Go to AfricaBib home

Go to AfricaBib home AfricaBib Go to database home

bibliographic database
Line
Previous page New search

The free AfricaBib App for Android is available here

Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Development management versus Third World bureaucracies: a brief history of conflicting interests
Author:Hirschmann, DavidISNI
Year:1999
Periodical:Development and Change
Volume:30
Issue:2
Period:April
Pages:287-305
Language:English
Geographic term:Subsaharan Africa
Subject:civil service reform
External link:https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-7660.00118
Abstract:This paper investigates the impacts on, and responses of, Third World bureaucracies, in the context of the changing demands of development management. These include efforts at debureaucratization; localization and training; circumvention, through relying on semi-autonomous public enterprises; reorientation, by altering civil servants' attitudes and incentives; decentralization; and privatization and pressure. For these governments, privatization proved more demanding and demoralizing than any of the previous notions they had confronted. Today, under the rubric of governance, there appears to be some acknowledgement that the anti-State emphasis of the structural adjustment era may have gone too far, and the call is for the more effective bureaucracies to be accountable. The danger in many poor countries, however, is that the real and relative salaries, the morale and ethics of the bureaucracy, and public trust in the bureaucracy, have all plummeted so far, that it may be too late to turn these trends around. The paper is based on reading, discussion and observation over the years and from experience mainly in sub-Saharan Africa. Bibliogr., sum.
Views
Cover