier critical literature on Weber's bureaucracy. The same applies to the consequences of bureaucratization for political-administrative relations and democracy, which were discussed by Weber himself. On close observation, these two chapters (7 and 8) do not provide so much an alternative to the Weberian account as an additional note. After finishing reading this book, we were a bit in a conundrum regarding Page's methodological approach. There is a tension between an empirical testing of hypotheses which tries to falsify an ideal type and the examination of that type's usefulness as a heuristic instrument. We concluded that the former—perhaps not wholly intentionally—best defines Page's approach. The line on page 245 sums it up: “…by extracting what might be understood as the essence of bureaucracy from real-word conditions, he has partly set himself up to be falsified in this conventional sense.” Here we can see the emergence of the scorecard, with its testing ambition. On the other hand, keeping the ideal type in mind, we might conclude that in recent years a debureaucratization process could have taken place and that there are ample areas that are not bureaucratic, which do not fit well within this Weberian ideal type. Often, one gets the idea that discussions on bureaucracy evolve around finding a new meaning for an empty concept. Perhaps we should abandon the term altogether, as Albrow suggests. Overall, this interesting book is a valuable addition to the literature of state development and bureaucracy. Its strength is predominantly found in the historical cases and analysis. That contribution cannot be overrated. The omission of the nineteenth century is, however, a sore loss. This could be rectified in a second edition of this study of state development, bureaucracy, and officialdom, but we do suggest abandoning the term “scorecard,” as it leads to unnecessary misunderstandings.