ABSTRACT
In fact, no form of power is absolute, despite what appearances may suggest. No matter how asymmetrical the relationship between controller and controlled, the weaker party always has some leverage (discussed further in Wrong 1979). The Nazis discovered this to their cost when they tried to set up administrative control of occupied countries. Here was an extreme case of power imbalance between ruler and ruled. Moreover the Nazis were supported by a huge arsenal of negative sanctions and had no moral scruples that would restrain them from using them against resistant subjects. Time and again their directives were thwarted. Yet no one was ever called to account for disobeying orders because there was no disobedience – or if there was, it was very subtle. Rather the Nazis were undermined by the ‘normal’ workings of bureaucracy:
A directive from the top may have to be transferred and translated (reformulated, elaborated, operationalized) several times before it reaches its destination and becomes implemented. Such processes of transmission obviously provide some scope for detaining, deflecting, or diluting ‘from below’ the commands or decrees from ‘above’.
