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📘 Model Answer 15
Crisis of Bureaucracy in the Modern State

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Question

“The modern state faces a crisis of bureaucracy.” Examine the causes and suggest reforms.

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📝 Model Answer (250 Words)

Bureaucracy has long been considered the backbone of the modern state, ensuring stability, continuity, and rule-bound governance. However, contemporary administrations face what is often described as a “crisis of bureaucracy.”

The crisis stems from multiple factors. Increasing public expectations demand transparency, responsiveness, and efficiency beyond traditional procedural functioning. Rigid hierarchies and excessive red tape hinder timely decision-making. Politicization of civil services and erosion of neutrality weaken institutional credibility. Globalization and digital transformation further challenge conventional bureaucratic structures.

Additionally, issues such as corruption, lack of accountability, and coordination failures contribute to declining public trust. In developing countries, overlapping roles and administrative overload intensify inefficiencies.

Reforms are therefore essential. Introducing performance-based evaluation, strengthening transparency mechanisms, enhancing digital governance, and protecting civil service neutrality can address structural weaknesses. Training in ethical leadership and citizen-centric service delivery is equally important.

The solution does not lie in dismantling bureaucracy but in modernizing it to adapt to democratic and technological changes.

Thus, the crisis of bureaucracy reflects the tension between traditional administrative structures and evolving governance demands, necessitating balanced reform rather than replacement.

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Prepared by Shaktimatha Learning
Crisis Analysis + Reform Orientation = 15–18/20 Potential