Rethinking Rule-Following in Formal Organizations: Notes on Bureaucracy from a Training Institute in India

The fetish of rules has long been the cornerstone of the sociology and anthropology of bureaucracy, from its early origins in Weber. Bureaucracy’s self-imagination is understood to be driven by rule-following, often at the cost of substantial social needs and concerns that the rules are meant to serve. Subsequent developments in the sociology of organizations have sought to distinguish official rules and formal ideology with lived practices, with the latter being a realm of creative transgression. This paper departs from both these approaches and instead asks - what does it mean to follow rules? Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted at the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA), the primary training institute for fresh recruits to India's higher bureaucracy, this paper shows that bureaucratic training is obsessed with rules, rule following, and avoiding transgressions. However, what it means for action to be in accordance with a rule is not obvious. Multiple rules often compete to produce deep ambiguities on the right course of action. Further, rules may be followed in substance but also require an overt performance to prove one’s adherence. This paper will demonstrate that bureaucratic training consists of an attunement to the many voices in which a rule can speak, its many potentials and nuanced ways in which a rule might need to be interpreted. The ideal bureaucrat, in this training complex, is one who understands the rule as being embedded within a bureaucratic form-of-life consisting of shifting social networks, obligations, demands and expectations made by various actors (citizens, colleagues, seniors and politicians). Thus, rule following is an act not as much of certainty as it is of ambiguity, possibility and scepticism.