Session 16-Politicians are mouthpieces of Bureaucrats

Bureaucracy is a mode of organization and an administrative machinery of the state. But the term bureaucracy refers to the body which administers the implementation of policies and acts as a policy advising body for politicians. Though administration is the core function of bureaucrats, the policy advising role helps to distinguish top-level servants from middle and junior ranking servants.

Theoretically speaking, there is a clear distinction between responsibilities of politicians and bureaucrats. Politicians are supposed to make policies usually on the advice and information provided by the bureaucrats.

But practically, the difference between policy advising and policy making becomes vague. The decisions made by the politicians are made on the basis of the information available and this means that the content of decisions is invariably structured by the advice offered. And the principal source of advice to the politicians is bureaucrats. That is, politicians only know what bureaucrats tell them. Thus the information can be concealed or molded according to the preferences of bureaucrats. As the responsibilities of government expand and policy becomes more complex, politicians especially amateur politicians find it hard to handle numerous tasks themselves and inevitably come to depend more and more on the bureaucrats.  

This is why bureaucracy is sometimes defined as the rule by officials as opposed to elected politicians.

This might be the reason why policy influence of bureaucrats is restricted in countries such as UK, Japan and Australia.