Parliamentary Thinking by Kari Palonen

Author:Kari Palonen
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Springer International Publishing, Cham

The exemplary character of the Westminster parliament for Weber does not lie in separating political from technical and administrative issues. For him, any question can become politically important, and officials in Germany followed the special interests of their office and profession, but he opposed also the US style of a spoils system with officials appointed on a partisan basis (see esp. Weber 1919a). For Weber, the political control of officialdom through the parliament, including the possibility to select the cabinet from among the parliamentarians, is a major political asset (see also Weber 1917a, b).

The originality of Weber’s demand for parliamentary control of officialdom goes beyond Mill and Bagehot. In particular, he claims that, for officials, it is their specialist knowledge (Wissen) that they use to justify their power over parliamentarians (‘Die Machtstellung aller Beamten ruht, außer auf der arbeitsteiligen Technik der Verwaltung als solcher, auf Wissen’, Weber 1918, 235). Parliamentarians can acknowledge that officials know the state of affairs in their own fields better than do the elected politicians. Weber’s point is that for precisely that reason it is eminently important that their knowledge be subjected to parliamentary control.

The knowledge that officials possess is, first of all, of a factual kind. ‘Zuerst: dem durch Fachschulung erworbenen, im weitesten Sinne des Wortes “technischen” Fachwissen’ (ibid.). For Weber, the everyday Wissen of the officials does not differ in its perspectivistic character from the Erkenntnis of academics, as I discuss in Chapter 2. The knowledge of officials is also rhetorical, that is, it is a contribution to debate, although they are loathe to admit this. This rhetorical view is the background for Weber’s proposal to introduce to the Reichstag a Westminster-style cross-examination of officials before parliamentary committees.… das systematische (eidliche) Kreuzverhör von Sachverständigen vor einer Parlamentskommission unter Zuziehung der betreffenden Ressortbeamten, welches allein Kontrolle und Allseitigkeit der Befragung garantiert. (Weber 1918, 236)

… systematic examination (under oath) by experts before a parliamentary commission with powers to summon the relevant department officials. This kind of cross-examination is the only way to guarantee the control and comprehensiveness of questioning. (Weber 1994, 178)

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