Alfred Diamant


Alfred Diamant was an American political scientist. His main contribution was in the field of comparative politics and comparative public administration. He was a member of the Comparative Administration Group and a co-chairperson of the Council for European Studies based at Columbia University. According to Peter Alexis Gourevitch, Diamant was both “on the Executive Committee of the Council for European Studies and the Interuniversity Center for European Studies in Montreal.” Alfred Diamant was published by Princeton University Press and by top ranking journals like Administrative Science Quarterly, Comparative Political Studies, and PS. Political Science and Politics. Diamant's “areas of expertise” were “Comparative Western European Politics and Social Policy.” Together with his colleague, James Christoph, he “established Indiana University as a major site of the study of European culture, society and politics.” John D.Martz called the “works of Maurice Duvergier, Sigmund Neumann and Alfred Diamant” that focus on the study of political parties “Western European-oriented classics.” D.B. Robertson saw Alfred Diamant as “a gifted and humane scholar.”
Alfed Diamant was born in Vienna, Austria, and came to the United States as a young man when the Fascists gained power in Germany and Austria. During WWII, he served in the U.S.army. He was married to Ann Diamant.

Lessons from history

Alfred Diamant wrote his M.A. thesis on ‘Prototypes of Austro-German Fascism’ at Indiana University in 1948. By that time, it was already clear to him that he wanted to teach and do research at a university.
His focus on the anti-democratic developments in pre-WWII Europe is apparent in a number of large studies and minor contributions that he wrote since the 1950s. Diamant analyzed the role of Conservative political catholicism in Austria and its contribution to the rise of the clerical fascist Dollfuss regime. He also focused on the strengths and failures of the Left in Austria and Germany that preceded their defeat by fascism. Such works were motivated by a desire to enlighten people concerning the root causes and to prevent a return of what had occurred, no matter whether it might reappear in the form of a tragedy or as a farce. He was convinced that the repeat of mistakes, the return of the same was not inevitable. Instead of pessimism, a democratic optimism prevailed.
At the same time, Diamant also took a stand back home in the U.S., with regard to U.S. affairs. Like other open-minded, nonconformist intellectuals, he was opposed to witchhunts of the type practiced by Senator Joseph McCarthy. As early as 1950 he took a stand when he reviewed the book ‘Character Assassination’ by Jerome Davis that had just appeared. Another article published in the 1950s in The Western Political Quarterly also reflects his democratic commitment. It argued in favor of improved local government.
Similarly, he defended the right of Vietnam war opponents to dissent in an article jointly written with two colleagues and published in the New York Times in 1965.

Rethinking Max Weber

In the 1960s, Diamant focused increasingly on the critical study of institutional frameworks and thus, above all, on bureaucracy. Max Weber, the conservative he initially looked at without much sympathy, was now critically received and his important insights were adapted to fit the needs of a democratic societal project. A key essay by Alfred Diamant, titled The Bureaucratic Model: Max Weber Rejected, Rediscovered, Reformed, that appeared in Papers in Comparative Public Administrative Sciences, reveals this critical yet decisive reception of Max Weber. The author of ‘The American Bureaucracy,’ Richard J. Stillman, calls it an “insightful piece.” Dwight Waldo thinks it is important to “direct” the reader's “attention” to it. As D.Waldo notes, it is in this essay that Diamant “reviews the vast array” of scholarly publications on bureaucracy respectively bureaucracies while at the same time “carefully and penetratingly examin what Weber wrote on, and relating to, bureaucracy. Diamant “evaluates, relates, and classifies; and ends up by setting forth proposals ‘for the comparative analysis of bureaucracies; using the Weberian ideal-type’” – as he had “modified it.”
Diamant emphasized the fact that “Weber associated bureaucracy with a legal-rational authority system.” This was what made it modern and what constituted its essence. Ideally, a ‘bureaucratic’ apparatus had to be rational in order to function well. It also was tied to the rule of law. Ideally, this made its functioning dependable and foreseeable. Both qualities, ‘rationality’ and ‘rule of law,’ made bureaucracy a modern phenomenon. And its “authority” – in other words, the fact that it was accepted by the population – depended on both traits. There was nothing specifically Prussian about either ‘rationality’ or ‘rule of law.’ If the specific Prussian way of applying ‘rationality’ and ‘rule of law’ was deficient, this did not mean that the ideals had to be discarded as meaningful guideposts. Instead, they had to be filled, again and again, in given historical situations, with a material content that reflected both humane values and the concrete needs of the citizens.
Diamant was not necessarily a Weberian scholar. Referring to Weber's ‘ideal-tye’ of bureaucracy, E. N. Suleiman observes, “Some saw in his model a rigid, Prussian-inspired influence that had but a tangential relationship to reality.” Suleiman points specifically to Diamant. Diamant knew indeed that Weber was a functional academic, whose profound insights into the workings of bureaucracies served the interests of the Wilhelminian authoritarian nation-state. Insofar Weber's model was “a Prussian inspired model” just like Weber himself was a nationalist and per se anti-democratic. He represented and aided the status quo. But regardless of one's social and political position regarding this status quo, how could one ignore his penetrating insights in the way bureaucracies function and regarding the purposes they can serve? What mattered was to reflect his insights in the light of new, added knowledge and in the interest not of a ‘Leviathan’ of the Prusso-German type, but in the interest of a democratically constituted society. As far as the charge is concerned that Weber's ‘ideal-type’ was ‘abstract’ and thus meaningless, Diamant knew full-well that science operates with abstractions. This certainly could not be held against the German scholar. Therefore, it is not surprising that “Diamant makes a valiant effort to defend and ‘resurrect’ Weber from the telling criticisms of scholars like Presthus, Beck and Berger. Weber, he notes, was not so naïve as to believe that his ideal-constructs had unqualified correspondence” in what we like to refer to as the real world. What mattered, according to Diamant, was to ‘modify,’ adapt, or surpass Weber's constructs. It is well known that in the 20th century, several sociologists and political scientists “have sought to construct typologies that are closer approximations of the mixes or dualities existing in the real world. The Comparative Administration Group was prominent in this field.”
As a member of this group, Diamant shared its basic orientation but did not see the necessity to discard Weber's bureaucracy model entirely. There was too much in it that was still pertinent.

A pioneer in the field of Comparative Politics and Comparative Administration

Robert H. Jackson states that “ince World War II a new approach to the study of public administration developed.” Comparative strategies of research were developed and this meant that “administrative behavior and practices analyzed in widely different societies and cultures.” Alfred Diamant, a key member of the Comparative Administration Group, was part of this innovation of the discipline. “Among scholars who have contribute to the comparative studies of comparative bureaucratic systems Monroe Berger, Alfred Diamant, Ferrel Heady, Robert Presthus and Michael Crozier” are singled out as particularly noteworthy by Pardeep Sahni and Etakula Vayunandan. Diamant's grasp of European political cultures and his knowledge of American paradigms made a comparative orientation plausible. Dwight Waldo called his discussion of “The Relevance of Comparative Politics to the Study of Comparative Administration” an excellent methodological contribution. Empirical comparative studies are a thorough approach if one wants to understand the specific traits of Fascist or Stalinist bureaucracy. They could also serve to elucidate the positive and negative traits of French public administration, as a state bureaucracy subjected to dual political control. How did it work, in comparison to U.S. public administration? The focus on France mattered, for another reason, as well. France was practically a sister republic of the U.S., with a long republican and progressive tradition. It was another “common law country.” In his critique of Austrian conservatism, Diamant had “defined … European political Catholicism as a reaction of both clerics and laymen to the challenges of the French Revolution respectively the modern state of the 19th century that was based on it. This ‘anti-modernist’ attitude manifests itself on different levels – on the level of ideas, by way of the formation of a distinct ‘Catholic philosophy’ and ‘culture,’ on the socio-economic level by way of the development of a ‘Catholic social doctrine,’ on the political level by way of the organization of Catholic movements and parties.” This is how G. Stimmer sums it up. France was in many ways an antipode of Austria. It was more modern, having been at the forefront of the industrial revolution, on the European continent, together with Belgium. Although Catholic, it was anti-clerical. Conservative forces were not almost constantly overwhelming Republicans. On top of it, it had a long administrative tradition anchored in Republicanism, though older roots of its ‘droit administratif’, in the Royal Council of the ancien régime, existed. Diamant was especially interest in French developments that took place in the course of the first term of President Mitterrand.
It is noteworthy, however, that Diamant did not idealize the situation in France. It is true that it was more liberal than Austria had been. It had a strong administrative tradition, and the French republic regulated the civil service by way of a body of laws pertaining to the country's administration. If we would suppose, however, that in France, administrators can provide some “impetus for major reform,” we are mistaken, as Aberbach et al. have not failed to point out. They quote Diamant who stated flatly, “The French experience would indicate that, in fact, during periods of political indecision, the grand corps do not really govern the country, they simply continue routine operations, maintain the status quo, and protect their own interest.” Diamant obviously regrets that these administrators “could not carry through radical innovations.” Civil servants of the people should after all act efficiently and determinedly, in the interest of the people.

Focus on the ‘Third World’

As far as “administrative science research” was “focused on developing countries,” it became increasingly comparative in orientation, as H.G. Steiffert noted. Steiffert singles out Alfred Diamant as well as Robert H. Presthus, K. Henderson, Amitai Etzioni, and Berton H. Kaplan as the noteworthy theoretical contributors to the debate in the 1960s, while mentioning also the contribution of Edward W. Weidner.
In the 1960s, it was above all the Comparative Administration Group that was focused on Development Studies, especially after it had received a substantial grant from the Ford Foundation in 1962 that was to facilitate research on “methods for improving public administration in developing countries.” Among the noteworthy members of the CAG, Fred Riggs stands out. He had joined the faculty of the Government Department at Indiana University in 1956. In 1960, “his colleagues elected him chair of the comparative Public Group”, a position he held until 1971.
This was the period when “the CAG became a forum for intellectuals attempting to understand in a systematic why administrative practices in non-Western countries diverged so widely from what were thought to be good and universal principles.”
As a member of the Comparative Administration Group, based at Indiana University like Riggs, Diamant applied his insights into the importance of institutional frameworks of social change to Third World Studies. He chose a ‘bureaucratic systems approach’ which Rodman describes as “ess abstract and more obviously relevant” to its chosen purpose than the “input-output system approach” was as a “conceptual framework”. Several publications of Diamant that tackled methodological questions appeared in the 1960s. Schrader called Diamant's Models of Bureaucracy and Development “an important, relevant work.”
At least one of Diamant's studies focused on racism in South Africa at the time. The apartheid regime was confronted by a liberation movement that was branded as terrorist by various governments. Change was necessary. Racism was unacceptable to Diamant who had suffered fascist racism. The study was supported by a subdivision of the European Commission.

Political science research tied to democratic values: The quest for democratic control

In their ‘Introduction’ to Chapt.1 of their book on Public Administration, Sahni and Etakula Vayunandan stated, “The rise of the modern welfare state has expanded the scope of public administration. It has widened to the extent that now very few aspects of an individual’s life remain unaffected by public administration. This stands true for all societies, socialist, capitalist, and so on.” They also quote W.B.Donham who said, “If our civilization fails, it will be mainly because of a breakdown of administration. The recognition of the objective necessity of administrating ‘public things’ does not imply indifference to the question, ‘What sort of administration befits a democratic society?’ And therefore to such related questions as, ‘How can we, the people, make sure that administrative institutions serve us and respond to our needs, rather than vice versa?’ And furthermore, ‘How can we, the people, make sure that administrative institutions adapt to changing needs and arising challenges that society must deal with?’ - Diamant was convinced that if bureaucracies were unavoidable, at least they should not work against us or limit civil rights and the freedom of citizens unnecessarily; on the contrary, they should better our lot. And above all, they should be democratically controlled. How they could be controlled in the best way by the people and its elected servants was a problem that could be handled in a more rational way if empirical evidence of the pros and cons of actually employed models of political oversight was scrutinized in a comparative manner. Apparently, speaking of public institutions, efficiency, coordination, responsibility, oversight and political control matter in democratic contexts.

Industrial democracy

Alfred Diamant also turned to the question of industrial democracy. As always, his observations tended to be cool and objective, when he was discussing it. And yet, his study revealed a critical impetus. The analytic stance and the detachment may have made his critical observations even more effective. Discussing the German model which allowed trade-union representatives to sit on the board of corporations in the name of ‘joint decision-making’ or co-determination, P. Barach and A. Botwinick observed that Diamant provided a “thorough and perceptive study.” Diamant “concluded that the achievements of codetermination «so far are more nearly system-maintaining than system-transforming in character» .” The words quoted, though carefully phrased and seemingly detached and objective, reveal a certain disappointment.

Diamant’s theoretical emphasis on “political development”

Diamant hoped for ‘achievements’ or improvements, a ‘bettering’ of that which existed. In his view, change that corresponded to the felt needs of the population was inherently positive. This progressive bend of mind was basically inscribed in his theory of political development. Omar Guerrero sums up Alfred Diamant's position by pointing out the specific quality that characterizes a process that the latter would describe as ‘political development’: political development is above all “creating conditions, within an institutional framework, that are suitable to the solution of a wide field of social problems.” Guerrero further describes Diamant's position in this way: “A political system is engaged in a process of development if it can increase its capacity to attain successfully and continually new social goals and the creation of new types of organization. Such political development that leads to new institutional frameworks which allow the population to address social grievances in a new way is currently characteristic of a number of societies in South America. Keith R. Legg termed Diamant’s approach that “view political development as ‘a generic process of successfully sustaining new demands, goals and organizations in a flexible manner’” “most useful.”

Tradition and innovation

Diamant's insight that political institutions, despite their relative inertia, are not static but caught between the force of their ‘traditions’ and pressures for ‘innovation,’ and that for this very reason they reveal both their quality as ‘historical result’ and as a ‘historical process’ is perhaps the most significant feature of his critical approach that “modified” Max Weber's comprehension of bureaucracies in contemporary society. This insight is at the root of his careful arguments in favor of improvement, innovation and development.

A strong belief in social justice

Easily applied labels are not helpful in describing the human stand that Alfred Diamant was taking, both as citizen and as political scientist. Norman Furniss, a retired professor at Indiana University and a person who knew Alfred Diamant well, writes, that what was characteristic of him was “a belief that our country and our world can be more just and more decent” than they actually are. In this respect, he was very much like his wife, Ann, a feminist who had “a strong belief in social justice.”
Diamant died in Bloomington, aged 94.

Major scholarly publications (A selection)

Book publications