Bureaucracy and do-ocracy
Ordinary citizens can help improve the performance of the government by taking note of important things they experience or observe when dealing with obtaining government services.
Daily TribuneOrdinary citizens can help improve the performance of the government by taking note of important things they experience or observe when dealing with obtaining government services.
Government employees are often derided as slow, abusive, bloated, arrogant, and entitled. The truth is these are unfair accusations. Most personnel out there simply do their jobs quietly, sincerely, and efficiently.
Most citizens take government service for granted and expect too much from the government. We like to assert that those in government should always be looking for our welfare, and anytime we need their intervention, they should be ready and able. We get angry when we feel they do not give us the attention we deserve.
By and large, the government is doing its job. In our scheme of government, the executive branch implements and enforces policies formed and laid down by the legislative branch. In its quasi-legislative function though, the executive branch drafts regulations, as when they draft implementing rules and regulations.
The judicial branch interprets the laws and regulations and determines rights between those involved in actual disputes. They do not make policy themselves but there is plenty of opportunity for them to effectively legislate such as when they interpret the laws in ways that even those who made them did not think of or anticipate. We call it judicial legislation.
Ordinary citizens can help improve the performance of the government by taking note of important things they experience or observe when dealing with obtaining government services. The aim is to improve the internal processes and procedures, and the way they deal with the public.
If citizens think an office's procedures are difficult or preventive of efficient delivery of services, they should write its chief, or perhaps even higher than her, so that the same could be corrected. This is an example ordinary citizens can help professionalize government service and improve services for the benefit of the public.
On the other hand, government personnel should, even without prodding from anyone, always offer themselves to the transacting public as "purposefully useful," where they exert their best to attend to the concerns of those who approach them.
They should be purposefully useful to the citizenry even if that means going the extra mile to help those before them. When personnel act like this, the transacting public should note their names and commend them to their superiors, copy-furnished the bureaucrat who has impressed you with her service ethic. The feedback is another way ordinary citizens can improve service.
All offices in the government are mandated by law to develop a system of rewards and recognition for those employees who excel in giving service to the public, or who because of their dedication, much is accomplished by their office and no backlog piles up. These personnel deserve all the recognition they can get, and they encourage their fellow employees to do the same.
We may think of government employees as the stereotyped desk warmers and pencil pushers ensconced in their cramped office nook, and for this reason, we give them little notice and respect.
However, they are people who perform useful duties, such as firefighters, policemen who ensure safety, traffic enforcers who help ease traffic, and so forth.
Do-ocracy is a term that comes to mind when ordinary citizens not just comment on or praise the good performance of bureaucrats but go out of their way to participate in crafting solutions to the problems in their communities. It is demonstrated when citizens, who are aware of their strength especially when they act together, join in the process of providing solutions to the problems.
Another way of calling do-ocracy is citizenship by participation; it is actively making oneself or one's group an active partner of government.
From the problem of narrow access roads to the problem of lighting and access to water, the problems of maintenance of public facilities in the community, the problem of flooding, the problem posed by uncollected garbage, and of course the problem of drugs — these and more may be areas where citizens may directly be able to help the government in the formulation of community-based solutions.