The Social Media, The Bureaucracy And Its Implications, Part-2

In the second part of the blog, I will move on to link theories to my observations and mention some of my own inferences. I will use the following theories and concepts;

· The situation of Bangladesh in Hofstede’s 6-D Model and how it can be used to explain both the bureaucracy’s interaction with and resistance to social media

· The concept of traditional, transitional and instrumental bureaucrats

· The colonial legacy of Bangladeshi Bureaucracy

· The concept of social accountability and social media

· The concept of responsibility and responsiveness

Our discussion will talk about how resistance is a key characteristic of a bureaucracy.Bureaurcracies are expected to be resistant to change, secretive, unresponsive and to bear a mentality to rule instead of serving. In the energy/equilibrium model, bureaucrats are explained as wanting to maintain the status quo aka the equilibrium as opposed to the political actors who are expected to bring in newer, innovative ideas. We would like to find out what causes a bureaucracy to be more resistant or to be more flexible to change. In doing so, a bureaucracy can either retain the characteristics attributed to it or become more interactive, transparent and responsive to the public.

Let us first expand on the concept of Hofstede’s 6-D model. There are six dimensions of culture- power distance, individualism, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, long term orientation, indulgence. Bangladesh’s score in power distance is 80, 20 in individualism,55 in masculinity,60 in uncertainty avoidance,47 in long term orientation,20 in indulgence. Having an 80 in power distance means the Bangladeshi bureaucracy is hierarchical, centralization is popular, subordinates expect to be told what to do and the ideal boss is a benevolent autocrat. Getting a 20 in individualism means Bangladesh is a collectivistic society and as such in the bureaucracy the loyalty lies with the groups as opposed to individuals. The Bangladeshi bureaucracy focuses more on ‘we’ and less on ‘I’.A 55 on masculinity means that a Bangladeshi society is more masculine meaning that the focus is more on competition and winning and less on being feminine-where people care for others and quality of life. A Bangladeshi bureaucracy is thus more focused on winning and less inclined to providing care. A 60 on uncertainty avoidance means that the Bangladeshi society is intolerant of unorthodox behavior and ideas and maintains rigid codes of belief and behavior. Bangladesh has a 47 on long term orientation, which means they are not inclined towards either of the direction. This means that Bangladesh neither strongly prefers to maintain time-honored traditions, nor strongly encourages modern education to prepare for the future. A 20 on indulgence means that Bangladeshi societies are highly restraining, there is more cynicism and pessimism here. A reflection of these cultural dimensions can be found in the bureaucratic culture as well.

In analyzing the bureaucracy’s interaction with the social media, understanding these 6 dimensions is extremely important. A high power distance tells us that power is centralized and thus reaching out to the higher ups in a strict hierarchy becomes extremely difficult. If we could look back to the incident where Mr.Milon mentioned that reaching out to other ministries becomes a complicated process as traditional rules bind the bureaucrats, the concept of power distance becomes relevant. A bureaucrat who notices a problem does not instantly become eager to solve the problem because he knows that involving the higher ups is a tedious task. Given that a Bangladeshi bureaucrat expects to be told to do something by his superior-for him, to tell his superior about solving a problem is not the most welcoming idea. What was easier for Mr.Milon to do as an Additional Secretary might not be as easy to someone who is not as senior as he is.So, power distance proves to be an obstacle for using social media as a means to solve problems. If we move on to the concept of individualism, we need to understand that on many levels, the use of social media by bureaucrats is still an individualistic attempt. Given that Bangladeshi society is a collectivistic society, if the trend of ‘we’ is to not use social media, then most bureaucrats will prove their loyalty by not using it.However, remember the point of Mr.Milon saying that many of his critics have now started appreciating his efforts and were now trying to emulate the same? This point is important to consider because perhaps the trend of ‘we’ is indeed changing in favor of social media, what with the government telling the ministries to have updated websites and facebook pages.

We can link the point of masculinity with the colonial legacy of the Bangladeshi bureaucracy. The culture of masculinity will make the bureaucracy more competitive, more focused on winning as opposed to caring for the public. The colonial legacy of the Bureaucracy tells us that indeed, the bureaucracy is more inclined to rule, and less inclined to serve. This point gives us two considerations:

· The bureaucrats not answering the queries of the people on facebook groups are the bureaucrats who do not want to engage in serving the people. The same applies for the bureaucrats who are not using social media which can be used for the benefit of the people.

· As Mr.Milon has said that his experience has proved that there are many bureaucrats who are willing to help the people. Take Mr.Milon for example. Working in social media has not only earned him criticism from many but also threats from others about losing his position if he didn’t stop. Yet, Mr.Milon has continued to provide his service. Does this not mean that a part of Bangladeshi bureaucracy has moved out of their colonial and masculine stance and are now focusing on providing service to the people?

The dimension of uncertainty avoidance is of utmost importance. When I asked Mr.Milon what stopped some bureaucrats from joining the social media or why some younger bureaucrats were opposing its use, he answered that it was because they were afraid of the consequences. They were afraid that one facebook post might go too far, and it would negatively impact their career.A bureaucracy that avoids uncertainty avoids all sorts of unorthodox behavior and it comes as no surprise that they would also avoid the use of social media. If we were to wonder why a part of the bureaucracy is still resistant towards the social media, uncertainty avoidance is a good answer to it.

Even though I did not pay much attention to the point of long-term orientation, but reading through it made me realize that it explained Bangladeshi bureaucracy’s resistance and inclination towards social media well. Bangladeshi society is at a point where it doesn’t strongly maintain time-honored traditions and neither strongly welcomes modern education. A part of Bangladeshi bureaucracy is highly active on social media and is opening up newer possibilities everyday to change the bureaucratic work in a positive way. On the other hand, a part of it is still reluctant and skeptical of the changes that the use of social media might bring and more inclined towards holding on to older traditions.So, there is a split in the behavior of the bureaucracy and their inclinations are divided.

The Bangladeshi society is restraining and low on indulgence. The point to take from here is how non indulgent societies are more cynical and pessimistic.Mr.Milon’s work on social media have been criticized by many, which means they did not welcome the newer opportunities Mr.Milon was bringing. This reaction is pessimistic and a characteristics of a low indulging society.

Now that we have gone through all the points of the six dimensions of culture, let us try to understand the different types of bureaucrats and whether this classification helps us in understanding the changes we see in the bureaucracy through its use of social media. There are three types of bureaucrats- classical, transitional, instrumental.A classical bureaucrat has all the characteristics of a classical bureaucracy- he is unresponsive, secretive and more inclined towards ruling the people. An instrumental or a political bureaucratic is more sensitive to the context and time in which he is working as a bureaucrat, in other words, he is more sensitive to the needs of the people and the changing of times. A transitional bureaucrat is a bureaucrat somewhere in between a classical and an instrumental bureaucrat. The question is whether we see a change in the characteristics of bureaucrats in Bangladesh and whether this change can be explained through the use of social media. The bureaucrats who were a part of the bureaucracy right after independence and during authoritarian times can be classified as classical bureaucrats as they focused more on ruling the public in a situation of regime-reliance. But as the political situation of Bangladesh changed and we moved towards more democratic regimes, did the Bangladeshi bureaucracy see a change in the type of bureaucrats it recruited? I would agree that they did. Mr.Milon and the other bureaucrats who have been working on social media and the bureaucrats who have responded to Mr.Milon’s call for help are definitely examples of the emerging instrumental bureaucrats in Bangladesh.Here,it’s also important to remember that the newer/existing/older bureaucrats who are initially reluctant to use social media but gradually warming up to the idea can be termed as transitional bureaucrats.So,we have indeed been noticing a shift in the characteristics of the bureaucrats in Bangladesh.This change can be a reason why a part of the bureaucracy opened up to the use of social media and why a part of the bureaucracy is still resisting its use.

The two points I will discuss next are social accountability and responsiveness vs. responsibility. These points came into my mind more as a consequence of the usage of social media.

Moving back to the very first incident I mentioned of my father helping the students of Rangpur Medical College, I would like to draw everyone’s attention to how fast the problem was solved. I mentioned in that post that my father told me that it was quite unusual for secretaries to get directly involved with problems like this. The time at which this incident happened, my father was at a conference in Geneva and at that time his primary responsibility was to attend the conference. The problem my father read about in his facebook indeed fell under his ministry’s jurisdiction but what my father could have easily delegated the responsibility to someone in his office and concentrate on the work at his hand. My father told me that he had the option to do so but doing so would mean the problem would take an eternity to get solved, getting slowed down by lengthy and time consuming paperwork. This is why my father decided to get involved and make sure the problem was solved as soon as possible using his authority. This is an example of how different ways of being responsive to a responsibility can change the outcome of a responsibility. If someone else in my father’s place decided to delegate the responsibility, the problem would not be solved as fast. We can use this concept to further understand the bureaucracy’s interaction with social media. We can use the example of whether it’s a bureaucrat’s responsibility to respond to problems that he sees on social media that are not under his deputation. A responsive bureaucrat like Mr.Milon would definitely respond to problems outside of his ministry and report it to the concerned authority.However, if a bureaucrat does not do so, it will not be a violation of his responsibility rather a different way of responding to the responsibility.

The last point in my discussion of theoretical perspectives is the idea of social accountability. Mr.Milon said that he has noticed that a lot of younger bureaucrats who were initially resistant towards using social media are becoming more inclined to use social media because they thought it reflected badly on them when their other co-workers were using social media and gaining the praises of the public. They believed that the public would think of them as ‘bad bureaucrats’ if they didn’t engage on facebook and thus this consciousness about their image encouraged them to use social media.Thus,the public is creating social pressure on them to start using social media which is a clear sign of social accountability being implemented. Another important point is that when the bureaucrats are posting updates about their daily activities, it is giving the public a chance to see what they are doing and holding them accountable if any discrepancy occurs.

Social media can also be used to remove information asymmetry that exists between the public and government procedures. The help groups run by the bureaucrats are effective ways of removing confusion about any procedure as the help will be coming directly from the bureaucrats.

These were all the inferences and theoretical understanding I have collected through exploring the bureaucratic interaction with social media.