Bureaucratic rule makes anonymous power the direct source of all legislation

Evidence

Legally, government by bureaucracy is government by decree, and this means that power, which in constitutional government only enforces the law, becomes the direct source of all legislation. Decrees moreover remain anonymous (while laws can always be traced to specific men or assemblies), and therefore seem to flow from some over-all ruling power that needs no justification. … The bureaucrat, who by merely administering decrees has the illusion of constant action, feels tremendously superior to these “impractical” people who are forever entangled in “legal niceties” and therefore stay outside the sphere of power which to him is the source of everything. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 619

Categorization

• DEFINE: Arendt’s core distinction between law and decree: laws are traceable to named authors and hold principles, while decrees are anonymous and need no justification — a key mechanism for how bureaucracy enables arbitrary rule.
• XREF: This law-vs-decree mechanism connects to colonial ‘régime des décrets’ and to later Islamophobia readings on how administrative categorization substitute for legal principle.