The administrative state is the political elephant in the room

Bureaucracy was studied last century, beginning with Max Weber's bureaucracy, culminating with Edgar Schein's Power within Organizations in the 1980s. Political analysis largely ignored the concept of the administrative state, as a 'deep state', which could make or break any government until the last decade, which began as 'conspiracy theory'.

The natural growth of bureaucracy

Bureaucracies tend to develop and grow through evolution. Bureaucracy grows in enclaves remote from the people. As such, bureaucracy is not a servant of the people, it becomes an organization, or a cluster of organizations, that develop introspective viewpoints. Such examples of clusters include Canberra, Wellington, Washington and the temple of bureaucracy, the European Union headquarters in Brussels, Luxembourg, and Strasbourg. As such, they are difficult for citizens to travel to and make representations.

Its in such enclaves that Bureaucracies grow and thrive. The evolution of the British Admiralty/Royal Navy from 1939 to 2025 provides a good example of how organizations grow and develop, with indifference to the environment around them.

British Admiralty/Royal Navy

The British Admiralty until 1964 and Royal Navy thereafter indicates how bureaucracy grows, without relationship to either job function or the external environment.

In 1939, the British Admiralty had 1,400 commissioned ships, of which 367 were warships. At the time, the admiralty had 53 admirals for some 200,000 personnel, that's one admiral for 3,075 people.

In 2025, the Royal Navy has 62 commissioned ships and 25 warships, although all are not operational. There are 40 serving rear admirals and above, and 32,225 naval personnel. That's one admiral for 805 people.

The command structure of bureaucracy grows, even if available functionality decreases. Under 1939 standards, only 9 admirals would be needed to operate and run the Royal Navy today. Most admirals today are not sea going, where he or she is primary concerned with administrative tasks.

As such, organic growth within the bureaucracy contravenes the paramount view, that the size of bureaucracy would be according to what resources it would need to carry out efficient and effective government administration in optimal situations, if such situations could exist in the real world.

Thus, organizations seek to extend their reach into the bureau-sphere, where function becomes secondary to the sense or culture of creating 'better' bureaucracy. For example, where the government has a problem or issue it must face, the solution is creating another piece of bureaucracy, or extending the function or existing organization to be seen to solve the problem.

In addition, power no longer sits with legislatures or parliaments. Bureaucracies have been able to take on a law-making function through administrative law. Designated people within bureaucracies have the power to make new regulations attached to laws passed by legislatures, even if they might conflict with the original intention of such laws. The remedy for any citizen is to challenge the regulation in court, which is costly, time consuming, and uncertain. Most laws that affect people are created through regulation, not legislation.

The problems of bureaucracy

Bureaucracy not only has its own inertia to grow, but is primarily opaque in what it does, even with elaborate checks and balances attached, which are primarily cosmetic. Many activities are almost totally hidden, not only to the public, but the legislature and executive as well. Through regulation, the bureaucracy becomes a government within itself, giving it as much power as much power as legislators and the executive arm of government.

The trend towards public-private partnerships is now taking many government functions outside of government and any semblance of public accountability. This started as outsourcing, a 'trendy' means of moving government function outside of government in the name of efficiency. However, today, many private organizations now operate with powers ceded by the administrative state to private enterprise. Such moves are also increasing the power of the administrative state even more.