(De Gruyter Studies in Organization - 28) Gerald E. Caiden - Administrative Reform Comes of Age-De Gruyter (1991)
(De Gruyter Studies in Organization - 28) Gerald E. Caiden - Administrative Reform Comes of Age-De Gruyter (1991)
(De Gruyter Studies in Organization - 28) Gerald E. Caiden - Administrative Reform Comes of Age-De Gruyter (1991)
Administrative Reform
Comes of Age
wDE
Caiden, Gerald E.
Administrative reform comes of age / Gerald E. Caiden.
p. cm. — (De Gruyter studies in organization ; 28)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-89925-833-6 (U.S.) (alk. paper)
ISBN 0-89925-743-7 (U.S.) (pbk.)
1. Administrative agencies — Reorganization. 2. Executive
departments — Reorganization. 3. Public administration.
4. Organizational change. I. Title. II. Series.
JF1525.073C35 1991
350.007'3—dc20 90-23490
CIP
evil spirit, "had they protested, would You have listened to them?" And God said, "No."
"Did they know that?" asked the evil spirit. And God said, "No, they didn't know it;
therefore, they should have protested. Protest against Me, against Man, against everything
wrong. Because protest in itself contains a spark of truth, a spark of holiness, a spark of
God."
This book would not have been possible without the assistance of Dr. Judith
Truelson, School of Business, University of Southern California.
Permission to quote extensively from previously published work has been
granted by the International Institute of Administrative Sciences, Brussels, for
"The Vitality of Administrative Reform," International Review of Adminis-
trative Sciences, Vol 54, No. 3, September 1988, pp. 331-359 in Chapter 4, and
by the Institute of Social Studies for "Implementation - The Achilles Heel of
Administrative Reform," in A.F. Leemans (ed.), The Management of Change in
Government, Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, 1976, in Chapter 8.
Contents
1. Introduction 1
2. Lost Innocence 13
3. The Way Things Were 35
4. The Unrewarding Search for Communality 53
5. Administrative Reform Breaks Loose 73
6. In Pursuit of Betterment 93
7. Administrative Malpractices Ill
8. Doing Something Different 131
9. Guarding Against Failure 151
10. Reforms in the East: Retreat from Bureaucratic Centralism 171
11. Reforms in the West: Changing Administrative Values 197
12. Reforms in the Third World: Almost Beyond Realization 243
13. Unfinished Business 271
14. Necessary Preventive Medicine 295
Bibliography 317
Index 335
1. Introduction
Delayed Recognition
With the revolution of rising expectations, the marvels of modern science, mass
communications, the internationalization of human affairs and the globalization
of economic transactions, the winds of change blew more fiercely. Wars and
threats of war, invasions and threats of invasion, conquests and the threats of
conquest contributed to world wide destabilization and an arms race that
absorbed resources that might otherwise have been used for administrative
modernization. Then the global economy went into an unanticipated tail spin
accompanied by inflation, large scale public borrowing and shrinking markets
which meant that promised resources were unavailable when expected. Altera-
2 1. Introduction
tions in administrative systems had not gotten to the essence but had merely
tampered with formalities. They had not gone far enough or deep enough. In
some countries, they had actually made things worse not better. Insufficient
attention had been paid to administrative reform. Governments had been lulled
into a false sense of security, believing that systems which had performed well
in the past would continue to perform well and that alterations being made by
managerial experts would enable them to perform better in the future.
By the time it was realized that defective administrative systems were a
serious obstacle to progress, that what was wrong with them was fundamental,
and that higher priority should be given to putting them right, the prevailing
gales were fast blowing into hurricanes. Radical measures earlier recommended
when they would have counted were belatedly accepted as were fads of the time
(e.g. Planning Programming Budgeting Systems (PPBS), Management by
Objectives (MBO), Organization Development (OD)) and untested nostrums.
Given the wide array of suggested medicines, some were bound to work.
Administrative systems seemed to revive but untouched were serious diseases
(bureaupathologies) whose cure was actually being delayed by such temporiz-
ing. In the East Bloc, the declining performance of administrative systems
reached crisis proportions. In the end, people protested and public leaders came
to realize that nothing short of immediate, speedy transformation would suffice.
The only trouble was that few knew what should replace them. Certain parts of
the Third World had been in similar crisis for years but they still balked at taking
medicines presented by outsiders such as the International Monetary Fund. The
rest had just about managed to cope, relying more on native remedies to curtail
the worst excesses of defective administrative systems resistent to change.
In comparison the West seemed fortunate. Its administrative systems had been
built on more solid foundations and its wealth had enabled it to prop up poorly
performing systems. Managerial improvements and inventive gimmicks had
diverted attention from institutional defects - the lack of budgeting incentives
to save public money, the lack of incentives to attract and retain talent,
administrative inertia, tunnel vision, the persistence of public misconduct, a
certain disregard for truth and justice, and a seeming lack of care and concern -
that were growing more irksome. As elsewhere, administrative systems in the
West were judged not so much by what they did well but what they did badly,
and their clients tended to be much more openly critical of their performance. As
public criticism mounted, administrative reform was all the more compelling.
Given the relentless population pressures and a continuing degeneration of the
environment, there would be no respite from a permanent condition of
turbulence and uncertainty, of future shock and other terms used to convey the
message that tomorrow's world would be different from today's. Certain trends
could be taken for granted. Public affairs would become more complex and
complicated. Governments would learn only pragmatically when to intervene or
not. The administrative state might shed some activities but would assume
Shaken Confidence 3
others, some still unimagined. Yet there would be persistent demands for better
performance from public institutions. Better performance would require higher
quality administrative systems, achieved in part through technological advances,
managerial improvements, and administrative innovations, and in part through
the correction of public wrongdoing and the continual enhancement of adminis-
trative capabilities, i.e. a systematic ongoing administrative reform program.
Too much in the contemporary world depended on the performance of public
organization, administration and management for administrative reform not to
be given a higher priority on political agendas.
Shaken Confidence
Recent history has been somewhat unkind to administrative reformers for not
only were they politically neglected by public leaders, they were also given short
shrift by the practitioners too. Public leaders were careful to give much lip
service to administrative reform (after all, who could be against it?) but they
were careful to select only those reforms which did not threaten their power,
standing and popularity and therefore served to reinforce existing institutions
and arrangements and preclude viable alternatives. The practitioners were even
more defensive and self-protective because reforms constituted so they believed
an indictment of their own professionalism. If things were not as good as they
ought to be, clearly the practitioners were at fault. They did not take kindly to
such implied criticism, least of all sheltered public service careerists protective
of their vested interests in the status quo. Actually, their caution turned out to be
better founded than pure self-interest. The models on which the reformers based
their reforms often as not turned out to be seriously defective.
Administrative theorists had warned the reformers that they might be on the
wrong track. But the reformers for the most part could not understand the
theorists, so they claimed because the theorists wrote too obscurely and rarely
mixed with people outside the halls of academe. Left to their own devices, the
reformers rarely conducted adequate research on their models or questioned the
assumptions on which they worked. As it happened, some key models although
quite promising at the outset turned out to be quite faulty when continued
despite obvious evidence that they were ill-constructed for changing circumstan-
ces. In contrast, managerialism clearly worked and worked well in the private
sector. Why not apply the successful practices of the private sector to the public
sector and make public organizations more businesslike? This approach ran
headlong into the political nature of administrative reform - whether or not
public organizations should be made more businesslike; if so, where and how,
with what sacrifice of nonbusinesslike considerations which made government
4 1. Introduction
Among notable exceptions which have come to serve as global models have
been Hong Kong's successful anti-corruption campaign, the spread of the
institution of ombudsman as citizen's protector, and the notion of people-center-
ed development through self-management. Otherwise, obstacles to adminis-
trative reform have seemed crippling, as illustrated by experiences in Sub-
Saharan Africa, the English-speaking Caribbean and Latin America. Nonethe-
less, Third World countries have kept trying and the international community
has continued to encourage their efforts for something is better than nothing at
all and every little helps.
Current Prospects
For the foreseeable future administrative reform will continue around the globe
as well it might given the growing contrast between administrative potentialities
and current realities. But there are still several glaring gaps in the administrative
reform agenda. Some of the selfsame international bodies which urge member
states to reform are themselves in need of administrative reform; their own
administrative arrangements and performance leave much to be desired. So do
military and other non-civil arrangements and performance in the public sector
along with the ambiguous position within government of the large (and
increasing) number of para-statal organizations and private contracting organiza-
tions. This enlarging gray area poses the question of public accountability and
freedom to operate beyond public supervision. Another question that has yet to
be squarely faced is that of bureaucracy and democratizing public administra-
tion. A third which has begun to receive some consideration is that of a
demoralized public sector workforce. Assaults on the public sector have lowered
its image, status and attractiveness. Unless this situation is soon reversed,
current public service difficulties will only escalate with dire longterm implica-
tions. These and other gaps in the administrative reform agenda point to the
dearth of research generally in public sector problems and specifically on
administrative reform evaluation making advances in theory building scarce.
What research has been done indicates how badly administrative reforms have
sometimes been calculated and how poorly the craft of administrative reform has
itself performed.
A craft is not a science and by no stretch of the imagination is the craft of
administrative reform a medical or even organizational science. It does have
some resemblance to the state of preventive medicine perhaps a century ago
when although much was known about the human body and its afflictions,
medical practitioners could not cure much and their many failures made sick
people wary of them. Administrative reformers know much about public
organization, administration and management and what afflicts them, but they
10 1. Introduction
do not as yet cure much and their many failures in the past have made public
leaders wary of them. Yet just as the medical sciences progressed with
institutionalization, so should administrative reform. The need for its institutiona-
lization has been recognized around the globe. Each country has to decide what
form of institutionalization best suits its particular circumstances. At the top of
the administrative reform agenda for some time yet are likely to be financial
considerations, probably with less emphasis on economy and efficiency and
more on effectiveness and overall performance, particularly value for money,
performance measures and productivity enhancement going well beyond the
World Bank's gross national product (G.N.P.) per capita indexes and the United
Nations Development Program's human development index (H.D.I.). All
governments will be seeking healthier public organizations, if not healthy
organizations that perform well and reliably and improve their performance in
changing conditions. If anything has been learnt from reform experiences, it is
not to expect instant miracles; progress in administrative reform is gradual,
selective and piecemeal; attempts to hasten the pace or cover everything rarely
succeed. Administrative reform is only a part, admittedly an increasingly crucial
part, of the much greater enterprise of institutional reform which could well
learn much from what is already known about administrative reform.
The kind of challenges involved in administrative reform can be illustrated by
Italy, the world's fifth largest economy and one of the most successful countries
in recent decades. According to The Economist (May 26, 1990), a highly
efficient private sector contrasts with an inefficient public sector which labors
under an elaborate system of political patronage and spoils (lottizzazione) and
suffers from financial profligacy. The Italian government has not been able to
live within its means and runs proportionately one of the largest budget deficits
in the world equivalent in size to the annual national product. Tax evasion is
common and attempts to improve tax collection have had little success.
Generous social legislation has inflated costs. The National Health Service
(about 80 percent of health services) is provided by local governments (through
Local Health Authorities) but the costs are met by the central government
through compulsory insurance contributions (which cover about 60 percent) and
general revenues in a Byzantine administrative system that obscures public
accountability and allows few performance incentives and little effective cost
containment. One third of the population receives indexed pensions, mostly
disability pensions sanctioned by politicians to keep local voters faithful. Some
unprofitable public enterprises like Alfa-Romeo and Mediobanca have been
privatized and turned around, but others are still suffocated by lottizzazione and
most politicians oppose further privatization as the public sector provides their
political bases. A bloated public bureaucracy is dominated by excessive
legalism, lax law enforcement, politicization and high political executive
turnover as well as a culture of corruption and mañana. As a result, reforms are
Current Prospects 11
always being proposed but political immobilism often prevents action and
implementation.
The problem in Italy, as elsewhere, is not just institutional but also cultural.
As the family is the enduring unit, little emphasis is put on public spirit or the
concept of the public good. It explains the parentela or kinship system in dealing
with the public bureaucracy - find a crony or relative to fix things. Given that
"there is no alternation of power; government is one-party-dominated, consen-
sus-hungry and decision-shy; ministers, even the prime minister, are weak;
factions are often built around politicians who are short on political principle
and sometimes long on corruption" (The Economist, 1990, 29), the prospects for
reform are poor. What reforms will occur are likely to be marginal rather than
radical. The country copes but it is misgoverned. It achieves much less than it
could and should, and would if it were to study and take to heart lessons derived
from the reform experiences of other countries which had similar if not worse
administrative difficulties and yet succeeded in transforming their public sector
performance for the better. In this, Italy is typical not exceptional. No country
can fail to gain something to its advantage. Administrative reform has matured
sufficiently in the past twenty or so years to present a more realistic and
objective picture of what can be done. It has cast off much of the initially naive
baggage that it carried for too long. It has since lost its innocence and found
better guides to improving the conduct of public business in the contemporary
administrative state.
In any consideration of administrative reform, two things above all else need
to be kept in mind. Administrative reform deals with the administrative side of
government, of the public sector, of public administration, organization and
management, that is, with getting things done that have been politically
determined. While it can improve political decision making, it cannot reverse
political decisions, and it is political decisions which are largely responsible for
poor government performance, many public sector deficiencies and much public
maladministration. Political leaders make dumb decisions which are administra-
tively disastrous. No amount of administrative reform can remedy such political
errors, although innocent public administrators will be blamed and will be
expected miraculously to produce good out of bad and success out of unavoid-
able failure. Administrative reform cannot substitute for political or economic or
institutional reform.
On the other hand, political, economic and institutional reforms can rarely
succeed without administrative reform. Administration is not neutral or merely
instrumental. It has a life of its own, a rather elaborate and complicated life that
cannot be taken for granted for it is in a perpetual state of incalculable flux.
Often administration will go its own way regardless. Within reformers will be
battling the prevailing systems, scoring a few victories here and there, for none
is entirely blind to remedial defects and the self respect of professionals impels
them to improve practices where there seem no compelling reasons not to. But
12 1. Introduction
for greater success and for systems as a whole to be reformed, external pressure
for reform has to be present; the whole system has to be under outside threat, no
mere idle threat either but effective sanction that will undoubtedly be exercised
if improved performance does not occur. Political leaders have to demand better
administrative performance, constantly monitor that honest attempts are being
made to meet their wishes, and exercise effective sanctions when it is not
forthcoming. They really do have to care and they have to be knowledgeable.
They have to have vigilant guardians over and within administrative systems.
They have to support and reward performers and maintain an administrative
culture that fosters innovation, creativity and reform. If administrative reform
has not performed well in the past, it is either because it has been attempting to
do things that it could not do or it has not had the political encouragement and
backing that it needed. Over the past two decades or so, these two lessons have
been driven home. Administrative reform has matured in the meantime from its
earlier naivete.
Reference
The Economist, Vol. 315, No. 7656, May 26, 1990, "A Survey of Italy: Awaiting an
alternative," 30 pp.
2. Lost Innocence
This book is about worldwide efforts over the past two decades to improve
public sector performance, that is, the economy, productivity, efficiency and
effectiveness of public organizations and governmental administration. As
global economic prospects declined and governments struggled to halt stagfla-
tion and stimulate their economies, they looked hard at galloping public
expenditures, aggrandizing public bureaucracies and poorly performing public
enterprises and did not like what they saw. They turned to administrative reform
in hope of salvation partly because they were reluctant to embark on much
deeper political reforms or more politically contentious policy changes, partly
because they did not know what else to do, and partly because they really felt
that a more businesslike public sector would provide solutions for economic ills.
Either administrative solutions would substitute for political solutions (Brodkin,
1986) or administrative reforms were an imperative accompaniment, if not
precursor, to far-reaching societal changes.
But whereas administrative reform of the 1960s was then well-grounded in
social science theory in general and administrative theory in particular, was
enthusiastically backed by international aid agencies as a cornerstone of
development administration, and was being carried out confidently and assertive-
ly by its can-do practitioners, twenty years later this was no longer the case.
Administrative reform had largely divorced itself from theoretical concerns.
International aid agencies had all but disowned it or at least what they used to
call administrative reform, i.e. the strengthening of public bureaucracies as
engines of development. And administrative reformers had been chastened by
the practical limitations and restraints encountered in making reforms a reality.
The new generation of administrative reformers is much less assertive and
more tentative in its approach, trying to build in many cases on the ruins of its
predecessors whose efforts were poorly rewarded. Administrative reform has
gone through a sobering if not disillusioning period in which political realities
overshadowed administrative niceties, the models it embraced collapsed alto-
gether or did not meet the new political realities, and its practitioners groped and
improvised as best they could with crisis management virtually without any help
from the world of scholarship. There has been a decided loss of innocence, not
just because of bitter experiences in trying to improve public sector performan-
ce, but because the world has moved on and the reforms of yesteryear no longer
suffice. A different world requires different kinds of reform, different reform
strategies, and different reform outcomes.
14 2. Lost Innocence
Disregard of Theorists
The fault in this instance had been that American reformers had promoted the
ideology of managerial omnipotence and bureaucracy. They had been "agents of
bureaucratization with a false vision of the functions of organizations and of the
political process" at a time when their whole approach was questionable. They
had sided too much with bureaucracy, managerialism, Hegelian administrative
principles, the administrative state, scientism, and rationality. Their snake oil
had been willingly bought by self-interested or blinded public managers who
failed to see the mischief caused thereby. So even when provided with the
opportunity of mixing with administrative theorists and their managerial
disciples, it was beneficial that theorists and practitioners rarely conversed or
had much to do with one another. Consequently, since so few cross the few
bridges between them, most administrative reformers are locked into a theo-
retical time-capsule and refuse to emerge from it. Those who do bother wonder
why as the world of theory seems so unrelated and so unrewarding.
While it may be true that much contemporary theory or theorizing may be out
of touch, barely comprehensible except to the learned few who seemingly write
with themselves only in mind, and devoid of any practical application or
guidelines, it has been largely theorists who have warned the practitioners in
administrative reform not to fall too much in love with their models to forget
what was wrong with them where they were culture-bound (and not universal)
and how they had to be reshaped to meet specific circumstances. These theorists,
virtually all academics, were dubbed the doubters, the spoilers, the trouble-
makers, who always could find fault and cast gloom on any party. Given the
tremendous strides that had been made in organization, administration and
management since the beginning of the century and the great successes of
post-war reconstruction, there was cause for optimism that the well-tried models
of the past and the new models of the (then) present would work. If they were
not working out as expected - and already in the 1960s there was mounting
evidence to suggest that this was the case - it was not the models so much at
fault as the people employing the models. They had not been properly prepared
or they lacked the proper skills or they held the wrong attitudes. In time, given
sufficient education, training, and experience, they would come around. Chang-
16 2. Lost Innocence
ing administrative systems needed patience and understanding but change they
would; managerial engineering worked.
So it took time before it was realized that people were not failing the models
so much as the models were failing people, that in the post-war turbulent world
the models themselves were faulty. Though they worked or could be made to
work, they fell short, often seriously short, of what was required. Given the
benefit of the doubt, their dysfunctions were often ignored or discounted until
they could hardly be denied. One by one the models were questioned and found
guilty of grave shortcomings. There being no ready alternatives, they were
patched up as best administrative reformers could manage. But, often as not, the
reforms were dismissed by traditionalists as being unnecessary and by radicals
as being inadequate, until overwhelming evidence suggested that minor patch-
work was merely temporizing and delaying the inevitable replacement of the
models themselves. While some popularized futurists had sketched out what the
replacement models might be, no one had taken them seriously and by the end of
the 1980s little had been done to anticipate their predictions. The world was
saddled with outdated models with no practical substitutes. So the search,
particularly in the East (Communist) Bloc, was on for something different.
Meantime, the old patchworked models worked, albeit faultily, at least sufficient-
ly to keep until something better might materialize, whenever that might be.
(a) State intervention. At the head of the list was the 1960s reformer belief in
state intervention, in the administrative state as an instrument of social
betterment, an indispensable weapon against evil. Government was expected to
provide answers to every problem thrust on it. Ominous signs soon appeared to
suggest that too much faith had been invested in the administrative state. Society
was increasingly dependent on its performance. Politicians promised things
nobody was sure could be delivered. The overloaded government system could
not cope indefinitely with extra responsibilities without being overstretched.
The Faulty Models 17
Public business suffered when public agencies could not handle their workloads
or settled for lower quality performance. Politically, raised expectations were
punctured, potential beneficiaries angered and taxpayers resentful. Administra-
tively, bureaucrats unjustifyingly kept reassuring the public and asked for more
resources to complete unfinished tasks. Intellectually, it was realized that
complex social issues were not susceptible to easy solution and that bureaucratic
answers were inadequate and even regressive. For too long legitimate com-
plaints from the victims of the administrative state had been ignored as had a
rising groundswell against further public initiatives, governmental interference,
bureaucratization, arrogant officialdom and rising taxes. The message was clear:
no further state interference in people's lives.
In recent years, assumptions about the administrative state have been revised.
First, it was not inevitable or necessarily beneficial. It might actually compound
social problems. It had allegedly sapped private initiatives, weakened individual
enterprise, softened self-will, undermined individualism and made everyone too
dependent on officialdom. Second, public agencies had been expected to do
things beyond their capacity and the results had been disappointing. The experts
had few workable solutions but identified many more problems for government
to tackle. Public resources were too often spent on heavy administrative
overheads and self-justificatory bureaucratic exercises. Third, strong executives
tended to abuse their wide powers and use them to evade public accountability.
They turned their agencies into private preserves. Fourth, bureaucratism
"rewards conspiracy, sycophancy, ideological conformity, caution and class
solidarity. It punishes innovation, originality and the work ethic" (Campbell,
1978). Fifth, more and more people felt that they could do better for themselves
with less government and lower taxes. They could make better decisions and be
more careful with their money. They wanted more control over their own lives
and a greater say in what personally affected them. They did not trust
officialdom or believe in Big Brother any more.
(b) Bureaucracy. Long before the post-war growth of the administrative state,
its critics had warned of the dead hand of bureaucracy. Such warnings in the
heady days of post-war reconstruction had been little heeded. It was expected
that administrative science would be able to handle the dysfunctions of
bureaucracy. Misgivings about bureaucracy did not prevent the bureaucratiza-
tion of most organized activity and the dominance of the bureaucratic paradigm
in organization theory. In administrative reform, virtually no other form of
organization was considered. Indeed, reformers were surprised by the upsurge of
the anti-bureaucratic counter culture of the 1960s and it took almost a decade
before they heeded its message. By this time common bureaupathologies had
become identifiable and the poor ability of bureaucracy to adapt to turbulence
was increasingly obvious.
18 2. Lost Innocence
While the reform mainstream stood by bureaucracy, the radical fringe was
prepared to abandon bureaucracy altogether. Suddenly, small was beautiful.
Direct democracy had to replace the exercise of power by elites. Government
organizations had to be bypassed by self-help organizations, voluntary associa-
tions, non-governmental organizations. People had to organize themselves, not
wait for the slow trickle down of wealth. Predictions were made about the
demise of bureaucracy (Bennis, 1966) and a serious search for alternatives to
bureaucracy was started (Jun & Storm, 1973). Bureaucracy had been taken too
far. Specialization had been overdone, making most work unattractive and
transforming creative individuals into mindless robots. Elongated hierarchies
had divorced elites from operating realities and made them overdependent on
self-serving middle management engaged on too much unproductive busy work.
Overreliance on rules and regulations had promoted inertia and rigidity, often
defying plain common sense. Entrenched career systems had replaced the
pursuit of excellence with the enthronement of mediocrity. Bureaucracy was
incompatible with democracy. Bureaucracy itself was a blight on humanity. All
of this was far too strong for the reform mainstream but it converted, at least
temporarily, many influential reformers and raised sufficient doubt among many
others to cause them to hesitate, rethink, and, more importantly, challenge the
bureaucratic model which they had taken too much for granted.
The countries which had not wanted to be British at all or which had tried to
distance themselves from the mother country had challenged the Westminster-
Whitehall model before the 1960s and increasingly so thereafter. A number of
newly independent states abandoned it as soon as they could, sometimes with
disastrous administrative consequences. Others shaped it more in accordance
with local circumstances and improved on it, albeit on a demographically
smaller scale. But it was the British themselves who admitted that their model
was seriously flawed. It had been strongly criticized and resisted when put in
place in the late nineteenth century. Rumblings of discontent had erupted every
so often whenever the British government fared poorly. The Labour Party
promised to change the system when it could but never got around to doing so
until convinced in the early 1960s that without civil service reform, it would not
be able to govern properly as long as public administration was led by largely
untrained narrowly recruited, protected generalists who "remained a world apart,
a closed, secretive society with little direct experience of the economy and
society with which it was concerned" (Hennessy, 1989, 174). Its chance came
and went with the Fulton Committee (1966-1968) which pretty much diagnosed
what was wrong with Whitehall without tackling the bigger issues of the role of
the state and the machinery of government and the place of Whitehall within
them.
While a start was made on the Fulton Committee proposals, the economic and
political position of Great Britain deteriorated so badly in the 1970s that the
International Monetary Fund intervened to insist on its own financial reforms.
Much of the blame for Britain's poor performance was attributed to the
unreformed Whitehall. It was left to the incoming Thatcher Conservative
Government in 1979 to tackle Whitehall, the Westminster-Whitehall model and
the whole question of the administrative state in action and to attempt to change
British administrative culture away from the cult of the generalist and more in
the direction of professional management. During the 1980s, the Thatcher
Government challenged other prevailing myths of government, cast aside
traditional doctrines, put forward a different version of a streamlined, manageri-
al state, cut and pruned officialdom, trampled over cherished conventions of the
Westminster-Whitehall model, and relied on shock therapy to revitalize White-
hall. In the process, even the model that the Fulton Committee assumed was
overturned in such a way that it was unlikely things would ever go back again.
The Westminster-Whitehall model may not have been abandoned or shattered
but it had taken quite a beating.
(d) Maoism. The same can be said about most of the other models beloved of
the reformers of the late 1960s. In the most populous country in the world, the
Cultural Revolution (intended to reinvigorate the revamping of Chinese society)
was destroying, so it was claimed, the remaining strongholds of tradition,
bourgeois mentality, bureaucracy and reaction and furthering the objectives of
20 2. Lost Innocence
coherent and consistent framework of fiscal, monetary, exchange rate, wage and
trade policies, without however stipulating policies or institutions (World Bank,
1983,64). Unfortunately for countries that had been wedded to central economic
planning, the switch could not be made suddenly and the long process of
readjustment unless carefully controlled could be accompanied by economic
chaos. In any event by the end of the 1980s, the central planning model was
being abandoned save in a handful of dogmatic hold-outs.
national development, they had been a major contributor to heavy public debts,
corruption, price distortions, wasted investments, and parasitism. In Africa, for
example, they "present a depressing picture of inefficiency, losses, budgeting
burdens, poor products and services, and minimum accomplishment of the
non-commercial objectives so frequently used to excuse their poor economic
performance... [they] are not fulfilling the goals set for them by African planners
and leaders" (Nellis, 1986, ii). In short "many...should simply never have been
created" (Ibid). In general, "too many...cost rather than make money; and too
many operate at low levels of efficiency" (Nellis and Kikeri, 1989, 660). Their
structural failure was in the separation of ownership and control. Only some
form of privatization would overcome that. Even so, there was no guarantee that
private ownership and management would fare better, although there might be
less political interference, higher incentives to perform and greater commercial
discipline. Nonetheless, by the end of the 1980s, privatization had become the
new article of faith, especially in World Bank circles and among Western
conservative governments, although globally more resources have been devoted
to reforming S.O.E.s than to transferring them to private ownership.
(g) Workers' self-management. Just as high hopes had been held for the
S.O.E.s, so they were held for worker-owned enterprises. The three major
models much prized by reformers were workers' management in Yugoslavia and
the collective (kibbutz) and cooperative (moshav) settlements in Israel, examples
of non-bureaucratic industrial democracy. After World War II, Yugoslavia
adopted highly centralized management and planning of the economy traditional
to administrative socialism until its break in 1949 with the Cominform.
Thereafter the direction of S.O.E.s was taken over by elected workers' councils
which appointed a board of management but still subject to a general manager
responsible for implementing government plans, policies and regulations.
Gradually, between 1953 and 1963, workers' management was extended to
other public goods and services, decision-making within each self-managing
organization was decentralized and democratized, each undertaking became
more autonomous and independent, and local government activities were
transferred to local communities. In the following decade, the government
withdrew from economic direction and control and workers' management
became a legal reality, vesting social power in the workers themselves. The
scale on which this all took place attracted considerable international attention
and even though things were not going as smoothly or well as hoped, foreign
enthusiasts of participatory democracy were sufficiently convinced to advocate
workers' management as a universal model (Pateman, 1970). The successes of
the Israeli kibbutzim and moshavim not only economically but also in providing
alternative life styles before the 1973 Yom Kippur War similarly attracted
foreign attention and enthusiasm. Yugoslav and Israeli experts were invited to
share their know-how.
The Faulty Models 23
Whether the models were exportable became moot when both countries were
hit by the economic blizzard of the 1970s. Workers' management was protected
and favored for another decade before the naked truth was revealed. In Israel,
the moshavim (small, self-supporting rural communities based on coopera-
tivism) fell on particularly hard times and became an economic liability. So did
the kibbutzim (small collectivized communities) after they had been encouraged
by the government to overextend themselves. Their prospects depended more on
government policies than self-initiatives. That too was the case in Yugoslavia
where the government had never relinquished its control of the economy and its
hold over social institutions. Workers' participation had taken place within a
much wider context of public investment, political federalism, regionalism,
underdevelopment, Titoism, social ownership, associated labor, and market
competition, none of which sat too well with it, irrespective how well workers'
participation operated. Throughout, it did not operate well; it was far too
complicated for the average person to grasp and actual participation or workers'
contribution was low with managerial and specialized staff retaining predomi-
nant influence. While Tito was alive, people did their best to make it work but
after his death, conflicts of interest which had been hitherto contained threatened
the whole fragile framework, enough to cause foreigners to back away.
envied the freedom of action of managers in the private sector. No wonder that
they advocated the same freedom for managers in the public sector.
superior products and services were available, customers switched and defied
product loyalty. If they did not pay their way then their creditors could legally
seize their remaining assets and shut them down. They had either to raise prices
or cut costs. If their bottom line did not satisfy their investors and their rates of
return were inferior to generally prevailing rates, then their backers would
switch if they could get out, or they became target of raiders who believed they
could do better and get better returns. In a competitive situation, they had to
meet prevailing expectations outside their control. They had to keep on their
toes. They could not afford to relax; otherwise somebody else might steal a
march on them. They could never feel completely secure. They had to keep
running just to stay in the same place. To advance, they had to be better and do
better. They had to keep up with improvements and, more importantly, they had
to try to be first with improvements. They had every incentive to police
themselves, improve their own functioning and adjust to changing conditions.
In theory, public undertakings should have been no different. They should
also have offered what the public wanted. They should also have paid their way
or at least showed worthwhile investment returns. They should have been on
their toes, kept up with improvements and tried to advance the state-of-the-art.
They claimed they did. But in most cases there was reasonable doubt. They
often did not know what the public wanted and made no attempt to find out.
Theirs' was a "take it or leave it" attitude. They were compulsory; their
customers had no choice, no alternative. They were not likely to be replaced or
disappear if they did not perform to expectations, whatever these might be.
Whereas private undertakings had definite objectives, which were known, clear,
straightforward, public undertakings often had unknown, unclear, complex,
contradictory, muddled (or fuzzy or fudged) objectives, politically determined
and manipulated. Their organization, administration and management was
similarly politically determined and manipulated. They were not masters of their
own house. They were public organizations which were publicly owned and
directed and the public did not want them to act as private undertakings. As
public organizations they were protected, given exceptional privileges but also
placed under exceptional obligations. Usually, they were over protected and
made too secure, irrespective of performance. So they were not constantly under
pressure to improve or advance the state-of-the-art, if anyone knew what it was
let alone should have been. They stuck to routines, played safe, and, because of
their larger size, complexity and multiple masters, they had difficulty in
changing directions (or indeed anything) quickly. Because of the lack of
proprietary interest, the divorce between inputs and outcomes, the peculiarities
of public budgeting, and the neglect of managerial concerns, there were not the
same incentives for self-improvement and error correction as in the business
world and among voluntary associations. On the contrary, they were prone to
organizational arteriosclerosis.
26 2. Lost Innocence
Whatever the reasons, private managers had more freedom to act and to be
their own reformers. They were encouraged to advance the state-of-the-art. They
were expected to keep up with improvements. And they were rewarded and
punished according to their performance in furthering organizational objectives.
They did not get ahead unless they proved their competence on the job and they
met organizational expectations, which increasingly included formal education
and training in management in their own time and at their own expense. They
conformed because exceptional rewards went to those who rose up the
management ladder (so their personal investment usually paid off) and they
could transfer their skills and knowledge to other organizations always eager to
snatch talent away from others. Wherever they went they operated in a
managerial environment where they spoke the same language and their contribu-
tions to improved management were appreciated. Perhaps this was a somewhat
overdrawn, romantic picture of private management, but business management
had been so able to project such an image of doing better that while business
accepted public management qualifications without enthusiasm (except at the
highest levels of government administration and in certain professional and
specialist fields), public organizations snapped up people with private manage-
ment qualifications when permitted, although they had difficulty retaining them.
Again, in theory, public management should have been no different. Public
managers should have been encouraged to be their own reformers and judged on
their managerial performance. They should have been formally qualified in
public management and the potential high-flyers should have been eagerly
sought out. They should have operated in an environment that appreciated
managerial concerns and in organizations that strove for managerial excellence.
Again the reality was often so different. Political concerns dominated manageri-
al considerations. Public organizations were often seen as political party
appendages and staffed with job seekers. In them, rewards went to the loyal, not
to the competent. Little attention was paid to formal qualifications or experience
or managerial trackrecord. The lower ranks were not supposed to exercise any
initiative and were resented if they did. The higher ranks were political advisors,
policymakers, trouble shooters and bureaucrats; they were not expected to be
managers or know anything about management not derived from inherited
bureaucratic ritual. Potential high-flyers were buried in unchallenging routine
low level work and if they complained, they were branded troublemakers and
encouraged to move elsewhere. Anyone who did show managerial abilities was
swamped with so many activities that none of them could be done really well.
Good managers were taken too much for granted so that, invariably overworked
and underpaid, they longed to get out at the first opportunity if they did not start
operating their own businesses first on the side. Meanwhile at the top, the
organizational politicians, where they were not just time-servers, played their
games without heed to the managerial consequences. Perhaps this picture was
again overdrawn, too far-fetched, too exaggerated, but public management
The Challenge of Managerialism 27
Streamlining operations
operational strategies for cost reduction and service improvement
- improving performance and productivity
- improving work processes, work measurement and work incentives
and sanctions
- new technology such as computers and office automation
- customer service orientation and responding to complaints
The Challenge of Managerialism 29
Source: Jacob B. Ukeles, Doing More with Less: Turning Public Management Around,
AMACOM, A Division of American Management Association, New York, 1982.
30 2. Lost Innocence
conform to the prevailing political culture and gain at least tacit support from
prevailing power brokers. Somewhere within every political system there are
people who can be described as professional reformers. They also include
professional administrative reformers often in academia and the public profes-
sions. These dedicated administrative reformers develop new proposals on their
own and then legitimize them when they can by serving on task forces and study
commissions that puzzled governments often find handy when they seek fresh
ideas. They serve government as "in and outers" or the trusted "great and good"
to advise, recommend and implement reforms. They staff think tanks, policy
research institutes, training centers, advisory councils and generally make
themselves useful to politicians and power brokers. Such reformers
often seem uncomfortable with questions of power, preferring to deal with matters such as
efficiency, rationality, representation and accountability. It is clear that reformers must
consider how their reforms will affect the power of office holders to govern, and to govern
effectively. (Pious, 1981, 3)
After all, administrative reform deals with the living constitution and inevitably
will impact relations between the government and the governed.
Administrative reform, like other reforms of governance, "attempts to merge
the real with the ideal" (Wingo, 1974, 2). At the one end, it deals with very
practical matters of everyday public business, even petty details such as the
design of forms and the recalculation of salaries. At the other, it deals with
assessing government performance and predicting people's expectations of
government and the search for the ideal in the affairs of men.
It is the latter that bestows spiritual vitality, defines practicality, and puts forward images
of what is possible, all in a way that distinguishes the step upward - reform - from
sideways movements and downward slips. For the true problem of reform is recognizing
it. (Ibid, 7)
Reform is not just pointing out the flaws of government practices but "showing
how practices subvert, offend, or misrepresent governance principles" (Calista,
1986, 4). Reforms have to conform to the prevailing principles of governance
and claim to rescue them from misuse or abuse. They are evolutionary not
revolutionary, deliberate not chance happenings, partisan not neutral. Politics
limits how far reforms can be taken and because politics cannot be stretched too
far, reforms are compromises and invariably incremental and tentative and
therefor incomplete.
Today administrative reform is all the things it has always been - visionary,
radical, political, risky, contrived, planned, artificial, opposed, time-consuming,
problematical, elusive - and more. But unlike the past, it can no longer be
viewed as cyclical or episodic. Contemporary government is just too big to be
tackled comprehensively at one time. Public organizations are too important to
be left to their own devices and they mesh too much with non-public
32 2. Lost Innocence
References
Bennis, W., Changing Organizations, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1966.
Brodkin, E., The False Promise of Administrative Reform: Implementing Quality Control
in Welfare, Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 1986.
Calista, D. (ed.), Bureaucratic and Governmental Reform, JAI Press, Greenwich, CT.,
1986.
Campbell, A., "Running Out of Steam?" Civil Service Journal, Vol. 18, No. 3, Jan/Mar
1978, p. 5.
Campbell, C., and Peters, G. (eds.), Organizing Governance, Governing Organizations,
University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, 1988.
Drucker, P., "Management and the World's Work', Harvard Business Review, Sept-Oct
1988, pp. 65-76.
Garson, D., and Overman, S., Public Management Research in the United States, Praeger
Publishers, New York, 1983.
Hennessy, P., Whitehall, Seeker & Warburg, London, 1989.
Henriques, D., The Machinery of Greed: Public Authority Abuse and What to Do about It,
D.C. Heath & Co., Lexington, MA., 1980.
Holland, S, (ed.), The State as Entrepreneur, International Arts and Sciences Press, Inc.,
White Plains, New York, 1973.
Hood, C., and Dunsire, A., Bureaumetrics, Gower, Farnborough, 1981.
Jun, J., and Storm, B. (eds.), Tomorrow's Organizations, Scott, Foresman & Co.,
Glenview, IL., 1973.
Kimmel, W., Dougan, W., and Hall, J., Municipal Management and Budget Methods: An
Evaluation of Policy Related Research, Urban Institute, Washington, D.C., 1974.
Lane, P. (ed.), Bureaucracy and Public Choice, Sage Modern Politics Series, Volume 15,
Sage Publications, London, 1987.
March, J.G. and Olsen, J.P. Rediscovering Institutions: The Organizational Basis of
Politics, Free Press, New York, 1989.
Nellis, J., Public Enterprises in Sub-Saharan Africa, The World Bank, Washington, D.C.,
Discussion Paper 1, 1986.
References 33
Nellis, J. and Kikeri, S., "Public Enterprise Reform: Privatization and the World Bank",
World Development, Vol. 17. No. 5, 1989, pp. 659-672.
Pateman, C., Participation and Democratic Theory, Cambridge University Press, Cam-
bridge, 1970.
Pious, R., "Prospects for Reform," in R. M. Pious (ed.), The Power to Govern: Assessing
Reform in the United States, Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science, Vol. 34,
No. 2, The Academy of Political Science, 1981, pp. 1-4.
Preston, M., The Politics of Bureaucratic Reform: The Case of the California State
Employment Service, University of Illinois Press, Urbana, 1984.
Spiegel, A., "How Outsiders Overhauled a Public Agency," Harvard Business Review,
Vol. 53, No. 1, Jan-Feb 1975, pp. 116-124.
Ukeles, J., Doing More With Less; Turning Public Management Around, AMACOM,
New York, 1982.
Wingo, L., "Introduction: The Ideal and the Real in the Reform of Metropolitan
Governance," in Reform as Reorganization, Resources for the Future, Inc., Washing-
ton, D.C., 1974.
World Bank. World Development Report 1983, Oxford University Press, New York,
1983.
Yackle, L., Reform and Regret, Oxford University Press, New York, 1989.
3. The Way Things Were
In the 1960s, the field of administrative reform was fresh and open. It still
appeared relatively new although it could be said to have existed ever since the
dim recesses of human history when better ways of organizing social activities
had first been conceived. No comprehensive study of the phenomenon had yet
been made and there was no agreement on such basics as definition, core, scope
and boundaries. Nonetheless, administrative reformers were convinced that their
models worked. After all, they had done well during post-war reconstruction and
they were invigorated by their successes in the West in democratizing the
defeated Axis powers and in the East in imposing Communist Party rule over the
administrative state. Cold War rivalry had intensified competition to win over
the so-called Third World countries with offers of technical assistance to
modernize their administrative systems. Many newly independent states were
being helped by the super powers and international agencies to refurbish and
overhaul the colonial administrative systems they had inherited and wanted in
large part to abandon for something more in keeping with their ambitious
national development schemes. On the whole, global conditions were quite
favorable to administrative reformers who promised to make government more
effective, state administration more efficient, and public management more
dynamic, productive and honest.
Administrative reform could be fashioned in many different ways to assist
practitioners dabbling along conventional lines in rather hit or miss fashion in
their efforts to improve administrative performance. Despite the increasing
popularity of the field, not much of lasting value had been preserved on record
and many references in the standard literature going as far back as the Code of
Hammurabi and the ancient pre-Confucian Chinese empire were being found
largely irrelevant and unhelpful in the modern context (Caiden, 1969). Yet the
need for reliable guidelines was clear. With the emergence of the organizational
society and the increased bureaucratization of human activity, the growing
importance of organization, administration and management had been recog-
nized. Systematic research since the beginning of the century had raised
expectations that through better means the elusive goals of humanity could be
attained quicker or at least much preventable suffering could be alleviated. In
complex societies, increased socialization, diversification and fragmentation
needed more and more complicated mechanisms of integration and coordination
managed by professional administrators, mechanisms that were quite delicate
and often subject to breakdown. As almost everyone was on the end of
36 3. The Way Things Were
administrators and theorists alike were encouraged to seek ways and means to
improve administrative performance and to provide the intellectual and organiza-
tional leadership needed to bring about accelerated progress. In fact, much
administrative theory has been developed by reformers seeking an intellectual
base for their practical remedies for governmental deficiencies and adminis-
trative defects. For instance, Woodrow Wilson, considered one of the pioneers
of the discipline of American public administration, had believed that the whole
purpose of studying administration was to improve administrative arrangements
and practices. Social scientists, he thought, could analyze human phenomena
with detachment and still have reform at heart. Many other administrative
theorists had thought the same. Indeed, the reform tradition in administrative
study has been so strong that its progressive values have been unconsciously
imbibed. For this reason it has never been accorded the same academic status as
other studies deemed to be truly scientific, objective, impartial, impersonal and
detached.
This subjectivity of administrative reform unfortunately did make it prey to
fashions, fads, and fancies. Inexplicably, certain reforms would suddenly catch
on as universal panaceas only to fall just as quickly from grace to be replaced by
others. The history of administrative reform has been littered with such episodes.
Furthermore, whenever the situation was desperate enough, even cranks got a
hearing, though rarely anything further. Irrespective of their origins, all reforms
seemed to go through a similar cycle. They began with a radical reputation, then
gained respectability and ended up either institutionalized or discredited and
discarded (although these may have been subsequently rediscovered and
revived). It seemed that as long as people sought to reduce maladministration,
they would search for help and inspiration from any promising source (including
administrative theory), extract what they wanted, and try repeatedly to imple-
ment reforms. Reformers might rest or even hide; they never gave up.
Somewhere, however obscure, they would be found assaulting inertia, ignorance
and incompetence.
hend the unity of the universe and the mechanics of universal change. The study
of systems revealed how systems perpetuated themselves, adjusted to changing
circumstances, and dealt with uncertainty and crisis. The analogy of systems
could be applied to social and administrative arrangements. It provided useful
pointers to their dynamics, the processes of maintenance and adaptation, the
management of change and the absorption of innovation. Absorption without
resistance could be considered change while absorption with resistance was
reform. Thus administrative reform could not occur by default, only by
deliberate facilitation.
How systems changed in time could be explained by models of their
development or their life cycles. As change was assumed to be inherent and
inevitable, systems passed through identifiable stages from birth to death.
Studies of how systems developed should eventually reveal ways of speeding up
or slowing down the development process and identifying the key variables at
each stage. Confirmation was sought in induced modernization currently being
applied in Third World countries. The idea was to accelerate the development of
traditional societies and reduce the obstacles to their modernization. Modernity
was held to consist of those features or characteristics of advanced (or developed
or modernized) societies to which backward (or less developed or developing or
traditional) societies aspired. Intervention was unavoidable if the process of
development was to be speeded up and some stages actually omitted altogether.
Particularly sought after was the capacity of the more advanced societies to
generate and absorb continuous change and by maintaining uninterrupted
growth allow the continuous expansion of human endeavors. Among the
presumed benefits of modernization or development were the administrative
state, the bureaucratization of social organizations, professionalization and
managerialism. Clearly administrative reform had a key role in social change
and development.
In modernized administration, everything changed and adjusted to cease-less
change. So habitual was change that only unusual delays or denials of change
attracted attention. Given natural conservatism, resistance to change was to be
expected and anyway indispensable for stability. If people changed whenever
something different appeared there would be chaos. They were more selective
and cautious and usually had good reasons for hesitating. Once delay or denial
occurred, tension would be generated, normal cooperation would be questioned
and later withdrawn, and resistance would build. Usually persuasion, habitual
deference and light sanctions were sufficient to overcome resistance though if it
were particularly virulent, coercion might have to be used. Since the need for
administrative reform arose from the malfunctioning of the natural process of
change, administrative reform could be defined as the artificial inducement of
administrative transformation against resistance. It was deliberate, contrived,
irreversible and innovative. Three features - moral purpose (betterment,
progress), artificial transformation and administrative resistance - made it
42 3. The Way Things Were
(a) The premodern bureaucratic empires brought out different class attitudes
toward administrative reform (Eisenstadt, 1963). Rulers always backed reforms
that would strengthen them and their control of government, but treated other
reforms with great suspicion. The aristocracy had invariably sought to evade
government interference, capture strategic public offices and corrupt adminis-
trative systems for their own advantage. The gentry and the urban literate
welcomed the employment opportunities provided for them in the public sector
generated by the government and, providing their special interests were
protected, gave loyal service to rulers. In contrast, the peasantry, the bearers of
the heaviest financial and military burdens, resented officialdom and actually
benefited from maladministration, although they backed reforms that diminished
arbitrariness and cruelty. The clergy, militia, professionals, and intelligentsia
could go either way on governmental and administrative reform according to the
dictates of self-interest as could the bureaucracy itself. Overall, reforms aimed at
more effective administration, more equitable distribution of public goods and
services, greater access to public employment, and professionalism, objectives
still sought in administrative reform to this day. Reform was rarely self-evident;
it had to be publicly articulated. Reformers were usually divided and often fell
well short of their goals even when united. Failure was most likely where
dictatorship prevailed and the bureaucracy lacked any service orientation. In
strengthening administrative performance and bureaucratic power, reformers
tended to diminish civil liberty and hitch education to bureaucratic needs. The
lesson to be drawn was that administrative reformers had to be acutely aware of
Perspectives on Administrative Reform 43
prevailing class attitudes and realize that perceived class self-interest would
largely determine the line up of opposing forces. The chances of reform would
depend on the distribution of power pro and con specific measures.
out of partisan politics, to cleanse government, and to apply the new American
science of management to the public sector.
Clearly, administrative reform, being related to specific cultural environ-
ments, was not universally applicable and was an accompaniment to wider
social changes taking place to avoid institutional rigidity that detracted from
social betterment. To manage the public's business without resort to reform
indicated a high tolerance for public maladministration and/or a remarkable
capacity to absorb change through improvisation and loyal public service. No
modern state could expect to progress without periodic bursts of reform to
update public administration and increase government capacity to respond to
changing public demands. Public bureaucracies rarely transformed themselves
without external pressure and intervention.
(d) Automation showed how administrative reform was timeless, being related
to social change, not least accelerating technology. Automation had direct
impact on work, employment, organization and management and eventually it
would affect all aspects of administration. Choices would have to be made
between its technical advantages and its social dislocation. Thinking about the
likely implications of automation should expose administrative deficiencies
otherwise overlooked and reveal a growing need for properly coordinated
information that could aid in successful prediction and advanced planning. Here
The Process of Administrative Reform 45
put up with its inconvenience unless strangers, i.e. outsiders (who were
different) heightened their awareness or the sufferings became too widespread or
too intolerable whereupon people would start complaining first to themselves
and then to anybody who might listen and respond. Growing public discontent
and internal dissent made for greater receptivity to reform proposals.
But complaining was easier than the next step of diagnosing what was wrong
and needed fixing which in turn was easier than the step after that of devising
appropriate remedies. There was a natural tendency to look around and see what
others in similar circumstances were doing. If they were doing better, it was
easier to copy or imitate what they were doing rather than invent something new
or more suitable. Even so, excuses could always be found to reject doing
anything different and to create doubts whether foreign practices were desirable
or transferable or workable in different circumstances. To overcome initial
resistance, all reform proposals, however innocuous, required committed
advocates wiling to persist and generate momentum for change, and the more
complex and radical their reform proposals, the harder it was to convince the
inexpert who usually preferred simple solutions. Reforms were more likely to be
acceptable when tailored specifically to local conditions, implemented through
existing channels and open to participation and modification by those most
involved. As initial steps tended to be judged more critically than later steps,
mistakes at the very outset could kill reform there and then. Reformers had to be
ready and well prepared for any eventualities that might occur at this crucial
stage to counteract expected opposition and take advantage of unexpected
openings. While it was useful to resort to simple slogans and general catch-
words, reformers should avoid subterfuge as usually deception was self-destruc-
tive when exposed.
Among the many factors making for success in gaining support and smooth-
ing the way to implementation, the most important appeared to be the scope of
reforms, the source of their support and the selected channels for implementa-
tion. The variations and combinations were many though certain universals
seemed to stand out. (a) In the case of administrative reforms proposed by
revolutionaries, firm political backing at the top was obviously indispensable as
it probably was for all reforms, but especially those imposed from above. Often
resistance mounted by vested interests and interlocking elites was underestima-
ted but resort to fear and intimidation to reduce opposition would just as often
backfire. Reform would obviously benefit from the ineffectiveness and discredi-
ting of the previous regime and any compelling crises in the transition as it
would from the direct linkages between the promised societal transformation
and remodelled administrative systems, (b) Shock tactics to overcome bureau-
cratic inertia and organizational rigidity demonstrated the danger of going too
far, too quickly and alienating the targets of reform. Instead of reforming the
administration, the whole organization might unravel, (c) Legally imposed
reforms showed the advantages of using law as a reform instrument but they also
Obstacles to Administrative Reform 47
If they carefully combed the literature, they could find many operational
principles (Mosher, 1967, 493; Caiden, 1969, 203). More were soon to be
available (Backoff, 1974), demonstrating the crucial role of academic research
in synthesizing practical wisdom, as long as everyone understood that the study
of administrative reform conferred no expertise or relevant competence in
reform work. The needs of administrative systems would continue to take
precedence over the needs of their study, but further study might well
quicken that sense of social inventiveness and responsibility which makes change not a
burden but an adventure in the art of government and mutual adaptation in free societies.
(Meynaud, 1963, 58)
Looking Ahead
Such was the state-of-the-art in the 1960s. All seemed much more straight-
forward than it really was. In their enthusiasm to ply their trade and sell their
wares, reformers were convinced that the world would only benefit. Reforms
had worked in the past. They appeared to be working in the present, or so
everybody said. There was a great deal of administrative wrongdoing that could
be put right if only reform were given a fair chance. Administrative theory had
thrown up some pretty good pointers and the administrative sciences seemed to
have the right tools in hand. Around the world, reformers had gained experience
or were gaining experience and they did not lack for customers. Never mind that
backstage they were divided over every issue and could rarely agree on
fundamentals, that the administrative theories they relied on were already
becoming outdated like their favorite instruments, that the rapidly changing
world scene would confound their rather simplistic, set formulae, and that their
diagnostic skills were not yet good enough to pinpoint with sufficient accuracy
exactly what ailed administrative systems or which of their medicines were
remedial not pure snake oil. The need for reform was so apparent by then that
they glossed over these matters. Practice would make perfect.
But there were enough clouds on the horizon to warn administrative reformers
to proceed with extreme caution. The heady successes in the West of democratiz-
ing postwar Japan and West Germany had not been repeated elsewhere.
Communism had not raised productivity or reduced the administrative state.
Many newly independent states had not been adequately prepared to manage
their own affairs. Already, the performance of international organizations was
disappointing. Perhaps the blame was largely political but not all of it. A
booming global economy was lulling administrators into a false sense of security
and dulling them to the requirements of administrative modernization. Re-
formers themselves were worried about the continuing bureaucratization of the
world, where that was leading to and what part they played in fostering
References 51
bureaucracy. They also realized that they were in a kind of treadmill: the more
they worked at reform, the more their eyes were opened up to the need for more
reform and the more questions they answered, the more they were leaving
unanswered. They could not wait to see what the 1970s would bring. Whatever
the coming decade had in store, they were sure it would bring greater action and
greater recognition for administrative reform.
References
Backoff, R., "Optimizing Administrative Reform for Improved Governmental Performan-
ce", Administration and Society, Vol. 6, No.l, 1974, pp. 73-106.
Bennis, W, Benne, K., & Chin, R. (eds.), The Planning of Change, Holt, Rinehart and
Winston, New York, 1961.
Caiden, G., Administrative Reform, Aldine, Chicago, 1969.
Eisenstadt, S.N., The Political Systems of Empires, Free Press, New York, 1963.
Krishnamachari, V., Forward to Special Number on Administrative Reforms Since In-
dependence, Indian Journal of Public Administration, Vol. 9, No. 3, July-Sept 1963, vi.
Meynaud, J. (ed.), Social Change and Economic Development, U.N.E.S.C.O., Paris, 1963.
Mosher, F., Governmental Reorganizations, Bobbs-Merrill Co., Indianapolis, IN, 1967.
Woodham-Smith, C., Florence Nightingale, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1955.
4. The Unrewarding Search for Communality
That administrative reform became prominent in the 1960s was no accident. The
world of administration that could previously assume a certain sense of stability,
that had coped with some of the most stressful events in human history, that was
mastering crisis after crisis to reconstruct the international order after a
devastating world war, was itself shaken by the unexpected. Its own offspring
turned on it; the next generation rebelled against the establishment (established
order, inherited institutional arrangements, orthodoxy, prevailing norms); and
the establishment (established authorities) did not have good enough answers for
it. Violent suppression of dissent would only widen the gap between the
generations. The establishment had to rethink its own orthodoxy and come to
terms with radicalism. Reform was the order of the day: bow to the inevitable,
head off worse dislocation, and incorporate the best or most reconcilable of
dissenters. In short, acknowledge that the world was changing fast and that the
administrative state would have to change with it. Public administration would
have to innovate, experiment and reform itself if it was to head off worse trouble
when the offspring of the radicals would come of age in the late 1980s.
One of the few assumptions of the old administrative order that still held was
the inevitability of bureaucratization and professionalization. The previous
generation had embraced bureaucracy as the dominant form of social organiza-
tion. It had also accepted forward planning as essential for all large organiza-
tions. But the new generation was becoming disillusioned with the Weberian
legal-rational bureaucracy which no longer suited the times. Research was
proving the Weberian model to be a mixed blessing and was reformulating it
into the rational-productivity bureaucracy with emphasis more on expertise,
action and results than position, form and procedures, more on a new breed of
scientific, humanistic, proactive managers than the traditional, neutral reactive
bureaucrats. There was flight from the abstract, static principles of the unproven
managerial myths and contradictory proverbs of the past and an urge to
reformulate administration on a more scientific, empirical, behavioral, dynamic
basis geared to the real world.
54 4. The Unrewarding Search for Communality
The real world now moved at a faster pace and was increasingly more complex
and complicated. In the new turbulent global society, administration and
management had become more important; getting things done properly and
effectively, particularly new things and on a larger scale, had become harder.
Big business was coming into its own as never before. It wanted results. Its aim
was to improve performance: in profitability, productivity, market share, capital
return, organization growth and in whatever other ways success was measured.
It wanted managers who could get results, knew how to improve performance,
made the right (or better) decisions, employed the latest scientific knowledge
and techniques, reshaped organizations, overhauled procedures, streamlined
operations, redesigned whole industries, and reformulated principles and proces-
ses to get into the future quicker.
Booming big business could afford business management education, training
and research which pushed the new managerialism, the newly discovered
techniques of game theory, management by objectives (M.B.O.), organization
development (O.D.) and other alphabetical that soon were to become manageri-
al folklore, and the new fashionable concepts of the organization man,
organizational health, planned change, organizational renewal, organizational
diagnosis, self-analysis, and administrative innovation. Whenever something
improved business performance, it was incorporated into practice and institution-
alized as part of the new managerial ethos.
While big business strengthened itself through innovation, reform and
revitalization, the new international superstructure established to deal with
global problems, such as war, poverty, disease, illiteracy, malnutrition, genocide
and racism, was trying to make an impact by helping those unable to help
themselves. It was doing its best to prevent many newly independent states from
sinking and to accelerate the development of poor countries. Specifically, the
United Nations Public Administration Division (U.N.P.A.D.), the technical
assistance missions of the three Western members of the U.N. Security Council
(the United States, the United Kingdom and France) and the Ford Foundation
had embarked on elaborate programs of administrative modernization in the
Third World. These involved the replacement of expatriate administrators, the
establishment of training in administration and management, long range
institution building, the application of sound managerial concepts, and attitudi-
nal change. They also included adequate organization and staff competence for
national development plans, continuous managerial improvement, soundly
designed operating systems, professionalized management, effective financial
management, efficient organization and effective operations in the public sector.
Clearly the new managerial ethos was intended to operate in big government as
in big business.
The New Managerial Ethos 55
managers. This way, the public sector in the Sudan was to be reformed and
revitalized from the inside according to the tenets of the new managerialism.
The limited impact of O.&M. units in administrative modernization was a
cause of continuing concern, particularly in Western countries which had been
the first to establish them in public administration. They did not touch
fundamentals. Public administrators, untrained in the new management ethos,
had continued to conduct public business as usual. They had not adopted modern
business methods or modernized public business practices. They had ignored
increasing public complaints about the bureaupathological tendencies of big
government and discounted the humorous parodies of Parkinson's Law and
Murphy's Law and the like which mushroomed in the 1960s and 1970s. In
response, several countries had resorted to their traditional administrative reform
device of the official inquiry. Among those that sent shock waves around the
world of public administration were the Glassco Commission in Canada
(1961-3) and the Fulton Committee in the United Kingdom (1966-8). The
Glassco Commission was the most businesslike review yet of Canadian federal
government administration, much more than commissions in the United States
had done in adopting a strictly managerial stance and questioning cherished
public administration concepts. But the Fulton Committee had gone on to attack
the bedrock of the Westminster model of the civil service, the cult of the
generalist administrator, now inadequate and obsolete for the most efficient
discharge of government responsibilities, so advised its Management Consul-
tancy Group. Although the Whitehall Establishment was able to ward off the
Fulton Committee's challenge, it could not stop a "marked shift to the
managerial view of administration," the drawing of analogies between business
and public organizations, and the application of common management tech-
niques (Leemans, 1976, 274).
Where big government had taken over big business, such commonality had
supposedly been achieved. Leninism-Stalinism in the Soviet Union had created
the totalitarian party-state bureaucracy that could indulge at will in social
engineering and public management. A new technical intelligentsia had come to
administer all public activities and to be measured by its results, its achieve-
ments, in the overfiilfillment of planning targets. But without freedom of action,
it had to devise ruses and subterfuges to conceal administrative deficiencies and
to connive in evasion and corruption. Stalin's death had eased things and some
réévaluation was permissible. At last, thorough-going reforms were contem-
platable to overhaul a topheavy, cumbrous administrative system, to tackle
institutionalized bureaupathology and to allow public managers greater freedom
to manage. Khrushchev decentralized and devolved important administrative
functions, dissolved planning agencies and enlarged the decision-making
prerogatives of managers. He undertook major reorganizations in industry and
agriculture "to push the experts and the specialists into the production process
and to bring his administrators nearer to factory and farms" (LaPalombara, 1963,
The Transnational Inducement of Administrative Reform 57
also about political purposes and interactions directed at changing the behavior
of the public bureaucracy. Its aims, sources, threats, impacts and benefits would
differ according to the nature of the polity and bureaucratic power, bureaucratic
perceptions and adaptability, and the specificity of bureaucratic annoyances.
Case studies would demonstrate such profound differences in administrative
cultures that would not permit the easy transnational inducement of adminis-
trative improvement and reform.
This prediction was substantiated at the Fifth General Assembly of the
Eastern Regional Organization for Public Administration (E.R.O.P.A.) held in
July 1968 in a seminar on "Administrative Reform and Innovations" which
concluded that foreign management concepts, techniques and approaches had
provided little assistance for development and development administration in
South East Asia. Administrative reform had been good only on paper or had
failed to measure up to expectations. There had to be more realistic considera-
tion of the ecological and behavioral aspects of administrative reform which was
not "simply a matter of management engineering, of applying O.&M. tech-
niques" or ensuring economic and efficient management merely for system
maintenance rather than "the pursuit of new developmental goals" (Lee and
Samonte, 1970, 292).
Administrative reform should encourage changes in the pattern of administrative behavior
and decisionmaking that will stimulate greater initiative, discrimination, adaptability, and,
above all, creativity and innovation. (Ibid, 294)
engage in this task was provided in the first half of 1971 with the appearance of
a special issue of Development and Change edited by Arne Leemans. The
contributors were aware, on the one hand, of the shortcomings of a strictly
generic managerial or management science approach to administrative reform
and, on the other, the significant advances that had been made in other relevant
social sciences, particularly policy studies, behavioral and applied behavioral
sciences, and organizational dynamics. They all stressed that reform efforts had
to be adapted to the particular case. While many reforms had been too
formalistic, too narrowly conceived, ill-suited and unrealistic, they had also been
too risky in the unsettled circumstances, they had been given too low a priority
in national plans and goals, and they had been allocated too few resources and
too short time spans. But reforms had succeeded too. Rulers had implemented
them. Reforms had been institutionalized. Although not all objectives had been
attained, many had. Administrative reform had been partially achieved and
could not be written off. Some rethinking was necessary.
The new thinking called for came in the second half of 1971 at the first global
meeting of experts on major administrative reform organized by the U.N.P.A.D.
The seminar was held at the Institute of Development Studies in the United
Kingdom and it was aided by 23 technical papers and 33 country case studies.
The definition of major administrative reform adopted was
Table 1: Leeman's Schematic Framework for Change in the Machinery of Government (Simplified
and Adapted)
1. NEED FOR CHANGE 5. OBJECTIVES AND ACTORS
1.1 Fundamentally new political situations 5.1 Multiple objectives
1.2 New political demands external-development
1.3 Institutionalization internal-cure of maladministration
1.4 Professionalization, specialization and 5.2 Variety of key actors
differentiation, integration 5.3 Categories of actors and their roles
1.5 Enlargement of scale political office holders
1.6 New values and attitudes, democratization bureaucratic office holders
and participation, confrontation
6. REFORM STRATEGIES
2. BARRIERS TO CHANGE 6.1 Reform process
2.1 Regularity 6.2 Rejection of universal strategies
2.2 Vested interests contingency approach
2.3 Fear and insecurity mix approach
2.4 Blindness to defects need for flexibility
2.5 Limited resources 6.3 Some polar sets of strategies
2.6 Complexity of large organizations structural v. behavioral
2.7 Monopoly noncollaborative v. collaborative
2.8 Sheltered bureaucratic elites drastic v. piecemeal
2.9 Political coolness
2.10 Constitutionalism 7. PROCESS
2.11 Need for consultation 7.1 Incentive
2.12 Administrative due process impulse
distance
3. INDUCEMENTS TO CHANGE annoyance
3.1 Accumulation of changes feasibility
3.2 Tensions between environment and 7.2 Diagnosis
organization structure and processes finding fault
3.3 Tensions arising from innovations devising remedies
3.4 Tensions between components and the whole 7.3 Planned action
organization 7.4 Implementation
3.5 Tensions among components 7.5 Evaluation
3.6 Crises
regime change 8. MAJOR VARIABLES
violent dissatisfactions 8.1 Reform influence and power
environmental-war, depression, cuts, 8.2 Inertia
maladministration-excessive annoyance 8.3 Availability of resources
qualified change agents time
4. SYSTEM AND SUB-SYSTEM personal
CONSIDERATIONS finance
4.1 Machinery of government as a system methods and techniques
4.2 Closed or open administrative systems 8.4 Costs and benefits of reform
narrow unrepresentative elites 8.5 Feasibility estimation
professionalization of civil service uncertainties
closed career system experience
indoctrination scope and intensity
hierarchical command structure trustworthy information
4.3 The environment complexity of situation
static 8.6 Political support
pluralistic and differentiated internal
participative external
turbulent
Source: A. F. Leemans, "Overview," The Management of Change in Government, Martinus Nijhoff,
The Hague, 1976, pp. 1-98.
Enhancing Administrative Capabilities 63
The importance of this gathering was that it did set much of the agenda for
administrative reform in the 1980s and that in so doing it marked the end of the
search for communality in administrative reform. A common agenda could be
devised but carrying it out was to be left to individual countries to decide for
themselves.
At the minimum, the solutions and strategies must vary substantially in application to
varying conditions. Each nation will ultimately have to be responsible for the adaptations
and modifications necessary to fit its peculiar situation. (Ibid, 129)
Yet the whole purpose of the conference had been the continuing involvement
and work by the international community in improving public sector manage-
ment and performance. The expectation was that as a result of this successful
conference there would be follow-up meetings, international cooperative ven-
tures, investment in comparative research and strengthened international efforts
to support national public sector improvement programs. The chilling economic
climate and the current political challenge to the administrative state dashed any
hopes. Cutback management was soon to reduce not increase international and
cross-national cooperation and leave individual countries to their own devices.
What was started in 1979, the culmination of at least a decade's effort at
reaching common agreement in administrative reform, was brought to an abrupt
halt. There would be no follow-up.
Table 2: United Nations Schematic Framework for Enhancing Capabilities for Administrative
Reform in Developing Countries
Source: United Nations, Enhancing Capabilities for Administrative Reform in Developing Countries,
Department of Technical Cooperation for Development, ST/ESA/SER.E/31,1983.
If the Beijing seminar was any indication, this approach to communality was
fruitless and stale. It was like riding the same roundabout over and over again.
Not much advance had been made on the 1971 U.N. gathering at the Institute of
Development Studies on a grander scale. Meantime, those doing administrative
reform around the world had long taken the seminar's advice that "reforms have
to be country specific" (Ibid, 1), including the Chinese hosts. This time,
however, there was a follow-up meeting of experts convened by the U.N. in
Beijing in 1989 to review and advise on the administrative reform programs that
the Chinese had initiated after the previous seminar. Because of the political
disturbances that had occurred in May, the Chinese would reveal next to nothing
on what they had been doing except to say that their first phase had been
70 4. The Unrewarding Search for Communality
successful. They just wanted to know from the experts what other countries had
been doing and each expert participated in several private sessions. As one
participant summed up the experience:
There was some question as to the general value of the symposium although the Chinese
continued to meet for five days following, indicating their feeling of usefulness. Some
attendees considered that the Chinese were sufficientíy far behind the management level
of the symposium participants as to make difficult really meaningful professional
communication. (Global Network, Fall 1989, 2)
Generalizing from these meetings and similar gatherings held during the 1980s,
it may well be true that
What works one place does not always work another because of different practices,
different outlooks, and different constraints of capacity and funding. But what works in
one place is very likely to work in quite a lot of places with appropriate modifications. It
would be splendid if... we could find ways of getting not only the word about useful ideas
around, but also the critical details of how to make them work in other places. Frequently,
it is not just what you do but how you do it, that determines success. (Champion, 1986,
7-8)
References
Kubr, M., and Wallace, J., Successes and Failures in Meeting the Management
Challenge: Strategies and Their Implementation, World Bank Staff Working Paper no.
585, Washington, D.C., 1983.
LaPalombara, J. (ed.), Bureaucracy and Political Development, Princeton University
Press, Princeton, N.J., 1963.
Lee, H. B. and Samonte, A. (eds.), Administrative Reforms in Asia, E.R.O.P.A., Manila,
1970.
Leemans, A. (ed.), The Management of Change in Government, Institute of Social
Studies, Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, 1976.
Ozgediz, S., Managing the Public Service in Developing Countries: Issues and Prospects,
World Bank Staff Working Paper no. 583, Washington, D.C., 1983.
Paul, S., Training for Public Administration and Management in Developing Countries: A
Review, World Bank Staff Working Paper no. 584, Washington, D.C., 1983.
Quah, J., "Administrative Reform: A Conceptual Analysis", Philippine Journal of Public
Administration, Vol. 20, No.l, Jan. 1976, pp. 50-67.
Ro, C., and Reforma, M., Social Change and Administrative Reform Towards the Year
2000, E.R.O.P.A., Manila, 1985.
Rondinelli, D. A., Nellis, J. R., and Cheema, G. S., Decentralization in Developing
Countries: A Review of Recent Experience, World Bank Staff Working Paper no. 581,
Washington, D.C., 1983.
Shirley, M. M., Managing State-Owned Enterprises, World Bank Staff Working Paper
no. 577, Washington, D.C., 1983.
Stahl, G., and Foster, G., Improving Public Services: A Report on The International
Conference on Improving Public Management and Performance, U.S. Agency for
International Development, Washington, D.C., 1979.
Tait, A. A., and Heller, P. S., International Comparisons of Government Expenditure,
International Monetary Fund, Washington, D.C., 1982.
United Nations, Enhancing Capabilities for Administrative Reform in Developing
Countries, ST/ESA/SER. E/31, New York, 1983.
United Nations, Handbook on the Improvement of Administrative Management in Public
Administration, ST/ESA/SER. E/19, New York, 1979.
United Nations, Interregional Seminar on Major Administrative Reforms in Developing
Countries, ST/TAO/M/62, New York, 1973.
United Nations, Reforming Civil Service Systems for Development, TCD/SEM.
85/7-INT-85-R61, New York, 1985.
United States Agency for International Development, Institutional Development, Washing-
ton, D.C., March 1983.
5. Administrative Reform Breaks Loose
Just when it seemed in the late 1970s that many international technical
assistance experts in administrative reform in the Third World might be reaching
substantial agreement over definition, scope, approach and feasibility, the
ground was swept from under them. Governments all over the world plunged
into administrative reform with a vengeance. This time, the initiative was taken
by the developed countries. After being relatively passive for over a decade,
content with piecemeal reforms and steady managerial improvements, they did
an abrupt about turn as the world-wide recession took hold. They undertook
wholesale administrative reform in an endeavor to improve public sector
productivity and performance. Despite some cross-checking, it was not done in a
concerted fashion but on a country-by-country basis. The new reformers
involved deliberately broke with the past and embarked on a radical change in
direction in reshaping public administration and management.
At an International Round Table on Public Administration held in 1983 in
Tokyo, Japan's Minister for Administrative Reforms remarked that adminis-
trative reform had become "a hot subject all over the world," as indeed it was.
That meeting was attended largely by representatives of Western democracies
which were, like Japan, carrying out sweeping reforms of their administrative
systems. The Tokyo meeting, arranged by the host country, was a rare attempt to
bring the Western Bloc together to share ideas and exchange information on
government reorganization. At the same time, several East Bloc countries were
also revitalizing their centrally directed economies and public bureaucracies
without apparently paying much attention to what anybody else around the
world was doing. As a result, the 1980s were eventful years in administrative
reform at least at national level even if each country pulling in different
directions undermined previous efforts at communality. It was a decade in which
administrative reform broke loose from its preoccupation with forms and
processes and delved deeper into the structural and institutional shortcomings of
public administration.
This latest rush to overhaul administrative systems and rejuvenate public
organizations around the globe had been prompted largely by a world-wide
decline in public finances and the need for governments to get more for less. The
1980s were to prove a difficult decade for governments. The slowdown in
economic activity accompanied by persistent public pressures for increased
government intervention to reverse the situation pushed governments into large
scale borrowing, unprecedented public indebtedness, high rates of inflation,
74 5. Administrative Reform Breaks Loose
frequent devaluations, and harsh financial policies imposed under the pressure
of the International Monetary Fund (I.M.F.). Governments had to cut back,
reduce expenditures, staff, investments and services and demand higher producti-
vity and better performance from their sluggish public sectors. To improve their
competitive international economic position, governments were forced to
redefine their role and strategies. All blamed the dead hand of bureaucracy,
especially the poor performance of public bureaucracies and the daily annoyan-
ces of irksome restrictions, cumbrous red tape, unpleasant officials, poor service
and corrupt practices. Government, itself, had become too big, had taken too
much on itself beyond its capacity to realize, and had allowed public expenditu-
res and public employment to grow without adequate investigation and examina-
tion to the uses they were put and to the outputs obtained from the burgeoning
administrative state.
The reexamination of the role of government that took place lifted adminis-
trative reform well beyond traditional concerns. In Japan,
The first consideration in administrative reform is what the government should do: in
short, how the public and private functions should be shared, how the responsibilities... of
governments or the quasi-governmental organizations such as public corporations should
be shared, and how the government should function, that is, whether the government
should do everything by itself, and whether and how the public sector should entrust
certain functions to the private sector...(Plowden et al., 1983, 104)
incorporation of the best available technology; its respect for public accountabili-
ty and controls; and its attention to direct public participation and self-help,
self-management opportunities. The dead hand of bureaucracy had to be
replaced by a new invigorating concept of public management and clear proof
that public organizations were value for money.
Closer to privatization has been the contracting out not to other public bodies
but to private enterprise, in the absence of which the government itself would
have to perform all operations and provide a reserve capacity for contingencies.
While governments have always contracted for readily available "on the shelf'
items, it has become more common practice to contract out for services and
one-of-a-kind items unavailable in the market place for which the government is
the sole purchaser (Gilbert, 1983). Often governments have only the vaguest
idea what they want; nobody knows whether a certain service or item can be
supplied to expected specifications or at all. Such forms of contracting out have
created non-market delivery systems solely dependent on public funds with a
strong contractor interest in sole source supply (monopoly), higher returns
(waste), loose supervision (low accountability) and follow-on contracts (politi-
cal lobbying). Yet as governments try to shrink the public sector or divest
themselves of detailed management or boost non-governmental enterprise,
contracting out has become more popular. It has gone so far in the United States
that some local governments contract out all key services - police, fire
protection, social welfare, public works - while others make their own
municipal agencies bid against private contractors. The U.S. federal government
has even been encouraging public employees to form their own private
companies to contract for newly privatized activities. The aim of all these
experiments has been to reduce public expenditure without curtailing service
quality, although this aim has often been defeated by fraud, waste and abuse.
In all these experiments, the public have been passive onlookers. But as
public resources have diminished, so governments have sought to cut costs by
relying more on voluntary participation in public organizations to take over
some of the work load and by encouraging people to do more things for
themselves instead of looking to government to do things for them. Despite
bureaucratic and professional opposition, governments have also attempted
fitfully to devolve some activities to communal organizations and various
public-private partnerships. Here, the public have been encouraged to share in
the public service delivery through privately financed participation, hopefully
reducing public alienation and making citizenship more meaningful (Levine,
1984). Such coproduction has so far worked only on a small, local scale and has
relied heavily on private funding, local self interest and community organiza-
tion. However, the potential of coproduction for generating private inputs into
government is likely to lead to novel partnerships in the future as governments
endeavor to shift production of public goods and services off the machinery of
government into private, voluntary and non-governmental organizations. It will
open a whole new frontier in administrative reform especially in countries
anxious to reduce bureaucratic centralism.
78 5. Administrative Reform Breaks Loose
Debureaucratization
Privatization and coproduction were part of a larger effort to reduce statism and
to get government off the people's backs, generally to reduce government
intervention and bureaucratic controls. Such streamlining and simplification of
public bureaucracy - termed debureaucratization - also sought to put an end to
the methods devised by people to evade government controls and cut through
the bureaucratic maze. It was expected that eventually debureaucratization
would improve public trust and confidence in government and minimize
people's need to use intermediaries to deal with the public bureaucracy on their
behalf. Debureaucratization viewed government from the public's standpoint
with the overarching twin objectives of eliminating bureaucratic dysfunctions or
bureaupathologies (not the bureaucracy itself) and transforming the mindless
bureaucrats of the imperious state into caring public servants of the community.
Debureaucratization incorporated virtually the whole gamut of administrative
reform:
improving public policy making and government decisions
streamlining the machinery of government
deconcentrating power and authority
increasing public sector productivity
devising measures of performance and insisting on better performance
tackling bureaupathologies, such as fraud, waste and corruption
adopting up-to-date information and administrative technology
simplifying and rationalizing administrative processes
reducing unnecessary red-tape, feather bedding and paper work
devising organizational innovations
diversifying public service delivery systems
providing and ensuring greater public accountability
allocating scarce resources more rationally
providing incentives for cost consciousness and public savings
reducing public debts
improving forecasting and simulation
deregulating marketable services
consolidating fragmented units
emphasizing effective consultation and coordination
enforcing financial management controls
attracting and retaining better qualified public employees
transferring and retraining surplus employees
educating public managers to manage
retuning public employee skills
improving public sector working conditions
demanding higher professional standards and stricter discipline
Debureaucratization 79
speeding up operations
stressing public ethics and norms
restoring public confidence in public institutions
investigating and responding to public complaints
allowing greater direct public participation in public administration
educating public officials and public on how to behave with one another.
All these elements had supposedly been contained in the National Debureau-
cratization Program in Brazil, a model for other countries in Latin America. The
program had been based initially on a survey of all contacts between citizens and
officialdom over a lifetime to find out what could be eliminated altogether or
simplified, and on another similar survey for small businesses only (Carneiro,
1982). While it operated, every area of federal government administration was
reviewed, several hundred legal documents were revised and millions of
documents were eliminated. Regulations were modified or discontinued, and
new information technology reduced red-tape. Some activities were decentraliz-
ed to quicken decision making and attempts were made to humanize public
administration.
The task in Brazil was truly overwhelming and the momentum of the program
dwindled because the disposition both of officials and public towards each other
failed to change appreciably (Belmiro et al., 1986: Joao, 1984). Public
administration was still seen as management of the public with decisions
imposed from above and afar while the public still viewed their over-centralized
government as out of touch, too exploitive and self serving. Although the
program eventually fell victim to old habits of mind, bureaucratic inertia and
political downgrading, it did make a welcome dent in Brazilian public admini-
stration. Its main thrusts - deregulation, decentralization, modernization, per-
sonalization, and greater public accountability and participation - were re-
peated elsewhere in Latin America as in Mexico's Administrative Simplification
Program and Peru's debureaucratization schemes and also around the globe with
mixed successes.
Deregulation outside Brazil has gone well beyond lifting irksome government
restrictions on business activity, which was one of the major objectives of the
Brazilian government, to revising all statutes and official instructions so as to
reduce generally the volume and weight of legal rules and constraints on social
activities and restore the value of law crippled by excessive red-tape, regulatory
overkill, and ineffective legalism. Deregulation had two major aims. One was to
reduce unnecessary restrictions on individual liberty, to lower the excessive cost
of social resistance to the proliferation of regulations, and to avoid the real
danger of individual suffocation, i.e. to lighten the load of regulation. The other
was to restore the efficacy of the regulatory process by eliminating unnecessary
red-tape imposed on the public to obtain required documents such as birth,
marriage and death certificates, driving licenses, land titles and labor permits, by
speeding up and simplifying procedures through newly available technology, by
80 5. Administrative Reform Breaks Loose
with promptly. These prescriptions have been translated into budget requests for
the redesign of public buildings, the legitimation of public relations, advertising
and information campaigns, and the establishment of information and complaint
offices. They have led to greater use of mass media for public education
programs, open houses and exhibitions and a willingness to allow the public to
see the inside the public bureaucracy.
Reorganization
Once reorganization of the machinery of government used to be considered the
primary need in administrative reform. And governments did indeed reorganize
only to be disillusioned when their expectations of economy, efficiency,
productivity, effectiveness and responsiveness did not materialize. Often the
managerial prescriptions in regrouping administrative units, redistributing
functions among them and other structural transformations, did not pay off at all
and they were not worth the cost of the political upheavals involved or the time
and effort. In short, reorganizations were a "source of frustration and disillusion-
ment" (Fain, 1977, ix). No matter what might be done, administrative problems
persisted; reorganizations had little impact on costs, efficiency and control
(Boyle, 1979; Kaufman, 1977; Szanton, 1981); they were more useful as policy
tools, signals of intention, means of redistributing power. In short, reorganiza-
tion came to be recognized as "a domain of rhetoric trading, problematic
attention, and symbolic action" (March and Olsen, 1983, 291) in which
administrative and management theory clashed with real politick, "iron tri-
angles" fought over turf, political trading and bargaining resulted in unworkable
compromises or the sacrifice of administrative reform, and reorganizations
became garbage cans.
1986; Godwin and Needham, 1981; Ingraham and Ban, 1984). The S.E.S. was to
be
a general civilian officer corps, staffed by highly trained and broadly experienced men
and women who could be shifted from assignment to assignment as the needs of
government required. In return for higher pay, performance bonuses, and enhanced career
opportunities, S.E.S. members were to forgo many of the protections of the traditional
civil service system and be held to higher standards of performance. The S.E.S. would, in
brief, create the vigorous, competent, and spirited bureaucracy that democratic govern-
ment requires (Twentieth Century, 1987, 29).
All senior positions were grouped into a single personal rank class with a fixed
percentage quota for non-careerists. Incumbents could be shifted around but
they would be evaluated annually according to individual and organizational
performance. Although consistently poor performers could be removed or
retired, half of S.E.S. careerists would be eligible for annual cash bonuses (up to
20 per cent of base salary) and exceptional performers could be placed in special
meritorious ranks with a one-time cash bonus.
Other countries have adopted similar principles, namely, opening up closed
career systems, banding senior officials together to overcome departmentaliza-
tion, remuneration based on annual performance ratings, bonuses (incentives)
for superior performance, and possible demotion and removal. In practice, the
hopes of civil service reformers have been dashed because the initial base
salaries were kept too low and turnover has been high as identifiable good
performers have been induced (even seduced) to leave public service. In the face
of departmental opposition, mobility within has been low, while the executive
training that was supposed to accompany appointment has rarely materialized.
The performance appraisal and bonus systems have proved difficult to apply to
technical specialists. But the real block has turned out to be accusations of
politicization of senior positions as governments have relished their new
freedom to pick and choose bureaucratic chiefs at will. Furthermore, although
the whole conception was based on the reform of managerial systems that would
permit the new breed of public managers to manage, these reforms have been
slow to emerge, leaving in place rigid, counterproductive, dysfunctional
practices which choke individual innovation and initiative.
Although attempts were made to reduce entitlements and other universal legal
rights to public services for people who did not need them or could afford to pay
for them on a commercial basis, proposals were dropped where such cuts were
interpreted as rolling back the welfare state or a failure to maintain the level of
private sector employment. Other targets for reform were overspending and
seepage of public funds through fraud, waste, and corruption, i.e. the diversion
of public funds to people for whom they were never meant. Retired public
servants, such as Leslie Chapman in the United Kingdom (Chapman, 1978), and
inquiries led by business persons, such as the Grace Commission in the United
States, suggested that significant savings could be made if the loopholes were
blocked. Similarly, public funds could be boosted if the government's collection
of money was improved, not only including loans never collected but also taxes
which had been avoided and evaded. Finally, along with prepreparation in the
budget process, preauditing was also boosted. Even before money was allocated,
claims and requests were to be audited for their public worth and value, not just
for their legality and appropriateness. Altogether, government auditing was
tightened, with previously exempt public organizations now included. In the
United Kingdom, a new Audit Commission was specifically established for
local governments and empowered to undertake "value for money" studies.
The "value for money" approach in administrative reform was greatly assisted
by the upsurge of policy analysis and public productivity research (Dillman,
1986; Miller, 1984), dispelling doubts that much government performance could
not be measured and evaluated. Their impact has been to switch attention from
process to substance, "from tasks to goals" (Bonwit, 1989) from general
government arrangements to specific improvements in individual public organi-
zations (Brown, 1979; Hawker, 1981; Tierney, 1981). Social security insurance
schemes were transformed by new information technology. Competition and
technology prompted reforms in public businesses such as mail delivery,
telecommunications and airlines. Government has had to change, and govern-
ment administration and management have had to change accordingly. The
overall impact of substantive reforms has been to lift the gloom and pessimism
about government and the governability of modern society which was wide-
spread with the onset of the economic crisis (Rose, 1979) to guarded optimism a
decade later that the state was capable of adaptation.
A New Realism
While these administrative reforms proceeded with reasonable success, the more
ambitious comprehensive reforms faltered and proved a great disappointment in
poor countries which had pinned such high hopes on them. While the National
Debureaucratization Program in Brazil dwindled in impact, until it was killed in
A New Realism 87
1989, its imitators in other Latin American countries could not even match the
N.D.P.'s initial successes and administrative reforms may have made things
worse, not better (Perlman, 1989). In Africa, administrative reform initiatives
collapsed in one country after another, victim to political corruption, bureau-
cratic inertia, and social disharmony (Chikulo, 1981; Williams, 1987). Bureau-
cratic resistance largely defeated reform campaigns in the Indian subcontinent
(Khan, 1979; Maheshwari, 1981; T\immala, 1979; The Indian Journal of Public
Administration, 1985; Public Administration and Development, 1989) while
political corruption and political turmoil often upset reform programs elsewhere
in Asia (De Guzman et al, 1982; Khan, 1980; Krannich, 1980). As in the past,
the administrative systems most in need of reform could not muster the political
support, administrative capacity and public participation for effective implemen-
tation, while those possibly least in need among the more wealthy countries
were able to do so (Al-Saigh, 1986, Mayo-Smith and Ruther, 1986).
The comparative success of administrative reform in the richer countries
could, of course, be attributed to political determination, administrative exper-
tise and public pressure, always essential ingredients in administrative reform.
But there were other important supporting factors. For a start, the world
economic situation challenged the voracity of the public sector which the
preceding decades of economic growth and high employment rates had
encouraged. The change in economic fortunes forced a reconsideration of public
expenditures, the role and the size of the public sector, and the productivity and
economic performance of public organizations. Something had to be done to
reassure a critical public that the public sector was really pulling its weight. But
action was not along traditional reform lines at all. Grandiose schemes for
wholesale transformation were replaced by incremental, quickly attainable
substantive improvements. Privatization did not abandon the welfare state or
public enterprise; it only denationalized profitable public businesses. Debureau-
cratization did not abandon the administrative state; it only removed unneces-
sary red-tape and public regulation. Decentralization did not abandon big
government; it only attempted to relocate routine decision making. Effective
public management did not abandon career systems; it only sought to introduce
a higher priority for managerial talent. Value for money did not abandon budget
processes; it only added an extra preliminary process to cap public expenditures.
Behind them, however, was the threat of more radical reforms that would have
been introduced had the public bureaucracy resisted such incremental reforms.
More important, it was recognized that the reform of public bureaucracy had
in practice to "be implemented by and within that same bureaucracy" (Smith and
Weller, 1978, 310-311). The public bureaucracy was consulted and involved
throughout the reform process. The public bureaucracy was not seen as the
inevitable enemy but as a willing partner, having talented, experienced profes-
sionals who knew where the problems were and what could be achieved with
minimum dislocation. While there were reactionaries among them who resented
88 5. Administrative Reform Breaks Loose
any suggestion that the public bureaucracy was less than perfect, there were also
radicals frustrated by the system and full of ideas how to make the system work
better. Governments tapped their ideas and sided with them, shifting the weight
of the system on the side of the desired changes. Also governments realized that
as long as they minimized any personal damage pertaining to victims of reforms,
public officials had the good sense to go with the times to meet the challenges
presented. The fact that governments were able to function so well given general
belt-tightening was testimony to bureaucratic resilience. While outside critics
might use this as evidence of previous slack, more knowledgeable insiders
realized that the public bureaucracy had responded despite an appreciable degree
of demoralization that boded ill for the longer term. In the meantime, the public
bureaucracy had been positioned in a different and more desirable direction.
In this realistic reappraisal of public sector performance, a number of myths
were exposed. Government could not be run like a business although it could be
more businesslike (Calista, 1986; Campbell and Peters, 1988; Garson and
Overman, 1983). What government had to do was quite different from business
and how it went about doing what it did also had to be different. The public
sector had a logic of its own. Furthermore, given its context and limitations, the
public sector performed much better than often realized. Indeed, its productivity
may have been rising at a higher rate than private sector productivity and it was
often managerially more enterprising and creative. Outside criticism had been
exaggerated, and if it was continued, might prove to be a self-fulfilling
prophecy. Panaceas for government ills could not be found in political
abstractions or business practices or purely managerial prescriptions or constant
harassment of public officials. They could not be conjured up from foreign
administrative cultures or from general manuals of management or even from
neighboring public organizations. The post office was as different from mental
health treatment as the foreign service was from tax collection or the operation
of transportation services was from public schools. Realistic reform required a
pragmatic experimental approach, perhaps confined to one specific public
activity or one set of public organizations or one class of public employees.
While outside experts, public inquiries, new laws, new organizations, new
people and new coordinating mechanisms could make a difference (Wilenski,
1986), reform success depended on the everyday operations of government and
the hundreds of thousands of permanent officials who handled public business
daily to devise for themselves better ways of doing their jobs. In short, it seemed
better to encourage and solicit reforms from the inside than to impose them from
the outside.
The Limitations of Reform 89
Although each country had gone about reform in its own peculiar way, as might
be expected given the diversity of administrative cultures, no country had been
uninfluenced by what has happened elsewhere. When country A had decided to
overhaul its administrative system, its neighbors had followed suit. When
country B had published the results of its investigations, so they had been
studied on the other side of the globe. Reformers everywhere avidly searched for
proposals they might themselves adopt, for tips on what seemed to have worked
elsewhere, and for evidence that bolstered their case. They carefully reviewed
the successes of reform campaigns and concentrated on achievable, measurable
goals, always aware of the inherent limitations of their reforms. They did not
aim to change governing principles or essentials but to strengthen them (Calista,
1986), although at the end of the 1980s, they were being pushed into more
radical if not revolutionary proposals.
The new generation of reformers deliberately tied administrative reform to
policy changes and political reforms but with a quite conservative or conserving
intention. By making government more effective, government could do more.
By giving better value for money, public expenditures could go further. By
freeing the public of needless bureaucracy, people could devote themselves to
more important tasks. By improving public sector performance, government
could be more responsive to national aspirations. Streamlining, modernization,
cutback management, debureaucratization and the like were not ends in
themselves, but means to making the public bureaucracy more economic, more
productive, more efficient, more effective, more adaptive, more innovative,
more accountable, for better serving the public.
By using the system in place, the reforms had guarantees of system supports,
adequate resources, and opportune timing. But this strategy could only work
where the existing system was already performing reasonably well and where
the people who directed it were politically sensitive, professionally sophisticated
and self-interested in identifying with the reforms. Unfortunately, in many
countries, it was the system itself that was grievously faulty and no amount of
tinkering around with it could overcome built-in deficiencies. Governments had
to devise more radical administrative reforms, bypassing the public sector
altogether with their strengthening of private producers, voluntary and non-
governmental organizations or bypassing the public bureaucracy altogether by
relying more on outside advisors, appointing non-career persons to top adminis-
trative positions and imposing stronger political, legal, financial and managerial
controls on task oriented executives.
These reform experiences of the 1980s confirmed more than ever that a
crusading spirit was still essential in administrative reform. A burning spirit of
righteous indignation was crucial to overcome bureaucratic inertia, political
90 5. Administrative Reform Breaks Loose
indifference and public apathy. And as many countries and reformers had found,
idealism was all too easily crushed in the daily frustrations of reform programs.
In any event, imperfections would remain even if the reforms were successful
(Feldman, 1981). Reforms could only control not cure the ills of public
administration. They exposed maladministration and proposed alternatives that
promised to reduce it but they could not guarantee good administration nor
prevent the reappearance of maladministration. But even if they failed at any
point in time, the effort kept the flame of idealism alive without which no reform
would ever succeed.
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92 5. Administrative Reform Breaks Loose
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6. In Pursuit of Betterment
Unrealized Potential
Administrative reform is based on certain premises, rarely articulated by
administrative reformers who believe them self evident. The first is the
imperfectability of human institutions. No matter how much mankind improves
itself, it can always do better. Nothing is yet perfect. Perfection is still beyond
mankind's reach; human institutions are far from reaching their potential.
Indeed, there are glaring imperfections that cry out for improvement and drastic
change. Mankind is still experimenting with what works and what does not
work. Only the exceptionally privileged can be content with the status quo and
even they must have fears about the state of world affairs. It seems that for every
two steps forward, mankind slips back a step and more. Progress is painfully
slow. While in recent centuries economic prospects may have improved,
humanity is still beset with religious hatred, racial discrimination, social dissent
and national rivalries that threaten to end civilization altogether and perhaps all
human life on the planet. Further, many of the worst disasters to befall mankind
in recent years have been manmade and preventable (epidemics, poisons, oil
94 6. In Pursuit of Betterment
...even excellent institutions run by excellent human beings are inherently sluggish, not
hungry for innovation, not quick to respond to human need, not eager to reshape
themselves to meet the challenge of the times. (Gardner, 1968, 2)
innovations. In the meantime, the outmoded and the outdated persist and they
are perpetuated unless firm and drastic action is taken all the way down the line
to see that things are changed. Likewise, there is a considerable gap between
research and application. Even when research proves that administrative
processes are wrong or bad or ineffective and suggests feasible alternatives, the
findings are often denied by those too wedded to the status quo to change their
ways or discounted by those too complacent to question what they do and what
they could do differently. In any event, there is a gap, often a widening gap,
between what is being done and what could and should be done. Worse still,
their employees seem unaware of any gap and when made aware they are at a
loss to know what to do about closing it.
Most ailing organizations have developed a functional blindness to their own defects.
They are suffering not because they can't solve their problems but because they won't see
their problems. They can look straight at their faults and rationalize them as virtues or
necessities. (Gardner, 1968, 42)
One of the major difficulties in preventing everyone and anyone who wants to
better the human condition from advocating administrative solutions is the
failure to separate ends from means. It is commonly though mistakenly believed
that any improvement in means should result in an improvement in ends. After
all, defective administration, poor management and inappropriate implementa-
tion obviously detract from performance and expected results and outcomes. In
the same way, people believe that improved decision-making will make for
better decisions, or improved policymaking will result in better policies. After
all, defective decision making makes for poor decisions and poor policymaking
produces bad policies. But just because bad means make for bad ends, it does
not necessarily follow that good means make for good ends or, in the case of
administrative reform, better means make for better ends. Nonetheless, adminis-
trative reformers link ends and means together. They believe that improvements
in means will benefit the ends, just as night follows day. Administrative reform
is not so much desired for itself but for the anticipated benefits that will occur in
achieving better results. More people will share to a higher degree for a longer
period with less difficulty, effort and resources. As the World Bank implied,
better management should use scarce resources more economically and effective-
ly to generate greater economic development.
The same understanding was implied in the United Nations' definition of
administrative reform "as the deliberate use of authority and influence to apply
new measures to an administrative system so as to change its goals, structures
and procedures with a view to improving it for development purposes" (United
Nations, 1983, 1). Jon Quah had previously gone so far as applying adminis-
trative reform only to organizations that were involved in realizing development
objectives (Quah, 1976, p. 58). In this, he had followed Jose Abueva but without
the latter's distinction between manifest or declared goals (indigenization,
economy, streamlining, etc.) and undisclosed or undeclared goals (political
control, empire building, spoils). Yehezkel Dror pointed out that administrative
reform was multi-goal oriented, usually a mixture of intra-administrative goals
primarily concerned with improving administration and extra-administrative
goals dealing with the societal roles of administrative systems, including even
purely political functions (Leemans, 1976, p. 130), and questioned whether they
had any necessary connection to vague, abstract terms such as national
development. Henry Kariel urged that emphasis be placed on extra-administrati-
ve goals.
realize, we cannot evade the attempt to define the ideals to be sustained by the machinery
of the state. (Braibanti, 1969, 150)
open political system and rallied to the Tangwai movement that capitalized on
middle class resentment of bureaucratic red-tape, unresponsive public enterpri-
ses, urban ills (over crowding, traffic jams, illegal parking, inadequate public
amenities), pollution, and a tainted legal system. Administrative reform was a
justifiable demand as public officials ignored complaints in the mass media
about government inefficiency, waste, corruption, illegality, differential and
deferential law enforcement, lagging public utility services, inadequate public
infrastructure, and growing inequalities.
Behind the call for administrative reform was the desire of the middle class to
have stronger input into public policy, greater political representation, alter-
natives to the officially sanctioned K.M.T. line, and more stress on private rather
than government initiatives. The upward mobile wanted democratization,
liberty, the impartial rule of law, and responsive public administration. Con-
tinually frustrated, Tangwai promoted mass organization and in 1986 estab-
lished the Democratic Progressive Party (D.P.P.). In response to this new
political challenge, the K.M.T. changed its line, adopted new policies, and
introduced administrative reforms in such areas as environmental protection,
social welfare and labor relations "to meet the demands of predominantly middle
class civic organizations and public interest groups" (Chu Yun-Han, 1989, 18).
In Taiwan, administrative reform had been backed initially as one way of
opening up the political system. But once the political system had been opened
up, political reforms required administrative reforms for their effective imple-
mentation. These in turn led to modifications and improvements in long standing
governmental practices, including even the traditional civil service examinations
and in-service training. Yet while these measures might still enable the public
sector to attract talent they could not offset the growing attractiveness and
superior compensation of the private sector and they probably would continue to
lag behind rapid social and political transformations in Taiwan (Chen Wen-
tsung, 1989), demonstrating the close ties between administrative reform and
societal reforms.
Because of the extensive activities of the contemporary administrative state
and the difficulties of distinguishing between the substance of administration
and the objectives of administration, the internalities of administrative reform
are no less ambitious. They deal with every aspect of the modern state, which in
totalitarian regimes covers virtually everything, and all the petty details of
modern management, anything and everything that might contribute to the better
performance of public institutions and organizations and to the advantage of
their clients and employees. Even a list of what might be termed strictly
house-keeping aspects of the administrative state soon spills over into larger
social issues such as the scope of government, the quality and nature of
pre-employment education and training, the nature of industrial relations, the
rights and duties of citizens, social ethics, the distribution of wealth, the
incidence of taxation, social structure and so forth (see Table 1). Since they
100 6. In Pursuit of Betterment
Governments
roles, functions, activities, aims, content, courage, quality, performance, suitability, adaptability
image, status, prestige, attractiveness, capacity, stability, readiness, quickness, harmony, integration
effectiveness, policymaking, information processing, consultation, advisory channels, public relations,
outreach
size, structure, co-ordination, redundancy, scope and reach, communications, control, enforcement
costs, income, expenditure, debt, loans, financial management, reserves
employment, composition, capacity, quality, competence, competitiveness, stature, retention, mobility
construction, maintenance, aesthetics, mechanization and automation, location and siting
record-keeping, archives, paperwork, information processing
humanness, responsiveness, sensitivity, values (truthfulness, equity, etc.)
proactiveness, strategic management, forward planning, future capacity
breakdowns, bottlenecks, counterproductivity, illegitimacy, illegality, criminality, immorality
contracting out, contractual performance, contract supervision and administration
Organizations
objectives, goals, targets, social purpose, public need, policies, clientele, constituency, effectiveness
legitimacy, legal status, jurisdiction, authority, power, autonomy, monopoly, independence, accoun-
tability, law abidingness, regulations
inter-organizational relations, competition, coalition-building, public relations, contracting, industrial
relations
size, form, structure, concentration, centralization, delegation, overlapping, duplication, coordination
functions, activities, diversification, compatibility, specialization, departmentalization, standardization
resources, capitalization, mechanization, factor mix, information retrieval, planning, reserves, sup-
plies, stores
leadership, participation, representation, supervision, rules, controls
decisionmaking style, problem solving, conflict resolution, restrictive practices, communications (fre-
quency, direction, credibility)
division of labor, work flow, interlocking processes, organization and methods (0.& M.), research,
management services
record-keeping, accounting, auditing, property management, reports, budgeting, economy
staffing, recruiting, promotion, training, classification, compensation, incentives, security, safety,
employment, turnover
culture, norms, ethos, ethics, discipline, sanctions
Groups
permanence, unity, cohesion, compatibility, interdependence, conformity, congruence, conflict
autonomy, dependence
rank order, status, prestige
composition, openness
morale, loyalty, identification
Individuals
rights, duties, obligations, loyalty, dependability, commitment
skills and aptitude, ability, health, competence, dependability, capacity, qualifications
knowledge, experience, articulation
judgment, values, ethics, responsibility, reliability
attitudes, beliefs, opinions, ambitions, aims, will, expectations
enthusiasm, incentive, drive, creativity, originality
job satisfaction, mobility
The Folklore of Administrative Reform 101
9. Public regulation
demonstration of real need
impartial implementation and enforcement
safeguards against abuse, failure and supersession
10. Public capital
preservation and maintenance
better utilization
beautification
11. General services
standardization and consistency
instant availability
quality performance
best deal
greater mechanization
12. Public enterprise
demonstrated superiority over private enterprise
positive impact on economic policy
adequate return on investment
fair pricing policies; non-exploitation of natural or legal monopoly
consumer satisfaction; marketing
13. Public management practices
more effective leadership and enterprise
0.& M. principles
debureaucratization
paperwork reduction
streamlining, simplicity and convenience
productivity; elimination of feather-bedding
discipline
14. Public ethics
honesty and integrity
professionalism
humanitarian
prevention of corruption, fraud, and misconduct
15. Public participation
voluntarism
coproduction
complaint handling mechanisms
16. Institutionalization of administrative reform
designated authority
104 6. In Pursuit of Betterment
research
training and education
innovation and experimentation.
Together these ideals constitute the folklore of administrative reform. They are
articles of faith, principles of exhortation, emblazoned slogans, the closest to
communality so far attained in administrative reform. They cover most of the
territory and each has been fairly well explored, well enough to convince
administrative reformers that this is the way to go. They promise improvements
over the status quo and fortified they do seem to hamper back sliding. Moreover,
they provide safe and secure ground on which to launch attacks on public
maladministration.
In their zeal to do battle with their opponents, administrative reformers tend to
get rather carried away. Folklore is after all folklore. It is not science, not until
put through the same vigorous testing and substantiation. While over the past
century, much progress in this direction has been achieved, much more testing
has to be done. This has not stopped administrative reformers from overselling
their wares. After all, to convince others, they must first convince themselves of
the value of the product and then convey their enthusiasm to potential buyers.
Naturally, they make the best case they can, and nothing helps like a few
embellishments here and a few distortions there, "a certain shrillness...a little
bombast to catch the eye of the consumers of reform," notably seen in the
overselling of budget reforms which caused Allen Schick to comment, "The
overselling of new ideas is a chronic problem in American public administra-
tion. Apparently, innovations cannot be successfully marketed unless they
promise more than they can deliver" (Calista, 1986, 262). And to some extent
reformers can get away with this because their product is largely untested.
Nobody knows how it will perform in practice in a particular instance until it is
tried, when, of course, it is too late to start over again should it fail to meet
expectations. No product can be guaranteed to work in every circumstance.
When specific reforms fail to perform as promised and certainly when they
fail to perform at all as every so often happens, the credibility of administrative
reform itself is undermined. The going is made so much harder for the next set
of reforms and reformers. This is especially true of reforms and reformers who
focus on the perfectibility of public administration, the ideal administrative
system, instead of contenting themselves with reversible imperfections. Success
in administrative reform goes to those who keep their feet on the ground even if
their heads are in the clouds. While there is a place for idealism in administrative
reform, and a very necessary place, effective reformers have to be pragmatic.
They have to settle for what they can get which is most unlikely to be what they
originally set out to achieve. The best they can hope for is limited success.
Limited Success 105
Limited Success
Two examples from among many successful reforms show how reformers can
improve government performance or at least prevent further deterioration, even
if they do not achieve everything expected of them and expected from
themselves. Both are drawn from the United States, one reform setting out to
reduce needless government paperwork and the other attempting a quick
turnaround of a badly performing public agency. All governments have been
plagued with excessive paperwork but have rarely been able to do much about
the problem. When the U.S. federal government began to get seriously troubled
at the beginning of World War II, the Federal Reports Act of 1942 established
some guidelines against the needless collection of information and made the
Bureau of the Budget (B.O.B.) responsible for vetting agency plans to collect
additional information. These measures did not prevent agencies from collecting
more and more information thought justified in their operations or the propensity
of Congress to exempt as much as 80 percent of federal paperwork from the
clearance process. The growing expansion of paperwork added to government
costs and increasingly irritated the public and small businesses. Not much
formal objection was taken until the public lost confidence in big government in
the early 1970s and began to have serious doubts whether all that information
was really needed and was worth the cost and bother.
The Watergate scandal provided the lightning rod for the general reaction
against federal government snooping activities. The Ford Administration
identified paperwork reduction as part of its general policy of regulatory reform.
President Ford wanted "an end to unnecessary, unfair and unclear regulations
and to needless paperwork" while Congress appointed a Commission on Federal
Paperwork which pushed hard for paperwork reduction (Weiss, 1989, 103). The
Office of Management and Budget (B.O.B.'s successor) instigated a Forms
Reduction Program to reduce the number of agency reports, a Burden Reduction
Program to reduce the hours spent completing reports, and an Information
Collection Budget to limit information requests. It also ordered sunset provis-
ions on all reports to ensure regular reviews and reconfirmed justification and it
restricted data collection from small businesses. The Carter Administration was
just as eager to cut red-tape and paperasserie. It strengthened O.M.B.'s paper
work reduction measures and O.M.B. was ordered to implement the recommen-
dations of the Commission on Federal Paperwork. All these efforts culminated
in the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1980 (which replaced the Federal Reports
Act of 1942) so that by the time the Reagan Administration took office "most of
the underbrush of paperwork burden" had been cut away (Ibid, p. 107) at least
for the time being.
During the 1980s the overall paperwork burden began to grow again. Between
1982 and 1987, only 6 percent of some 20,000 information collection requests
106 6. In Pursuit of Betterment
another change in management teams. The reforms could not be fully sustained.
As so often happens, success had been only partial or temporary. The same story
could be repeated over and over again about other acknowledged administrative
reforms. Victories involved compromises or the original circumstances which
brought about public maladministration reoccurred or reform pressures just
could not be maintained beyond a certain point.
The reasons why reforms are never completely successful as contemplated are
many and well known, and are no different from the usual restraining factors on
government performance, political, bureaucratic and technical.
Public policy makers and managers work in complex political and bureaucratic environ-
ments, responding to a multiplicity of competing goals, suffering from "information
overload," and never armed with sufficient staff, time or financial resources to meet all
the demands placed on them. Responsibility and authority are fragmented among multiple
agencies, among different levels of government, and between the public and private
sectors. Services are fragmented among programs with overlapping but different goals.
Even within a single agency or program, there is disagreement over what would constitute
'high performance': disagreement over goals, disagreement over priorities, disagreement
over the most important measures of performance. Policy makers and managers lack
information on current performance and lack information on how to achieve higher
performance. Given the constraints, uncertainties and disincentives they face, policy
makers and managers tend to place relatively low priority on improving the performance
of the agencies and programs for which they are responsible. (Wholey et al., 1989, 1)
Most human arrangements that fall short of their goals do so not because of stupidity or
faulty doctrines, but because of internal decay and rigidification. They grow stiff in the
joints. They get in a rut. They go to seed... when the people in them go to seed.. .provided
they are not too gravely afflicted with the diseases of which institutions die - among
them complacency, myopia, an unwillingness to choose, and an unwillingness on the part
of individuals to lend themselves to any worthy common purpose. (Gardner, 1968, 39-41)
References
Braibanti, R. (ed.), Political and Administrative Development, Duke University Press,
Durham, N.C., 1969.
Calista, D. (ed.), Bureaucratic and Governmental Reform, JAI Press, Greenwich, CT.,
1986.
Chen Wen-tsung, "Testing for Talent", Free China Review, Vol. 39, No. 12, Dec 1989,
pp. 4-14.
Chu Yun-Han, "The Search for Common Ground", Free China Review, Vol. 39, No. 11,
Nov. 1989, pp. 12-19.
Gardner, J.W., No Easy Victories, Harper Colophon Books, Harper & Row, New York,
1968.
Leemans, A. (ed.), The Management of Change in Government, Institute of Social
Studies, Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, 1976.
Poister, J., and Larson, T., "The Revitalization of PennDOT: Strategies for Effective
Public Management", Paper presented to 48th National A.S.P.A. Conference, Boston,
MA, 1987.
Quah, J., "Administrative Reform: A Conceptual Analysis", Philippine Journal of Public
Administration, Vol. 20, No.l, Jan. 1976, pp. 50-67.
Ruchelman, L., A Workbook in Redesigning Public Services, State University of New
York Press, Albany, 1989.
United Nations, Enhancing Capabilities for Administrative Reform in Developing
Countries, ST/ESA/SER.E/31, New York, 1983.
U.S. General Accounting Office, Paperwork Reduction: Mixed Effects on Agency
Decision Processes and Data Availability, GAO/PEMD-89-20, Washington, D.C.,
1989.
110 6. In Pursuit of Betterment
Weiss, J., "The Powers of Problem Definitions: The Case of Government Paperwork",
Policy Sciences, Vol. 22, No. 2, 1989, pp.97-121.
Wholey, J. et al., Improving Government Performance, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 1989.
World Bank, World Development Reports, Washington, D.C., 1978 - .
7. Administrative Malpractices
Administrative reform has two major concerns. One is improving on what exists,
that is, the pursuit of betterment imbedded in human aspirations to attain heights
never before scaled and to realize or approximate near perfection in human
arrangements. Its success can be measured by the steady improvements in the
state of the art of administration, organization and management. In rich
countries, most public arrangements now hum along at such a satisfactory level,
that they are taken for granted and rarely questioned. Public administration in
them ensures that things governments want done do get done reasonably well.
Indeed, it works so well that most people don't have to think about it at all until
they run foul of it or emergencies shatter their complacency. Otherwise, when it
falters, it somehow detects its malfunctioning and institutionalized fail-safe
procedures kick in for instantaneous correction. Their well-being would be
impossible without such high levels of performance.
But public administration does go wrong, sometimes horrendously wrong,
even in the most prosperous societies and most advantageous circumstances.
Things don't get done at all or done so badly that everybody gets upset.
Malfunctioning goes undetected for too long. The fail-safe devices do not
operate or prove to be inadequate. This is the second of administrative reform's
concerns, that of correcting administrative wrongdoing and deficiencies, i.e.
maladministration. No matter how well-performing an administrative system
may be, how pleased people might be with it and how difficult it is to conceive
of improving it, somewhere things are wrong, mistakes are being made and
justifiable grievances are being ignored. Moreover they may have been wrong
for some appreciable time. Indeed, the whole endeavor may be one big mistake
being perpetuated for no good reason. But the fact is that much administrative
wrong occurs, warnings go unheeded, evidence is suppressed, correctable errors
are ignored, and too little is done too late to avert avoidable tragedy.
As administrative malpractices are part and parcel of everyday life in modern
society, for hardly a day goes by when people do not get irritated or annoyed or
upset at some administrative malpractice or other, stories about bumbling
bureaucrats and administrative snafus are legion around the world, each one
more bizarre than the last (U.S. New & World Report, 1979). One would expect
that obvious administrative malpractices would be a popular topic among
administrative reformers and that correcting them would be of more immediate
concern than devising grand schemes for future improvement. But this has not
been the case. Perhaps administrative reformers have been realistic in recogniz-
112 7. Administrative Malpractices
ing that in the trillions of administrative actions that occur daily, a certain
percentage no matter how minute will go wrong and that by concentrating on
individual instances, the more important patterns they may make may escape
attention. Perhaps investigating the wrongdoing of administration is not as
appetizing as its right side and some social stigma may sick to researchers who
harp on the bad rather than the good of government arrangements. Despite major
efforts that went into identifying bureaucratic dysfunctions in the 1950s, there
are precious few thorough studies of particular dysfunctions. No typology of
administrative pathologies and morbidities appears in any major academic text
on administration, organization and management or even in books that purport
to explore the phenomena of counter productive organizational behavior
(Brown, 1987).
One of the major obstacles is picking out gross errors of human judgment that
can be attributed largely to administrative practices. Human activities and
arrangements are so complex and complicated that everything is mixed up with
everything else, the administrative with the non-administrative. Listen to a
sample of excuses given by public administrators when things went wrong.
"We just followed orders. No, we did not question them. It was not
permitted."
"We were given an impossible task. We were doomed from the very
beginning. We did what we could but nothing would have succeeded."
"The job was too big and expectations were far too high, anyway quite
unreasonable. It could never be done."
"We were never given adequate or proper resources. We were let down all the
time."
"We were not given sufficient time. Deadlines were unrealistic and timetables
too optimistic."
"It was an act of god. Nobody could have known or anticipated what
happened."
"We were misinformed. Nobody told us. We never knew. They lied to us."
"We cannot change human behavior. People are like that. What else do you
expect?"
They were not to blame. The fault was somewhere else or somebody else's. The
totally unexpected and unpredictable intervened. No matter what they would
have done, they could never have succeeded. In truth, administrators are often
placed in impossible situations as when administrative solutions are offered for
non-administrative problems or technical experts on whom they rely do not turn
out to be so expert. But they are not placed in impossible situations as often as
they claim. They are guilty. They have failed. Their performance was not good
or not good enough. They did not correct what was obviously going wrong.
Their job was to see that things did not go wrong and when they did go wrong to
Administrative Disaster 113
take the blame unless they could prove conclusively that somebody else was at
fault.
Administrative Disaster
Everybody likes to take the credit for successes; nobody does for failures. When
things go really wrong, people distance themselves. They make themselves
scarce and they hide the facts through elaborate cover-ups. The nature of public
administration is such that oftentimes no one is to blame but all collectively are
to blame for what was done or what was not done. The blame goes to those who
were in charge, i.e. to those who would have taken the credit had things worked
out otherwise. When a country wins or loses a war, who gets the credit and who
gets the blame? The heaviest responsibility is put on those who made the initial
decision to enter into war, those who marshalled the country's resources for war,
those who led the fighting forces in war, and those who actually fought in the
war. Administratively, the finger would be pointed at those who assisted in
making the key decisions and those who implemented them or saw that the
decisions were implemented. It would be the administrators, managers, and
supervisors and their closest advisors who would be held most administratively
responsible and blameworthy, because they were in a position to make a
difference, to support or to object to what was being done, to do things
differently, to evaluate, alter, protest, to go along or not go along. As the same
criteria can be applied to all social activities, administratively when things go
wrong, it is possible to identify whose fault it is without blaming everyone or no
one. If they did not know, they should have known or made it their business to
know unless deliberately excluded from knowing or deceived. Their role is to
accept the blame, produce the facts, take immediate action to minimize harm,
and to reorganize to prevent any recurrence.
All have their daily brush with administrative malpractices which inconvenien-
ce, annoy, offend and intrude. People get so used to them that they no longer
recognize them for what they are. People accept them and accommodate to
them; people don't take them personally and shrug them off. Life is too short to
fret over them. People may react more strongly to some that are particularly
irksome with a mild protest or complaint but they do not expect that anything
will be done about them. But every so often, people or some people will be
sufficiently annoyed, bothered or hurt, that they do react strongly: they do
protest and complain. They do expect corrective or remedial action. When
nothing is done, they take offense and go on the offensive. These do become
whistle-blowers, telling their tales to whoever will listen, persisting even against
measures to silence them, and undergoing personal indignities to warn society of
wrongdoing or upcoming tragedy (Truelson, 1987).
114 7. Administrative Malpractices
But even the horror stories told by whistle-blowers rarely amount to true
administrative disasters that boggle the imagination when they do come to light.
How could they have happened? Who could have been so dumb? Why didn't
people do as they were instructed to do? Why didn't they follow procedures?
Why didn't they ask obvious questions? Weren't they aware of the inevitable
consequences? Here is gross maladministration from which few large scale
organizations, public and private, have been spared. Most multinational corpora-
tions have made incredible errors of judgment, costing their shareholders and
their customers huge losses. They have invested unwisely, located in the wrong
places, designed faulty products, provided unsafe working conditions, produced
for non-existent markets, acted wickedly, destroyed unnecessarily, and generally
engaged in disgraceful practices. Models of excellence to be emulated have
collapsed into models of failure to be shunned.
Not a day goes by when somewhere an administrative scandal is exposed
which has had preventable disastrous results following a long period of
neglected warnings. For instance, failure to follow routinized safety procedures
and to inspect whether such routinized operations were actually being carried
out has resulted in spacecraft, airplane and train crashes, ferry and boat sinkings,
nuclear plant accidents, chemical explosions, oil spills, toxic poisoning, epi-
demics, auto and bus accidents, collapsed buildings and bridges, crushed
spectators, and diseased patients, with considerable loss of innocent lives.
Failure to audit finances and to see whether any accounting operations were
actually being carried out has resulted in huge diversions of loans, fraud,
kleptocracy, tax evasion, money laundering, smuggling, conspicuous consump-
tion, vote buying, colossal theft, currency and stock manipulations, ruinous
investments, and speculation, with considerable loss of hard earned monies.
These administrative disasters occur so frequently with such harm and involve
so many people that they cannot be ignored or brushed off as some freak,
isolated, rare occurrence.
Administrative Self-destruction
Such self-destructive mistakes occur too frequently to attribute them to chance
or accident or occasional weakness. Can they be inherent in large scale
administration? Christopher Hood has sought to classify and explain some of the
key mechanisms of such counter-intuitive behavior that contrive to defeat
administrative effectiveness (Hood, 1974). He identified at least five distinctive
types of administrative failure: -
overkill or diseconomy: results are achieved at unnecessary high cost
counter productive: results are contrary to those desired
inertia: nothing happens in response to stimulus
Administrative Self-destruction 115
Murphy's Laws
If something can go wrong, it will.
When left to themselves, things always go from bad to worse.
Nature always sides with the hidden flaw.
Parkinson's Law (1957)
Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.
Officials multiply subordinates, not rivals.
Officials make work for each other.
Expenditure rises to meet income.
Delay is the deadliest form of denial.
The Peter Principle (1969)
In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his maximum level of
incompetence.
and their many corollaries and variations, together with famous quotes applied
to administration such as Lord Acton's "Power tends to corrupt and absolute
116 7. Administrative Malpractices
Maladministration
The breakdown of individual policies, programs and organizations did not
constitute an indictment of a whole administrative system. They could always be
aberrations although none of the quoted analysts thought so. They implied that
whole administrative systems could self-destruct. Studies of post-colonial
administrations in several newly independent states had indicated that system-
ically sick administrations did exist, which caused the societies they served so
badly to fail to develop and even deteriorate. Unless they were turned around
and turned around quickly, their future was bleak. John Montgomery had gone
some way in the mid-1960s to catalogue complaints against such obstructive
administrative systems:
...resistance to change, rigid adherence to rules, reluctance to delegate authority,
sycophancy toward superiors, "target" mentality, indifference to the standards of
efficiency, ignorance of the purposes behind regulations, generalist-elitist orientation
combined with hostility toward technology...insistence on status and prestige symbols,
"formalism" or adherence to traditional relationships while desiring to appear modern;
and...job-stocking and overstaffing, corruption, xenophobia, and nepotism. (Montgomery
and Siffin, 1966, 262)
118 7. Administrative Malpractices
But these were often-heard criticisms of public bureaucracies the world over and
read remarkably similar to those of William Robson:-
...an excessive sense of self-importance on the part of officials or an undue idea of the
importance of their offices; an indifference towards the feelings or the convenience of
individual citizens; an obsession with the binding and inflexible authority of departmental
decisions, precedents, arrangements or forms, irrespective of how badly or with what
injustice or hardship they may work in individual cases; a mania for regulations and
formal procedure; a preoccupation with particular units of administration and an inability
to consider the government as a whole; a failure to recognize the relations between the
governors and the governed as an essential part of the democratic process. (Robson, 1964,
18)
and he quoted from the 1944 Parliamentary committee on civil service training:
...over devotion to precedent; remoteness from the rest of the community, inaccessibility
and faulty handling of the general public; lack of initiative and imagination; ineffective
organization and waste of manpower; procrastination and unwillingness to take responsi-
bility or to give decisions. (Ibid)
perversity - professionalism became the enemy of the ends which it should serve and
resisted innovations
treason - professionalism opposed the great aims of humanity as a whole in mistaken
defense of its own procedures
self-seeking - professionalism sought to acquire power, privileges or emoluments for
itself
cultivation of complexity and jargon - development and retention of complicated and
laborious methods of work and jargon, the tendency to create work and jargon as means of
maintaining or expanding professional importance
fear of definiteness - professionalism opposed definition and preciseness because they
would allow standards by which it could be judged
hatred of supervision - particularly from the uninformed general public
self praise - vanity, exaggerated claims made for past professional achievements
secrecy - professionalism resisted prying eyes
uncreativeness - improvements mostly came from the laity and were opposed by
professionals
abuse of power - professionalism was unchivalrous, tyrannical or cruel towards the weak
in its care
malignity - professionalism waged a war of slander and spite against innovators,
suggesting they were defective, unpractical, weak, unbalanced, without judgment,
Maladministration 119
In these respects public administrators were the same as everybody else and they
were subject to the same failings.
But the study of public maladministration as such had to await the spread of
the institution of ombudsman from its native Scandinavia into the English-
speaking world. Here, after 1960, was an organization established by govern-
ments to receive and investigate public complaints against government admini-
stration, a veritable gold mine of information about public maladministration. In
1973, Sir Kenneth Wheare chose maladministration and its remedies within
British government administration as his topic for the Hamlyn Lectures
(Wheare, 1973). But his main interest in so doing was focusing on comparative
jurisprudence and showing how remedies for maladministration in Europe were
superior to those in the United Kingdom. He did state that maladministration
was present in all social organization, that the more administration there was, the
more maladministration there would be, that while maladministration was
difficult to define, most people could describe it by examples (illegality,
corruption, ineptitude, neglect, perversity, turpitude, arbitrariness, undue delay,
discourtesy, unfairness, bias, ignorance, incompetence, unnecessary secrecy,
misconduct, and high handedness). The best that could be done was to quote an
ombudsman's definition of maladministration: "administrative action (or inac-
tion) based on or influenced by improper considerations or conduct." Bernard
Frank elaborated on this position in his view of the ombudsman as an office to
prevent:
.. .injustice, failure to carry out legislative intent, unreasonable delay, administrative error,
abuse of discretion, lack of courtesy, clerical error, oppression, oversight, negligence,
inadequate investigation, unfair policy, partiality, failure to communicate, rudeness,
maladministration, unfairness, unreasonableness, arbitrariness, arrogance, inefficiency,
violation of law or regulation, abuse of authority, discrimination, errors, mistakes,
carelessness, disagreement with discretionary decisions, improper motivation, irrelevant
consideration, inadequate or obscure explanation, and all the other acts that are frequently
inflicted upon the governed by those who govern, intentionally or unintentionally. (Frank,
1976, 132)
- Arrange for high position turnover so that different people deal with the same
case
- Delay acting on favorable jurisdictional points until after expiry of possible
client remedies
- Ensure overlapping responsibilities without easy coordination
- Don't record (but misfile) correspondence
- Don't volunteer assistance
- Leave uncertainty about conclusions reached and next steps
- Draw out consultation
- Refer to being overworked
- Jumble communications
- Keep files moving
- Open multiple files without cross-referencing
- Arrange for occasional erroneous release of libellous internal memoranda.
Again, these are all singular rather than institutionalized instances of maladminis-
tration. None of them include crimes committed by people in organizations
either on their own behalf against organizational norms (theft, violation of trust,
fraud, tax evasion, embezzlement) or at the behest of their organization
(genocide, torture, murder, robbery, coercion, terror, intimidation, crimes
against humanity, etc.) (Smigel and Ross, 1970).
A novel experiment was tried in the early 1970s at the Institute of Administra-
tion at the University of Ife, Nigeria, where 72 Nigerian civil servants wrote case
studies of malpractices. Factor analysis pointed to six leading causes preventing
initiative - corruption and lack of integrity, community conflict and aggression,
inefficiency, sectarian conflict, misconduct and indiscipline, and bad authority
relationships. Specific cultural items - "rumor, accusations, denunciations,
suspicion, intrigue, threats, blackmail, coercion, malice and inequitable treat-
ment of individuals without cause" - suggested a paranoid personality in "a
social climate of pervasive anomie, distrust and lawlessness" (Bowden, 1976,
392). As Yoriba culture was "dysfunctionally distorted toward a schizoid-para-
noid form of culture personality," there could be little room for initiative where
suspicion, intrigue and insecurity was combined with the stultifying effect of
authoritarianism in which deference was paid to age and rank. Here was a
culture of maladministration akin to repressive authoritarianism found through-
out history and depicted in its modern form by Franz Kafka before being
exemplified in Nazism, Stalinism and Latin American fascism.
Bureaucratization
Institutionalized maladministration is not attributed so much to authoritarian
cultures or psychotic individuals as to increasing reliance in human arrange-
Bureaucratization 121
The New Right says that is just the trouble; they are too cozy, too
interdependent, too self-aggrandizing, too unaccountable, too secure, too com-
placent, too inefficient, too unproductive, too illiberal, too uncompetitive, too
stagnant. Big government should be reduced, privatization expanded, free
markets (and free choice) restored, and individual self-reliance boosted, even if
it increases economic inequality and reduces political liberty. The New Left
agrees; they are too bourgeois, too self serving, too corrupt, too coercive, too
alienating, too stifling. Big government should be decentralized, public organiza-
122 7. Administrative Malpractices
1
A society served by autonomous specialized agencies staffed by experts but run by
continuously changing statistically representative samples of the adult population.
Bureausis and Bureaucratic Dysfunctions 123
transformed the way people work and live. There have been great gains and
heavy costs. Undoubtedly some cherished values of the past - self-reliance,
individual initiative, independence, integrity, the work ethic, altruism, competiti-
veness - have suffered in the process of bureaucratization and bureaucracy has
been carried too far in some areas, but this does not mean that other equally
cherished values have not gained more and that bureaucracy cannot be
readjusted (Hummel, 1982). On the other hand, bureaucracy does carry within it
a high propensity for maladministration.
alcoholism) led him to conclude that the way an organization was managed
impacted the mental health of people who worked in it. "Logically, then, an
important mode of preventing emotional distress was to understand organiza-
tional malfunctioning..." (Ibid, ix). In short, maybe the organization was more
to blame than the individual.
That bureaucracy had inherent dysfunctions had long been known. Its
unanticipated dysfunctional consequences had been subject to much sociological
analysis. Karl Marx had identified the maintenance of the status quo, promotion
of incompetence, alienation, lack of imagination, fear of responsibility, and rigid
control over the masses. Robert Michels had recognized that democratic
participation was technically impossible in complex organizations. Max Weber
perceived that bureaucracy threatened democracy by demanding the sacrifice of
freedom. But it was Robert Merton in the 1930s who first emphasized
dysfunctions that impeded effectiveness when conflicting or displacing organiza-
tional goals i.e. means became ends in themselves (Merton, 1936). He later
identified rigidity (1940), while Phillip Selznick (1949) added bifurcation of
interests and Alvin Gouldner (1954) punitive supervision. These and other
dysfunctions (mediocrity, officiousness, stratification, gamesmanship) sabo-
taged bureaucracy.
Studies of over-bureaucratized organizations such as multinational corpora-
tions, armed forces, prisons, legal systems, mail services, and welfare agencies
indicate how the functional elements of bureaucracy - specialization, hierarchy,
rules, managerial direction, impersonality and careerism - if overdone turn
dysfunctional and counter productive, alienating employees and clients. Its
virtues become vices.
Specialization •job differentiation, position classification, simple task perfor-
mance, productivity -* boring routine, soul destroying work,
indifferent and careless performance, escapism, soldiering,
flawed output, doctrine of the minimum, detachment,sabotage
-»• low productivity
Hierarchy concentrated authority, direction, coordination, accountability
->• fixed jurisdiction, limited perspectives, narrow responsi-
bility - • turf battles, suboptimization, self-contrived barriers,
status differentiation ->• information filters, self justification,
manufacturing needless work, self-protection ->• isolated, self
indulgent elites, fragmented power, vacuums ->• irresponsibil-
ity, ignorant leadership
Rules standardization, uniformity, consistency, equity -*• red-tape,
rigidity, legalism, ritualism -* transposition of goals, process
as end, incomprehension -> substitution of informal norms,
contradictions, cross purposes -> corruption -> arbitrariness,
discrimination, injustice
Bureausis and Bureaucratic Dysfunctions 125
An organization can start out with all the virtues of bureaucracy and soon
decline with all its vices, a process which James Boren described as mellowniza-
tion "as dynamic action is replaced by dynamic inaction" (Boren, 1975, 7).
Jack Douglas believes that contemporary bureaucracies go through cycles
similar to those experienced by ancient dynasties. They begin dynamically and
grapple with real problems directly, simply and successfully. They have
vigorous administration and entrepreneurial bureaucrats uplifted with ideas and
bounding confidence bending the rationalistic, legalistic forms to achieve their
goals. Because they work or work better than any predecessors people demand
more and get hooked on entrepreneurial bureaucracy. They grow, adopt
increasingly formal-rational methods of recruitment and administration and
become increasingly distant from the people, and stiffling. Their efficiency
declines and they subvert their resources and power, becoming corrupt and
usurpatory, succumbing to machinations that eventually give way to self-ser-
ving, change resistant, devious, ineffective and corrupt bureaucrats. They
decline into bureaucratic factionalism, inertia, "the fluorescence of (useless)
reform movements" (that mostly rationalize their appeals for more power,
money and personnel), irresponsibility, and self-directing fiefdoms, invoking
rebellion by the populace and conquest by new entrepreneurial bureaucrats who
repeat the cycle. He compared the dynamism of the Roosevelt New Deal social
welfare bureaucrats such as Harry Hopkins with contemporary social welfare
agencies:-
.. .some of the bureaucrats are still dedicated, at least when they begin, but they soon burn
out from the immensity of the rules, the relative inflexibility of the regulations, and the
apparent uselessness and unprofitability of all their efforts...Careerism, alienation,
factionalism, inefficiency, and displacement of goals are their most important products.
(Douglas, 1989, 407-8)
Bureaupathologies
These vices, maladies, and sicknesses of bureaucracy constitute bureaupatholo-
gies. They are not the personal failings of individuals who compose organiza-
tions but the systematic shortcomings of organizations which cause individuals
within them to be guilty of malpractices. They cannot be corrected by separating
the guilty from the organization for the malpractices will continue irrespective of
the organization's composition. They are not random, isolated incidents either.
While they may not be regular, they are not so rare either (see Table 1). When
they occur, little action is taken to prevent their recurrence or can be taken as in
the case of anorexia (debilitation) and gattopardismo (superficiality) (Dunsire
and Hood, 1989). They are not just physical either; organizations also suffer
definite mental illnesses or neuroses too - paranoid, compulsive, dramatic,
depressive, and schizoid (Kets de Vries and Miller, 1985). To correct them,
wholesale changes are needed, i.e. administrative reform. But how are bureau-
pathologies to be tackled? Who knows of them? Who can identify them for what
they are? Who can attempt a cure? And what happens when cures are attempted?
In such inert organizations, the people are not lazy. On the contrary, they
work hard and keep busy coping with daily demands. Everybody appears to be
fully occupied, carrying out their set tasks and observing the directions issued to
them. Each is loyal to the organization, each approves of its mission, each is
keen to do a good job. All are aware of its shortcomings and deficiencies. They
know of its mistakes and errors and can recount horror stories they know about.
Between them, they have a pretty good idea how it can be improved, and they
personally are willing to tiy something different to improve its performance.
Yet, somehow little changes. The same old patterns and routines are preserved,
the shortcomings and deficiencies are perpetuated, mistakes and errors are
repeated. When the organization does change, it moves slowly, incrementally,
and predictably, and then not always in the right direction. It fails to adjust in
time to changes in its environment. It becomes insensitive to criticism. It appears
not to know or want to know what is really going on. Everything stays pretty
much the same. Nobody knows why. Nobody admits responsibility. Nobody
confesses error. Nobody ends wrongdoing. It is as if the organization has a mind
of its own, a mind closed to any other way of doing things. In fact, by failing to
anticipate, recognize, avoid, neutralize or adapt to pressures that threaten its long
term survival, it is in a serious state of decline threatening enormous social
repercussions to the economy and society, and to the individuals dependent on it
for products and services and jobs (Cameron et al., 1988; Weitzel and Jonsson,
1989). A dose of organizational development might rejuvenate it (Guy, 1989) or
a good demotional shake-up may suffice to reinvigorate it (Golembiewski,
1983) but already it may be too blind to recognize threats, too inert to decide on
a remedial course of action, too incompetent to make and implement the right
actions, too crisis ridden to accept the need for major reform, and even too far
gone to save. It is beyond rescue. Maladministration harms, but bureaupatholo-
gies eventually kill.
References
Bennis, W. Beyond Bureaucracy, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1973.
Boren, J. Have Your Way With Bureaucrats„ Chilton Book Co., Radnor, PA., 1975.
Bowden, E., "Maladministration: A Thematic Analysis of Nigerian Case Studies in the
Context of Administrative Initiative", Human Organization, Vol. 35, No. 4, Winter
1976, pp. 391-394.
Brown, D., Management's Hidden Enemy and What Can Be Done About It, Lomond, Mt.
Airy, MD., 1987.
Bumheim, J., Is Democracy Possible?, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1985.
Cameron, K.S., Sutton, R.I., and Whetten, D.A. (eds.), Readings in Organizational
Decline, Ballinger Publishing Co., Cambridge, MA, 1988.
References 129
Douglas, J., The Myth of the Welfare State, Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, N.J.,
1989.
Drucker, Peter, "The Deadly Sins in Public Administration", Public Administration
Review, Vol. 40, No. 2, March/April, 1980, pp. 103-106.
Dunsire, A., and Hood, C., Cutback Management in Public Bureaucracies, University of
Cambridge Press, Cambridge, 1989.
Frank, B., "The Ombudsman and Human Rights Revisited," Israel Yearbook on Human
Rights, Vol. 6, 1976, Tel Aviv University, pp. 122-156.
Golembiewski, R.T., "The Demotion Design: An Option for Forward-Looking Organiza-
tions," National Productivity Review, Vol. 2, No. 1, Winter 1982-1983, pp. 63-70.
Gouldner, A.W. Patterns of Industrial Bureaucracy, Free Press, Glencoe, IL., 1954.
Guy, M.E., Organizational Decline to Organizational Renewal, Quorum Books, New
York, 1989.
Hayward, F.H., Professionalism and Originality, Allen & Unwin, London, 1917.
Hood, C., "Administrative Diseases: Some Types of Dysfunctionality in Administration,"
Public Administration, Vol. 52, No. 4, Autumn 1974, pp. 439-454.
Hummel, R., The Bureaucratic Experience, St. Martin's Press, New York, 1982.
Kets de Vries, F.R., and Miller, D., The Neurotic Organization, Jossey-Bass Publishers,
San Francisco, 1985.
Kharasch, R.N., The Institutional Imperative, Charterhouse Books, New York, 1973.
Levin, A. The Satisficers, The McCall Publishing Company, New York, 1970.
Levinson, H. Organizational Diagnosis, Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA.,
1972.
Marshall, G., "Technique of Maladministration", Political Studies, Vol. 23, Nos. 2-3,
1975, pp. 305-310.
Martin, T„ Malice in Blunderland, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1973.
Merton, R. "Bureaucratic Structure and Personality", Social Forces, Vol. 18, 1940, pp.
560-568.
Merton, R. "The Unanticipated Consequences of Purposive Social Action", American
Sociological Review, Vol. 1, 1936, pp. 894-904.
Montgomery, J., and Siffen, W.J. (eds.), Approaches to Development: Politics, Admini-
stration and Change, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1966.
O'Leary, B., "The Limits to Bureaucide: A Critical Analysis of Three Visions of
Debureaucratization", Paper presented to the Round Table on Administration Without
Bureaucracy, International Institute of Administrative Sciences, Budapest, 1988.
Parkinson, C. Northcote, Parkinson's Law, Houghton Mifflin, New York, 1957.
Peter, L„ and Hull, R., The Peter Principle, William Morrow & Co., New York, 1969.
Peters, B.G., "The Problems of Bureaucratic Government", Journal of Politics, Vol. 43,
No. 1, February 1981, pp. 56-82.
Pierce, W.S., Bureaucratic Failure and Public Expenditure, Academic Press, Harcourt
Brace Jovanovich Publishers, New York, 1981.
Robson, W, The Governors and the Governed, Allen & Unwin, London, 1964.
Selznick, P. T.V.A. and the Grass Roots, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1949.
Smigel, E.O., and Ross, H.L. (eds.), Crimes Against Bureaucracy, Van Nostrand
Reinhold Co., New York, 1970.
Thompson, V. Modern Organization, Knopf, New York, 1961.
Toffler, A., Future Shock, Bantam Books, New York, 1971.
130 7. Administrative Malpractices
Just because things go wrong does not mean that anything different will be
done. Habit is difficult to break and rather than change, people may even
reinforce "what has always worked before". But self-correction just does not
work for major shortcomings and failures in administrative systems. Things
continue to go wrong and obviously so. More and more complaints are
registered, annoyances build up, criticisms cannot be ignored. Patchwork
solutions are tried but prove inadequate; the rot continues and frustrations
mount. Eventually, people with different ideas persist, pressure and push and
gain a hearing. At last, there is resolution to take drastic action, for nothing less
is needed. Drastic means not just different but dramatic. Deliberate attention is
drawn to a change in direction, to a definite even definitive turning point, to
putting the stamp of legitimation on what is decided, to mobilizing system
supports to doing something quite different. From this point onward, adminis-
trative reform has its opportunity.
Whatever is decided, a series of integrated or associated actions is about to be
taken. Minimally, even symbolic actions such as retitling means that letterheads
will have to be altered, correspondence redirected, files reorganized, and
addresses reidentified. But administrative reform, if done properly, involves
much more - changing legislation and regulations, redesigning organizations
and structures, overhauling processes and procedures, reformulating policies and
programs, altering documents and forms, and retraining and reeducating both
employees and clients. The task is quite daunting, daunting enough that to
promise much is to promise too much. To condemn beforehand in the system
those who have to work out all the details because of their alleged wrongdoing is
to court disaster. It merely stiffens resistance and insults their intelligence,
loyalty and competence.
To mark the break with the past, reformers do tend to exaggerate the benefits
expected from the new era about to dawn, and worse still, promise things that no
administrative system, no matter how well performing, even perfect, could
deliver, such as ending poverty, providing absolute equality, eliminating all
corruption, and guaranteeing everyone complete self-fulfillment. To justify their
claims, they blacken current practices and, particularly in the public sector,
indulge in wholesale condemnatory public service bashing, thereby undermining
morale, loyalty, self-respect, and security. In so doing they create self-fulfilling
prophecies by the reactions provoked. In 1947, a Cabinet committee on civil
service manpower in Britain recognized this when it stated "no organization can
long sustain morale or attract the right type of recruit if it is publicly or privately
stigmatized as consisting of parasites on the community or unjustly criticized in
other equally opprobrious terms" (Hennessy, 1989, 170). Long before the spate
of public service bashing occurred globally in the late 1970s, this was
academically confirmed.
Fundamental Decisions 133
If the nation wishes to reduce bureaucracy, it must cease beating the bureaucrats and
involve them in the process of creating a less threatening, less cumbersome, more
satisfying, and ultimately less expensive work environment...Reforms involving decima-
tion of agencies or other meat cleaver tactics only serve to vindicate the inveterate fears of
the bureaucrats and to bolster the protectiveness of their...allies. (Warwick, 1975, 215)
So many details are involved in administrative reform that obstruction can occur
at any point. Reformers can be tripped over so easily by non-cooperation and
delay. There is already enough inertia and resistance in the system without
deliberately provoking needless suspicion and resentment, not to say dumb
insolence.
Fundamental Decisions
Administrative reformers have at the very outset to make fundamental decisions,
the outcome of which will dog them and their reforms forever afterward. Astute
judgment is required; unwise and inappropriate decisions doom reform.
(c) Priorities. To tackle the major areas of administrative reform concerns all at
once and to do it properly is probably beyond the capability of any adminis-
trative system. Choices have to be made which are the more important areas,
where changes would have the greatest impact, what is doable, and whether to
start with the hardest or most serious problems or leave them until later when
reform would have achieved some momentum. There is no universal formula;
each situation has its own logic. Although some progress has been made in
recent years, Leemans' description of the state of the art still rings true today as
it did in the mid-1970s. Methods to diagnose maladministration are too defective
and theories to design optimal arrangements are still not good enough for
absolute reliability. Reformers "have few reliable theories and methods avail-
able and consequently it is difficult to estimate the feasibility and effectiveness
of change instruments and methods or to predict their outcome" (Ibid, 47).
Reformers have to be flexible and continually reevaluate and revise their plans.
It is best to hasten slowly and to experiment at first on a small scale. Some
aspects of administrative reform are more divisible and self-contained than
others and these - public enterprises, budgeting, personnel management,
ethics - might best be tackled separately. The O.E.C.D. symposium advised
looking for areas that had the greatest potential results or the greatest chance of
success or the greatest multiplier effect. Within the chosen area consideration
should be made as to how much change could be digested in a given time and
Fundamental Decisions 135
(d) Involvement. Who is going to tell who what has to be done? Who has to be
involved to see that what has to be done is done? Who is willing to be involved?
When nobody knows what has to be done, outside experts have to be invited to
diagnose and prescribe. Somebody has to evaluate what the experts prescribe
and decide on a course of action. If those at the apex of government are not
consulted or given a front role, then those below may not consider reform to be
important enough to bother with. So key politicians and senior administrators
must be involved, however reluctantly. Then the bodies most affected by the
contemplated reforms should be brought in to gauge their reactions, draw on
their knowledge and get them to be stake-holders in reform, to own the reforms,
to identify themselves with the reforms, and to support the reforms all the way.
The key opponents of reform should also be involved if only for the purpose of
defanging to say nothing of the possibility of cooptation.
There is no end to who might be involved. Undoubtedly it would be most
beneficial to have everybody who ought to be and could be involved actually
involved. But this is rare. Politicians do not show much interest in administrative
matters which they take very much for granted and they are usually ignorant
about the pros and cons of specific reforms and whether or not they will actually
work. In administrative reform they prefer not to take the lead, to wait and see
what the political fallout is likely to be, and to side with reforms that promise
immediate rather than long term impact. On the whole, they tend to tolerate
maladministration, to leave administration alone and to reverse whatever their
political opponents have done, unless for some reason (such as personal
administrative experience) they have a keen interest in the subject and are
administrative reform advocates. Otherwise, they quickly lose interest and settle
for whatever compromises can be obtained. They want what can be achieved in
a few years; they cannot wait the generation or so that lasting radical reforms
require to succeed. They soon abandon the quick fixes that don't work and
become impatient with reforms that do not show immediate improvements.
Senior administrators also tend to stand on the sidelines, unless they
personally have much to gain or lose in reform outcomes. They are already at the
pinnacle of their careers; they may be over the hill and on the way out; they are
already so overworked that peace and quiet is preferred to the rough and tumble
of administrative reform. In any event, they have made it through the system and
they are not so critical of a system which brought them to the top. Experience
has tempered and diluted the criticism of their youth or as they would put it, they
have become wiser, more realistic, more comprehending (although reformers
would interpret this quite differently as their becoming complacent, lazy,
defensive, blind, and stubborn) and they would have seen past reforms tried and
abandoned. Rare at the top is the results-oriented entrepreneurial bureaucrat, the
136 8. Doing Something Different
crusading reformer, the idealistic missionary: more common is the safe task-
oriented bureaucrat, the organizational politician, the empire builder and domain
protector, all of whom are self-interested, and when they gang up against reform,
they are almost unbeatable. Reformers often wish the defensive administrators
and the uninterested politicians could be left out but both hold too strategic
positions to be excluded.
(e) Situational imperatives. The opportunity for reform usually arises suddenly
and without premonition. Those involved don't have much time to think; they
have to act on whatever is ready to go. Yet every reform requires hard decisions
on how to proceed. First, the objectives have to be clarified - whether the
intention is to improve the end products of the administrative system (programic
content and performance) or to streamline and simplify the administrative
system itself (organizational design and engineering) or to change the methods
and mode of operation (managerial technology and behavioral techniques) or
any combination of these. Thereafter, the reform campaign is determined by the
following choices:
Reform or Revitalization
During the 1976 presidential campaign in the United States, both major parties
promised to reshape, reorganize and reform the federal bureaucracy to make it a
more economic, efficient and effective instrument of government. Jimmy Carter
made much of the fact that as an outsider to Washington, he would be better able
to undertake sweeping changes in the machinery of government. Immediately on
taking office, he appointed several blue-ribbon committees containing federal
Reform or Revitalization 137
bureaucratic systems "resist change as long as they can" and "move only when
serious dysfunctions develop and no other alternatives remain" (Crozier, 1964,
196), i.e. that reforms would have to be imposed on them. What must be done is
to convince high-level administrators (or whoever has the final say) that changes
are imperative, and that administrative experts must work out the details with
those who will have to implement them. One simply cannot rely on the people
running the system to change it themselves or to assume the initiative. They will
try to evade the task or tinker with non-essentials or resort to symbolic rather
than substantive action.
This has been the traditional approach to administrative reform. Insiders
cannot be trusted to do what has to be done. Outsiders have to impose their
proposals on reluctant recipients. The impression created has been that insiders
are overly conservative, lacking in initiative, and hostile to change. The reality
has been otherwise. Insiders have always been at the forefront of reform,
constantly urging reforms and seizing the initiative when permitted to do so.
External consultants have been fed proposals and rehearsed. So-called independ-
ent inquiries have been manipulated all the way to arrive at predetermined
recommendations. Behind the facade of externally imposed reform, insiders
have changed things the way they wanted them changed. Even without such
cover, they have quietly transformed operations from within as required.
Nevertheless, what they could achieve on their own has been limited. They have
had to ally themselves with outsiders to overcome their conservative peers.
But externally imposed reform has been disappointing. True, it has generated
much publicity. Indeed, the great bulk of literature on administrative reform
consists of accounts of public inquiries, reform proposals, reform arrangements,
new laws, reorganizations, and battles over reform. Precious little recounts
follow through on what really did happen in the end and how reform was
frequently blocked or gutted or diluted by intransigent vested interests. The end
results contrast so much with initial expectations that this approach to reform
has been highly suspect for good reason. First, many of those who decide on
reform are themselves strangers to the situation to whom reform is just another
chore, another assignment. Such is mobility today, that few people stay long
enough to get a proper feel or grasp what is at stake or care enough about what
happens after they have moved on, unless reform is their full time occupation.
Second, many of those on whom the burden of implementation falls are
similarly disposed. They have their own personal agendas and cannot be entirely
disinterested about reforms whose very nature is seen as an indictment of them.
Naturally they are resentful, certainly suspicious, but they may also have a
superior grasp of the situation to realize that the proposed reforms may worsen
not better the status quo. Third, many public organizations in existence for a
long time are institutional not instrumental. They just do not take orders but they
have a dominant voice in what orders are made. They are entrenched in the
social fabric. Taking them on administratively is taking them on politically.
Reform or Revitalization 139
Reform represents a threat not only to them but also to their allies, clients and
the general public accustomed to their arrangements who will rally to their side.
Fourth, many public organizations are considered experts in their field. To find
equivalent or superior expertise outside is difficult. When two sets of experts
disagree, who can decide between them? When the outsiders may have been
denied the evidence that substantiates their case who can challenge the official
version of events? Fifth, reforms are at the mercy of any determined band of
resistant insiders. Until they are convinced to change or they are removed from
the situation, nothing much different will happen. The trouble is that the least
reform-minded organizations are the hardest to reform but the most likely to
need reform. Sixth, reform becomes progressively harder as the easiest targets
are eliminated and as passions aroused by obvious malpractices diminish,
particularly when the issues get more difficult for the public to understand and
more removed from personal concerns. As administrative systems improve, they
become more difficult to reform.
In these circumstances, revitalization or self-reform, the process of self-
renewal, has much to commend it. For a start it has had considerable success in
the private sector where organizations have greater independence and autonomy
in running their affairs and where management has greater flexibility in altering
arrangements and greater incentives to improve administrative systems. Revitali-
zation is "the process of initiating, creating, and confronting needed changes" to
enable organizations to be viable, to adapt to new conditions, to solve problems,
and to learn from experience (Lippett, 1969, 1). They monitor their adminis-
trative performance on their own initiative, continuously, with or without
external assistance. They develop their own in-house capacity for reforming
themselves to avoid stagnation. The benefits of revitalization are so obvious that
it should be a given in any self-respecting organization. As the managerial ethos
spreads, as it has done since World War II, then revitalization can be
increasingly taken for granted in both private and public sectors.
Yet revitalization has some serious drawbacks for the public sector. Com-
pared with externally induced reform, it is by nature less bold, less visionary,
less inclusive. By confining itself to one organization, this approach fails to deal
with inter-organizational problems in the public sector and administrative
shortcomings that go beyond any specific public organization. It relies unduly
on the interest, talent and capability of people within the organization and is
restricted to how they define their problems and view the world. They may be
unable to go beyond traditional (and notoriously conservative) professional
perspectives and they may not place sufficient value on the unorthodox or the
innovative. They may not pay sufficient attention to external criticism and
participation. They may disfavor the ideas of those low in the organization's
hierarchy in deference to the perceptions and attitudes of those high in the
hierarchy. Nobody may want to offend anybody else or to admit that the
problems stem from incompetent top management. The organization may not
140 8. Doing Something Different
possess the necessary tools to carry through a thorough reform program. It may
not want to stand out or do things differently from others. Revitalization may be
seized as an opportunity for managerial or union manipulation. Finally, there is
always the inherent problem, at least in conservative bureaucracies, of self-fulfil-
ling prophecy where the organization decides in advance what will or will not
work and predetermines the results. Only those reforms acceptable to the
organization are even considered and they are dropped at the first signs of
serious internal opposition. For the public sector, organizational self-reform is
just too narrow.
On the other hand, there are advantages which cannot be lightly dismissed.
For a start, administrative reform is at least tried. It does not remain forever in
the recommendations of a distinguished public body that disbands as soon as it
has completed its inquiries. It is operationalized and decisions to proceed or halt
are made by identifiable persons who are held accountable for their decisions
and must justify their choice. This is particularly advantageous in the case of
institutional bureaucracies, which can block externally opposed reforms, and
public organizations, such as the military, the police, and the secret service,
which are often sheltered from outside pressure and where only the views of
peers may be respected. It is also advantageous in the case of complex
administrative arrangements where more than a superficial or general know-
ledge is required. The fact that reforms are self-induced eliminates a crisis or
panic approach and aids association and identification with (even loyalty to)
reform efforts. Organizational dynamics can be used on the side of reform, not
against it. Revitalization can tap accumulated experience and perhaps channel
suppressed frustration of internal critics, dissenters and mavericks into positive
contributions to change. Determined reformers know what they want, can insist
on getting their way, can monitor and control reform efforts, and can evaluate
progress. With a proper understanding of individual needs, concerns, and
anxieties, they can reduce fear, antagonism, and resentment but if there is
opposition they can persist. Opponents cannot wish them away or evade them.
The issue has to be faced and mutually resolved.
Reform and revitalization complement one another. To rely exclusively on
one or the other would be a mistake. Hovering over every public organization
that fails to perform adequately there must lurk the threat that it can be
abandoned altogether, split into several parts, or confronted with competitors if
it does not reform itself. To determine whether public organizations are
performing adequately in the public interest, the government must always have
the power to receive public complaints and petitions concerning their operations,
to conduct independent inquiries, to run spot checks at any time, to inspect their
operations and audit their accounts, and generally reserve the right to intervene
in the conduct of their affairs. Members of the public should be encouraged to
conduct their own investigations and reviews of public organizations and bring
to the attention of the community any disquieting features that may be
Reform Instruments 141
Reform Instruments
The range of reform instruments available to governments and to those urging
governments to adopt reforms continues to increase. To the traditional key
instruments - consultants, public inquiries, law, education and training, re-
search - have been added mass media investigative reporting (ranging from
titillating exposures of scandal to serious in-depth research), permanent adminis-
trative reform organizations (ministries, commissions, sections, offices) which
concentrate on continuous reform and improvement as their sole responsibility
142 8. Doing Something Different
Direct action. The late 1980s saw spontaneous outpourings and demonstra-
tions by people demanding political and economic reforms. They massed in the
streets, held up posters, chanted slogans, and called for sympathetic strikes and
work stoppages, formed human chains linked by clasped hands, and organized
boycotts. They could only be terrorized out of existence, as in China. Elsewhere,
regimes caved in to their demands, particularly in Eastern Europe. Reforms
quickly followed and behind them administrative reforms. But rarely was direct
action responsible directly for administrative reforms confirming a longheld
belief that reforms follow not lead social changes. Nonetheless, the impressive
victories scored could make direct action an instrument for administrative
reform in the future, because mass media dramatize pent-up frustration and
hatred of the status quo and publicize reform proposals. Skillful reformers are
likely to reconsider direct action and opt for the publicity it achieves to draw
attention to their cause and to undermine official resistance and inertia.
Strengthening legal controls. The rule of law and the independence of the
judiciary still provide the major reinforcement of administrative reform.
Confronted by legal and judicial sanctions, public administrators have to abide
with the reforms. Besides various Human (or Civil) Rights Acts, the number of
laws and court rulings that enforce administrative reforms on reluctant public
organizations has been growing since the hallmark Administrative Procedures
Act of 1946 in the United States, a model of its kind to ensure open, fair,
equitable and humane conduct of public business. Among other noteworthy U.S.
federal government legal instruments are the Budget and Accounting Procedures
Act of 1950, Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, Economic Opportunity Act of
1964, Equal Access to Justice Act of 1980, Ethics in Government Act of 1978,
Federal Tort Claims Act of 1946, Federal Managers Financial Integrity Act of
1982, Freedom of Information Act of 1966, Inspector General Act of 1978,
Intergovernmental Cooperation Act of 1968, Right to Privacy Act of 1974, and
Sunshine Act of 1976. The 1976 sunset legislation in the state of Colorado has
not been copied at federal level (Kearney, 1990), nor have all kinds of model
Reform Instruments 143
All administrative reform committees tend to combine radical and critical diagnosis with
relatively moderate prescriptions. Brave words are not followed by equally brave deeds,
because while such committees must show a proper sense of urgency and indignation
about the shortcomings of bureaucracy, their conclusions must in practice be implemented
by and within that same bureaucracy. (Smith and Weller, 1978, 310-311)
Other critics believe they may have outlived their purpose, certainly "commit-
tees of wise laymen who can with a degree of leisure consider a problem area"
(Chapman, 1973, 187). Nonetheless, there was a whole spate of them in the
1970s in the United Kingdom and Australia. Clearly they filled a political
vacuum although they did not seem to result in much remedial action. They
generated much publicity and attention for a while and then they were quickly
forgotten except by academics and succeeding inquiries which repeated much
the same exercise. They illustrated all the pitfalls involved in having proposals
generated by one set of people left to be adapted and implemented by another.
Many had spent too long on their work, for by the time they reported, the reform
momentum had already petered out or the government had changed and was
Reform Instruments 145
now unwilling to act. The wrong people had been picked, not up to the task or
divided or uncompromisingly radical or too busy elsewhere. Their working
methods had been slipshod or they had been given insufficient resources to do a
proper job. A growing body of literature now provides a legal guide (Hallett,
1982) and many pointers how to increase their effectiveness (Bulmer, 1983).
They still provide a necessary sanction on occasions to keep high standards in
public life and public administration, to get to the bottom of a matter and to
galvanize administrative reformers.
and efficiency and procedures for the collection and reporting of data resulting
from application of productivity measures under Executive Order 12552
monitored by O.M.B. in partnership with P.C.M.I. These efforts have disabused
any doubts whether or not a substantial part of public administration performan-
ce is measurable (Miller, 1984). Once measured, there could only follow
demands for improvement (Berkowitz, 1988).
References
Anthony, R., "Closing the Loop Between Planning and Performance", Public Administra-
tion Review, Vol. 31, No.3, May-June 1971, 388-398.
Berkowitz, M. (ed.), Measuring the Efficiency of Public Programs: Costs and Benefits in
Vocational Rehabilitation, Temple University Press, Philadelphia, PA, 1988.
Brown, R.E. (ed.), Accounting and Accountability in Public Administration, American
Society for Public Administration, Washington, D.C., 1988.
Bulmer, M., Social Research and Royal Commissions, Allen and Unwin, London, 1983.
Chapman, R.A. (ed.), The Role of Commissions in Policy-Making, Allen and Unwin,
London, 1973.
Crozier, M., The Bureaucratic Phenomenon, Phoenix Books, The University of Chicago
Press, 1964.
Geist, B., State Audit, Macmillan, London, 1981.
Hallett, L.A., Royal Commissions and Boards of Inquiry, The Law Book Company, Ltd.,
Sydney, 1982.
Hanser, C.J., Guide to Decision: The Royal Commission, The Bedminister Press, Totowa,
N.J., 1965.
Hennessy, P., Whitehall, Seeker & Warburg, London, 1989.
References 149
Jos, P.H., Thompkins, M.E., and Hays, S., "In Praise of Difficult People: A Portrait of the
Committed Whistleblower", Public Administration Review, Vol. 49, No. 6, Nov./Dec.
1989, pp. 552-561.
Lee, H.B. "An Application of Innovation Theory to the Strategy of Administrative
Reform in Developing Countries," Policy Sciences, Vol. I, No. 2, Summer 1970, pp.
177-189.
Kearney, R.C., "Sunset: A Survey and Analysis of the State Experience," Public
Administration Review, Vol. 50, No. 1, Jan-Feb, 1990, pp. 49-57.
Leemans, A. (ed.), The Management of Change in Government, Institute of Social
Studies, Martinus Nijhoff, 1976.
Lippitt, G., Organization Renewal, Appleton-Century-Crofts, New York, 1969.
Miller, T.C. (ed.), Public Sector Performance: A Conceptual Turning Point, The Johns
Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1984.
Mosher, F.C., The G.A.O., Westview Press, Boulder, Co., 1979.
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Strategies for Change and
Reform in Public Management, Public Management Series 1, Paris, 1980.
Prenchard, A. (ed.), Government Financial Management: Issues and Country Studies,
International Monetary Fund, Washington, D.C., 1990.
Rhodes, G., Committees of Inquiry, Allen and Unwin, London, 1975.
Rosen, B., Holding Government Bureaucracies Accountable, Praeger, New York, 1989.
Schick, A., "Budgeting for Results: Recent Developments in Five Industrialized Coun-
tries," Public Administration Review, Vol. 50, No. 1, Jan/Feb 1990, pp. 26-34.
Smith, R., and Weiler, P. (eds.), Public Service Inquiries in Australia, University of
Queensland Press, St. Lucia, 1978.
Torpey, W.G., Federal Productivity: A Management Challenge, Byrd, Richmond, VA.,
1988.
Truelson, Judith A., Blowing the Whistle on Systemic Corruption, Ph.D. dissertation,
University of Southern California, School of Public Administration, 1986.
U.S. General Accounting Office, Managing the Cost of Government Proposals for
Reforming Federal Budgeting Practices, GAO/AFMD-90-1, October 1989.
U.S. Office of Management and Budget, Statistical Policy Division, Social Indicators,
1973, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1974.
Warwick, D.P., A Theory of Public Bureaucracy, Harvard University Press, Cambridge,
MA., 1975.
Wholey, J.S. et al. (eds.), Improving Government Performance, Jossey-Bass Publishers,
San Francisco, 1989.
Wraith, R. and Lamb, G., Public Inquiries as an Instrument of Government, Allen and
Unwin, London, 1971.
9. Guarding Against Failure
Most administrative reforms fail. Reform movements and reformers begin well
enough but usually find that they cannot get much beyond a sympathetic
hearing, symbolic backing, and polite formalities. Thereafter vested interests
and bureaucratic inertia continue to defy reform intentions. Even though
maladministration is freely acknowledged, the conditions that give rise to it are
not altered enough to make a real difference. Laws are changed, structures
reorganized, people moved around, manuals altered, and instructions revised,
but the same behavior patterns are continued. The administrative culture - its
beliefs, values, priorities, norms - is hardly touched. History is littered with
unsuccessful reforms which rarely get revived. Most notable, for example, in
recent years have been national economic planning in Third World countries
(Caiden and Wildavsky, 1974) and program budgeting in poor countries
(Agarawala, 1983). It appears that conception is easier than action and
successful action is exceptional. For this reason, most attention in the literature
has been placed on the relatively few successes, thereby giving the appearance
that reform is easier than it is. In reality, most suggestions for betterment are
rejected and most reforms are blocked altogether or compromised into pale
images. Implementation is the Achilles' heel of administrative reform: it is the
filter and reformers "who focus on the decision and neglect the implementation
process do so at their own peril" (Grindle and Thomas, 1989, 241). A strategic
plan of implementation must accompany any decision to reform (Ibid, 243).
Reform fails mainly in implementation not for want of creativity, inventive-
ness, concern, or trying. Where reformers are outsiders to the administrative
systems they seek to improve, they often have no power, position and status to
influence those who can change things or they have no access to people who do
have influence or they have no impact on those who have to be convinced.
Reformers know only too well that organizations are blind to their defects or
rationalize them as virtues or necessities (Gardner, 1968, 42). Even institution-
alized reform bodies discover that they exist on sufferance and that without
imposing sanctions few organizations really act on their proposals; much of the
time they are just spinning their wheels without accomplishing much at all.
Administrative reform moves painfully slow, much slower than political and
economic reforms. None of the current crop of major administrative reform
proposals is exactly new except perhaps the rollback of the administrative state,
corporatization and privatization. The so-called managerial revolution has taken
well over two centuries to establish itself. Debureaucratization is almost as old.
152 9. Guarding Against Failure
Professions are subject to the same deadening forces that afflict all other human
institutions: an attachment to time-honored ways, reverence for established procedures, a
preoccupation with one's own vested interests, and an excessively narrow definition of
what is relevant and important. (Gardner, 1968, 42)
Instead of being meekly obedient as expected, institutional bureaucracies and
public professionals fiercely resisted and mustered their own power bases to
force reformers to back down, and to leave them alone to govern themselves.
Thus,
Reforming institutional bureaucracies is political rather than managerial. No standard
formulas can be applied. Reformers...have to abandon consistency and uniformity. They
have to tackle each institutional bureaucracy on its merits; for each, different concessions
will have to be made and different compromises struck. For each, the process of
transformation will take different forms over varying time periods (Bjur and Caiden,
1978, 362).
They won't change if they believe they don't have to. They have to feel
threatened; they should never be allowed to assume that they are indispensable
or unassailable or omnipotent. They are vulnerable as long as they need to
maintain legitimacy and keep intact the image they foster about themselves.
Shaking the public's faith in them forces them to reevaluate themselves. They,
too, can be reformed if reformers recognize the political process and avoid
twelve common pitfalls in the process of implementation.
1. A Bad Start
Unless a situation is really desperate, it is virtually fatal to undertake anything
blind. Reform is not revolution; it is not expected to sweep away everything that
exists and replace it with something entirely new. To a greater or lesser extent,
what exists will continue but altered in some important respects. Complete
overhaul and refurbishment is impractical while coercion is likely to be counter
productive for the longer run. Besides the imperative of strong and binding
political commitment and the welcome identification with reform efforts by top
political leadership, voluntary support and cooperation from the potentially
reformed should be sought. They must be convinced that the reforms are feasible
and practical and will indeed improve on existing arrangements. All this implies
thorough knowledge on the part of the reformers on what they are about.
Minimally, they need to know the basic facts about the reform situation, the pros
and cons about their own proposals, the likely lineup of forces, and some range
of possible strategies. Beyond this, it would be desirable to have a historical
appreciation of the situation, some account of previous reform attempts,
character assessments of influential people in the reform process, and adequate
154 9. Guarding Against Failure
should practice what they preach, and apply to themselves what they want others
to do.
3. Incorrect Diagnosis
Effective results spring only from realistic appraisals of the reform situation, not
imitation of some other situation. But without the facts, no diagnosis is possible
and even with the facts, the diagnosis may be incorrect because of faulty
interpretation. Reformers do go astray. Facts are confused with opinions (and
vice versa); they are muddled and confused; they are overlooked. The reformers
get sidetracked from their main purpose into the byways of scandal or
intellectual fascination. They allow common misconceptions to prevail. They
accept too much without question. For these and other reasons, an incorrect
diagnosis may kill reform prospects. But administrative situations are usually so
complicated that a wrong diagnosis cannot be easily detected. Only in implemen-
tation are doubts confirmed. Unfortunately the implementation of reforms to
correct wrongly diagnosed faults worsens the situation; incorrect treatment may
be worse than leaving well alone.
Usually major faults occur because an administrative system is trying to do
things that it cannot do (unattainable objectives), or the administrative arrange-
3. Incorrect Diagnosis 157
4. Hidden Agendas
Much less frequent than incorrect diagnosis are the occasions when the
reformers are rightly suspected of hidden intentions. Ostensibly their purpose is
to review existing arrangements and propose remedies for observed deficiencies.
In reality they have different objectives, public and personal. The opportunity is
used to silence critics for the duration by occupying them on apparently
important work. It is also used to take people away from their permanent
positions while their offices are reshuffled. More sinister, evidence is sought for
a purge of inefficient, disloyal, disliked or feared administrators. These hidden
intentions are usually soon discovered and warnings flash along the grapevine.
Less provable is the use by reformers of their position to gain publicity, direct
public attention to themselves, and generally seize the opportunity for career
advancement, without caring too much about effective reform. If performance is
a criterion for promotion, then these ambitious reform sympathizers who do get
things done may prove more beneficial than more reform-devoted but less
effective persons.
5. Indecisive Approach
How much the reformers decide to reveal of their work and intentions is a
strategic consideration concerned with the best way of pushing reforms through.
Many reform attempts have failed because the reformers could not agree among
themselves as to the scope of reform programs, the magnitude of change implied
in them, the rate of change preferred, and the comprehensiveness of specific
proposals. In trying for compromise, they have appeared indecisive, uncaring,
unconcerned. Opponents have shifted attention away from their proposals to
their consensual methods and slow decision-making style. Yet a bold approach,
sweeping proposals and urgent action may not augur well for success. Just as
shock tactics may backfire, so comprehension may detract from adoption.
Ambition is not necessarily the best formula for success in administrative
reform.
In steering a careful path between indecision and abrasion, reformers make
other mistakes. They neglect to consider the divisibility of their proposals, that
is, to separate those that could stand by themselves should the whole package be
rejected. They overlook the possibility of revocability after adoption. The longer
the reforms take to make an impact the more likely they may be dropped as
patience wears thin and opponents organize. They disregard the incompatibility
between their reforms and the values and norms of those charged with
implementation and sometimes fail to realize the inconsistency and ambiguity of
their own proposals. In concentrating on the long term and ignoring short term
6. Faulty Planning 159
6. Faulty Planning
Administrative reform is a preparation for an inaccurately predictable future.
Before they design a reform program, the reformers have some conception of
what they want and expect to happen. They proceed on the assumption that they
might as well attempt the maximum at the outset if they later have to modify
their ambitions. It is almost inconceivable that they proceed without some kind
of a plan, if only a conceptualization of the reform ideas into practical proposals.
They usually express their objectives, identify their main difficulties and outline
some ways of overcoming resistance, but they may prefer to play down the
difficulties and hide their intentions by avoiding specific commitments to retain
maximum flexibility. Contingency plans endeavor to cover the following
elements:
- identification of the reformers and their principal supporters and an appeal to
the noncommitted for backing
- attestation of the worth, feasibility, practicality, and acceptability of the
reform proposals
- evidence where similar proposals have worked
- estimation of favorable outcomes
- points anticipating opposition and distortion
- promises of rewards for supporters and possible threats of penalties on
opponents
- hints of access to adequate resources
- réévaluation of chosen instrumentalities.
These constitute the program as far as most people are concerned.
While the program outline may be impressive, the planning behind it often is
faulty. Insufficient time and background material are largely to blame. So too is
personal incompetence. The reformers fail to formulate both broad and specific
objectives related to the reform situation. They disregard operational objectives
in setting the direction and scope of reforms and defining the basis for the
consideration of alternatives. They refuse to spell out the choice of criteria for
the selection of strategies and reforms, and consequently omit evaluation of
foreseeable consequences. They may overlook the constraints of the situation
and omit some crucial dominant factors. Clearly,
160 9. Guarding Against Failure
The more innovative and far-reaching changes need the most careful implementing. They
require the most re-training of people, the most explaining, the greatest patience and often
will cause the greatest change in human relationships. Generally, these are also the
changes that require the most testing...(O.E.C.D., 1979, 26)
Yet, often this sage advice is ignored. All these factors constitute missing links
in the planning of reform.
7. Narrow Vision
The number and variety of reform instrumentalities increase with the enlarge-
ment of administrative concepts and the progress of administrative technology.
The main instrumentalities - public inquiries, law, institution-building, reorgani-
zation, professionalization, budgeting, and scientific management - remain
popular. In recent decades, they have been joined by mechanization, debureau-
cratization, education, training and executive development, organizational
development, management sciences, and decentralization. More recent are
privatization, management consultancy, data storage and retrieval, institution-
alized clientele protection, and policy sciences. Yet reformers themselves
remain unduly conservative in their choice of instrumentalities. They stick to
predominantly favored methods such as the superimposition of new watchdogs,
the introduction of new laws and law enforcement machinery, the replacement
of top personnel, and the establishment of research and development facilities
for continuing improvement.
While in general they cannot be faulted, in actual reform situations they need
to be more enterprising in their selection of instrumentalities and more
experimental in techniques. For instance, the establishment of an investigatory
body to propose reforms for implementation by operating units, a common
reform proposal, once activated may well signal the end of further interest as
attention switches to other matters. Without top level support, the reform body
may not be taken seriously by operating units, irrespective of the quality of its
work. Operating units take their cue from elite attitudes. If the country's
leadership takes little interest in administration, downgrades administration in
national priorities and is ambivalent about reform, then reform agencies find
themselves conducting technical exercises with little impact on administrative
performance. This is not so true of ad hoc task forces which depend less on elite
support than professional acceptance. In time, enthusiasm dies and the agencies,
playing for safety and security, switch from macro-reforms to technical trivia
and limited experiments.
Their competence depends to a large extent on their ability to attract and
retain creative talent as centers of administrative leadership. The necessary
conditions include a critical mass of congenial reform-minded individuals open
8. Inability to Command Resources and Internal Support 161
to new ideas, ready to articulate and push reforms, exposed to varied organiza-
tional experiences, and rewarded for continuous innovation. These reform
leaders should possess a trained intellect and certain qualities such as a passion
for human development, propensity to organize and a spirit of experimentation.
The reform agencies should provide an innovative atmosphere - stimulus and
incentives to produce, sympathetic leadership willing to back staff efforts, an
open, accessible, encouraging management, free flow of information, decen-
tralized decision-making, and an organized system of acknowledging, rewarding
and publicizing innovations. A major fault of such agencies is that they
themselves fall far short of these conditions. But then again if they met these
conditions, there would be much less need for reform in the first place.
To cover up defects, reformers tend to explain away their lack of impact and
rationalize their shortcomings. By taking a narrow view of the administrative
function, they refuse to tackle policy, law or morality. By adopting a purely
investigatory-advisory role, they refuse to interfere in day-to-day operations. By
disclaiming any special expertise, they refuse to enter into open controversy or
back tough-minded staff. Such antics convince their opposite numbers in
operating units that they are weak and wishy-washy interferers. They boast
about their weapon of publicity (i.e. exposure) but they rarely use it. When they
do go public, nobody else takes any real notice and their releases are usually
forgotten within days. Further, their very existence may discourage alternative
arrangements and thwart further reform prospects. Meantime, operating units
evade implementation without themselves engaging in self-correction and
innovation.
(the reforms are ignored) or met perfunctorily (the reforms are paid lip service)
or sacrificed (the reforms are adopted at the expense of operational standards).
Even with sufficient resources, reforms are likely to be doomed by lack of
internal goodwill or support. Without winning over the potentially reformed, i.e.
those who will be expected to adopt, assimilate and routinize the reforms, only
perfunctory implementation occurs at best.
Every employee involved in the change needs to be made aware of the reasons for the
change, the problems which the change is designed to correct or minimize and how the
change is to be made. The change needs to be explained in great detail. (O.E.C.D., 1979,
27)
The more they feel they have an important role in reform, the more they will
identify with it and make a sincere effort to make it work. Half-hearted
implementation is also likely to be prevented if those involved have an
opportunity to raise questions and make suggestions of their own and this way
brought into the reform campaign as active and willing partners. At least their
involvement should reduce risk aversion, and identify unforeseen obstacles,
defense mechanisms being employed and the common motives for resistance,
some of which may be groundless and others compensated for, so that resisters
can be won over (Kets de Vries and Miller, 1985).
9. Absence of Feedback
Once the chosen strategy and instrumentalities are put into operation, the next
task in implementation is keeping track of what is happening to the reform
program and determining whether the reforms are taking effect as anticipated.
The problem is simplified if the reform advocates are also the adopters and
implementors. Self-initiative is obviously the best course in administrative
reform for there is minimum need to consult outsiders, obtain elite support,
wage public campaigns, convince conservative functionaries, and devise special
channels for feedback. "Every administrator his own reformer" is a good slogan
but somewhat idealistic in that the administrators may be the cause of
inadequacy, or they may not be competent reformers, or they may not have the
time, energy and will to devote to reforms when pressing issues of the moment
have to be decided. Nevertheless, it is desirable to encourage self-initiative in
administrative reform, to decentralize decision-making to enable the people
most affected to decide for themselves without inordinate delay, and to
emphasize error-correction at the point of action.
In the absence of self-initiative, feedback is indispensable. Yet too often
reformers think their job finished when the operating units have acknowledged
11. Evaluation Ignored 163
the reforms and decided to implement them. But though the operational
responsibility is not theirs, if they are really committed to reform, their hardest
task has only just begun - that is, to keep at the operational units until the
reforms are successfully assimilated. Feedback only becomes a problem when
mutual confidence between involved parties does not exist, reform processes are
secret and the reformers don't really care what happens after adoption. The
reformers may be content with any change in the status quo along the lines of
their original conceptions, accepting any departures as the price of reform, or
they may be uncompromising, not resting until satisfied that they have gone as
far as possible and exhausted every avenue. The perfectionists among them will
want of course to investigate the consequences both good and bad of unforeseen
factors and to estimate the possibilities of using the transformed situation as a
springboard for further reforms.
schemes which are merely fronts for obtaining more operating funds, enlarging
their programs, expanding their activities and increasing their overall standing in
the governmental system. They also seize the opportunity of reform to
implement postponed projects and rejected policies. Again, reform is a secon-
dary consideration.
Even if the goals are displaced, and administrative reform deemed a failure by
the reform initiators, it is no disgrace. The whole process may enhance
performance. First, reform proposals challenge bureaucratic inertia and conser-
vative administrators. Although defence mechanisms may temporarily suppress
change, things can never quite be the same and peace tokens have to be made if
the situation is to be kept in hand. Second, reform programs attract enterprising
administrative talent and provide valuable experience for a new generation of
administrative aspirants. Third, reformers promote badly needed administrative
modernization which is likely to set off a chain reaction in functional reforms as
changes in techniques, skills and attitudes in specialized fields seem more
attainable than possibly the harder changes to carry through in administration.
Fourth, constructive progressive forces find openings for their respectable
creative talent in empirical problem-solving, particularly the kind presented in
administrative reform. Sensitive elites seek to enlist their aid to prevent their
joining extremist political and social movements. Fifth, there is little inventive-
ness in outmoded systems, obsolete institutions, inert bureaucracies, useless
arrangements and conservative attitudes, and any effort to transform adminis-
trative systems is to be commended in the face of official indifference, technical
ignorance, political intransigence and public apathy.
Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong. But much of the world still looks to
the United States and Western Europe for its inspiration, just as the East Bloc
looks to the Soviet Union and China, the Commonwealth countries to the United
Kingdom, Latin America to Spain, Portugal and Brazil, and the ex-French
colonies to France, and what they do in any field is closely watched. In public
administration certain other countries have a following of their own either
internationally or regionally and these variously include Sweden, Canada,
Egypt, India and Australia. What these fashion leaders do, sooner or later others
follow. Generally, renewed interest is being shown in comparative studies and
lessons that might be learnt from other countries' experiences (Crozier, 1988).
In administrative reform, it has long been realized that every country is
different, that no administrative culture is identical to any other even if certain
characteristics are shared, and that each administrative reform situation is
unique. Reformers can, however, borrow, copy, reshape, and modify reforms
and they can derive tips from what others do. Where reforms have succeeded,
one can study diagnosis, obstacles, mistakes and resistance. There is something
to be gained from every reform attempted. For instance, in budget reform the
failures of implementing P.P.B.S. and Z.B.B. taught reformers what to discard
as inoperable and what might be tried differently. Whenever elaborate adminis-
trative reform investigations are conducted around the world, their findings are
circulated and closely examined. Many are discarded as being too idiosyncratic
but others receive international attention for possible action. While there is no
guarantee of success, looking at other people's experiences at least guards
against possible failure.
After all, reforms are costly investments (and costlier political investments when
they go bad). They require scarce resources which poor countries cannot afford
at all or only sparingly and always begrudgingly. In this respect, richer countries
are fortunate. Not only can they probably find the resources for reform when
they need to but they probably enjoy excess administrative capacity, i.e. built-in
reserves and greater administrative capabilities as well. Unfortunately, although
since the 1960s available global resources have increased, they are maldistri-
buted and they still fall almost everywhere short of administrative reform
requirements. There has not been that much slack around anywhere and it has
not been possible to conjure up the requisite resources at short notice. Political
leaders everywhere have to be careful not to squander what they have by
repeating the mistakes of others.
On the other hand, in recent years a new generation of leaders has been
assuming power, leaders not scarred by the memories of the First World War or
even of the Great Depression. They are not so obsessed by the past that they
cannot think of the future and prepare the way by adopting long overdue reforms
now. They are more prepared to challenge the administrative arrangements they
inherit. They recognize administrative failings and shortcomings and are not so
168 9. Guarding Against Failure
reticent from publicly admitting them. They are more open to suggestions and
they are more willing to experiment with alternatives that promise better public
sector performance. Though they are still wedded ideologically to different
paths to national development, they are more pragmatic when it comes to
administrative means. Universally, they have been disappointed in time-honored
methods of running the administrative state and they are prepared to take on
their own entrenched bureaucracies to which they attribute much of the blame
for sluggish public administration. In this, they have shown an unaccustomed
boldness and propensity to try anything that seems promising in reinvigorating
not just the administrative state but the wider society too.
References
Agarwala, R., Planning in Developing Countries: Lessons of Experience, World Bank
Staff Working Papers, No. 576, Washington, D.C., 1983.
Bjur, W.E., and Caiden, G.E., "Administrative Reform and Institutional Bureaucracies",
in S.K. Sharma, ed., Dynamics of Development: An International Perspective, Vol. 1,
Concept Publishing, New Delhi, 1978, pp. 365-378.
Caiden, N. and Wildavsky, A., Planning and Budgeting in Poor Countries, John Wiley
and Sons, New York, 1974.
Crazier, M., How to Reform the State?: Three Countries, Three Strategies: Sweden,
Japan, United States, La Documentation Française, Paris, 1988.
Friedmann, J., The Good Society, 1979, The Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Cambridge, MA., 1979.
Gardner, J., No Easy Victories, Harper Colophon Books, New York, 1968.
Grindle, M.S., and Thomas, J.W., "Policy Makers, Policy Choices, and Policy Outcomes:
The Political Economy of Reform in Developing Countries," Policy Sciences, Vol. 22,
Nos. 3-4, November 1989, pp. 213-248.
Kets de Vries, F.R., and Miller, D., The Neurotic Organization, Jossey-Bass Publishers,
San Francisco, 1985.
Lambramboise, H. L., "Administrative Reform in the Federal Public Service: Signs of a
Saturation Psychosis," Canadian Public Administration, Vol. 14, No. 3, Autumn 1971,
pp. 303-325.
Lee, H. B., "An Application of Innovation Theory to the Strategy of Administrative
Reform in Developing Countries," Policy Sciences, Vol. I., No. 2, Summer 1970, pp.
177-189.
Mitroff, I., Break-Away Thinking: How To Challenge Your Business Assumptions (and
Why You Should), John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1988.
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Strategies for Change and
Reform in Public Management, Paris, 1979.
10. Reforms in the East:
Retreat from Bureaucratic Centralism
public property, collective enterprises and state guidance and a transition period
of the dictatorship of the proletariat led by the Communist Party which would
work to eliminate capitalism and bourgeois values. The party would substitute
pride of labor and contribution, cooperation, equity, sense of community and
brotherhood, sharing and civic virtues.
Accordingly, in the East Bloc countries, the Communist Party had led the
revolution and established itself as a monopoly over most social organization,
including the state, government, military, police, judiciary, bureaucracy, state
enterprises, mass media and education, in a highly centralized administrative
state governed by an elaborate planning apparatus. In them, national develop-
ment has for several decades largely depended on state initiative and enterprise,
on a dominant public sector, on a work force largely composed of public
employees, and on state management of people's lives. Party and state have
been so intertwined that they have been virtually indistinguishable. Although
formally the rule of law, checks and balances, representative institutions, direct
participation, individual rights and integrative consultative mechanisms have
been legally enshrined, informally the party leadership has exercised absolute
power through party channels and bureaucratic centralism, thereby constituting
a privileged "statocracy" (Kagarlitsky, 1988).
In time, the party leadership became in turn party dominance and then party
tyranny, and in some countries even attempted party hegemony based on
patronage and nepotism. The leaders enjoyed exceptional privileges of rank,
exacted tribute from the masses and slid into protected kleptocracy. The rigid
planning system responsible for the minute details of millions of items could not
adjust to turbulence and caused much waste, inefficiency, and ineffectiveness. It
was accompanied by a huge underground economy and together they institution-
alized corruption. There were large surpluses of unwanted items, and huge
scarcities of necessities such as food and consumer goods. Since the state
provided almost everything at least officially free or at highly subsidized rates
and employment was compulsory, the best course of action for the alienated
masses was to go along, connive like anybody else, and hope personally for
party promotion. They had long disregarded Lenin's strictures that the sole
condition for their salvation was to "keep accurate and conscientious accounts;
conduct business economicially; not to loaf; maintain strict discipline at work"
(Eaton and Lvov, 1990, 4). Instead, as there were few incentives to produce and
few quality control checks, there was labor waste and indiscipline, much
mismanagement and incompetence, much squandering of natural resources, and
much disregard for safety and environmental deterioration. In short, East Bloc
economies performed poorly (Bergson, 1989).
To disguise the rot, censorship was strict and disinformation was common
practice. Most people lived quiet lives of desperation and resentment. As the
whole system of bureaucratic centralism performed more and more abysmally,
so things got worse not better and no amount of official propaganda could
10. Reforms in the East: Retreat from Bureaucratic Centralism 173
disguise the fact. People did not know what to believe anymore and grew
increasingly disillusioned with the system. But they knew no different and had
been brought up on the horrors of the past before the revolution and the evils and
dangers of alternative systems. Bureaucrat-bashing was one of the few tolerated
forms of popular expression and relief, but even there one had to be careful not
to offend anyone in particular lest quick retribution descend. For how long could
self-deceit on such a scale last? Who would be the first openly to challenge the
system? What would be proposed to change bureaucratic centralism? The
answers came with the deaths of the revolutionary heros, Stalin in the Soviet
Union and Mao Zedong in China, with the imposition of reforms from above,
and with the begrudging change of the official party line.
The earliest diagnoses suggested that the command administration mechanism
was basically sound but required a return to Lenin's strictures, that is greater
discipline, improved planning and better investment and social policies. Re-
forms were implemented on these lines but with almost everyone in the system
having job security, they had little impact and failed to combat corruption,
cronyism and stagnation. Mass protests were suppressed and all attempts to
move the system into another (more liberal) course were ruthlessly crushed; the
basics were not to be questioned. But slowly as things worsened, the basics were
seen as being after all unsound or at lest unsound for the turbulent times
inaugurated by the world energy crises. Central planning, state ownership of the
means of production and the monopoly of the Communist Party were not
healthy after all. Better results might be forthcoming outside state action and
bureaucratic centralism. What was needed was a good dose of decentralized
individual and group effort and employee collectives and cooperatives inter-
acting in real markets, i.e. the reforming of Communist ideology in favor of
market socialism and practical reforms that would revitalize every office,
factory, farm, school and home.
So wholesale economic reforms were launched, difficult to implement
without systematically undoing bureaucratic centralism. Further, greater eco-
nomic freedom could not properly work without greater political freedom and
greater ties with the West. Old-style totalitarian Communism was increasingly
irrelevant; its policies had failed and its ideology was outdated. But could the
alienated masses be energized without abandoning Communism altogether? The
die-hards thought not; they refused to let go of bolshevik ideology and
unnecessary concessions to bourgeois concepts. Awakened liberals (and anti
Communists in general) wanted to sweep the whole system away overnight and
westernize as quickly as possible. In between, the reformers tried to find a
compromise, something that was neither East or West but different. It was they
who surfaced in leadership positions and made reform respectable as the path to
socialism. But they soon found "it may be easy, although bloody, to set up a
Stalinist centrally planned economic system, but it is very difficult to dismantle
it and replace it with one that is market oriented" (Goldman, 1990, 44). They
174 10. Reforms in the East: Retreat from Bureaucratic Centralism
A Stitch in Time?
By 1990, reform had become the official policy in most East Bloc countries, if
only to ward off counter-revolution or disintegration and chaos. The Marxist-
Lenin-Stalin system which had been tried for at least two generations had not
succeeded, not when compared to liberal democracies whose people were
undeniably better off, more innovative, and more secure. The failure could no
longer be blamed on external factors but upon leaders who had imposed their
dogma in defiance of facts. At last, the truth could be revealed. Repressive
police states had inhibited spontaneity and creativity. Centrally controlled
economies had allowed no freedom of choice, provided no incentives to excel,
and fostered societal corruption that in turn reinforced inequality. The Com-
munist Party leadership had designated priorities without concern for individual
choice, individual preference, and individual rights and had imposed its
decisions through a totalitarian administrative state that had suffered from every
conceivable form of bureaupathology and public maladministration. The re-
cipients had protested against such regimentation however they could - through
defection, escapism, passivity, rebellion. Now, as their discontent mounted and
found open expression, the system was in danger of unravelling. The party
leaders were still unwilling to admit defeat or to abandon the system altogether.
They sought not so much political or social reforms that might defeat the
revolution but economic and administrative reforms that would perpetuate it,
turn the system around, make it more modern, more productive, more efficient,
more viable. They wanted reforms that would not turn the clock too far back and
would not change the fundamentals too quickly so they would lose control,
position and credibility.
Nobody forecast how quickly the dictatorship of the proletariat led by the
Communist Party would crumble. The turning point came in June 1989 which
witnessed some key events that unleashed mounting reform pressures shaking
the whole East Bloc to its foundations. In China, the old-line revolutionary
autocratic leadership brutally crushed student demonstrations for democracy in
Beijing, just as its predecessors had done countless times before, this after a
decade of post-Mao reforms which had freed part of the economy and
supposedly had sensitized public administration. The whole world was shocked
at the cruelty of the repression, no less other East Bloc countries. They realized
that unless they made concessions to mounting dissent and gave in to justifiable
demands for reforms, they would have to resort to similar measures to preserve
not the dictatorship of the proletariat but the dictatorship of an enfeebled party
A Stitch in Time? 175
leadership which had lost touch with the people and could only fault the
corruption of individuals within the system, not the corruption of the system
itself.
In the Soviet Union, Premier Ryzhkov, in the spirit of Gorbachev's perestroi-
ka (reconstruction) and glasnost (openness), confessed that because of poor
planning and overspending, the government was unable to raise the standard of
living, ensure national security and finance further development. Only radical
economic reforms could reverse the decline. The government would economize,
reduce military expenditures, cut back on the bureaucracy, shift from central
planning and management of the economy to market socialism (wherein
state-owned profit maximizing enterprises would compete fairly with co-
operatives and private enterprises in free money markets), increase investments
in food production, reduce the growth of heavy industry, and increase the
incomes of the poorest. As in China, reforms previously introduced to preserve
the system were causing opponents of the system to bubble to the surface but
instead of coercion and repression, they were now to be acknowledged,
respected and given a responsible place within the system, even at the cost of
abandoning major features of the system. The Soviet Union was still not
prepared to go as far as Poland where the first election in 40 years giving people
a genuine choice, resulted in a resounding defeat of the Communist Party's
candidates. There, too, people had lost confidence in the government to deal
with the country's problems, to attack corruption and to be responsive to its
citizens, and they had lost much of their respect for the party and for
Communism as an ideology.
Within a year, Eastern Europe had been transformed, the political map of
Europe had been changed, and the Cold War was being terminated. After forty
years, the Iron Curtain had been lifted, the Berlin Wall had been breached,
Communist Parties had lost their monopoly of power and governments were
openly admitting that their economic systems were in a state of advanced
collapse. No longer would the nomenklatura be allowed to manipulate the
system uncontested and run the churches, universities, town councils and
factories. In Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary, coalitions dominated by
non-Communists ruled and the Hungarian and Polish Communist Parties had
renounced Marxism and changed their names, East Germany had been reunited
with West Germany and had agreed to abandon bureaucratic centralism for
liberal capitalism, Bulgaria had rid itself of tyrannical Todor Dhivkov as had
Romania of the Ceausescus, and even Albania was ending its self imposed
isolation and embarking on internal reforms. New freedom of movement had
seen unprecedented travel across open borders. New freedom of expression had
seen unprecedented mass protests, demonstrations and strikes, causing changes
in political leadership and promises of free elections. Soviet President Gorba-
chev had ruled out force against East Bloc neighbors, had urged East Bloc
Communist Parties to compromise and yield power where they had lost public
176 10. Reforms in the East: Retreat from Bureaucratic Centralism
People will judge our policies, will judge reconstruction... by the tangible results in
improving the work conditions and lives of the millions: by how much more sensibly
production work is organized, how much fairer people's pay is, whether housing
construction has speeded up, whether stores, household services, city transport, medical
services, and hospitals have improved, and whether the moral climate in a party
organization or a work unit has got better. (Pravda, Jan. 30, 1987)
What he meant by this was not a renunciation of the principles of the revolution
but their restoration, not a return to capitalism but to humane socialism, not the
abandonment of socialism but its renewal. He wanted an irreversible end to state
controls imposed by Stalinism and "bureaucratic Stalinization" (Cohen and
Heuval, 1989, 15).
Perestroika (Restructuring)
The latest round of reforms differed in several respects from those that had
preceded it. This time, it was backed if not instigated by the Soviet Union which
had deliberately intervened and crushed previous reforms in the East Bloc that it
had opposed. It was not largely confined to the economic sphere but embraced
sweeping societal changes that were also needed to make economic reform
effective. It was not based on presuming a centrally managed society but on
promoting genuine pluralism, competition and self-management. It had to
Perestroika (Restructuring) 177
overcome public disinterest (from people who had seen so many reforms fail
and who had been led astray so many times before) and hard line resistance from
entrenched vested interests who had the most to lose. It took place under crisis
conditions and suffered from resource deficiency, particularly time, adminis-
trative competence, and well formulated plans. It was probably riskier than any
before because if it succeeded, it could well be the end of Communism
altogether. If it failed, all that 1917 stood for might be swept away, or to
preserve 1917, Stalinism might be reimposed bereft of its world-revolutionary
ideology and rhetoric, its expansionist foreign policy and its large internal
gulags. Perestroika represented the widest departure yet from Stalinism.
De-Stalinization began with Khrushchev who like Gorbachev had also wanted
to "get the country moving again" after some years of immobilisme. He had
sought to reinvigorate society and the economy to make Communism more
popular at home and abroad. He had revised Marxist-Leninist ideology. He had
promised material abundance for all, ambitious public service programs and
greater personal rewards. He had declared an end to oppression (by releasing
political prisoners, curbing secret police power and revising legal codes), greater
democratization and popular self-government, and had reduced privileges for
the nomenklatura. He had replaced Stalinist hardliners with younger "dynamic,
fresh-minded, professionally qualified cadres" and he had announced a new
policy of glasnost or openness and self-criticism "to learn the real state of affairs
in many spheres, to stimulate debate on issues like economic reform, to promote
a cultural revival, to help him purge opponents, and to impress the west with the
pace and extent of change" (Reddaway, 1987, 22). He had campaigned against
drunkenness and shirking and had clamped down on corruption. Administra-
tively, he had sought to improve managerial effectiveness, decentralized control
and worker self-management. Though by the early 1960s, Khrushchev had
failed, his successors pursued similar policies of de-Stalinization with no greater
success, all of which predisposed observers to be skeptical of further "efforts to
make more efficient, responsive, open and also honest the incredibly massive
and stolid bureaucracy of the Soviet system" (Galbraith, 1987, 53). After all,
bureaucratic centralism and administrative controls ("bureaumania") had been
strengthened in the 1960s and 1970s, despite the emergence within party
leadership of a strong reform faction which eventually was victorious in 1985
(Cohen and Heuvel, 1989).
The first real reform breakthroughs came under Andropov at the July 1983
Party Plenum where problems of the battered economy were openly raised. That
was followed in July 1983 by Tatiana Zaslawskaya's "Novosibirsk Report"
which recommended greater individualism and greater decentralization of
planning and management. Andropov responded by instituting a new round of
reforms to improve bureaucratic centralism, economic incentives and labor
discipline to combat the underground economy. But the situation continued to
deteriorate until the accession of Gorbachev in March 1985. He was determined
178 10. Reforms in the East: Retreat from Bureaucratic Centralism
Gorbachev promised he would mobilize the masses against the dead hand of
bureaucracy, reduce both party and state hierarchies, devolve and decentralize
decision-making, strengthen popular self government, and encourage entrepre-
neurship. This time, he presented a more realistic program for uskorenie
(accelerated economic growth):
* modernization of technology and production methods; restructuring of agricul-
ture, industry and commerce; increased research and development; producti-
vity measures and incentives;
* more open society; greater self-criticism; freer expression; more factual
reporting; glasnost;
* democratization; more representative elected assemblies; greater choice of
candidates; less ready exercise of police powers; greater incentives for self-
initiatives; greater public participation in decision-making;
* entrepreneurship; self-financing; foreign investment; joint enterprises; special
economic zones; autonomous cooperatives; private ownership; reconstructed
pricing system; markets; profit incentives; reduced central planning; reduced
public middle management; reduced subsidization; fair competition; contrac-
Perestroika (Restructuring) 179
tual freedom; some legalization of industrial action; more user fees, fewer free
public goods and services;
* separation of party and state; party to be pulled out of of day-to-day
administration; state organizations to be more independent of party; reduced
party directives; realistic self-management;
* decentralization of economic decision making; more self- financed local
projects;
* reorganization of the machinery of government; reduction in number of
ministries and departments; streamlining; simplification; curtailment of
empire-building;
* retrenchment of state and party managers; cutback management; debureau-
cratization; some privatization of small state enterprises; retraining and
redirection of surplus employees;
* some deregulation; strengthened complaint channels; some judicial review
and increased legalism, strengthened due process;
* reduction of indiscipline, corruption, shirking, slacking, drunkenness, parasiti-
cal activities;
* general assault on public bureaupathologies, particularly insensitivity and
indifference.
The unfreezing of the Soviet economy in this way would encourage other
Communist countries to choose their own particular paths to democratic
socialism, some no doubt more autocratic and more conservative, and others
more radical and more liberal, perhaps even more capitalistic. All would be
racing against time to prevent decay, recapture the popular imagination and
restructure their economies more in keeping with the global society, in which
unification would be founded on diversity instead of a single ideology.
To explain his stance to the West, Gorbachev outlined his ideas in greater
detail (Gorbachev, 1987). From the mid-1970s, the country had began to lose
momentum, economic failures had become more frequent, and unresolved
problems had multiplied, so that the economy lost ground to other countries
because of the high cost of production, waste of resources, energy and
manpower, poor quality products, gross mismanagement and parasitical attitu-
des.
Eulogizing and servility were encouraged; the needs and opinions of ordinary people, of
the public at large, were ignored. In the social sciences scholastic theorization was
encouraged and developed, but creative thinking was driven out of the social sciences and
superfluous and voluntarist assessments and judgments were declared indisputable truths.
(Ibid, 21)
At some administrative levels there emerged a disrespect for the law and encouragement
of eyewash and bribery, servility and glorification, working people were justly indignant
at the behaviour of people who, enjoying trust and responsibility, abused power,
suppressed criticism, made fortunes, and in some cases [indulged in crime]. (Ibid, 23)
To put the economy in order, tighten up discipline, raise the level of organiza-
tion and responsibility, and to catch up in areas where the country lagged
behind, perestroika was needed - a profound structural reorganization of the
economy, reconstruction of its material base, new technologies, investment
policy changes, higher standards of management, and openness to activate the
human factor, to take notice of people, the public, to energize them, wake them
up, make them truly active and concerned, get them involved, to renovate
society, lift the individual spiritually, give moral strength, and to ensure that
everyone felt as if he were master of the country.
We are seeking to make the whole intellectual potential of society and all the potentialities
of culture work to mold a socially active person, spiritually rich, just and conscientious.
An individual must know and feel that his contribution is needed, that his dignity is not
being infringed upon, that he is being treated with trust and respect. (Ibid, 30)
and control of property (Cohen and Neuvel, 1989, 123). Gorbachev's brave
words did not halt the continuing economic slump and declining living
standards, environmental blight, housing shortages, poor public services and
health care (Schultz and Rafferty, 1990), rising crime, growing black markets
and speculation, the stubbornness of the serokratiia (aging mediocrities),
increased deficit spending and inflation, and the obstructions of the command-
and-administer system. Already by the late 1980s,
Various agencies are simply ignoring new laws designed to force state enterprises from
Moscow's tutelage, contriving new directives in the guise of reform, denying licenses to
aspiring cooperatives and individual firms or suffocating them with excessive taxation
and regulations, devising technicalities to deprive peasants of their new right to lease land,
and imposing more restrictions on local markets. (Cohen and Neuvel, 1989, 26-27)
oriented administrative styles. If anything, the Cultural Revolution had made the
situation much worse by terrifying public officials into inaction, disrupting
organizations, replacing experienced with ill-prepared, inexperienced admini-
strators, and reducing state performance.
The coincidental deaths in 1976 of Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and Zhu De
shook the party into remedial action. The surviving leadership, more pragmatic,
having been both beneficiaries and victims of the system, (Tsou, 1986, 303),
resolved under Deng Xiaoping on the modernization of the Chinese economy
and society and "changing" all methods of management, actions and thinking
"inconsistent with modernization" (Falkenheim, 1980, 5). While paying lip-ser-
vice to Mao's thoughts and deed, egalitarianism was to be abandoned; so too
was collectivization in agriculture in favor of a new (household) agricultural
responsibility system, part of a "socialist commodity economy" incorporating a
modified, controlled market system. Privatization was to be extended into other
economic sectors. The major emphasis was to be placed on technological
modernization, increased economic output, and administrative reform. The new
leadership knew only too well the dead hand of bureaucracy and realized that
economic enterprise was probably being stifled by state regimentation and
control. Even apart from freeing some of the economy from state direction,
administrative reform of itself should also improve economic performance by
reducing structural rigidities, institutionalized inertia, statist mentality (and the
bureaucratic centralism that went with it), and official misconduct. Furthermore,
administrative management (xingzheng guanli) would be separated or distin-
guished from economic management (jingji guanli) so as to reduce the "problem
of 'over-administration' resulting from reliance on inappropriate organizational
forms and methods which compel 'the mechanized adaptation' of economic
activities to 'administrative convenience, administrative channels and adminis-
trative systems'."
The result is to "confuse the flow of economic materials," disrupt "rational economic
ties," and cause "man-made disruptions and blockages." Such systems further lack both
flexibility and accountability, and "bearing responsibility neither for profits or losses"
engender waste and sluggish- ness. (Ibid, 7)
Although overlapping agencies have been merged or have been eliminated, they tend to
live on and to function under new titles and with their old divisions of labour. The
red-tape thus remains as long as ever. (Ibid, 141)
keeping with the sweeping changes that have been taking place in Chinese
society. The Chinese bureaucracy has strongly and successfully resisted im-
posed reforms designed to reduce its status power and position, to curb such
long cherished practices as tolerated corruption (tanwu), nepotism, guanxi
(influence peddling or use of connections), expectation of tributes, and protected
tenure, to tackle its rigid structure, obsolete practices, surplus employees and
waste of talent and to rid public administration of the many servile, decadent,
thieving, embezzling, bribe-taking, bumbling, complacent, lazy, and incompe-
tent officials who staff the state apparatus from top to bottom.
With the failure of the valiant 1982 reforms to make any appreciable impact,
yet another attempt at administrative modernization was launched in 1988 on
several fronts. First, the government took stronger action against corruption even
at the highest levels and instigated yet another public ethics campaign to remind
public officials (both party and state employees) of their duties and obligations,
public responsibilities and moral leadership. The reestablished Ministry of
Supervision (which had lapsed from 1959 to 1986) was strengthened throughout
the whole state apparatus to investigate and prevent corruption. Anti-corruption
centers were set up with hot lines all over the country to receive complaints and
new part-time neighborhood supervision committees were created to act as local
ombudsman offices. Public offices were requested to make their procedures and
processes known to their clientele (Yan, 1989).
Second, the government recognized the imperative need for administrative
and managerial training and education for public officials. Besides the 230 or so
management cadres institutes across the country that had been established to
train 27 million Chinese officials including a unique joint Sino-U.S. business
management project at Dalian, Liaoning province, the Organisation Department
set up the Chinese Training Center in 1988, and the new National Adminis-
trative Institute offered its first training course in November 1988 although it did
not officially open until late 1989. At the universities public administration
courses, which had lapsed from 1952 until 1981, were revived and Chinese
textbooks on public management soon followed (Chow, 1988).
Third, civil service reform was given priority although it was realized that the
intended creation of a proper merit system might take as long as thirty years and
progress would be slow. Nonetheless a start would be made through cutback
management of the 4 million civil servants and an overhaul of recruitment and
selection methods to be based on the principles of openness, equality and
competition, piloted by the high ranking Central Personnel Group which did not
flinch from seeking international advice. The new Ministry of Personnel,
established in 1988, would have the difficult task of reducing the nomenklatura,
separating political officials from career public servants, revamping the recruit-
ment, promotion, classification, appraisal and remuneration systems in the
career services, and generally maintaining and improving public sector condi-
tions of employment (Burns, 1989). The painstakingly revived "Provisional
Administrative Modernization in China 187
and the continued absence of the rule of law brought a relapse into bureaucratic
centralism with new economic problems added to the old (Prybyla, 1990, 16).
In the decade after Deng Xiaoping had launched his bold reforms at the 11th
Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party in December 1978, he had
achieved at least two of his four objectives (the institution of a contract
responsibility system in rural areas to replace collective farming and the revival
of individual business in the urban areas) but had only mixed success with the
other two (the devolution of greater authority to state enterprises and the reform
of the irrational price system), still creditable given his original starting point.
What he had not anticipated was rising inflation and unemployment, growing
inequality between the privileged (people with official connections, profiteers
and speculators, party entrepreneurs, and affluent peasants) and the common
people, foreign sanctions and economic retaliation against political repression,
the failures among individual businesses, and persistent bottlenecks in energy
and transportation (Chu-Yuan, 1989) and an austerity program that brought the
economy to the edge of recession in 1990. Nevertheless, his target of quadrup-
ling economic output by the end of the century would easily be met and would
not go the way of the 1958 Great Leap Forward which had not depended so
much on market discipline, after-tax profits, revenue-sharing, and foreign
exports. Deng's pragmatic managers may have replaced Mao's ideological
mobilizers (Li and White, 1988) but seemingly not their administrative culture.
Leviathan was as repressive as ever, the people as self-interested as ever, and the
Chinese version of Communism ("socialism with Chinese characteristics") had
become nationalist, atheistic, unsentimental Confucianism posing as social
public morality in a poor country desperately trying to catch up with the rest of
the world, but on its own terms which did not embrace capitalism, liberalism and
pluralism.
East Bloc reformers have admitted that the dictatorship of the proletariat led
by the monopolistic Communist Party still headed by the original revolutionary
generation and its chosen heirs had long been declining in legitimacy. It had
saddled new generations with a rigid, dogmatic, stagnant corrupt totalitarian
state which had alienated the masses, discouraged initiative and handicapped
development. It could not cling to power solely on the basis of its claim to
historical truth. The people had to be freed, trusted, respected, to be invigorated,
activated, energized, concerned, involved, to be spiritually enriched, to be
democratized, in Gorbachev's own words. Their enthusiasm, which had been
destroyed by bureaucratic centralism and unresponsive administrative planning,
had to be rekindled by allowing them to participate, contribute, profit, progress,
consume, and enjoy the fruits of their labors. But not too much, too far, too
quickly and not by abandoning the party, the central tenets of socialism,
collective interests, and the gains of the revolution. The weaknesses of
Communism should not permit the counter-revolutionaries to return nor should
they be interpreted as the inevitable failure of Communism. Mistakes could (and
should) be corrected and the ultimate aim of democratic socialism could be
achieved along different (but not capitalist) lines.
It is quite conceivable that the East Bloc will eventually abandon Commu-
nism and socialism. No doubt some countries like the former East Germany will
probably do so where Communism had been imposed on the masses without
winning over their hearts and minds. No doubt some Communist Parties as in
Hungary and Poland will renounce their aged revolutionary generation and
rename themselves to denote a break with the past. No doubt some Communist
Parties as in Italy and France out of power will revise and overhaul their
platforms to avoid the mistakes committed by Communist regimes and to
incorporate the new thinking of East Bloc reformers. None of this implies that
all will eventually switch to liberalism and capitalism. More likely, they will try
variations of the bird cage theory. They will attempt to get the best out of both
worlds. They will probably use the administrative state to restrain license,
libertarianism, individualism, exploitation and excess and to impose national
interests, collective obligations, social welfare, and equal opportunity. Then they
will be confronted with problems similar to those experienced by the Chinese
reformers, namely:
despite once being the leader in political and economic reforms in Eastern
Europe. Its citizens had been the most free, possibly the wealthiest and most
innovative. Yet in 1989, it found itself behind other East Bloc countries. It too
had runaway inflation, large foreign debts, useless public projects (e.g. a
nickel-alloy plant in Macedonia never used), regional inequalities (300 percent
as between Slovenia and the poorer Serbia) and a Communist Party that no
longer was holding the country together. It was trying to work its way to a freer
economy without abandoning its socialist tenets, but this "tinder box of Europe"
was apparently disintegrating into regional factions. These examples could well
mean that
The inefficiencies and imbecilities of socialist economies are so complex and interconnec-
ted that reform can come to seem a hopeless task. Clearly, it is politically and
administratively impossible to put everything right at once. And yet, it might seem, unless
you put everything right at once nothing will work...(The Economist, 1990, 21)
Part of the problem was that economists knew both worlds well but they had
been of little help in devising strategies for the transition from one to the other
and in comprehending the nature of mixed systems and how they differed from
the pure or ideal models on either side. Immediate or instantaneous transition
was impractical and would be chaotic, although some countries, seeing the mess
made of mixed systems, believed they did not have much to lose by a "big
bang". Otherwise, transition has to proceed in stages.
But, how many stages? Over what time period? With what coming in which stage? Are
there "clusters" of systemic changes which make sense? Is there a logical order of
progression for the clusters?...What sort of unemployment and retraining system should
be in place, and when? What sort of bureaucracy is needed to ensure a smooth transition?
(Hewett, 1989, 19)
Typically reformers are clear that enterprises will only economize on resources and
genuinely strive to ascertain and satisfy customer needs if they are forced to finance their
operations and service debts out of receipts. That implies a banking system acting as the
major mechanism for financial intermediation. But how will the state exercise its
ownership rights without unduly interfering in enterprise operations, effectively blunting
the force of market incentives? If somehow that problem is worked out and profit-maximi-
zing enterprises are operating with - among other things - the right to hire and fire, and
the right to set their own prices, then how will this version of socialism differ from some
of the social democratic versions of capitalism? (Ibid)
Perhaps, the reformers are pursuing will o' the wisps, mixed systems of
decentralized socialism "inherently prone to micro economic inefficiency and
macro economic instability" (The Economist, 1990, 16) or just slightly more
collectivized versions of Western mixed welfare economies.
The Bird Cage Theory and Market Socialism 193
The emergence of mixed systems has given rise to studies to explain how and
why they differ from more traditional orthodox ideal polar systems. These
accept that they are a new fact of public life, a new phenomenon in organization
theory and practice and they cannot as yet be fitted into traditional studies
(Hankiss, 1990). They show that mixed systems do achieve what they were
designed to do, that is, they do increase productivity, efficiency and effective-
ness, they show greater enterprise, initiative, and verve, they reduce bureaucratic
centralism and the dysfunctions of central planning, they get things done quicker
and cheaper, they provide greater incentives and rewards and they reduce
bottlenecks and delays. On the other hand, they make for greater external
dependence, inequality, opportunism, immorality and corruption, they involve
value ambiguity and confusion, they encourage the formation and perpetuation
of paternalistic hegemonies and fiefdoms, they result in tax evasion, financial
deceit, fragmentation, spoils, and subsystem optimization, subinfeudation
(Boisot and Child, 1988, 514), and nepotism, and they dampen long term
objectives and risk-taking.
In mixed systems, enterprise managers are given the responsibility for
performance but denied legitimate authority for activating it. They are caught
between "the competing claims of a tax-maximizing state and a welfare-maximi-
zing workforce" (Ibid, 517). They cannot release themselves from the grip of
government bureaucracy and act entrepreneurially and their rationality, discre-
tion and internal cohesion is destroyed. Indeed, "inability to codify an economi-
cally rational and unified set of enterprise objectives...opens the door to
constant renegotiations and the personalization of power relationships between
superior and subordinate organizations" (Ibid, 521). The presence of fiefdoms
and clans (as opposed to bureaucracies and markets) makes administrative
reform even more difficult than otherwise it would be. There is likely to be more
resistance from competing vested interests, more conniving at avoidance and
evasion by institutional fixers, more variety and more oddity in the adminis-
trative system, and more sympathy with authoritarian administrative traits that
block reforms unacceptable to the clearly identifiable political establishment.
The central issue is whether reforms of bureaucratic centralism are possible
without ending in a complete muddle which may feed counter-revolution or if
carried through to their logical conclusion, the self-liquidation of Communism.
Half-hearted measures have failed in the past. More radical systemic reform
which "is a very arduous and usually painful undertaking, a wrenching
institutional, intellectual, and moral experience" (Prybyla, 1990, 9) may be
attempting the impossible, namely, the reconcilation of administrative command
and free markets without privatizing property, freeing prices, ending job
security, changing the bureauratic mindset, embracing bourgeois values, and
liberalizing politics. Perhaps there can be no middle ground between plan or
market and that the whole attempt by socialist ideologues to develop mixed
systems may be close to a waste of time (Ibid, 13) and the equivalent futility as
194 10. Reforms in the East: Retreat from Bureaucratic Centralism
trying to square the circle. Only the next decade will tell, if the reformers can
still stay in business. Meantime, continued economic decline fed political,
social, ethnic and religious unrest. On the one side, diehards were insisting on
reimposing authoritarian Communism and on the other there was a distinct
possibility that public dissent might boil over into counter-revolution, chaos and
anarchy and a return (or reemergence) of popular authoritarian fascistic
governments. Much depended on whether reforms enabled a peaceful transition
to capitalism or socialism or whatever mixed systems might pragmatically
emerge out of all the experimentation.
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References 195
Western Europe was the cradle of the modern administrative state and most of
the key features of modern public administration were institutionalized first in
Western European countries. Ever since, it has been the major inspiration of
administrative experimentation and reform and its administrative exports can be
found all over the world. Despite the excesses of Nazism and Fascism, people
still continued to put great faith in the ability of the administrative state to deal
with most societal problems providing it was placed under strict constitutional,
legal and political controls to safeguard individual freedom and rights. Between
1950 and 1975, they believed they had found the happy medium of the mixed
enterprise, social democratic welfare stare, until growing structural unemploy-
ment became apparent and world-wide recession squeezed their economies.
Rising unemployment increased the welfare bill which was resented by those
paying taxes out of their shrinking real incomes. Inflation, industrial unrest and
structural readjustment further divided haves from have-nots while overloaded,
stressed governments groped with stagflation, rising political dissent, terrorism,
indebtedness and international instability.
After a generation of coping quite well, things seemed to be falling apart.
Perhaps post-industrial society was becoming ungovernable. Governments could
not command sufficient resources to meet all their commitments let alone their
promises. Public confidence in public institutions was declining fast and weird
fringe groups were defying convention. Government was now being seen not as
part of the solution but as part of the problem. Increased public intervention had
been permitted because it was supposed to result in increased public benefits.
Instead, it seemed that rising public expenditures were being spent on needlessly
expensive overheads, parasitic bureaucrats, wasteful programs, and inefficient
public organizations. After all, neither the warfare or the welfare state had
emphasized efficiency, effectiveness and value for money. Perhaps greater
benefits might be gained by redirecting resources to more productive and
efficient private organizations that could better service the public directly.
Whatever government was in office faced the dilemma whether to react along
fairly well-established lines that had been developed since postwar reconstruc-
tion or to strike out in bold new directions. The opposition could always promise
something radically different but if brought into government or taking over
government, would it be capable of doing something different or would it
198 11. Reforms in the West: Changing Administrative Values
marginally adjust what everyone had grown used to? The balance was held by
floating middle class voters who would not go for something too radical, like
market socialism or anything more left wing than that, such as industrial
democracy (which meant more power to militant trade unions) or centralized
planning or more nationalization, state enterprise and state intervention, but
would not give up full employment underwritten by' public spending, state
welfare, social reforms and a free labor movement. They might welcome lower
taxes, less welfare, less state regulation and intervention but how far would they
be willing to roll back the state altogether, to reduce the public sector and
expand private enterprise, decentralize state activities and privatize many state
ventures? How many would embrace the rising anti-statist sentiment that called
for smaller if not small anorexic government and tight restraints on leviathan
(James, 1987) and used butcher-shop metaphors (Reich, 1987, 112) to radically
cut the administrative state? Nobody knew, only that the electorate was so
dissatisfied with worsening economic fortunes, it was prepared to dump
whoever was in power, even long reigning governments such as Sweden's
Social Democrats who had held office since 1933. Actually in most of Western
Europe, few were willing or able to depart much from the status quo, except in
the United Kingdom where the need was probably the greatest and where the
demands for a stronge managerialist approach to the public sector was the
highest (Governance, 1990).
appointed the Fulton Committee (1966-1968) and been presented with a radical
enough set of proposals to shake up Whitehall. However, Whitehall had
managed to outmaneuver the Fulton Committee which had not gone far enough
in recognizing that civil service reform alone fell far short of a thorough review
of the whole operation of the administrative state in the United Kingdom
(Hennessy, 1989). When reform did come, it came not from the radical left but
from the radical right in 1979 in the person no less than Conservative Prime
Minster Margaret Thatcher. She was resolved to end the prevailing consensus
about the role of the state and embark on radical reforms - to roll back the state,
reduce state intervention, diminish the public sector, overhaul the machinery of
government and reform Whitehall, i.e. no less than a transformation of British
administrative culture as a crucial ingredient of the reconstruction of British
society.
During Britain's gloomiest days in the 1970s, Whitehall had been accused of
everything from committing treason (the spy scandals) to being an unworthy
ruling class (Kellner and Crowther-Hunt, 1980). A retired civil servant told of
thwarted attempts to save public money within and gained notoriety (Chapman,
1978). Public imagination was later fired by a popular T.V. series, Yes, Minister
which first appeared in January 1980, about how civil servants supposedly ruled
their political masters. This point had been made countless times before by
outgoing Cabinet ministers, and repeated by one of the Thatcher Government's
incoming ministers as follows:
I had general advice on every political issue - but no analysis of how each part of the
machine operated, why it operated in that way, and how much it cost...If options are
called for, the usual response is to submit the least attractive in political terms, the easiest
to achieve in administrative terms, and with the minimum effect on those putting them
forward...(Kellner and Crowther-Hunt, 1980, 286-7)
The Thatcher Government was determined to break free from Whitehall's grip
by taking full command of public policy, devising its own options and generally
diminishing the role, functions and size of the public bureaucracy. It was finally
to end political ineffectiveness in administrative reform and development.
Mrs. Thatcher did not consider herself part of the Whitehall Establishment
and was contemptuous of it. She came from a middle class business background
which valued commerce and competitive capitalism, self-reliance and self-ini-
tiative and scorned undeserved privilege, coddling and the cult of the aristocratic
amateur. She was a conviction not a consensus politician and surrounded herself
with like-minded advisors who shared her view that Whitehall was a morass of
waste, bureaucracy and over-government, and that Britain's prestige and
position in the international community could only be restored by ending the
middle-of-the-road policies so beloved by the Whitehall Establishment. Instead,
she wanted people in office not just committed to changing Britain but capable
of doing so in radical, unconventional ways by rolling back the state, restructur-
200 11. Reforms in the West: Changing Administrative Values
(a) Retrenchment. The original freeze on new hiring in the civil service was
only an expedient and it had at first only marginal effect. Its real impact was
psychological. The government showed that it meant business. The freeze was
announced without prior consultation with the public service unions as had been
customary. It was coupled with a noticeable decline in the real income of public
employees and a falling behind in comparison with the private sector, as a result
of the government's rejection in 1980 of the fair comparability pay system that
had been in effect for a quarter of a century. Further, before pay negotiations
could open cash limits were to be placed on the civil service wage bill within
which any settlement had to be contained as a move to encourage productivity
and cut staff. Clearly in future material rewards would be much higher outside
Tackling the Whitehall Establishment 201
(b) Raynerism. Mrs. Thatcher brought into the Cabinet Office a chief executive
of one of Britain's most successful businesses, Derek Rayner, to conduct a series
of detailed efficiency scrutinies into the work of government departments.
Rayner had previously fought against paperasserie and red-tape (Rayner, 1975)
and in the previous Conservative government he had been head of defense
procurement. He brought with him a reputation for dynamic management and a
strong appreciation of economy, productivity, efficiency, effectiveness and
value for money. His surveys were to go beyond the usual management services'
approach and cost-reduction exercises. They were to be government activity
reduction inquiries which had to answer three questions: "What is it for? What
does it cost? What value does it add?" It was quite apparent that in Whitehall
managerialism had been neglected, that initiatives were stifled and that cost-
consciousness was largely absent. In a Cabinet paper in April 1980, Rayner
urged more emphasis on managerial abilities and initiatives to eliminate waste,
first to get rid of needless paperwork, then improving the way government
activities were performed, and then changing the education and experience of
career civil servants to become real managers (Hennessy, 1989, 595). Convinced
that Whitehall contained much talent that was being wasted, and that insiders
were best equipped to examine the resources being used, the scrutinies were to
be cooperative and participative directed at getting results. By the time Rayner
returned to business toward the end of 1982, some 130 scrutinies had saved
202 11. Reforms in the West: Changing Administrative Values
16,000 positions and some £200 million in operating costs. He was succeeded
by another successful business figure and government confident, Robin Ibbs.
By that time, Raynerism had been institutionalized in the Efficiency Unit
attached to the new Management and Personnel Office in the Cabinet Office,
and the Financial Management Initiative Unit, a joint Treasury-M.P.O. body
consisting of three officials and four outside management consultants to
examine on-going proposals for improving management and financial accoun-
tability under the Financial Management Initiative of May 1982. The function of
the Efficiency Unit was to promote scrutinies rather than to conduct them,
scrutinies designed to increase productivity and make the civil service more cost
conscious. In Rayner's own words,
...The purpose of each scrutiny is action, not study. It is therefore:
* to examine a specific policy or activity, questioning all aspects of the work normally
taken for granted;
* to propose solutions to any problems and to make recommendations to achieve savings
and increase efficiency and effectiveness; and
* to implement agreed solutions, or begin their implementation, within 12 months of the
start of the scrutiny (Harrison and Gretton, 1987, 12).
By 1985, some 300 scrutinies had identified possible savings of £600 million a
year but as it took between two to five years to implement the savings, it was
estimated by the National Audit Office that by April 1986 some £1 billion had
been saved for a total scrutiny cost of £5 million.
The scrutinies had led to widespread changes in management and manage-
ment information services rooting out "the absurdities, anomalies and plain
fossiled [sic] practices" (Hennessy, 1989, 601). The scrutiny process was later
extended to quangos and local government services but again without the more
advanced human services management practices that Rayner personally ad-
vocated. They were lost on Ibbs' Efficiency Unit which revised the rules to
accentuate annual management improvements, value for money and managerial
initiatives not just in the running costs of government but also in government
policies and programs under the new Financial Management Initiative (F.M.I.)
policy.
in the production of industrial and commercial goods and services, whether their
prices should be set solely by the market, and how much of the economy should
be in public hands. The Thatcher Government preferred a minimal role for the
state and resort to more indirect means to control public utilities and natural
monopolies. Its objective was to halve the 10 per cent of the G.D.P. in the hands
of government owned enterprises and to switch about £10 billion in capital
assets and over 600,000 jobs to the private sector before 1990, something it
would have achieved had its denationalization of the water and power industries
not been delayed.
The Thatcher Government concentrated on the denationalization of public
enterprises and the sale of public owned housing to tenants. It began in its first
year by selling off 5 per cent of British Petroleum and other small holdings, in
Ferranti and Fairey Engineering, for example. In the second year, it sold off over
half of British Aerospace and the following year Amersham International, Cable
and Wireless, National Freight, and British Sugar Corporation, raising £1.276
billion in three years, and thereafter the rate increased with the sale of Britoil,
Enterprise Oil, Inmos, Sealink, Jaguar, Trustee Savings Bank, Associated
British Ports, and British Telecom for £4.194 billion in the following three
years. The National Bus Company was split up and sold off in pieces. British
Telecom was sold off in one piece to face competition from Mercury, a
subsidiary of Cable and Wireless, under the regulatory Office of Telecommuni-
cations (OFTEL). British Gas was also sold off in one piece under the regulatory
OFGAS in 1986 and others to follow were aircraft and defense related
industries, British Airways, British Airports Authority, Rolls Royce, Short
Brothers, Unipart, Royal Ordinance Shipbuilding and parts of British Steel and
British Leyland. This way, the Thatcher Government rid itself of major
administrative headaches running state owned industries, shifted economic
power and enterprise from the state to the private sector, and enlarged private
ownership and investment. Privatization had reduced public sector borrowing
requirements and government involvement in enterprise decision-making, eased
problems of public sector pay determination, and widened share ownership but
whether it had succeeded in improving performance, competition and economic
efficiency was debatable (MacAvoy et al., 1989).
The Thatcher Government also encouraged public sector organizations to
contract out whatever they could to private business and to privatize public
housing and land. Except in such areas as office maintenance and cleaning,
street cleaning and garbage collection, hospital laundry, and catering, the
response was disappointing. In contrast, the sale of public owned housing and
other property assets was greeted enthusiastically. In the first six years
(1979-1985) sales netted over £8 billion, increasing owner occupancy from 56 to
62 per cent.
Altogether by 1989 the Thatcher Government had raised some £70 billion
from sales of public assets. It was about to double that with the privatization of
204 11. Reforms in the West: Changing Administrative Values
the powerful London County Council. It established the local government Audit
Commission in 1982 to scrutinize local authority costs and services (and to
highlight local authority deficiencies). Most importantly, it radically altered
central government financing of local government services by imposing strict
limits on local government ability to raise and spend money, cutting financial
support to local government and penalizing local governments which spent more
than the Thatcher Government wished. The 1984 Rates Act brought rate
capping, the first time that the central government had ever restricted local rate
revenues. By 1987 about one-fifth of all current spending was under direct
central government control. The 1980 Local Government Planning and Land
Act had already capped capital spending or so it had been intended although
poor drafting had allowed local governments to exploit the rules to avoid or shift
the incidence of prescribed expenditure. More controversially, in Scotland it
abolished the traditional rates (property tax) system and replaced it with a
community charge (poll tax), and then in 1990 extended the new poll tax system
to England and Wales. This time it seemed to have overreached itself politically
and it was forced by adverse public opinion to slightly modify the new system.
Nonetheless, undoubtedly local government had become less independent while
the power of central government had been "restructured rather than reduced"
(Parkinson, 1987, 169).
There had been no preconceived plan at first behind all these changes other
than to reduce state expenditures by diminishing the role of the state and making
public sector organizations more efficient. But once these changes had been
made the Thatcher Government could prescribe a broader based policy for local
government than improving their performance and making them more financial-
ly responsible in a national context. It had encouraged local authorities to sell
public housing to tenants but why should local authorities be in the housing
industry altogether? For problem areas, the central government would establish
Housing Action Trusts and housing accounts in local authorities would be
separately administered. Future central government subsidies would have to be
traded off. This way, local authorities would be encouraged to get out of the
housing industry altogether or find alternative sources of housing income from
the private sector. Similarly, local authorities would be pressured out of running
the schools directly, and new city technology colleges would be established
outside local jurisdiction. Local authorities would be compelled to adopt
competitive tendering for all kinds of general services such as refuse collection,
street cleaning, vehicle maintenance, office cleaning, and catering and operated
by direct service organizations with separate trading accounts which made
prescribed rates of return. They would have to overhaul their operating
procedures, internal structures and management capacities to ensure clear
accountability and improved performance. Underlying these reforms was the
expectation that the public would demand clear demonstration of better
performance, that the public would participate more directly in local government
206 11. Reforms in the West: Changing Administrative Values
(f) Civil service reform. Mrs. Thatcher had little love for the public bureau-
cracy in general and the Whitehall Establishment in particular. She believed that
civil servants exercised too much influence over public policy and that the
public sector unions were much too powerful. From the start, the Thatcher
Government sought to put both back in their place. It reduced the power of the
trade unions and asserted its authority in public sector industrial relations by
linking concessions to productivity gains, defeating and punishing strikers, and
undermining national pay bargaining through regional differentials. As to civil
service reform, it brought in outsiders to policy-making positions and reshuffled
senior civil servants around. It strengthened the Cabinet Office against tradi-
tional Treasury control. It set out to refute the myths of Yes, Minister. When in
1981 the Treasury reabsorbed the Civil Service Department which had been
originally created to implement the Fulton Committee recommendations,
management and organization, overall efficiency and personnel policy, includ-
ing recruitment and training, were reserved for a new Management and
Personnel Office (M.P.O.) within the Cabinet Office. The M.P.O. sought to open
up top positions to high flyers and "can-dos," to put emphasis on performance
and results, not style and appearances, and to launch a "new professionalism
which will secure better value for money.. .focusing on performance and outputs
and individual responsibility for securing desired results" (Fry, 1988, 1). M.P.O.
was reabsorbed in the Treasury in 1987.
Plans had already been devised by the Efficiency Unit to reshape the
structure of the civil service more upon Swedish lines with a small core of
policy-making departments (ministries) sponsoring a number of attached or
contracted free-standing management agencies that would be held accountable
for operations according to set policy and resource guidelines but free to devise
their own arrangements and "to recruit, pay, grade and structure in the most
effective way" (Efficiency Unit, 1988, 9). The civil service had become "too big
and diverse to manage as a single entity" and was "bound to develop in a way
which fits no single operation effectively". Decisions were "structured to fit
everything in general and nothing in particular" and seen as "a constraint rather
than as a support" (Ibid, 5). The practical disadvantages of a unified civil service
outweighed the advantages, especially beyond Whitehall.
* The work of each department had to be organized to enhance the efficient delivery of
policies and services.
* Departmental staff had to possess relevant experience and skills for their tasks.
* Real and sustained pressure for improvement had to be exerted continuously.
Tackling the Whitehall Establishment 207
into public managers thereby linking costs and outputs. In the words of a
Cabinet Office official:
Today, a management revolution is already underway in the Civil Service which will
greatly increase its effectiveness...This is not just concerned with cost cutting and
increased efficiency...It involves targeting investment more closely to identified needs
and ensuring that these needs are met in the most effective way. It also means making the
best use of people, and so improving personnel management as well as financial
management. (Fry et al„ 1988, 429-30)
This was not the view of many observers who could not identify any such
revolution under way.
The Thatcher government has had an impoverished concept of management as revealed
by several telltale signs: a mechanistic view of control, the disregard for civil servants'
morale, and a "costs" mentality. For this government the most basic elements of
management - people, dynamic organization, motivation, leadership - often have been
left out, replaced by costs and an archaic command and control mystique of leaders and
docile followers, coupled uneasily with the belief that recalcitrant civil servants must be
brought to heel. (Williams, 1988, 123)
of public bureaucracy and private enterprise. But there was "very little evidence
of real reduction in scale in public service provision and only some of rivalry
and multi-organizational structures as a developing trend in public service
provision" (Lane, 1987, 168). Despite the rhetoric, the Thatcher Government
was still running the state with much the same bureaucratic instruments and
administrative culture of the previous century. As far as it was concerned,
managerialism was still insufficiently appreciated.
Nonetheless, no other country in Western Europe came anywhere near close
to such sweeping radical reforms of its public sector. Several tried privatization
but not to such an extent; they preferred to improve the operational performance
of state owned enterprises instead. Others totally revamped their local govern-
ment systems but did not touch the central machinery of government while a few
rearranged their central machinery of government but left intact their local
government systems. Almost every country tried decentralization, deregulation,
cutback management, and debureaucratization but all were quickly disillusioned
as the results were so little for the enormous political price governments paid for
their politicization of public service (Leemans, 1987). The Netherlands did
embark on a concerted course of reducing the size of the public sector through
retrenchment (Stronck and Vaubel, 1988) and privatization, even of the Dutch
Post Office. Italy went in for severe salary cuts yet like so many others hoped to
humanize public bureaucracy despite demoralization. Sweden preferred simplifi-
cation, deregulation and debureaucratization, tried freeing local governments
from central controls, worked to replace an "authority culture" with a "service
culture," and introduced budget reforms as did Belgium and Western Germany
(United Nations, 1988). Spain and Portugal advanced democratization of public
administration while Denmark and Ireland opted for better public services
through managerialism and performance monitoring. France attempted to reduce
(deprivilege) the elitism of the Grand Corps (its administrative elite) and resist
unpopular or heavyhanded administrative initiatives, and to debureaucratize
through managerialism and cost-effectiveness (Rouban, 1989). In Greece, the
Papandreou Government attempted to revamp the public bureaucracy, professio-
nalize the public service and modernize administrative operations. Thus,
Western European countries continued to be a rich source of administrative
modernization and reforms with a variety possibly unmatched elsewhere
(Hofmeister, 1988).
But in the 1980s, it had been the Thatcher Government in the United
Kingdom that attracted most attention because of its boldness, radicalism and
apparent success against an entrenched system that had previously defied all
attempts to change the pervasive administrative culture. It was apparent success
because, as in all these things, there was more rhetoric than action, more bluster
than progress, more continuity than departure, and at best, administrative reform
was really marginal or peripheral in reshaping Britain. As for reshaping Western
Europe, the 1992 integration of the European Economic Community and the
Shaking Up Federal Government Management 211
possible disintegration of the East Bloc would probably be more profound. None
of the countries, not even the United Kingdom, had rolled back the state to any
appreciable extent or indeed at all. While they had tried to contract, public
expenditures on defense, welfare services, environmental protection, and
education and research had risen faster and local government expenditures had
risen faster than central government expenditures. Despite retrenchment, privati-
zation, budget controls, managerialism, revitalized state-owned enterprises and
improved public sector performance, the public sector continued to take a
greater not lesser portion of G.D.P. What was likely to be more fundamental and
more successful was the slow shift of administrative values away from
impersonal bureaucracy toward a more personal managerialism particularly in
the newly privatized organizations. It seemed as though the message had finally
gotten through certainly among O.E.C.D. members that their administrative
cultures would have to change if they were to cope with the challenges of the
21st century.
business footing; it was just too big, too costly, too inefficient, too unwieldy, too
poorly managed. The Reagan Administration was determined to reduce govern-
ment costs and improve public management with the powers allowed the
President under the amended Reorganization Act of 1949. Important issues
would be the budget and budgetary processes, the proper scope and organization
of government, the respective roles of public, private and non profit sectors in
delivering public goods and services, and the role of public servants in public
policy making (March and Olsen, 1989, 73).
Until 1920, federal government organizations could do what they wanted
administratively under Congressional guidance, an archaic and chaotic situation
which had led management-minded President Theodore Roosevelt to appoint the
first study of federal management (Keep Commission 1905-07) and to request
presidential powers to improve federal administrative arrangements, a point
strongly endorsed by President Taft's Commission on Economy and Efficiency
(Cleveland, 1911-12). Proposals for a manageable executive, an integrated
budget and an audit system (validated during World War I) were finally adopted
in the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921 which provided for the U.S. General
Accounting Office (G.A.O.) and a Bureau of the Budget specifically charged
with preparing an executive budget and studying the economy and efficiency of
federal management. Placed in the Treasury Department instead of the White
House, B.O.B. ignored its management functions. Following President Roose-
velt's Committee on Administrative Management (Brownlow 1936-7) to streng-
then presidential control of federal government administration and management,
B.O.B. was transferred to the new Executive Office of the President in 1939 and
its managerial functions were strengthened just in time to enable B.O.B. to
exercise some well needed management leadership during World War II.
But by 1949 the first Hoover Commission was again critical of severe
managerial shortcomings and lack of administrative leadership and the second
Hoover Commission (1955) repeated its calls for a proper managerial president.
B.O.B. itself recognized that it had to provide greater managerial leadership but
its budget activities swamped its managerial initiatives. Several studies of
B.O.B. in the late 1960s recommended its reorganization and in 1970 it was
retitled Office of Management and Budget to emphasize its role in management.
For a short time, its management side was reinvigorated with a push to adopt
management by objectives (M.B.O.) only to deteriorate rapidly after Watergate
and the shortlived Presidential Management Initiatives (P.M.I.) of President
Ford. By the end of the 1970s, President Carter was relying more on the Federal
Personnel Management Project, the new Office of Personnel Management, the
Senior Executive Service, and the Inspectors General than on the O.M.B. based
Presidential Reorganization Project (P.R.P.). The P.R.P. had begun as an
exercise in management improvement but had fallen foul of Congress and
internal bureaucratic politics and the ill-fated 1977 O.M.B. Circular A-11
prematurely imposing zero-based budgeting (Z.B.B.). Meantime, Congress had
214 11. Reforms in the West: Changing Administrative Values
(a) 1981 The President's Council on Integrity and Efficiency. First of all, in
March 1981 he brought the agency Inspectors-General whose job was to prevent
fraud, abuse and mismanagement together with the central management control
agencies (O.P.M., Treasury, Attorney General, and Federal Bureau of Investiga-
tion) under the rubric of O.M.B. in the President's Council on Integrity and
Efficiency (P.C.I.E.) and made it the focal point of combatting fraud and abuse
and improving overall federal government management. The P.C.I.E., was to
initiate projects with government-wide scope and application and undertake
special activities to increase professional expertise and to share information on
proven tools and techniques. It operated through standing committees represent-
ing the major interests of the I.G.s. Among its longer term projects were:
(b) 1982 The President's Private Sector Survey on Cost Control (Grace
Commission). President Reagan did not trust the federal bureaucracy to cure
itself. He wanted more than penny ante management changes. To get more
dramatic action he would put the fox in the chicken coop. Private business
executives would do just that. They would point out what was wrong with
government administration and how to put it right. He asked industrialist J. Peter
Grace to conduct an extensive inquiry into all aspects of federal government
operations. Grace called on the country's leading corporations and some 2,000
business executives altogether took part in a highly publicized investigation that
did just what the President expected it to do - to reveal just how wasteful,
inefficient and mismanaged the federal administration supposedly was. The
Grace Commission produced some 47 reports claiming that over $424 billion
could be saved in three years. Its final summary report, released in January 1984,
contained over 2,500 specific recommendations for eliminating programs,
selling off assets, cutting out waste, eliminating needless red-tape, and generally
transforming public management into business management.
Immediately, there were protests of foul play within the public administration
community (Goodsell, 1984, 2; Kelman, 1985), some of whom dubbed it the
"disgrace commission" for its shoddy work, wrong assumptions, and misconcep-
tions about government operations while the business community accused Grace
of being guilty of the same vices of management that he had accused federal
managers of (Business Week, June 10, 1986, 68). Its findings were submitted to
the Cabinet Council on Management and Administration (which had been
established in September 1982 to bridge policy and implementation in all
Shaking Up Federal Government Management 217
managerial initiatives) chaired by the President who had the White House Office
of Cabinet Affairs review them. During the 1984 election the Citizens Against
Government Waste organized by Grace was set up to push for the adoption of
the Grace Commission proposals. After the election, the Grace Commission was
studied by the new Domestic Policy Council in the White House. Both houses of
Congress also formed caucuses to study the Grace Commission findings.
Official consideration was mandated in the Deficit Reduction Act of 1984 which
also required a review of their implementation in the president's management
report to Congress. The upshot of all this was that the President approved the
recommendations of the Domestic Policy Council, which accepted most of the
findings, and thereafter worked through O.M.B. with Congress for their
implementation. Three years afterwards, the White House claimed that 80 per
cent of the Grace Commission savings had been achieved.
(c) 1982 The President's Reform '88 Project. It was not President Reagan's
intention to do away with government but to make it work better. First, O.M.B.'s
budget process would cap agency spending and then make savings by techno-
logically upgrading management systems and merging operations. Stockman
was perturbed by the lack of financial and managerial accountability, the
antiquated financial processes and information systems, and the sheer com-
plexity of just tracking the federal government's money, property, and person-
nel. Resource control needed updated management systems in virtually every
area, as G.A.O.'s reports kept indicating. Further there now had to be a response
to the Federal Managers' Financial Integrity Act of 1982 which required annual
reports on the state of administrative and financial control, which in turn
required "an examination of the established structure; assignments of responsi-
bility; directives, plans and schedules; inventories of assessable units; vulner-
ability assessment and reports...of internal control evaluations; and summaries
of actions taken or planned" (Barkley, 1983, 3). A major part of the effort would
need to concentrate on long-neglected financial management systems. All this
became part of the President's Management Improvement Program, Reform '88,
a five year project to encompass all the major government-wide management
improvement initiatives, particularly financial management, credit management,
personnel management, property management, and information management.
(g) 1986 Small Agency Council. The smaller federal agencies mostly with
fewer than 500 employees formed their own organization to develop manage-
ment policies and practices on the P.C.M.I. model to deal with their particular
concerns and to obtain modifications in central control agency requirements.
The S.A.C. was represented on the P.C.M.I.
(h) 1987 Chief Financial Officer. As part of Reform '88, O.M.B.'s chair of
P.C.M.I. and head of its management side was appointed in July 1987 Chief
Financial Officer of the United States to assure consistency and adherence to
sound financial management principles throughout the federal government, to
provide leadership for financial plans and systems to assure appropriate
compatibility, controls, standards, reliability and effectiveness, and to improve
control over accounting, administrative and financial systems and management.
Later in the year, agencies designated a chief financial officer to sit on the new
Chief Financial Officer Council to deal with improvements in financial
management, specifically to implement the Joint Financial Management Im-
provement Program and "to reduce obsolete systems, eliminate redundant
systems, and make systems compatible so that financial information can readily
be exchanged, aggregated, and reported to all management levels in a timely
manner to support managerial decision-making." (U.S. Executive Office of the
President, 1989, 6-26)
(i) 1988 Office of Privatization. Although the federal government has pledged
itself since 1955 not to provide any product or service if it could be procured
from the private sector, it has moved slowly to divest its commercial activities
220 11. Reforms in the West: Changing Administrative Values
and public enterprises. Not surprisingly, much pressure was put on President
Reagan to privatize and the commission he appointed to look into the matter
enthusiastically endorsed privatization when it reported in March 1988. The
report had 78 specific recommendations and an Office of Privatization was
established in O.M.B. to manage privatization initiatives in coordination with
specially designated privatization officers in the agencies.
(k) 1988 Government of the Future Project. As his farewell, President Reagan
directed that a forward-looking view be taken of the shape of the federal
government in the year 2000 and asked what administrative and management
policies should be developed in advance to meet the challenge of the future. The
results were put into Management of the United States Government 1990 where
it was implied that a multi-year strategic management plan should be developed.
These eleven management initiatives of the Reagan Administration may not
have amounted singularly to much but altogether they started what may turn out
to be a quiet revolution in federal government management. It is their
cumulative impact that has to be assessed. No doubt much of what was done
would have been done without any presidential prompting. No doubt too much
reliance had been placed on an overburdened and otherwise preoccupied O.M.B.
Probably, too much had been focused on cost cutting and not enough on
efficiency, mismanagement and sleaze. Even O.M.B.'s severest critics had to
admit progress in standard ledger accounting, payroll standardization, cash and
credit management, information technology, and productivity measures. But
were these not too narrowly focused? While savings had been made, far greater
losses had occurred through gross agency mismanagement and political corrup-
tion.
Key federal management problems had not been tackled and while some
progress had been made, it had not been fast enough or broad enough. In some
cases, the new Presidential arrangements of the 1980s had made hardly any
impact at all. A General Accounting Office G.A.O. review in 1988 found mixed
results only, with failures in detecting the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance
Corporation's insolvency, defective management and safety oversight of
weapons complexes, inefficient tax processing, poor contract administration,
and other obvious management breakdowns (G.A.O., 1989a). In examining a
sample of civilian agency contracts, the G.A.O. reported in September 1989
Shaking Up Federal Government Management 221
They may even have taken federal government management in the wrong
direction (Campbell and Peters, 1988, 277). They certainly left "a crippled
federal government to his successor" (Kymlicka and Matthews, 1988, 99).
President Bush admitted as much when he promised shortly after taking office
to tackle some of the major scandals (defense management and procurement,
banking controls, nuclear safety regulation, civil aviation safety provisions)
resulting partly from deregulation and a laissez-faire attitude to regulatory
enforcement (Swann, 1988). But that he had to dwell in so much detail on
management matters was testimony to Reagan's initiatives, the new manage-
ment control devices in place, and the self-generating reform process that had
been institutionalized. O.M.B. would have to monitor management improve-
ments if only for the record. Unless wound up, the P.C.I.E., the P.C.M.I. and the
C.F.O.C. would move monthly on their agendas and new business. Without a
stronger O.M.B. leadership role, the efforts could well slacken unless a separate
Office of Federal Management were created to devise a multi-year strategic
management improvement plan, continue agency partnerships to modernize and
222 11. Reforms in the West: Changing Administrative Values
the contemporary President is the manager of the executive branch and cannot escape
judgment regarding that stewardship. His choice is not whether to be a manager; but
whether to be an effective or ineffective manager. Unfortunately, most recent Presidents
have chosen to be ineffective managers and this ineffectiveness has proven cumulative.
(Ibid)
Throughout the 1970s when the national predicament first became apparent,
inquiry after inquiry into the Australian public bureaucracy revealed that the
country lacked an energetic and imaginative administrative leadership capable
of generating enthusiasm for change. Fifty years had passed since the bureau-
cracy had shown such dynamism in public affairs during which there had only
been minor tinkering with a system that had obviously failed to keep up with
changing times. The managerial philosophies enshrined in the system were quite
outdated and inappropriate. In Victoria, the Bland inquiry pointed to the
isolation of the public service, major administrative staffing deficiencies,
outmoded attitudes and lack of initiative. In South Australia, the Corbett inquiry
commented on the discounting of productivity and efficiency. The Coombs
inquiry into the federal bureaucracy was critical of its aloofness from the public,
its unrepresentative composition, and general lack of managerial accountability
in a service that was excessively centralized, hierarchical, and resistant to
organizational change. The other inquiries were no less critical and iconoclastic
and together they constituted a serious indictment. Together, they advocated a
comprehensive reformulation of administrative principles and practices.
224 11. Reforms in the West: Changing Administrative Values
The time had passed for piecemeal, incremental reforms. Nothing short of
fundamental institutional reorganization and revitalization would suffice. The
whole public sector would have to be reconstructed if necessary from the outside
simply because too many on the inside seemed unwilling or incapable of
providing the necessary leadership and drive and anyway had proven too
resistant even to minor alternations and had obstructed change for too long.
Reassuring myths would have to give way to scientific assessments. Cherished
dogmas would have to be tested by performance. Existing practices would have
to be evaluated against possible better alternatives. Public organizations needed
to be better managed by their public executives. The public's business needed to
be handled in a more businesslike manner. The public sector had to give better
value for the public resources invested and altogether the rising costs of
government had to be halted. Above all, the condescension of the bureaucratic
elites, often bordering on arrogance, that made for hierarchical autocracy, rules
application without commonsense, rude, insensitive indifferent performance,
self-interest, inefficiency and incompetence, had to be ended. And it was to be
ended by a strong dose of managerialism, i.e. the public sector adoption of
theories and practices developed in private industry.
At first, there were few signs of the incipient managerial revolution in the
public service. The exposure of public maladministration, empire-building
(bloated staffing), bureaupathologies (elongated hierarchies, excessive rules,
uncommon sense), and more surprisingly, fraud and corruption, by adminis-
trative law reforms, ombudsman offices and new efficiency audits, along with
the customary public-service bashing of the mass media, was deliberately
exploited so that public and political support for reform could be rallied, that a
climate receptive to change would be created, and that there could be no further
tolerance of abuses (Wilenski, 1986). A new class of young technocrats was
advancing into positions of power and influence in all walks of life and was
rising to the challenge of turning the public sector around,. Still, the reforms
seemed somewhat along conventional lines and quite moderate. In the Hawke
(Labor) Government's administration reform policy statement (Commonwealth
of Australia, 1983), there was almost no mention of managerialism or managers
as such except in a general title (Ibid, 3) and a proposal to produce an annual
management improvement plan (Ibid, 7). The intention was to develop an
administration that would be more responsive and accountable to elected
politicians, that would be more efficient and effective, that would give all
citizens equal opportunity to compete for public employment, and that would
have a more streamlined and independent system for protecting staff rights,
through a new Senior Executive Service (S.E.S.), central resource allocation and
review (financial management improvement programs and plans - F.M.I.P.s
and program budgeting - P.P.B.S.) and new personnel policies, much on the
lines of the American, British and Canadian reforms. Indeed, the state govern-
Introducing New Style Public Managerialism Down Under 225
ments in New South Wales (Wran), South Australia (Tonkin), and Victoria
(Cain) had already prepared the way.
What was to be the big surprise was that traditionally anti-business Labor
governments looked to business, business consultants, business models, and
business practices for their inspiration, and took the wind right out of the
opposition's sails. Labor's slogan in the 1982 election campaign in Victoria had
actually been "To Run the State Like a Business" (Halligan and O'Grady, 1985,
41) and newly elected Premier Cain made plain the businesslike aspirations of
his government (Davis et al., 1989). Public administration had not been
operating its businesses as if they were businesses and the rest of the state sector
lacked the competence, efficiency and vitality of private enterprises. An
injection of the business approach would be a desirable stimulant to improving
public sector performance and raising the productivity of the public bureau-
cracy. So governments - Labor and non-Labor - sought the best business
advice they could get. They employed reputable business consultants and
multinational corporation experts in business and accounting methods to
investigate public organizations and produce management plans and strategies,
notably David Block who the Prime Minister described as the "toughest, leanest,
meanest, most efficient bloke in the private sector" (Canberra Times, June 19,
1987). They brought business managers into the higher echelons of the public
bureaucracy for policy direction and managerial direction. They insisted that
public organizations adopt and adapt business methods (or more businesslike
methods) in their operations. They redesigned and restructured the machinery of
government more on the lines of the best business practices. They demanded
that public administrators be managers skilled in scientific management,
speaking management language, practicing management skills, thinking in
managerial concepts, and working according to management models (cost
cutting, performance measures, management by objectives, computerization,
strategic management, efficiency, scrutiny). The aim was to develop a climate in
which public managers felt they had control over what they did, that they could
assume a "take-charge" mode, and take action on their own initiative, and to
build a supporting system that encouraged them and trusted them to act
promptly and take personal responsibility for what was done.
Despite practical differences and variations among seven government systems
(the federal and six states), the principles of public sector reform were quite
similar and very much along managerialistic lines.
* The Corporate board identity: the cabinet takes full command of manage-
ment decisions and policies, in consultation with relevant interests and on the
basis of informed analysis and advice; it is supported by cabinet committees,
particularly a priorities, planning and strategy committee that determines and
uses the budget as a planning instrument, a corporate plan for the whole
government; it employs experts and policy advisers independent of the
226 11. Reforms in the West: Changing Administrative Values
bureaucracy, and it hires and fires the chief executives of government bodies
and agencies; it stresses a purely instrumentalist role of public bureaucracy; it
curbs the public's right to know in preference to technical rationality;
* Streamlining the corporate organization: amalgamation and consolidation
of government bodies and agencies, rationalization of structures, elimination
of duplication and overlapping of activities; together with so-called inter-
departmental coordinating committees and institutionalized policy differen-
ces, to provide opportunities for improved budgetary and corporate manage-
ment processes and for savings from economies of scale, and speed decision-
making; enhance ministerial control; more coherent policy-making and more
integrated program delivery mechanisms;
* Managing or executive directors: ministers will take charge, run their
agencies, direct policy, influence attitudes, style and corporate culture,
improve communications, develop teamwork, and generally exercise a leader-
ship role (establish priorities, set directions and goals, make key strategic
decisions, assist in assessing performance and achievements); they enter into
annual performance contracts with their organizational heads which set out
targets and objectives and ensure that these correlate with the government's
broader priorities; they set fiscal limits;
* Service-wide financial and personnel management systems: central control
agencies (e.g. Public Service Boards) are reduced or abolished and replaced
by policy advising, monitoring agencies that allow operating agencies to take
full control of what they do providing they follow universal, standardized
guidelines and procedures, in the case of personnel, the merit system, and in
the case of finance, program budgeting, forward planning, performance
indicators and efficiency audits; the emphasis is on E.P.E.E. (economy,
productivity, efficiency, effectiveness) and redeployment of public resources
to where they can be used best; efficiency dividends, asset management,
staffing controls, economic forecasting;
* Managerial elitism: the S.E.S. is output oriented, proactive performance
management, mobile throughout the public sector through job rotation,
recruited laterally as necessary, compensated by evaluated performance,
rewarded for exceptional performance, management professionals, allowed to
manage and expected to manage with flexibility, risk, entrepreneurship and
the chance to refine management and policy advice skills, evaluate progress
and priorities, measure achievement against objectives;
* Debureaucratization: decentralization; flatten hierarchies; eliminate over-
regulation; reduce paperwork; institutionalize efficiency scrutinies; employ
rational procedures; simplify operations; integrate common services, share
locations, effect savings, adopt risk management concepts, delegate more, and
generally adopt more businesslike attitudes, reduce borrowing and cut costs;
sunset legislation; improved service at counter level;
Introducing New Style Public Managerialism Down Under 227
While retaining the public service principles of probity, accountability and fair
dealing, the new reform program was "aimed at applying a totally new
philosophy of sensible business practice and management flexibility to one of
the most rule-bound areas in the public sector...too long.. .relegated to a largely
228 11. Reforms in the West: Changing Administrative Values
untrained staff who have had to rely on horse and buggy procedures in their
dealings in increasingly competitive arenas" (Ibid, 3).
The approach of the reforms is to instil a confidence in government and industry, the
buyer and seller, understanding how each works; how the government can make best use
of the what the market can offer, and how the market can equip itself effectively to supply
to government. (Ibid)
The reform involved new guidelines for procurement planning, staged procure-
ment, the use of specifications, and post-offer negotiations, changes in legisla-
tion, detailing of performance measures, education of departments and business,
and professional training of procurement staff with the emphasis "on how to do
business well, not on how to avoid doing it badly" (Ibid, 31).
By 1987, the emphasis had been placed so much on managerialism that its
critics feared that administrative reform was in danger of being reduced to
managerial reform (Yeatman, 1987, 341), that the old Weberian iron cage was
being replaced by a new managerial iron cage of modernized red-tapism
(Yeatman and Bryson, 1987), that public administration would be retitled public
management (Painter, 1988, 1), and that sooner or later government itself would
be turned into a business. An intellectual counter-attack backed by public sector
professionals and public leaders not enamored with business practices together
with some loss of reform momentum prevented managerialism going that far but
the writing was clearly on the wall for public service traditionalists who feared
the triumph of technique over purpose, style over substance, Theory X over
Theory Y, public management over public service, politicization over public
accountability, internal priorities of budget management over external impacts
of program goals and outcomes, economic rationality over administrative
sensitivity. The toning down of some corporate reforms reconciled traditiona-
lists to the assimilation of irreversible changes.
These same points have been made about New Zealand's new style public
managerialism which was also adopted as a remedy to economic woes. As in
Australia, New Zealand's economy until the 1970s had been able to flourish
through favorable balance of payments for its primary products and ability to
raise loans to cover public sector expenditures. When the balance of trade
reversed, inflation and unemployment increased and public expenditures meant
budget deficits and growing indebtedness and a run on the currency just as the
new Lange Labour Government took office in 1984. It decided to reduce state
regulation of the economy (cut tariffs, float the currency, deregulate finance),
increase government control over the public sector, cut public spending, direct
public policy, reform the taxation system, reduce non-essential services, and
reexamine the role of the state in the economy, including the extent of public
ownership and enterprise, the level of public sector productivity and performan-
ce, and the lack of incentives in the public sector to improve accountability,
efficiency and economic performance. All these issues had been raised in the
Introducing New Style Public Managerialism Down Under 229
dividends to the government. After fixing their existing assets and debts, they
would be required to fund their activities from commercial returns and private
sector loans and would be required to recover their costs from users, including
the government, instead of providing them free or below cost at the taxpayers'
expense. If the government wanted an S.O.E. to provide non-commercial goods
and services, it would have to pay the S.O.E. Among the more important S.O.E.s
created have been Electricorp, Telecom, Forestcorp, Landcorp, Post Office
Bank, N.Z. Post, Airways Corporation of N.Z. and Coal Corp, none of which
have had to be subsidized.
It was not until the second term of the Lange Government in 1987 that
corporatization was followed by managerialism similar to that in Australia for
the rest of the public (or "core" or "rump") service, namely reorganization of the
government, central financial and policy direction, value-for-money (V.F.M.)
auditing, introduction of the S.E.S., debureaucratization, decentralization, the
radical State Sector Reform Act of 1988 (which replaced public service
legislation first enacted in 1912 and overhauled in 1962) aimed "to impart a new
spirit into the public service...(and) to bring appropriate private sector practices
into the public service...proven in value through a long process of refinement
and honing in a competitive environment" (Rodger, 1988,2), the privatization of
public personnel management, the new departmental chief executives (appointed
on contract) given responsibility for key managerial functions and judged by
their results, retrenchments, increased lateral recruitment, performance incen-
tives, accrual accounting, the complete reform of local government along similar
managerial lines, and increased devolution of social services.
Public sector managers would have the same freedom to manage as private
sector managers but they would also be held strictly accountable for their
performance to the government by strengthened central policy and adminis-
trative controls and evaluations. This radical change was made with confidence
that public employees would respond well and that the hidden talent in the
public sector would more than cope with the transformation of public administra-
tion and would quickly adjust and seize the new opportunities presented. Public
managers would be held to account not for what they bought but whether they
Introducing New Style Public Managerialism Down Under 231
did what they said they would. Public money would be for the costs of
producing specific goods and services, not for buying specified inputs with
separate budgets for capital purchases and transfer payments. The government
would decide what outcomes it wanted and then buy goods and services from
departments or non-government suppliers and press departments to rid them-
selves of assets they did not strictly need (such as the defence forces which
owned much underused land and many buildings). The Treasury would issue
half yearly and yearly government balance sheets.
The new state service did have a theoretical foundation, not in traditional
public administration and management, but in political economy and business,
particularly the theory of agency problems in firms (addressing the problems of
getting agents such as managers and employees to pursue the interests of their
principals), public choice theory's application of economic analysis to bureau-
cratic behavior, and contract theory (Scott and Gorringe, 1989). Where govern-
ment activities were difficult or impossible to turn into profit-making corpora-
tions (as in the case of the S.O.E.s), they were to be made more efficient and
responsive by (i) making chief executives more directly accountable to ministers
for the output and efficiency of their departments, (ii) giving chief executives
greater managerial discretion shifting emphasis from controls on the inputs used
to outputs, (iii) distinguishing between specific outputs and outcomes or success
in achieving overall social goals, and (iv) instituting financial accountability
based on accrual accounting of inputs and on output measures, thereby moving
toward arrangements found in the private sector to help overcome agency
problems.
Under the new system, the performance of bureaucrats can be judged on whether they
produce the outputs of services agreed to, and whether they do so efficiently. Politicians
can be judged on whether they buy the right services to achieve social goals like wealth,
justice and the relief of suffering. The distinction also highlights the fact that politicians
need not buy the services they require from the bureaucracy, and that the government
need not be the only customer of the bureaucracy. (Ibid, 6-7)
Would the public sector respond to this new system? A former manager in
British Telecom operations appointed head of the New Zealand Telecom
Corporation, a poorly run state owned enterprise, shrivelled the elongated
hierarchy, abolished the head office in favor of five independent network
companies with new imported managers to run them, cut down costs by
contracting out and staff retrenchment, and developed new products. Despite
Treasury opposition, he spent money to earn money and by all accounts
improved services at a cost, as people found out in other previously subsidized
public goods and services corporatized or privatized in a New Zealand where
Mrs. Thatcher had been out-Thatchered by a Labour government. All this was
too much for the hard left wing of the government which broke away to form the
New Labour Party and the outspoken opposition to the government's market
approach to the public sector, also lamented even by official reports that
believed social concerns had been sacrificed to economic restructuring.
Public employees with no alternative employment gritted their teeth and went
along with the changes, though their unions have not been at all happy with the
strange turn of events from their political viewpoint and with their loss of
bargaining power as public sector organizations were fragmented and paralyzed.
In just five years, the core public service had been more than halved. On the
other hand, the Coal Corporation had increased output with only half its
previous staff and was making a profit for the first time in twenty years. The
Electricity Corporation had tripled its profits with stable prices and New Zealand
Post turned its financial position around also with stable prices. Even the core
public service had been able to make productivity improvements through better
resource allocation without any noticeable effect on the quality of service
provided, so the Minister of Finance confidently believed (Caygill, 1989, 10).
Possibly, New Zealand has gone much further into managerialism than other
countries. The government realized that it did not have to provide goods and
services itself if it could ensure that services were provided equitably. Naturally
this raised the question that if the S.O.E.s were wholly commercial, why should
they be public? Furthermore, why could not regional and local authority trading
activities (L.A.T.A.s) also be converted to S.O.E.s and sold off to reduce public
debts? In 1987, the Lange Government did begin to sell parts of public
companies (Bank of New Zealand, Petrocorp, New Zealand Steel). With the
Minister for State-Owned Enterprises known to favor privatization as was
Treasury, it came as no surprise that as from 1988, public assets were being sold
off (Boston, 1988) to raise NZ $14 billion by 1992. Furthermore, the philosophy
behind the public service reforms spelled out in the 1987 Treasury document
Government Management was being followed in such a way that the traditional
career structure was less important and the new style managerialism was
bringing quite a different kind of administrator through, the tough minded
rationalist rather than the politically astute public interest servant. Bad medicine
had to be administered to New Zealand to relieve some of its economic woes,
Containing Kasumigaseki 233
Containing Kasumigaseki
Japan's success in overtaking the U.S.A. as the world's leading economic power
sent business executives and managers flocking to Japan to discover the secrets
of its success and to examine Japanese management methods. How had Japan
done what it did? Could Japanese policies and methods be copied? Westerners
certainly discovered a different administrative culture and a different business
atmosphere. For a time, Japanese business methods became quite a fad. Theory
Z management boomed along with other Japanese practices, such as work
quality circles (Ouchi, 1981). Very few looked at the Japanese public sector and
how that was being managed. Maybe it was just as well; they may not have liked
what they saw. The Japanese administrative elite (Kasumigaseki) was more
elitist than Whitehall, probably more "closed, secretive, defensive, over-con-
cerned with tradition and precedent" than its British counterpart (Hennessy,
1989, 687). It was also not as good as it should have been given its talent, and it
was a drag on the private sector with its excessive formalism and bureaucratism.
No doubt too it suffered from bureaupathologies that ought to be rooted out, so
thought Yasuhiro Nakasone who was to rise from the position of the Director
General of the Administrative Management Agency into the Cabinet and then in
1982 to become Prime Minister and knew both administrative and political
worlds well.
It "was Nakasone's initiative in 1980 which resulted in creation [sic] of the
Provisional Commission on Administrative Reform (Rinji Gyosei Chosa Kai or
RINCHO) in March 1981" (Wright and Sakurai, 1987, 122) as an advisory
council to the Prime Minister. Triggered by the fiscal crisis it was a Hoover style
investigation with many committees and subcommittees composed of outsiders.
It had its own executive office with a large staff seconded from across the public
sector and notably the Administrative Management Agency which was the
central management agency responsible for promoting administrative reform in
the public sector. It had the highest political backing, broad terms of reference,
and strong support from the business community, particularly as it was chaired
by the charismatic Toshio Doko, honorary president of the Japanese Federation
of Economic Organizations, who was to chair RINCHO's successor, the
Administrative Reform Promotion Committee (GYOKAKUSHIN) from 1983 to
1986, when it temporarily went out of existence to be revived in 1987 for
another three years.
Unlike administrative reform inquiries usually in the West, RINCHO's
examination of the public sector covered both ends as well as means, national
234 11. Reforms in the West: Changing Administrative Values
public managers and on the other, they pushed public employees who had
alternatives to shift to the private sector. Worse still, they did not seem to care
about the collapse of morale in the public sector, hardly creating an atmosphere
receptive to a new administrative ethos. They merely succeeded in putting
public employees on the defensive.
And what about all the broken promises? The new administrative ethos was to
be accompanied by a whole raft of inducements and provisions. Training and
(re-)education facilities were to be available to the new breed of public
managers. But what was provided in many countries was inadequate, if not quite
pathetic. The new merit pay systems rarely materialized and when they did, they
were politically manipulated (or so it was believed) or laughable when compared
with the private sector. As to following good (let alone the best) private
management practices, that was lost to cost savings and power struggles with
public employee unions. When public managers attempted to be ruthless in
pursuit of the new managerialism, governments would retreat and give in to the
public and to public employee protests. When they attempted to reveal the real
costs of government promises and decisions, they were intimidated into silence.
What was the point of saving millions managerially when tens of millions were
wasted politically? What was the point of doing things better at higher prices
when they probably were not worth doing at all? Then what was one to make of
the outsiders who brought with them their private business ethics of cutting
corners, making deals, skirting the law, and generally acting just this side of
criminality?
The new managerialism drove a greater wedge between line and staff and
between managers and other public employees. The public managers imposed
more and more managerial requirements on those who actually performed the
work of government on the line. The line staff had to divert more attention and
resources to managerial requests and directions and increasingly they com-
plained with justification about their being unable to do their proper job such as
teaching school children, attending to the sick and needy, reducing street crimes,
and so forth. They felt themselves being manipulated into grandiose managerial
schemes that were not adequately explained to them, in which they had not
really shared (or been allowed to share), and that appeared so neat and tidy on
paper but were quite impractical out in the field. Whenever the managers tried to
exercise their greater freedom to manage, this was seen as diminishing public
employees' rights; they just raised internal conflict levels. When the frustrated
managerial butterflies flew off, who was left to pick up the pieces of their poor
judgment, incompetence and all too often self-exploitation of organizational
assets?
Most recognized that public sector performance needed improvement. Most
welcomed the assault on obvious bureaupathologies. The old order had few
supporters; everyone was glad to see its demise. But few were quite prepared for
the upsets, dislocations and wanderings of a hastily imposed new order.
References 239
Governments blundered into something that sounded so good and once commit-
ted they could not easily back out. They had to go on regardless and hope that
somehow solutions would be found for every new difficulty that arose. There
was no going back. Governments had gone too far and nobody save the
reactionary was prepared to go back. The new order was feeling its way.
Mistakes were made but they were also corrected. Governments had not realized
the greater ramifications. If public organizations had to behave themselves, and
behave much better than private organizations, then political parties and
governments also had to behave themselves. If the private sector was unable to
absorb excess public employees, then the public sector had to reemploy them or
redistribute them to avoid increasing unemployment. If the public sector was not
given adequate resources to do what it was supposed to do, then all suffered,
sometimes in terrible ways too late to avoid. The task ahead for the West was to
fine tune the delicate balance between too little public administration and too
much and to raise reform sights once again above purely internal managerial
considerations to the much larger underlying obstacles to administrative
performance inherent in outmoded institutions and unprincipled politics.
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12. Reforms in the Third World:
Almost Beyond Realization
During the economic setbacks of the energy crisis and the decline in world trade,
the richer countries around the globe were able to embark on ambitious
administrative reform programs. Their administrative systems were in reason-
able working order and had been for several generations. Their populations had
adjusted to the demands of an organizational society and they were attuned to a
bureaucratic culture. They had strong governments that could reach all residents.
They had residents who respected public authorities and despite their grumbling
appreciated public services. They had sufficient resources, technology and
expertise to support administrative capacity that could undertake most govern-
ment tasks, including administrative reform. Even with such favorable condi-
tions, many experienced considerable difficulties not just in transforming their
administrative cultures but also in successfully carrying out relatively simple
changes in laws, structures, policies and processes.
The poorer countries particularly in the so-called Third World whose need for
administrative modernization was the greatest lacked any of these advantages.
Their sorry position where lacking energy sources was compounded by adverse
terms of trade, a severe drop in earnings of their major exports and a mounting
gap between rising expectations and declining ability to satisfy even basic needs.
Their development plans were upset and it was all they could do to avoid
regressing. Developing countries were forced to borrow. From 1970 to 1985,
their debts jumped tenfold from $68.6 billion to $711.2 billion (World Bank,
1986,44) to have to pay out more in interest than they received in new loans. As
much of the aid they had received had been wasted on ill-designed and
unproductive projects, corruption and mismanagement, and incompetent and
uncaring public employees, their future prospects looked bleak without a revival
in world trade and more productive ways of conducting their affairs (Hancock,
1989).
More productive ways of conducting their affairs meant in the spirit of the
times freeing people of government restrictions and boosting private sector
enterprise and management. International aid switched directions accordingly.
Major country donors and international agencies moved to encourage private
enterprise and voluntary organizations in poor countries (thereby bypassing
government organizations and the public sector), to assist governments to
privatize public enterprises (Adamolekun, 1989b), and to strengthen business
244 12. Reforms in the Third World: Almost Beyond Realization
management education and training. The public sector was not neglected.
Efforts continued to improve the planning and implementation of development
projects, the reorganization and revitalization of public enterprises, and the
modernization of public management processes and training. Administrative
modernization still consisted largely of borrowing and transferring Western
norms of public administration (Weberian legal-rational bureaucracy, West-
minster type civil services, annual budget and financial management systems,
decentralization and local government, administrative law, etc.) and building
government administrative capacity to deal with development problems.
But administrative modernization was not working out at all as expected.
Western administrative technology was being applied to strengthen not trans-
form indigenous administrative cultures with all their bureaupathologies,
maladministration and mismanagement, and to entrench bureaucratic elites
skillful at manipulating new technologies to self-advantage. Administratively,
things often got worse not better. As to building institutional capacity to perform
better by creating model islands of excellence that would be able to deliver
technical services, internalize innovative ideas, and network, these were largely
confined to select government agencies and training and research institutes that
were isolated show cases, deprived of adequate resources and unable to impact
ineffective, unreformed administrative systems. Instead of their leading the way
to transforming administration, they were affected by the prevailing adminis-
trative culture and tended to adopt similar bad habits.
Administrative reform remained the hope that somehow things would be
improved, that better policies would be formulated, that better arrangements
would be devised, that better methods would be adopted, that implementation
would actually proceed and succeed, and that the benefits would flow to all and
not be confined to a small aristocracy of wealth, position and talent. The facts of
administrative deficiency were obvious. Little could be achieved, rarely quickly,
rarely well, rarely properly, rarely without a great deal of effort and persistence,
rarely without resorting to irregular channels, subterfuges and connections,
rarely without being worn down and in the end satisfied with anything better
than nothing. No wonder that poverty or lack of development was attributed to
administrative incapacity. But the obstacles were overwhelming. The very
administrative incapacity meant that things could not be achieved easily or fast
or on a grand scale without much effort, persistence and resources, and certainly
not administrative reform for which rarely were these available, never mind the
support, the risk and the time necessary for effective implementation. The
administrative problems went beyond solution by administrative reform alone;
they needed fundamental institutional, ideological and societal transformations.
In poor Third World countries (and most were poor), sheer scarcity distorted
any distribution system, whether market or public. The lack of effective supply
meant that nobody would willingly give up anything they had without a fight
and all would compete fiercely for what might be available and pay whatever
12. Reforms in the Third World: Almost Beyond Realization 245
price was demanded. But the lack of effective demand because of mass poverty
confined distribution to the few wealthy and well-connected. Corruption was
inevitable, not just a fact of life but a way of life, the usual and expected way of
conducting business (any business), very difficult to change and hard to break
altogether. Certainly the untaught masses knew no different and did not quite
know how to respond to administrative changes. They had to be shown what to
do (to obey laws, pay taxes, send their children to school, dress differently, eat
differently, follow hygienic rules, respect public agencies, etc.) and this was part
of the administrative equation most overlooked in administrative reform. They
had little inkling of a civic culture; rather theirs' was an individualistic
self-regarding culture entailing a certain blindness to others outside the particula-
ristic groups to which they belonged and with which they were closely bound.
Opportunities were exploited to help the group and oneself without too much
regard for the general interest. In this, the ingenious found ways for self-advance-
ment and self-enrichment to the detriment of the community; for them,
self-service was prized over public service. The formal features of the adminis-
trative state appeared modern but the behavior was still pre-state for which
administrative reform was ill-prepared.
If these circumstances were not difficult enough, most poor countries were
strangers to democracy. They were ruled by unrepresentative elites which
exploited office for self-interest. Their whims and fancies governed and had to
be met. Fiat ruled. Decision-making was confined to an inner circle that would
not share power, delegate authority or trust outsiders. What the few decided had
to be followed; defiance was ruthlessly treated. The masses were left out and
suppressed. The technocrats were cowed and intimidated. Reform could come
only from the top and that was not often. And right or wrong, it would be
imposed at least formally. Whether it could really be imposed without coercion
was another matter. The fortunate were not going to readily change a system that
made them fortunate. They were not going to stick their necks out or draw
attention to themselves unnecessarily. On the contrary, they would examine any
proposed changes with suspicion and go on doing what they had always done.
Privileges would be protected, opportunities exploited, positions entrenched
(through seniority and patronage), newcomers kept at bay and the masses kept a
good distance away.
...in the 1980s, the ranks of opposition to reform were full: economic elites supported by
existing policies; ethnic, regional, and religious groups favored in allocative decision
making; bureaucrats and bureaucratic agencies wielding regulatory power; policy elites
sustained through patronage and clientele networks; military organizations accustomed to
spending generous budgets with few questions asked. Moreover, decision makers, even
those convinced of the economic need for the reforms, could not escape considering the
political wisdom of adopting and pursuing them; in the name of efficiency and
development, most changes implied a significant decentralization of decision making, a
shrinking of the size of the public sector, and an important shift in the strongly
246 12. Reforms in the Third World: Almost Beyond Realization
interventionist role of the state in the economy. For policy makers schooled in the
importance of state building, practiced in the methods of centralizing power in order to
survive politically, familiar with the use of the public sector for patronage and regulation,
and imbued with development doctrines emphasizing planning and control, the logic of
the new orthodoxy was not always politically or philosophically obvious. (Grindle and
Thomas, 1989, 213-4)
The mind-set was to go along, not to buck the system, not to offend, but to be
cunning in self-interest and to go through the motions of reform without giving
it any real substance or better still to turn reform on its head. Thus, decentraliza-
tion would result in increased centralization, wider distribution of public goods
and services would result in more restricted access, and throwing open public
employment would result in narrower selection. The outcomes of administrative
reforms would often be the reverse of what had been intended.
drew world attention only to fade as momentum could not be sustained and
circumstances changed against further successful implementation until political
change brought their sudden demise.
Time outdated case studies so quickly. Some of the World Bank examples of
success even as they were being recorded had already run into trouble and a few
years later had to be judged failures. The fact that reform institutions and
programs survived did not indicate success; they could be empty shells. On the
other hand, the failure of reform plans and proposals did not necessarily indicate
that reform had not been achieved. Countless reform commissions on the Indian
subcontinent bemoaned bureaucratic inertia and resistance to their initiatives,
but administrative reforms had occurred in those countries perhaps not as
intended or in the right directions, nevertheless their administrative systems
were different one decade compared to another. Some transformations had
occurred underneath, out of the public eye, without fanfare, instituted and
juggled by their administrative elites. To concentrate on the formalities was to
ignore the transformation in the administrative ethos. If the pessimists were to be
believed, none of the countries would have survived and adapted in the ways
they had. Developing countries were not beyond administrative reform. The task
had been underestimated, insufficient attention had been paid to overcoming
bureaucratic resistance and inertia, Western models had been inappropriately
applied, and Westernized elites together with their Western advisers had failed
to understand or appreciate the strengths and weaknesses of prevailing adminis-
trative cultures.
That administrative reform could be achieved was illustrated by several
country cases that have received world attention and been emulated by other
countries in possibly worse straights. The three Third World examples selected
have had a global impact because their reforms have gone beyond administration
to deal with societal issues and placed the reform instruments right in the thick
of politics. They are Hong Kong's attempt to root out systemic corruption in the
public sector and the spread of the Scandinavian institution of ombudsman into
developing countries as a means of getting aloof bureaucracies to respond
directly to public grievances about maladministration and to empower the
ordinary people to make direct representations to public administrators. This
important point is taken up in the third illustration of people-centered develop-
ment efforts which is not to be confused with the more popular human resources
approach (Haq and Kirdar, 1987).
(a) Combatting corruption. Corruption was a way of life in some areas of the
Hong Kong public sector. After all, Hong Kong had long been a notorious
harbor for narcotics traffic and this tourist mecca had a thriving underground
economy (Lethbridge, 1985). Illegal enterprise was bound to contaminate this
outpost of British colonialism. Public officials could make fortunes on the side.
Corruption was so institutionalized that it could not be hidden and Hong Kong
Snatching Crumbs of Comfort 249
had that tarnished reputation. In 1973, the new Governor, Sir Murray MacLeho-
se, decided that this intolerable situation would cease. Others had said much the
same before and had instituted anti-corruption measures with only temporary,
partial impact. Cynics thought that MacLehose's efforts would also come to
nothing. But this time they were dead wrong although it looked at first that they
would be right.
In 1971, the Hong Kong government enforced a new Prevention of Bribery
ordinance by which suspects who lived beyond their means would have to
demonstrate their innocence or suffer severe criminal penalties. Several senior
officials immediately resigned and in 1973 after the successful prosecution of a
Police Superintendent, the suspected Chief Superintendent left the colony (he
actually disappeared for a while before reemerging in England) and apparently
escaped prosecution. Governor MacLehose ordered an inquiry into the affair
which revealed systemic corruption in the police force. He established an
Independent Commission Against Corruption (I.C.A.C.) which would not only
investigate corruption but also work to prevent corruption. He appointed a
distinguished former public official and head of the telephone company, Jack
Cater, to head I.C.A.C. which could arrest people on suspicion (but it could not
prosecute), search and seize without a warrant, require information, freeze assets
and property, and prevent people from leaving the colony. I.C.A.C. reported
directly to the Governor alone although to assure some measure of public
accountability and confidence, it was assisted by five advisory committees
(Corruption, Operations Review, Prevention, Community Relations, and Com-
plaints) drawn from a wide cross-section of residents.
Cater carefully selected I.C.A.C. staff to ensure that I.C.A.C. would not be
corrupted and he was given exceptional powers of staff control. He also
introduced renewable performance contracts, i.e. short term contracts renewed
according to performance. He organized I.C.A.C. into three areas: (a) an
operations department to investigate, arrest and help prosecute suspects; (b) a
corruption prevention department to restructure government organizations to
reduce opportunities ("breakpoints") for corruption, and (c) a community
relations department to change people's attitudes toward corruption. The former
Police Superintendent was extradited from England and convicted as were many
other public officials, so that I.C.A.C. came to be feared by all. After five years
(when Cater left I.C.A.C.) I.C.A.C. began to claim that it had reduced the scale
of corruption considerably, that it had broken systemic corruption in the police
force, and that it had turned the tide against corruption. Such claims attracted
global attention and it became "probably the largest and most famous anti-corru-
ption agency in the developing world" (Klitgaard, 1988, 115). Certainly it had
driven up the price for engaging in corruption; it had cleansed much public
business; it had eliminated unenforceable laws, cumbersome procedures and
bottlenecks; it had conducted a mass education campaign reaching even into
primary schools; it had instituted public complaints about corruption that would
250 12. Reforms in the Third World: Almost Beyond Realization
be seriously investigated; and it had shifted public opinion and attitudes about
public sector corruption (Clark, 1987), although the colony's uncertain future
brought new challanges to law and order from organized crime and the
suborning of public officials.
Hong Kong's temporary success was not alone. A dozen or so years before
I.C.A.C., Singapore had pursued a similar strategy of enforcing increasingly
stringent anti-corruption legislation, establishing an independent anti-corruption
body (Corrupt Practices Investigation Board) eventually under the Prime
Minister, reorganizing government agencies to minimize the opportunities for
corrupt practices, reducing incentives for corruption, and educating the public
about the dysfunctional consequences of corruption. It had been "a compre-
hensive rather than a piecemeal or incremental approach to the problem"
(Heidenheimer et al., 1988, 850). But both were small countries or rather city
states. Could their experiences be universalized? The I.C.A.C. success has
brought anti-corruption units around the world to visit and study its operations.
This in turn has been instrumental in organizing regular international conferen-
ces on the state of the art in anti-corruption, the most important being its third in
Hong Kong in 1987 and its fourth in Sydney in 1989. I.C.A.C. has itself become
a model for other countries to break systemic corruption in both public and
private sectors, reduce the scale of corruption and turn public opinion strongly
against corrupt practices. After all, there are still many countries that do not
outlaw corruption and corrupt practices, that have no anti-corruption mecha-
nisms, and that make no attempt to educate public officials about corruption let
alone the general public (Caiden and Truelson, 1990).
(India), Papua-New Guinea, the West Indies, and eventually into Latin America
(Brazil) in the 1980s. Each country has shaped the institution to suit its own
circumstances. Developing countries have used it as an outreach program to
incorporate people who otherwise were being neglected by public administra-
tion, to bring public pressures to bear on public officials to improve adminis-
trative practices, to impress on public sector employees the need to respect and
advance human rights, and to reduce the problems of bureaucratization. Several
have been employed on other tasks ranging from investigation of corruption to
electoral malpractices and racial tension.
Given the perilous state of public administration in unreformed public
bureaucracies, the danger was that the ombudsman would be swamped with
complaints about which nobody could do anything. This has often been the case
initially. Ombudsman offices have been overwhelmed by complaints where their
jurisdictions have not been narrow and members of the public have been willing
to come forward with complaints, and they have not been able to do much to
alter administrative systems although they have helped wronged individuals.
Nonetheless, their very presence has had a cautionary effect on the conduct of
public officials. They have steadily gained in reputation as the citizen's defender
and also as fair, impartial judges of administrative behavior. Their accumulated
knowledge on the inside has prompted administrative reform initiatives but their
potential in this respect has yet to be realized. They have been handicapped by
political instability, bureaucratic intransigence, lack of sufficient resources,
restrictive legislation, and public ignorance.
Their growing reputation has attracted more than just curiosity. Wherever an
ombudsman office has been established, neighboring countries have sent study
missions. The ombudsman offices have joined together into an International
Ombudsman Institute which has a permanent secretariat at the University of
Alberta in Canada and holds world congresses attended by interested observers,
the latest in Canberra, Australia in 1988. The institution has spread into the
private sector not just as a public relations gimmick but as a practical device to
diffuse public dissatisfaction with administrative performance and as an in-
dependent check on managerial wrongdoing and deficiencies. It works best
probably where it is least needed, that is, where administrative systems work
well and the little wrongdoing that occurs is quickly remedied. Where the
reverse situation obtains, the ombudsman is not an effective instrument for
administrative reform. Nonetheless, it is difficult to muzzle and it is useful in
educating both public and officialdom in administrative norms. The countries
that have the ombudsman claim that it has been a welcome addition in their
arsenal of reform instruments. Its rapid spread around the world would seem to
indicate that more and more countries are coming to this conclusion despite its
limitations to realize dreams of responsible, law-abiding citizens who freely and
knowledgeably participate in public affairs and expect government to respond
speedily, effectively and economically to their demands.
252 12. Reforms in the Third World: Almost Beyond Realization
(c) Representing the poor. Ombudsman offices attempt to reach the poor,
ill-educated masses who are often dealt with harshly by insolent bureaucrats and
have just cause to complain about abuse of official powers detrimental to human
dignity and rights. But most Third World countries still have no ombudsman and
no anti-corruption measures. In them, the poor are meagerly served if at all by
the public sector. Public services are mostly the preserve of the better-off and
when the poor flock to enjoy whatever public amenities are available to them,
public facilities quickly become overburdened and poorly maintained. Either
way, the poor are deprived. Improving public sector management will not help
them much since the country is too poor to provide proper and adequate
amenities to many more than already enjoy them. Traditional administrative
reform is irrelevant to their predicament. Novel strategies have to be devised that
go well beyond orthodoxy if development is to be "more equitable, more
participative and more effective in reaching the vast majority of the people"
excluded in the past (Rondinelli and Ingle, 1981, 25). In fact, several experi-
ments in bureaucracy-free administration have been tried for many years with
mixed success in the East Bloc (collectivized, self-help enterprises), Yugoslavia
(cooperatives), Israel (collectives and cooperatives), India (the panchayati raj
system) and Sri Lanka (Gam Udawa or village reawakening program), Korea
(Saemaul Undong or new village movement), and Peru (self-managing commu-
nities, CUAVES mothers' clubs), but none of them were really free of
government intervention, although self-managing.
A different strategy that evolved in the 1980s was that of people-centered
development inspired by David Korten (Korten and Alfonso, 1983; Korten and
Klauss, 1984; Korten, 1987) which unlike past strategies did not either totally
reject or embrace statism. It envisaged a partnership between local communities
and whatever institutional frameworks existed to aid local communities pro-
gress, and different from other strategies in several ways. First, most develop-
ment strategies had been implemented through bureaucracies that never even
worked with the poor or the poorest of the poor. They had been imposed and
they had not been people-centered. Second, for an effective partnership, the poor
had to be empowered. Whereas bureaucracies sought client satisfaction, people-
centered development sought to build the capacity of clients to enhance their
bargaining power and to get more resources transferred to them, i.e. more power
would be conceded to the clients. Third, people-centered development allowed
for variety and catered to local circumstances and idiosyncracies in its contingen-
cy approach. Grass-root organizations could enlist the energies and inventive
capacities of the poorest in a self-reliant, self-sustaining development process
aimed at satisfying their interests, meeting their needs, solving their problems,
and building their skills, knowledge and capacity to manage by themselves.
Bureaucracies would have to be reoriented to permit such flexibility, to reward
the strengthening of local community capacity, and to change "job definitions,
performance criteria, career incentives, bureaucratic procedure, organizational
Back to Basics 253
responsibilities, and the like" (Korten and Uphoff, 1981, 6) accordingly. Fourth,
focus switched from the design of a given strategy to the management of the
context that would include "the design of structural relationships, information
flows, performance evaluation systems, measurement criteria, and the processes
of rewards and sanctions" (Icklis et al., 1986, 1). Administrative reform would
concentrate on such strategic management and bureaucratic reorientations
(BRO) that transformed inappropriate organizational structures, as had been
done in the case of The Philippine National Irrigation Administration (Korten
and Siy, 1988).
Such difficult and painstaking efforts at institutional transformation would not
be popular among traditionalists and they would be experimental, innovative,
challenging, slow. As most traditional strategies had not worked for the poorest,
people-oriented development was worth a try given that the plight of the poorest
was getting worse with increased numbers unable to maintain even basic needs
on marginal farm plots and in mushrooming urban slums. The Inter-American
Foundation and the Performance Management Project of the U.S.A.I.D. agreed
as did the World Bank development management projects and the World Bank
in general in its Sub-Saharan African development strategy (World Bank, 1989,
7). If increased representation of the poor produced results, then in addition to
improving private sector management and public sector administration, adminis-
trative reform would undertake strategic management designs, bureaucratic
reorientations to facilitate participation and entrepreneurship, and a new style
debureaucratized public managerialism. Others were not so optimistic.
While the concepts of decentralization, development from below, freedom from bureau-
cratic constraints, respect for public opinion and local knowledge, participatory modes of
operation, and learning by doing are very attractive, they are also inadequate and
misleading...the more impoverished the community, the more it needs outside assis-
tance. . .development from below requires development from above...The solution.. .is not
less bureaucracy, but better bureaucracy..." (Werlin, 1989, 456-7)
Back to Basics
Most Third World countries realize that they have been and are likely to remain
poorly administered. Administratively, they are backward. Their administrative
systems need modernizing. In the meantime, their administrative incapacity
severely handicaps their developmental efforts. They continue to place their
faith in administrative reform. As much as they would welcome radical
transformations of their whole administrative systems and completely different
administrative cultures, they are grateful for even minor improvements. They do
254 12. Reforms in the Third World: Almost Beyond Realization
not have the means to undertake necessary administrative reforms and when
they do manage to muster enough resources of their own and receive grateful
injections of foreign assistance, they try to invest in reforms that promise the
best returns, not show case experiments and innovations but just simple
measures improving the basics. Around the world, there are various regional
centers that encourage local initiatives and from time to time sponsor seminars
and meetings of experts to report progress and publish their proceedings to
encourage continuing reform efforts. Among the most active of these are
management training institutes and development advisory services such as the
European Centre for Development Policy and Management (E.C.D.P.M.,
Maastricht, The Netherlands), the Center for Latin American Development
(C.L.A.D., Caracas, Venezuela), Instituto Centroamericano de Administración
de Empresas (I.N.C.A.E., Alajuela, Costa Rica), the Central American Institute
of Public Administration (I.C.A.P., San Jose, Costa Rica), the Arab Organiza-
tion of Administrative Sciences (A.O.A.S., Amman, Jordan), the Asian Center
For Development Administration (A.C.D.A.), the Indian Institute of Public
Administration (I.I.P.A., New Delhi, India), and the Eastern Regional Organiza-
tion for Public Administration (E.R.O.P.A., Manila, The Philippines) and for
state owned enterprises, the International Center for Public Enterprises (I.C.P.E.,
Ljubljana, Yugoslavia). Three regions illustrate why administrative reform has
been so painfully unrewarding and slow.
research and had been quite poorly designed and in any event they had made
"undue demands on the meagre financial, technical and human resources that
were available in the country" and the administrative machinery had been just
too poor to effect them, particularly in the face of politicization, nepotism,
favoritism, corruption and a serious brain drain in a rapidly deteriorating
economy (Al-Rahim et al., 1986, 94). The only seemingly successful reforms
were those that had strong political backing and were given sufficient resources
because they benefited the political power of the regime, as in Zambia (Chikulo,
1985).
The vicious circle was broken during the late 1980s by the structural
adjustment programs imposed on Sub-Sahara African countries by the Interna-
tional Monetary Fund and the World Bank. For years, experts from these
international agencies had complained about institutional bureaupathologies
(particularly bloated public organizations, corruption, mismanagement, low
public sector productivity and incompetent state owned enterprises) that had
contributed to economic failure and they had recommended structural reforms to
improve institutional capacity. The African debt position had grown so serious
that the I.M.F. and World Bank stepped in to require fundamental policy reforms
and economic restructuring in packages that included:
For the public sector, the impact of the economic restructuring programs has
been immediate in the reduction of public employment of anywhere between 10
and 50 percent, the freezing of remuneration, maintenance and capital develop-
ment, the deterioration of the public infrastructure, the divestment and rationali-
zation of state owned enterprises, increased budget controls and reforms,
depressed morale, worsening industrial relations, reduced social services, tax
reforms and demonopolization. First the Ivory Coast (The Courier, 1988, 61)
was held up as a model, then Mali (Highlights, 1989), and later Ghana (Insight,
1988; World Bank, 1989) all of which increased their G.D.P., devalued their
currencies, liberalized import restrictions and cut back their public sectors, at the
cost of unemployment, inflation, authoritarian rule, and urban impoverishment.
Other countries in the world and in Africa had found the internal costs too high
and had revoked their I.M.F.-imposed economic recovery programs. Nonethe-
less, structural adjustment highlighted the need to improve policy analysis as
well as management practice, to strengthen coordination mechanisms within
government, to streamline public organizations, and, no surprise this, to reinvest
in public sector management training and education, this time with the blessing
of the World Bank and I.M.F. in principle and the expanded activities of the
World Bank's Economic Development Institute and the revitalized Eastern and
Southern African Management Institute (E.S.A.M.I., Arusha, Tanzania) in
practice. This time, multi-donor efforts were to be formally coordinated under
the rubric of the African Capacity Building Initiative to ensure that the
foundations on which administrative reforms were implemented were not built
on shifting sand thereby guaranteeing their failure. Particular attention was to be
given to civil service improvement, capacity building for policy analysis,
coordination and implementation of national development policies, and manage-
ment training (Adamolekun, 1989a). In 1987, some thirty African states
embarked on administrative reform programs aided by international organiza-
tions (Balogun and Mutahaba, 1989; Mutahaba, 1989).
quite acceptable to the World Bank in their shift away from statism and
bureaucratic centralism toward professionalization, productivity, and decentrali-
zation in a new presidential system. But they depended on the cooperation and
commitment of the notoriously resistant and entrenched senior civil servants and
on the availability of resources. In fact, they were slow off the mark. However,
they were being monitored by a presidential task force headed by the Minister
for Social Duties and all state governments had established implementation
committees so perhaps by 1992 with economic recovery this necessary first
stage may be followed by others, unless as in the past reform falls victim to the
unbeatable combinations of government mismanagement and lawlessness,
bureaucratic inefficiency and corruption, and public enterprise exploitation and
irresponsibility. Still Nigeria has shown a new willingness to clean up its public
sector, to privatize and to reorganize public sector organizations in preparation
for civilian government.
(b) The English Speaking Caribbean. Across the Atlantic, the I.M.F. was also
active in the Caribbean where it might be expected that the small islands of the
area would find reform easier than in impoverished Africa. But the English-
speaking countries had the same reluctance to depart from the Westminster-
Whitehall system, even worse brain drain, bureaucratic inertia, political indiffer-
ence, and public mismanagement, and altogether a disappointing public sector
record. By the 1980s, they suffered from many problems familiar to Third
World countries around the globe:-
- uncontrolled growth of the public sector; poor accounting and auditing; poor
value for money;
- declining prestige, image and status of public employment;
- widening gap between public and private sector compensation for talent and
performance;
- exodus of experienced officials; declining quality of public employees; scarce
management skills;
- overcentralization of decision-making; lack of delegation; secrecy and privati-
zation of information; deficient record keeping;
- lack of coordination among autonomous, competing public organizations;
- insufficient integration of policies, programs and projects;
- chronic misuse and underutilization of skills; underemployment;
- inadequate data, planning and research;
- poor facilities, inadequate accommodation, deficient tools;
- dominance of a clerical mentality; promotion by seniority; narrow vision;
slow-moving, "by the book" approach; bureaucratic indifference; slovenly
service;
- ignorance of O.&M recommendations; outmoded procedures; antiquated
methods;
Back to Basics 259
- low productivity; poor supervision; indiscipline; bad industrial relations;
- poor, ineffectual training;
- corruption; diversion of public funds and resources; patronage; influence
peddling; pulling strings;
- inadequate public participation; indifference to the public; insensitivity;
- lack of initiative and enthusiasm; inadequate incentives.
To overcome these problems, governments had exempted more and more public
organizations from public service controls and freed them to operate indepen-
dently as best they could. Not only did this fragment the public sector even more
and compound the difficulties in seeking common solutions, but the autonomous
agencies acted as if they were private organizations although publicly em-
powered. The only consoling factor was that nothing in the Caribbean was
anywhere near as bad as in Africa.
When things deteriorated beyond the point of tolerance, disturbed govern-
ments would follow the Westminster-Whitehall model and appoint public
inquiries, investigations by public figures with full powers to probe and
diagnose. Their reports would become historic landmarks in modernizing
government. In the Caribbean, these inquiries were often conducted by outsiders
unacquainted with local conditions, unable to stay long or research deeply, all
too ready with their international remedies, and gone before implementation.
Since independence, there had been many inquiries, all investigating the same
problems, the same annoyances, the same inadequacies, the same faults, all
coming up with similar recommendations in virtually the same language. They
provided a fund of knowledge about what needed to be done to improve public
sector performance. Few seemed to have bothered to explore why so little had
been done to implement previous recommendations. Instead, they were emula-
tions of standard Western public management dogma without much reference to
local circumstances; they were more like articles of faith than empirical
remedies. They gave little indication what might be involved in implementation,
where the resources needed for implementation might be found, and what might
have to be sacrificed.
Rarely did the inquiries reveal what had been done well. Too often they took
corrections, improvements and innovations for granted. They harped on short-
comings and mentioned innovations only in passing. There had been innovations
in the public sector - many of then successfully institutionalized, at all levels
from intergovernmental and interregional ventures such as the Caribbean Centre
for Development Administration (CARICAD, St. Michael, Barbados) to techni-
cal assistance for new local government agencies. Most governments, like
CARICAD, received technical assistance from international agencies, Common-
wealth members, and Western Europe to improve public sector performance.
But innovations could not be commanded at will. They were badly needed in the
following priority aspects:-
260 12. Reforms in the Third World: Almost Beyond Realization
Jamaica had made sure this time to avoid many of the obstacles that had plagued
previous attempts.
Alas Jamaica's experience was different only in the scale of its reform efforts.
The smaller Caribbean states had fared little better. In them "the gap between
expectations or demands and the public administration system's capacity to
deliver continues to widen" (Green and Slyfield, 1982, 10). The obstacles to
reform seemed so overwhelming that the Caribbean countries appeared incapab-
le of administrative reform, although their economic recovery depended so
much on improved public sector performance. So it did in so many other Third
World countries which had opted for a statist model of development that relied
so much on good government, as in Latin America.
(c) Latin America. The most important fact about Latin America over the past
four decades has been the stubbornness with which it has pursued administrative
reform, despite so many failures and disappointments. Possibly nowhere else in
the world have so many governments announced bold, imaginative reform plans
to achieve so little in practice. Wave after wave of administrative reformers
institutionalized near the apex of government or in autonomous research/educa-
tional centers and linked through C.L.A.D. and I.C.A.P. have assaulted the
seemingly impenetrable fortress of bureaucratic inertia. Public leaders, politi-
cians and generals alike, have stood by helpless as their schemes have just
disappeared as if swallowed up in quick sands, gone without trace, or "limped
along on skeletal staffing and financing" (Hammergren, 1983, 26). The general
public have also stood helplessly by, hoping upon hope that this time something
will really happen to ease the bureaucratic burden from them, to release them
from so many bureaupathologic nightmares, to get real public service for a
change instead of having to put up with so much indignity in dealing with public
officials or resorting to middlemen, intermediaries, facilitators, to intercede and
do business with the public bureaucracy on one's behalf, at a price of course.
Within, so many well-intentioned reformers have banged their heads against a
wall of bureaucratic indifference, contempt and corruption. Yet, undismayed,
reformers, under both domestic and international pressures, came back and tried
again under a different leader, a different banner, a different office; they did not
give up. Slowly, then, the bureaucracy did wear down, did give a little, did shift,
did respond, and slowly performance did improve. There were few dramatic
victories and those who claimed great success were probably deceiving
themselves or others. Thus a justifiable skepticism about administrative reform
tended to prevail. It prevailed in exaggerated cynicism even about recent
reforms that have been achieved in governmental reorganizations, privatization,
cutback management, budgeting and financial management, professionalization,
public service training and education, public sector legislation, and sectoral
outputs and outcomes (Freitas, 1989; Holanda, 1989; Martinez, 1989).
Back to Basics 263
This experience was common from Mexico to Argentina, from Brazil to the
Dominican Republic, as if the whole continent were afflicted with common
obstacles too difficult to overcome. Every so often as in the case of the
Administrative Department of the Public Service (DASP) in Brazil and the
National Office of Rationalization and Training for Public Administration
(ONRAP) in Peru in the 1960s, the Public Administration Commission (CAP) in
Venezuela and the National Institute of Public Administration (INAP) in Peru in
the early 1970s, the Administrative Reform Program in Mexico in the late 1970s
and the Debureaucratization Program in Brazil in the 1980s, it appeared that at
last a significant breakthrough had occurred and great excitement in reform
circles was stirred around the continent. Reformers beat a path to the door of the
apparently successful who organized conferences to parade their apparent
success. But like a lighted match, the flame spluttered and died, and darkness
returned. Then it was discovered that the reforms were mostly on paper; they
never got implemented much beyond the first enthusiastic phase. And for the
usual reasons - they had been too ambitious, too unrealistic, too big, too
optimistic, too poorly supported, too inflexible, too underfunded, too starved of
resources and time, too short on skilled personnel, too politically insensitive, too
poorly planned and executed, too misdirected or wrong-headed, too isolated
administratively, too lacking in power, authority and backing, too monopolistic,
too outdated, too ill-suited (ICAP, 1971; INAP, 1975; Siegel, 1978; Hammer-
gren, 1983; Flores and Nef, 1984; Groissman et al., 1986). For whatever reason,
they never had a chance or they get off to a good start but could get no further or
they had raised so much hostility among vested interests that they had to be
stopped in their tracks. Consequently, only small gains had been made.
This disappointing record of administrative reform has caused much breast-
beating in Latin America. The fault was all theirs. Latin Americans had not
slavishly followed foreign models or been forced to implement reforms not of
their own making. This may not have been true before the 1960s but certainly
thereafter when Latin Americans had been careful to craft their own reforms
according to local circumstances. That their rate of success was little different
from much of the Third World did not concern them as much as the fact that the
record of the poorest Western countries to which at one time they had been
administratively superior seemed better, particularly with the democratization of
Spain and Portugal with which they were still most closely associated culturally.
Explanations were sought in specifically local factors such as tradition, local-
style fascism, statism, elitism, kleptocracy, lingering colonial legacy (even after
150 years of independence), formalism, self-interest, the mañana syndrome,
reductionism, soft government, the peculiarities of military rule and the
idiosyncracies of presidents, and political discontinuity (Thurber and Graham,
1973). Possibly, the major conceptual problem had been that reform diagnosis
and implementation had taken too much for granted, had not envisaged a
264 12. Reforms in the Third World: Almost Beyond Realization
changing environment, and had been too institutional, too legalistic, too formal
altogether, i.e. insufficiently behavioral (C.L.A.D., 1980).
Reformers had disconnected the fact that the machinery of government
contained many competing agencies trying to preserve and promote their own
interests and programs and that reforms had to take account of the bargaining
and compromises, the alliances and confrontations that took place in society and
were reflected in the machinery and operations of the state. They had discounted
too much the political nature of administrative reforms (Oszlak, 1980; Hammer-
gren, 1983); they had been too naive and thereby rendered reforms inoperative.
They had concentrated on achieving rapid changes by means of basically formal
modifications without tackling the underlying causes of maladministration but
further complicating them. Such patching up only created more serious prob-
lems and preoccupied reformers with incrementalism.
The effect is aimed at 'doing what is wrong more effectively', instead of revising the very
meaning of policies and strategies. Thus procedures and formulas are studied and
polished, when the policy that is destined to be implemented should be revised in its
entirety. Sophisticated information systems are introduced in processes whose very
organizational utility must be examined, or... 'how many times have reforms been carried
out for institutions which afterwards disappeared, or sectors which do not have priority
are reformed?' (Kliksberg, 1983, 18)
old. They are temperamental and when set against reform they cannot be
budged. In Third World countries, they seem particularly resistant to adminis-
trative reforms, usually for very good reasons from their point of view. They are
probably going to be losers. They are going to have to work harder or learn new
skills or relocate or adopt a different life-style or do something that they don't
want to do for whatever reason, rational and irrational. Sure, they can be forced
to change and for appearance's sake, they can go along with the changes. But
nobody can really make them do exactly what has to be done in the way that
others want it done all the time, unless they themselves are willing to do it.
Too often in administrative reform, the erstwhile reformers do not see the
world from the perspective of the potentially reformed. They don't know what
makes them tick. They don't understand the different perspective. They don't
appreciate the reasons why they stick to the way things are. They don't offer
sufficient reason let alone incentive to encourage them to shift. They don't strike
the right chord. They don't have the resources (political power, skills, time) to
make them move. They don't carry enough conviction. They certainly don't
have enough weight in the administrative system. This is true everywhere but
more especially in Third World countries where:
* resources are scarce or scarcer,
* administrative capabilities are low or lower,
* tradition dies hard or harder,
* divisions run deep or deeper,
* public service ideology is weak or weaker,
* civic culture is poor or poorer,
* choices are narrow or narrower,
* dependence is high or higher,
* administration has low or lower priority,
* enterprise is confined or more confined,
* indiscipline is rife or more rife,
* public ethics are not respected or less respected,
* resentment of strangers is prevalent or more prevalent,
* social costs are not affordable or less affordable.
Peoples are just different and they want different things. They hold different
values. They don't want to be Eastern or Western; they want to be themselves if
they can ever discover what it is they want to be instead. They just don't like the
kind of world that reformers want to impose on them. They won't abide with
organizational imperatives or conform to bureaucratic sameness or accept the
managerial mind-set. Their resistance to administrative reform is not due to
ignorance or cussedness or stupidity but to deep seated concerns that reformers
have not properly addressed or refused to acknowledge. Their resistance is
manifested through whatever channels exist and however defiance can be
expressed in their country. Modern mass communications make all this more
"It's Not a Question of Not Knowing What To Do" 267
obvious today in the Third World than the forgotten history of yesterday's
administrative reforms in both East and West bought at the high price extracted
by the organizational society. Third World peoples are aware of the price they
will have to pay for administrative modernization and they are not that willing or
indeed willing at all to pay it, not if they have any say.
The converse is that those who benefit from public maladministration don't
yield. Public maladministration damages the public generally but rewards
specific groups and individuals including privileged public sector elites like the
Indian Civil Service and the Brazilian "maharajahs" who use institutions and
rules as "a cover for patronage, favoritism, fraud and sometimes force"
(Glickman, 1988, 33).
Politicians and bureaucrats usually profit from the harm they do, at one extreme by
wrecking the economy in return for kickbacks, at the other by merely collecting a salary
for doing no useful work. But since they do gain in one way or another, is it not absurd to
expect them to show willing restraint? (The Economist, 1989, 58)
Corruption certainly benefits the corrupt who get things they otherwise would
not get or be entitled to. Pulling strings helps those who can. Fraud pays. Bloated
bureaucracies employ people who otherwise would have no other source of
income. Paper manufacturers gain from paperasserie. The profits to the minority
count for it much more than the losses (often unknown, unfelt, unconnected) to
the majority. Therefore, it takes an exceptional kind of public beneficiary to
wrest away the profits from the minority to be shared among the general public.
That is why pioneer administrative reformers are so often recognized by name
and venerated in history. The fact that so few are known or have been
recognized in Third World countries indicates that so few have been in a
position or have had the abilities or seized the opportunity or had the will to defy
convention, battle great odds, take on vested interests, and suffer the personal
indignities that usually befall pioneers.
When all is said and done, it is the individual that makes the difference and it
takes much nerve to persist in pursuing public right when it is so easy to give in
to public wrong. Reforms fail in the best of circumstances but reformers succeed
even in the worst. Partial successes, as so often recorded in the Third World, are
helpful but no substitute for the real thing. Like economic restructuring,
administrative reform in much of the Third World will be impossible to do
quickly if at all and "without considerable outside help. The best-intentioned
efforts will take a long time, and most will be blocked or eviscerated by political
opposition and continuing institutional limitations" (Vernon, 1988,187). Further-
more, the World Bank and the I.M.F. while appearing to favor economic
liberalization and stabilization and minimalist government worldwide are still
keen for Third World countries to reform rather than roll back their public
sectors, to rely more on imperfect markets than imperfect governments, to
268 12. Reforms in the Third World: Almost Beyond Realization
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270 12. Reforms in the Third World: Almost Beyond Realization
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13. Unfinished Business
Administrative reformers around the globe certainly have their work cut out over
the next decade. In the East Bloc, they will be grappling with the complex
problems of shifting from bureaucratic centralism to various experiments in
market socialism and mixed economies, reducing institutionalized corruption
and tackling imbedded bureaupathologies. In the West, they will be fine-tuning
the administrative state, restoring the status and attractiveness of public
employment, and grappling with the issues of the accountability and discretion
of public sector managers. In the so-called Third World, they will be moderni-
zing their administrative systems, searching to debureaucratize, and identifying
administrative norms in keeping with their preferred administrative cultures. In
the international agencies, they will be assisting all these global activities,
boosting management education and training, aiding self-help grassroots organi-
zations and strengthening institutional development (Israel, 1987). All of them
will be coping with the changing impacts of technological innovation, the
further internationalization of their administrative systems in the global society,
and the redefinition of what is or should be public. All of them will be trying to
humanize and sensitize bureaucracy and to make public administration more
truly public. All of them will be seeking to advance the state-of-the-art of
administrative reform.
Opinions among their target audiences about the worth and necessity for
administrative reform range from those who anticipate large returns from a
relatively small investment to those who believe that administrative reform does
not work and is largely a waste of time and resources. As usual, the truth is
somewhere between. In some circumstances, where public maladministration
and mismanagement predominate, administrative reform can indeed turn things
around such that large economies can be made, productivity increased and
ineffective organizations and services can be reversed. In other circumstances,
the resources necessary to implement administrative reform do not exist, and
even if they did they would be used on higher priority items such as feeding
starving people, repairing run-down facilities and employing jobless persons;
when actually assigned to administrative reform the improvements are barely
noticed.
Administrative reform is still mostly process-oriented. Better processes may
result in better outcomes, better substantive performance, even better policy
directions. Although administrative reform is intended to make the adminis-
trative state perform better, it will not of itself solve political crises, economic
272 13. Unfinished Business
existed for nearly half a century but still the same problems with it persist. Even
international agencies that promote administrative and managerial reforms at
state level have not taken their own medicine. Indeed, there is good reason to
believe that internal critics and possible whistleblowers in international organiza-
tions as elsewhere are intimidated into silence and have few outlets through
which they can push for long overdue administrative reforms.
Members of international organizations have the right to question how well or
badly international organizations are run, whether their contributions are being
put to the best use, and what could be done to improve performance, increase
efficiency, and reduce waste. In the case of the U.N.O., several countries have
exercised that right but have been frustrated in the responses they have received.
The U.N.O. family of organizations undertakes a variety of activities crucial to
the peace, security, health, diet, and development of all peoples in the world and
employs staff to serve in over 120 countries around the globe. It is an immense
administrative undertaking overseen by the U. N. Secretariat and subject to the
vagaries of the General Assembly within the broad objectives of the Charter and
other international agreements and declarations. Although an intricate system of
program planning, budgeting, monitoring and evaluation has been evolved in a
six-year fixed horizon plan (Mathiason, 1986, 5), it has been difficult to
determine exactly how its resources have been allocated and where adminis-
trative expenses have occurred or how much the whole edifice costs world
citizenry, let alone whether value for money is being received by member states.
Left to itself, the prospects of reform are low, although threatened withdrawal of
contributions and resource scarcity may provoke reforms. Eventually something
will have to give, as has been the case in private sector international organiza-
tions and some regional organizations like the Organization of American States
which started with overhauling budgetary processes. Threats to survival usually
stimulate innovation and reform.
Some of the U.N.'s larger contributors have objected to footing an ever
increasing bill for activities that they do not agree with or for programs over
which they have, so they claim, no control. Thus the U.S.A. and the East Bloc
have always opposed the U.N. technical co-operation program, not because they
disagree with the substance of the program but as a protest about the size and
administration of the U.N. itself. Recent attempts to grapple with the financial
and administrative problems of the U.N. reveal how little traditional approaches
to administrative reform can contribute. As the U.N. family and other interna-
tional organizations are likely permanent fixtures, this neglected area of
administrative reform presents quite a challenge. To quote Brian Urquhart:
The present U.N. "system" cannot respond readily to the great emergencies - war,
famines, floods, earthquakes or other disasters - that require humanitarian aid; nor can it
yet effectively organize international and national responses to the vast complex of
interconnected social and economic problems we now face - the polluted environment,
poverty and migration, or drugs, for example. This is not so much an indictment of the
system devised in 1945 as a recognition of the vast changes that have taken place since.
To bring the international system up to date will demand a major effort of imagination and
reorganization. The problem is to convert an intergovernmental system, in which national
sovereignty and interests are paramount, to an international system in which an increasing
number of activities beyond the control of individual governments can be carried out by
international, or even supranational institutions. The particular interests involved and the
extreme sensitivity of governments in matters touching on their sovereignty will
inevitably make this evolution laborious and frustrating. (Urquhart, 1990, 12)
influenced by their training and experience in military organizations and that the
highest single activity expenditure by many governments is on the military.
Since the mid 1980s, the governments of the world have been spending annually
over 1 trillion U.S. dollars on armed forces and their weapons and a substantial
part of the global labor force is employed directly by the military. What belongs
to the military is obviously denied to the civil side of government, unless the
military is deployed delivering civil services. Public resources wasted or
mismanaged by the military are lost to other parts of the public sector and to the
private sector. Thus everyone has a stake in the administrative performance of
the military.
The enlightened professional military of today understands all this and has
taken steps to improve administratively and managerially. It boasts that so well
prepared managerially are its officers that they can readily obtain civil
employment in executive positions and they are actually sought out by both
public and private employers. If, indeed, this is true, administrative reform has
overlooked it because virtually nothing exists on the administrative performance
of ex-military officers. The military profession still seems to have a monopoly of
administrative reform in military organizations. Much the same could be said
about para-military organizations and intelligence services. But in recent years
administrative reformers have discovered police forces and police organizations
have discovered administrative reform so that this is no longer so true of the
police profession. It is even less true of other notoriously non-management
minded public professions, such as diplomacy or foreign service, public health,
public education, and tax administration which have been integrated more and
more with general administration and are rapidly losing their autonomy and
self-management, unlike the courts which have steadfastly held to their
independence not with the best administrative results either. All, but particularly
the military, have to adjust to a turbulent world in which their rationale may not
be so credible any more.
Para-statal Organizations 277
Para-statal Organizations
Ensuring Accountability
Private contractors are accountable only to themselves, to the public in so far as
they follow public laws guiding their business practices, and to the contracting
agency in meeting the terms of the contract. If through public maladministration,
the law and the terms of the contract are not enforced, then they can run wild.
This is not supposed to happen to public agencies institutionally encaged.
Administrative reform has assumed this and sought only to strengthen traditional
political, budgetary and management controls, even though annual reports of
government bodies reveal little, governments exempt themselves from safety
and health, environmental, labor relations and securities laws, and public
organizations frequently act as if they were privately owned. Worse still,
governments have done things in the name of national security, the public
interest and science that horrified when they finally came to light, demonstrating
Ensuring Accountability 281
administrative reform will have to be even more concerned with the whole
bureaucracy question, which is not going away and not likely to be resolved.
A start could be made by examining the two opposite faces of public
bureaucracy, one dominated by administrative entrepreneurs whose missionary
zeal in the public interest spurs the whole organization into ever better
performance, and the other dominated by the administratively handicapped
whose unfitness makes for a parasitic, rapacious organization. Both extremes
work within the same framework but produce quite different results. Sometimes
they can be found in the same government, side by side, physically next to each
other in the same building even. One looks in vain in administrative reform for
such direct comparisons and what brought them to such different levels of
performance. Again this is where organization theory has let administrative
reform down. Even a comparison between trouble-makers and trouble-shooters,
between people who supposedly disrupt organizations and people who supposed-
ly settle them down when disrupted has never been drawn.
Perhaps it all boils down to concentrating on the basics and ensuring that the
simple, routine things get down quickly and properly, that people know what
needs to be done and do it right, that staff are adequately distributed according to
the work load to be done, that employees do actually work together and not as if
they were at war with one another, that individuals actually do want to work and
do work, that everyone involved actually talks with one another and helps each
other out, and that they all appreciate and respect one another and cooperate
together to improve performance (Rosenbaum, 1982). Or is the problem much
more fundamental - an inherent contradiction between outputs and inputs,
bureaucratization and participation, administration and democracy? Are public
bureaucracies to be service institutions accountable to society or control
institutions that increasingly rule society (Denhardt and Jennings, 1987, 14)?
organizations with popular grass roots participation and control, but the issue
had never been resolved to satisfaction and the postwar efforts proved no more
rewarding. Democratic administration, like democratic management, seemed
oxymoronic, except perhaps on a small scale, as in a party cell or cooperative
enterprise.
Administrative reform has tended to downplay the contradictions in democra-
tic societies between democratic political institutions and non-democratic
administrative institutions. Occasionally, there has been a flurry of concern.
Workers' participation in management or in privately managed organizations
has been broached for publicly managed enterprises. It received sympathetic
hearing and token representation in the British nationalized industries. It was
adopted en bloc in workers self-management in Yugoslavia (Pateman, 1970).
The Great Society anti-poverty programs had provision for "maximum feasible
participation". Participation rarely amounted to control or even to a predominant
say in key decision-making. Nor did other reforms intended to make public
administrators more representative of their clients. Greater success was achieved
through indirect representation and complaint mechanisms but still minor when
compared with the empowerment of clients, decentralization of government
operations, and sensitivity training of public officials, backed by the extension of
individual rights to include social and economic benefits (Glassman et al.,
1987).
In the 1970s, a serious effort was made by Vincent Ostrom to switch the
predominant paradigm in the study of American public administration from a
top-down Weberian bureaucratic approach to a "democratic administration"
bottom-up approach based on (a) decentralized, fragmented authority, (b)
diverse, overlapping jurisdictions with veto power, and (c) public choice among
competing delivery systems (Ostrom, 1973). Clearly, Ostrom was applying
public choice theory as formulated in political economy to government and
public administration and opened himself to the opponents of that theory.
Nevertheless, Ostrom was also echoing the concerns of the New Public
Administration movement that (American) public organizations should better
reflect the values and composition of the whole society not just those of the
power elite, that they should promote social justice and equity, and that relations
between them and their clients should be closer and softer. When he failed to
convince his peers, it was difficult to rescue the idea of democratic administra-
tion from his particular version that decentralized government would be better,
more democratic, more moral and that smaller organizations would be more
efficient and responsive (Golembiewski, 1977). Nonetheless, his was a genuine
attempt to challenge bureaucratic administration. Few others even raise the
issue, an issue that demands attention from administrative reform, especially if
bureaucracy is here to stay, if public officials are gaining in power, and if
bureaucrats maximize their self-interests as the public choice theorists presume
(Niskanen, 1971, 36). Just who does the administrative state serve - the state,
286 13. Unfinished Business
the public, or itself. If all of them, then which comes first and which last? Is it to
be elitist or populist? Is it to govern or be governed?
To offset the specter of bureaucratic or imperial government (Peters, 1981),
administrative reform might be expected to come up with a revived version of
citizenship and civic culture administration. Presumably if all citizens know
their duties and obligations, their responsibilities and rightful conduct, then
when they become administrators, public administrators, they will be respons-
ible administrators as befits a democracy. But virtually nowhere has adminis-
trative reform included citizenship. Instead, the focus has been on how
customers, consumers and clients (significantly not citizens) can better influence
public service delivery. The citizens are seen as no more than users, not as
owners of public goods and services. They are merely recipients, presumably
passive recipients, which fits well with public choice theory and management
theory but hardly with democratic theory, and not at all with social theory that
seeks enhanced citizenship rights rather than enhanced administrative discretion
in the welfare state and that would join "social citizenship" to civil and political
citizenship (Marshall, 1964; Waxman, 1983).
A hopeful exception in the 1980s appeared to be a recovery of civicism in
American public administration (Denhardt and Jennings, 1987, 25). Government
cutbacks had seen some "public" instead of government provision of community
services where high technical expertise was not required through new forms of
citizen involvement such as coproduction, neighborhood organization delivery,
self-help and public/private partnerships. By reducing the gap between the role
of citizens and public employees, they had the potential for a more communi-
tarian arrangement of civic life, a revitalization of a communitarian spirit, and a
restoration of citizen trust and support for public institutions. But
Those who believe that citizenship, civic virtue, and "public service" should be an
important part of our national culture, should be distressed that these features of
democracy have come to be regarded as a mere myth in a polity that increasingly rewards
narrow self-interest. (Levine, 1984, 85-6)
and that was well on the way to destroying an indispensable element of idealism
in the public service. Citizenship should mean more than passively doing what
public authorities want done and voting at elections or serving on juries. The
public has to be brought more actively into public administration and citizens
and public officials brought closer together to apply the "consent of the
governed" principle to both employee and citizen interactions in more signifi-
cant ways (Gardner, 1974).
Restoring The Appeal of Public Service 287
The 1980s saw a general trend throughout the world to revive economic fortunes
through private enterprise rather than public initiatives. At the same time,
privatization became more popular and business management was boosted while
public sector employment conditions fell behind those obtaining in the private
sector and governments cut back on public service education and training. Not
surprising, the appeal of public sector employment in general and public service
professions in particular declined. In some countries where public service had
traditionally been well respected and honorable such as the United Kingdom,
higher executive jobs went begging even at a time of high unemployment. In the
United States where federal government salaries fell over 25 percent below
private sector counterparts, the new Bush Administration had considerable
difficulty filling higher executive positions. While prospective public servants
were turned off by bureaucrat-bashing in the mass media and voiced by political
leaders, the uncertainty about career prospects in public organizations, and the
relative (and in some cases the absolute) decline of living standards of public
employees, long-serving, experienced, highly competent and resourceful public
executives were leaving public employment for greener pastures elsewhere
(where they received much higher compensation) or taking early retirement.
The short run effects were serious enough. The longer term implications were
ominous. Even if public employment managed to recover within a decade, the
damage had already been done. The loss of morale alone had brought sullen
resentment, a sense of (justifiable) grievance, a general souring reflected in work
performance and interpersonal relations. But administrative reform relies on a
cooperative if not enthusiastic reception, and generally on competent, expe-
rienced executives to smooth the way and ease the transition. Administrative
reform requires exceptional talent and a motivated public service. Maintaining
the appeal and attraction of public service should always be high on the agenda
of administrative reform. Yet in the 1980s, administrative reform had very little
to say on the subject and whatever it said was drowned out by reformers eager to
seize the opportunity presented by economic difficulties to cut down the public
sector, reduce public employment, rid public bureaucracy of any excess,
reserves and fat, and generally criticize the public sector to which the major
share of economic difficulties were attributed.
That the pendulum had swung too far was only recognized belatedly. Even
without the constant bombardment from outside, enough turmoil had been
generated within public sectors to cause much confusion about goals and
objectives, guidelines and regulations, operating procedures, communications,
inter-organizational relations, public relations, and client rights. Now had been
added the fear that nobody really cared about the fate of public employees, not
even their own organizations which had once not so long ago been so
288 13. Unfinished Business
.. .keeping America strong and maintaining our leadership will rest on restoring a sense of
high ethics and professionalism and challenge in public service itself. It needs to be
attractive to the most talented and energetic among us, able to compete with professions
which will pay a lot more. (Volker, 1989)
The immediate impact of the Volker Report was to curb or tone down
bureaucrat-bashing and to set in motion machinery to improve public confidence
in government and self-pride in public employment. The Volker Commission
continued to put pressure on the federal government to implement its recommen-
dations and issued a regular newsletter on progress. It was a step in reversing the
trend against public service, and it may have been a turning point. Elsewhere
around the globe, similar concerns were being expressed and action taken to
restore the appeal of public service and the confidence of public officials, such
as improving administrative leadership, reorganizing structures to provide more
collaboration, redefining jobs to make work more interesting and less boring,
permitting more flexible working hours and conditions of employment, under-
taking job satisfaction studies, and generally beefing up research into public
employee dissatisfaction and discontent (Davies, 1988).
Undertaking Research 289
Undertaking Research
That a privately sponsored inquiry into the deterioration of the appeal of public
service in the United States should have been found necessary points to the
paucity of public funding for research on administrative reform. Private
organizations readily understand the need for research and investigation into
their performance, into finding out how wisely they are using their resources and
whether they are achieving the results they expect, and into the possibilities of
doing things differently to improve their market position, investment returns,
profitability and output. But public organizations do little and spend little above
and beyond obligatory accounting and auditing requirements finding these
things out in regard to their own operations. Yet administrative reform inquiries
pay off handsomely when their recommendations are acted on. It would not
seem too much to ask of governments to spend 1 percent of their resources
finding out exactly what happens to the other 99 percent but few governments
ever approach even one-hundredth of 1 percent. When they do the outcomes are
unimpressive.
...evaluation is difficult, takes a lot of time to carry out, and can be very expensive...the
information generated...is often incomplete, suspect, and unrelated to the problem at
hand. We have found bureaucratic and organizational constraints so formidable that
today, after investment of significant resources and effort, not one [U.S] federal agency
has an overall evaluation system and few programs are able to make any use of the
evaluations produced. (Wholey, 1972, 361-2)
The state-of-the-art has improved in the meantime but its application has barely
improved (Wholey, 1989). How in such circumstances can administrative
reform be institutionalized as governments profess?
This lack of evaluation applies throughout government, from judging the
quality of life and standards of living to national planning and administrative
reform. Much that is written about administrative reform is about what people
propose to do or are in the process of doing. Thereafter, little is said about what
was done or what was achieved. Most reforms that are not aborted fall below the
expectations of their sponsors and rarely achieve what was promised at the
outset. This does not mean that they failed. On the contrary, they may have been
quite successful. One would have to know what would have happened in their
absence and what happened just because they were threatened. The methodologi-
cal problems are difficult but not insurmountable. As long as too little
investment is made in evaluation, the rest of the world has to rely on the
prejudiced opinions of reformers and their critics.
Without adequate research and evaluation, theory-building in administrative
reform cannot advance much. Patient researchers collect what evidence they can
and formulate common-sense generalizations which is about the best that can be
done. Subsequent evidence may or may not confirm them. As more evidence
290 13. Unfinished Business
accumulates and more generalizations are made, so they can be refined and
modified into plausible hypotheses and general guidelines or pointers for
would-be reformers. Every decade, the situation improves but it will probably
take a few decades yet before a really solid theoretical foundation can be laid,
although there is no telling when this process might be speeded up. It cannot be
near as long as the gap in research and evaluation remains.
Researchers in administrative reform are fortunate in that there seems no
ready alternative. To abandon administrative systems wholesale would result in
the collapse of civilization and in anarchy. Doing nothing about them means
regression given that governments the world over already cannot cope and
largely blame their defective administrative systems for failing to anticipate
crises, devise appropriate, workable policies, mobilize resources in time and
seize opportunities. All leaders can seemingly do is to make encouraging noises
and spare token funds while people seethe at "big talk and small deeds" (Time,
October 23, 1989, 31). Intervention is unavoidable to prevent further deteriora-
tion, and action has to be taken despite "the extraordinary overload of
supervisory and managing agencies and the impotence of overworked officials,
all of whom are incapable of getting anything done" (Crozier, 1982, 15-16). The
fact that so many people are involved and so many views have to be taken into
account means that often the original point is lost and "nobody really knows
how the initial decision was made, who is responsible, and why the big decisions
were made the way they were" (Ibid, 17). Michel Crozier instances poor public
decisions about the Concorde airplane, the Narita airport, and the San Francisco
Bay Area Rapid Transit (B.A.R.T.) system and warns about the risks in
"following the easy way of what seems to be the general agreement" when the
facts point otherwise. "Beyond a certain level of complexity nobody can control
results" (Ibid, 20). Research may well reveal this is exactly what happens in
administrative reform and may explain why reform actions often produce
perverse effects.
The experts advised against the project on two occasions and it was rejected by a
referendum, but it was finally approved after twelve years bitter controversy, thanks to an
unholy alliance of environmentalists and businessmen who waged a tremendous advertis-
ing campaign. The job of managing it was given to the man who had run this campaign
and who was the only person who could cope with its consequences. But it created a
financial bottomless pit and turned out to be technically disastrous. For more than a year,
the B.A.R.T. was not able to function more than a few hours per day. At present its
operating costs are so high that they are a heavy burden on the municipal budgets
involved. And the nearby towns, which had been counted on to enlarge the system, have
refused to join it. (Ibid, 17-18).
References 291
In short, "it was undertaken on the basis of grossly mistaken estimates of the
actual costs, of the social benefits, and even of the traffic and revenue". What
went wrong? B.A.R.T. had had time and money to undertake proper feasibility
studies but the methods and theories employed were inadequate and not
"scientific". Each feasibility study consisted of partisan analysis, overstated
benefits and understated capital costs.
Indeed, the researchers went on to generalize that most attempts at governmen-
tal efficiency and effectiveness had failed, citing P.P.B.S., M.B.O., Z.B.B.
reorganizations, personnel reforms, fiscal reforms, cost-benefit analysis, cost-
effectiveness, decision analysis, commissions of inquiry (in this study, the Grace
Commission) and productivity (Downs and Larkey, 1986). They had been
flawed by poor base information, the short-term political horizon, the wrong-
problem problem, misallocation of political attention, and misrepresentation of
the value of efficiency. The researchers concluded that chances for dramatic
breakthroughs in administrative reform were slim, that there was an inverse
relationship between the amount of fanfare associated with any given reform and
its positive effects on government efficiency, and that the limits on government
efficiency were real and operative due to the nature of problems, constraints,
scale and adversarial processes. In short, administrative reform did not come up
to scientific standards and until it did, consumers should be warned that the
product was highly suspect. Was its product real medicine or snake oil or a
mixture of both? Only farther research could tell.
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Bennis, W., Beyond Bureaucracy, McGraw Hill, New York, 1973.
Campbell, C., and Peters, B. (eds.), Organizing Governance, Governing Organizations,
University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, PA., 1988.
Crozier, M., Strategies For Change: The Future of French Society, The M.I.T. Press,
Cambridge, Ma., 1982.
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14. Necessary Preventive Medicine
more effective, imposing more rigidity and inflexibility in their lives, reducing
their feeling of independence, control, choice, and hope while intensifying their
fear of manipulation or rather of being manipulated by unseen and unknown
power brokers. They worry about what for them as recipients (or victims) of
reform is mischief-making, insufficiently sensitive or caring about individuals in
the pursuit of administrative modernization, higher productivity, greater efficien-
cy, simplification and organizational rationality, and the further edification of
the administrative state which seems to forget about the ordinary folk in the
engineered, organized, managed society. They have been stung too often by
reforms which promise to benefit them "ultimately" but end up costing them
plenty. They have had to pick up the pieces while those responsible for
miscalculation, mistiming, and misapplication advanced on their reputation for
innovation, firmness and ability to get things done, unfortunately not always
things that should have been done or were worth doing.
Much administrative reform has been purely cosmetic, i.e. spurious medicine,
a placebo. Publicly announced reforms were not intended to take effect and
nobody on the inside took them seriously. They were a sop to pubic opinion.
There had been a problem. There had been a demand for a solution, any solution.
Reform had been an appropriate answer. It had been formally adopted and
thereafter it had dropped out of sight. It had never been given sufficient
resources and backing. There had been no meaningful participation. The
formalities had been correctly observed. People had gone through the proper
motions. But nothing had really changed. Quality circles had been formed but
nothing came out of them or nothing considered important enough to bother
with. Complaint offices had been established but little notice had been taken of
complaints or not enough to change things from giving rise to identical
complaints. Suggestion schemes had been introduced but no suggestions had
been adopted or sufficiently acknowledged to encourage anyone to make further
suggestions. Budgeting procedures had been changed but the same practices had
continued. The best strategy to defeat administrative reform is to adopt the
reforms formally and ensure they are not implemented or implemented in such a
way that they cannot possibly succeed or that they achieve the exact opposite of
what was intended. No doubt, many reforms meet such a fate. The cures were
not meant to cure. Unfortunately, continued neglect of the diseases, like
unprofessional and wrong treatment, may be far worse.
Diagnostic Science
Administrative reformers could well model themselves on diagnostic procedures
followed by the medical profession. First, physicians take a general history of
their patients and try to acquire the detailed notes on past illnesses and treatment.
Diagnostic Science 297
Unless their patients' illnesses are critical, in which case they dispense with
further details and concentrate on immediate treatment, they check on the
general state of their patients' health before concentrating on their particular
complaints. Based on past studies and an acquired feel, they prescribe general
remedies and ask their patients to let them know whether they have worked. If
not they prescribe something else until the patients recover or seek a second
opinion. They combine focused trial and error ("knowing where to start the
search for an effective intervention, and checking outcomes at intervals to adjust
and modify the interventions") with tentativeness ("a commitment to revise
one's course as necessary").
A good doctor does not invest prestige and ego in the treatment prescribed. On the
contrary, what distinguishes good physicians from poor ones is precisely their sensitivity
to changing conditions, their pronounced willingness to change directions on the basis of
results, their humility in the face of reality. (Etzioni, 1989, 125)
human beings could do without cures altogether if only they knew how to avoid
illnesses. "In preventive medicine, a goal is never quite realized because disease
itself cannot be eradicated. Disease can only be controlled to some extent" (Ibid,
254).
So it is in the organization society. The maladies of everyday living are
caused not only by physical and mental sickness but also by organizational
diseases - bureaupathologies - which still remain unavoidable and unprevent-
able and are responsible for much suffering in society and among individuals.
There are clear links between organizational ill-health and individual ill-health
in such areas as work-related injuries, occupational hazards and diseases, job
strain and stress, burn-out, fatigue, victimization, alienation and so forth.
Medical practitioners and organization psychologists have been growing more
concerned about ill-health generated by work places, work conditions and
organizational pressures. But whereas medicine is highly organized, well-
funded, research oriented, professional in every sense, administrative reform, its
closest parallel in the administrative sciences, is none of these things and is
unlikely to reach such heights until bureaupathology is seen in the same light as
human sickness. Administrative reform today is well behind where medicine
used to be even a hundred years ago. Until organizations learn how to avoid
bureaupathologies altogether, there will always be need of cures and a science of
administrative health with a branch devoted to organizational diagnosis,
containing purgatives and antidotes (Argyris, 1970; Levinson, 1972; Galbraith,
1977).
As in medicine, once the causes of illness are known, it is possible to work on
providing an environment in which diseases cannot flourish, preventative
measures akin to isolation, vaccination, balanced diet, personal hygiene, and
regular check-ups, proper diagnostic instruments, an identification text equival-
ent to Gray's Anatomy, pharmaceutical equivalents, and possibly operating
theatres where drastic surgery has to be performed on particularly malignant
bureaupathologies. In the past one hundred years, such embryonic devices have
been developed. The profession of management has been devoting itself to the
improvement of organization performance and the determinants of organization
health. So too in the public sector has the profession of government and the
study of public administration. Together, they are fortifying instruments that will
eventually reduce the need for administrative reform or so institutionalize
administrative reform that its prescriptions will not be so feared, they will be
more palatable and they will become part of normal operations instead of
isolated events in the life cycle of administrative systems.
Institutionalization 299
Institutionalization
Once it is recognized that administrations invariably go wrong, develop all kinds
of bureaupathologies and need to constantly take self-correcting measures, so
the functions of diagnosis and prognosis will need to be institutionalized. That
cannot be left to chance, accident, disaster, political maneuvering, entrepre-
neurship and fear as has so often been the case in administrative reform in the
past. Somewhere within the machinery of government formal responsibility has
to be placed on some body to superintend or monitor administrative operations,
to evaluate managerial performance, to detect serious shortcomings and failures,
and to devise suitable remedial measures together with back-up devices
throughout should that body itself fail to perform properly. The affairs of state
are so important, the impact of the administrative state on everyday living so
intrusive, the proper functioning of public services so crucial to the welfare,
security and progress of society that redundancy is required as an imperative
fail-safe device. Here is one area in administrative systems where overlapping
and duplication are indispensable. Compared with the total costs of government,
they are still only incidental expenses but their potential returns make them a
good investment and an indispensable safety valve.
While one of several bodies could be designated as the chief or leading source
of administrative reform, a combination is more appropriate to assure adequate
performance.
Publicly sponsored
* Chief executive office: a unit under the immediate responsibility of the leader
of the government or cabinet office or equivalent or deputy C.E.O.
* Separate ministry, solely devoted to administrative matters or combining the
function with planning or productivity or finance or personnel or general
services administration or inspection
* Separate ministry for public enterprises and government commercial
activities
* Independent audit agency, with access to all organizations conducting public
business or using public funds
* Legislative and judicial research, investigatory and advisory bodies
* Independent legal agency, with responsibility for all public organizations
established by public law, exercising public powers, and issuing delegated
legislation or exercising administrative discretion
* Independent rights agency, with responsibility for enforcing human rights,
protecting privacy (including information), and ensuring equal opportunity
and non-discrimination
* Independent anti-corruption agency
* Independent education, training and research agency
300 14. Necessary Preventive Medicine
Voluntarily sponsored
* Independent mass media
* Independent higher education
* Independent professional societies, employee associations, and trade
unions
* Independent think-tanks and equivalent (for military, police and intelligen-
ce activities as well as civil)
* Citizens' research bodies
* Political party research bodies.
What is implied in this network of administrative reform is that no one body has
a monopoly of knowledge or expertise or invention, that some aspects of
maladministration require special investigation and handling and that operating
agencies are remiss if internally they do not have counterparts that have links to
all relevant channels. Of course, rich countries with a long tradition of
administrative reform already have elaborate networks that include all or nearly
all of these elements. They also belong to international associations that bring
individual elements together for regular exchanges of ideas and experiences and
that are used to bring external pressure on their own governments when facing
domestic difficulties. Poor countries are much less fortunate and their very
poverty prevents their active participation in international circles. Nevertheless,
the potential exists for a more dynamic institutional presence in administrative
reform in the future. Several of these bodies, both nationally and internationally,
are of relative recent origins, inexperienced, underfunded and powerless, but
their very existence is more than just symbolic. As they gain momentum, they
should be a force to be reckoned with and quicken the global pace of
administrative reform.
One of the key concerns...is the development of adequate performance measures, and of
effective accounting and reporting systems for monitoring spending and results. Budget
officials seek effective means to allow increased flexibility and freedom of choice for
individual departments and managers, within the framework of the collective priorities of
government while ensuring that the desired level of overall expenditure control is
maintained and that sufficient knowledge is available at the centre of government to
provide informed and effective budget advice to Ministers and the Cabinet. (O.E.C.D.,
1987, 12)
best possible use of public funds and that people who conduct public business
should be held accountable for the prudent and effective management of the
resources entrusted to them (Auditor General's Annual Report 1988-9, 67).
They were concerned with assessing whether programs were implemented in an
economical and efficient manner and whether legislators and the public were
provided with appropriate accountability information. They did not demand
theoretical perfection from public managers but whether they were meeting
reasonable expectations and whether management processes ensured value for
money. They went well beyond financial audits to challenge government policy,
administrative valuations and assessments and managerial qualities, and made
harsh judgments that grated the government and the bureaucracy and gave grist
to mass media ridicule. Clearly, new ground was being explored and the
eventual outcome can only enhance government performance.
Value-for-money indicators of government performance should eventually go
beyond accounting and auditing principles and link up with several other
indicators that have been or are being developed:
* Net national product indicators such as the stock of natural resources, the
efficient and effective use of national resources, investment and savings,
extent of unused or underused capacity, quality of life, social relations,
standard of living, ownership, purchasing power, congestion and travel time,
sustainable income and development, pollution costs;
* National security indicators such as external threats, incidence of terrorism,
espionage, treason, readiness of armed forces, quality of weaponry, quality of
trained personnel;
* Economic indicators of public sector performance such as investment
returns, capital utilization, viability of public enterprises, cost- reduction, cost
recovery, work stoppages, absenteeism, distribution and accessibility of public
sector goods and services, monopoly/ competitiveness;
* Social (justice) indicators such as reduction of poverty, freedom from
discrimination, social and political participation, civil liberties, social errors,
alienation, family relations, leisure opportunities, housing/accommodation
standards;
* Health (and welfare) indicators such as demography, incidence of epi-
demics, outbreaks of preventable diseases, work loss attributable to sickness,
hospitalization, quarantine, rates of illness, physically handicapped, mental
illness, suicides, nutrition, addictions and addictives, welfare recipients,
institutionalization, social insurance coverage, quality of working life;
* Crime (and safety) indicators such as victimization, reported crime statistics,
nature and incidence of crimes, prison statistics, court statistics, arrest rates,
accidents, violent demonstrations;
* Education (and research) indicators such as literary, language skills, school
attendance, higher education opportunities, research funding, patents and
Productivity 303
Productivity
Value-for-money advocates have pushed for three objectives, namely the
elimination of unnecessary government activities, the reduction of public
spending and costs, and the increase of public sector productivity. Even where
public organizations meet public expectations and perform satisfactorily by any
reasonable measures, there is almost universal belief that they are not as
productive as they ought to be. In short, there is great room for improvement:
more could be done with fewer employees ("more for less"). For too long,
public employees have been overly sheltered by paternal governments unwilling
to provoke their employees, by benign managements unchallenged from the
outside, by institutionalized tenure in law and practice, by powerful employee
unions and associations, by embedded patronage systems, by tolerant work
norms, and by indifference to public costs. Saved from private exploitation, they
have been over indulged under public protection. There has been no hiding of
grossly bloated staffing in poor countries and the public everywhere has been
treated to many examples of laziness, non-performance and indifference,
ranging from the closing of shutters for breaks despite long lines of people
awaiting service to groups of public employees just standing around apparently
doing nothing for hours. Though people may get the same treatment from
private employees it does not rankle as much as from public employees and any
304 14. Necessary Preventive Medicine
It has provided a forum since 1976 through Public Productivity Review and
since 1989 through an international network to facilitate the development and
application of innovative techniques, stimulate research, present integrated
analyses, explore elements of productivity improvement strategies, and provide
an impetus for a productivity ethic among public sector organizations. Its
concerns have been eclectic, ranging from motivation and job design to
measurement and productivity bargaining, and skewed to American practitio-
ners, but it invariably provides something of universal interest. Likewise specific
barriers to increased productivity are dealt with in other international forums,
such as Corruption and Reform and Public Enterprise, with a similar philosophy
of improvement, careful analysis of inhibiting processes, and encouragement
and support to practitioners to improve the state of the art.
What has emerged from all these activities around the globe is the realization
that despite difficulties of definition, measurement and evaluation, the producti-
vity of public sector goods and services has been higher than commonly realized
and that efforts to raise productivity have pushed up rates in the public sector
even surpassing the private sector (The Economist, 1986; Fisk, 1985). Although
costs may have risen higher over the same period, i.e. output may have doubled
but costs increased even more (Lane, 1987, 189), the difference was attributable
to improved quality of public services, heavy initial investment in mechaniza-
tion, and inflation. Several countries have developed quite sophisticated measu-
res of public sector productivity although some areas of government activity
such as international relations, defense and social welfare services are still
proving somewhat elusive. Nevertheless, the state-of-the-art should continue to
improve in the near future such that by the turn of the century there should be
few gaps left. The outputs if not the outcomes of public sector activities should
be better known and more accurately calculated.
306 14. Necessary Preventive Medicine
superior tax collection may scare away wealthy people. Higher public sector
productivity is not always considered a virtue among certain sections of the
community, not when it leads to stricter enforcement of the law and less social
freedom. Nonetheless, boosting public sector productivity is a reality that should
promote administrative reforms in the immediate future although it may reduce
the pressures for them thereafter when the public perceive that public organiza-
tions really are in healthier shape.
But there are certain obligations that apply particularly to public organizations
beyond such generalizations.
administrative due process and be human and humane even in the most trying
situations.
* Adhering to the highest standards of honesty and integrity. Public
organizations should set the example of public morality and ethics, in a sense,
acting righteously. They should not only do good but act good. They should
enforce professional codes of public ethics and be jealous of their reputation,
allowing no defaulters, no compromisers, no exemptions. They should root
out all forms of corruption and be constantly on their guard against non-
feasance, mal-feasance and mis-feasance, providing a full and sufficient range
of institutional supports for the conscientious.
* Being identified with progress. Public organizations should be seen as
progressive organizations, advancing the interests of all concerned - the
public at large, their specific clients, their employees, and the public
professions. They should be looking all the time to be better and to push
everything else to be better, never relaxing on their achievements but striving
to make each higher level the minimum for the future. They should be among
the leaders in organizational, administrative and managerial research, particu-
larly, in debureaucratization, deregulation, decentralization, self-correction,
paperwork reduction, safety, cleanliness, marketing, counselling, civic activi-
ties, and adult education.
By and large, these obligations on public organizations are reasonable demands.
They are within everyone's reach. And many countries can boast that they are
the norm in the public sector and obviate the need for much administrative
reform. While they may even meet with ideas of excellence such as "managing
public service organizations for improved performance, humanely and respon-
sively, while creating organizations capable of adroitly and continuously
responding to changes taking place in their environments" (Denhardt and
Jennings, 1988, 22), they still do not come up to the idealistic expectations of
Guerreiro Ramos that all organizations, public and private, provide conditions
for self-actualization (Ramos, 1981).
The problem in many countries is not so much attaining healthy public
organizations (that battle has been successfully fought over many generations)
as maintaining them in vastly different circumstances and altered conditions.
One solution has been to plump for "islands of excellence," "enclaves of
innovation," "selective radicalism" (Dror, 1983; Lee, 1983; O.E.C.D., 1979)
whereby reform energies are put into models of excellence or the healthiest
possible public organizations where they most count to ensure the highest
attainable performance in those areas, to eliminate bottlenecks in the whole
system, and to induce surrounding organizations to come up to their level. Poor
performers cannot be reversed instantaneously, if at all, because when threat-
ened by reform they tend to close up and cut off their most flexible,
reform-minded elements. It is better to bypass them altogether and create new
310 14. Necessary Preventive Medicine
organizations and new programs from scratch that will eventually supplant and
replace the old, or attach brand new units staffed with outsiders as invigorating
forces within. The more progressive elements will gravitate to the new where
they will find a more receptive atmosphere and in time their better performance
will present few political difficulties in eventually abandoning the old. This way,
the administrative culture will eventually become readier to innovate, take risks,
assume responsibility, and be more accommodating to the public (O.E.C.D.,
1979, 11) particularly if jollied along with occasional shocks administered by
determined, tough, firm leaders that bulldoze through resistance and inertia.
Realistic Expectations
The ultimate aim in administrative reform paradoxically is to eliminate the need
for radical surgery. Some bureaupathologies are so serious that nothing short of
shock treatment, drastic operations and intensive care will do. But the remedies
may prove too severe for the weaker patients who cannot be revived, and the
good in them expires along with the bad. Alternatively, the patient just freezes
into a catatonic state in which nothing seems to help or so many doctors try so
many different cures, that they all cancel out one another and the poor patient is
bemuddled and befused by the different advice. Fortunately, administrative
systems and public organizations are made tough and they can withstand a great
deal of abuse and mistreatment; they seem to weather most reform blitzes fairly
well. Nonetheless, practitioner folk wisdom does not recommend across-the-
board assaults as being the optimum strategy. The preference is for gradualism
or continuous adaptation. Don't treat everything that is wrong all at once; be
selective. Don't expect that the patients will recover immediately; give the
healing process time; allow the patients to recuperate at their own pace
according to their individual circumstances. Otherwise, reforms prove too
ambitious an effort for organizations to digest and implement. When this
happens, as all too frequently it does, the following is a typical lament.
.. .Far too much was attempted, we did not have the time to oversee them all. We did not
have the energy to nurture them all. We did not have the power to push them all. We did
not have the insight to involve all the people who should have been made a part of them.
(Mirvis and Berg, 1978, 143)
are available and fewer still can be spared. They have to be used selectively and
resources applied sparingly. For at least twenty years, social science literature
has pleaded for more resources to be devoted to change and reform, for more
effort to be put into training change agents, and for more investment to be made
in the preparation of reform instruments. Whatever has been done in the
meantime has been insufficient to meet growing demands worldwide. They
cannot be manufactured overnight. So even if countries were to embark on
elaborate administrative reform campaigns, they would be stymied by lack of
expertise.
Even if the expertise were suddenly made available, there remains the
imposing problems of resistance to reform and administrative inertia. Much has
been written about overcoming the cultural, social, organizational, and psycholo-
gical barriers to change (Zaltman and Duncan, 1977) and implementing
organization change (Oman and Masters, 1987). Few underestimate the task.
Almost all emphasize that getting reforms accepted is a long arduous process,
winning people over against their instincts and convictions. Compelling reforms
is self-defeating. Uncommitted participants will go through the motions but they
will not really change. Going along is rarely sufficient for success. Indeed, it is a
bad recipe for outward appearances may well hide deliberate sabotage. A much
better recipe is involvement that brings identification, responsibility and
ownership, active cooperation rather than passive non-commitment. But there
are no magic formulas; techniques for overcoming resistance, reversing attitudes
and gaining confidence are still largely of the trial and error variety. Reform can
be an agonizing experience and it can tear the fabric of the organization (Mirvis
and Berg, 1978, 112). Caution is obviously warranted.
The objective of administrative reform is not temporary success but a
permanent improvement in administrative performance. It is no less than a
permanent transformation of administrative culture. Changes in ethos and
attitudes cannot be forced: they must come from within, from a genuine change
of heart. When dealing with the sheer size and complexity of government
organization as a whole, and the diversity and variations among so many
government professions, there are no miracles, no instant successes. Changing
any characteristic of an administrative culture is a long, hard slog, an uphill
battle all the way. To persist, one really has to be truly committed. Far from
being Utopian, it is necessary preventive medicine. Those who indulge believe it
worthwhile and claim excitement, fun, enthusiasm, and an unparalleled sense of
freedom, energy, commitment, and accomplishment that even without any final
victories, was meaningful, rewarding and beneficial, and above all brought good
government and the Good Society a little nearer (Feldman, 1981). In any event,
the reform clock, driven by ideology, example, fear, breakdown, dissatisfaction
and innovation, ticks on relentlessly.
Keeping Perspective 313
Keeping Perspective
At the beginning of the 1990s, administrative reform was only part of much
wider and more sweeping institutional reforms around the world in response to
attempts by governments to regain national purpose and direction, strike out in
new directions, rise above political stalemates and bureaucratic inertia, reshape
state and society to meet the challenges of the 21st century, and generally
reinvigorate sluggish governmental systems to respond better to political
initiatives. Clearly, current institutional arrangements were not coping at all well
with longstanding problems. They had not been adjusted to changing circumstan-
ces. They were in fact exacerbating societal problems. Things were amiss; they
could not be repaired by just tinkering with the system; they demanded
structural and cultural changes; they revealed that whole systems had lost their
ability to respond to issues of public significance; they showed that public
affairs were not being managed properly and that the public had soured and lost
confidence in public institutions. People looked to public leaders to take bold
initiatives to end immobilisme in government, to overrule vested interests that
perpetuated the status quo and prevented any departures, to restore dynamism in
the body politic, and to raise societal aspirations by improving current perfor-
mance.
The boldest and most risky steps were being taken in Eastern Europe where
economic and political systems were being overturned literally overnight. But
that was not the only region in institutional turmoil. Whatever happened there
would have immediate and possibly devastating impact on the whole of the
Communist/Marxist world including socialist regimes in Latin America and
Africa. Western Europe was preparing for greater economic and possibly
political integration and that too would cause ripples around the world but
especially in bordering areas of the Mediterranean and the Middle East. In
Africa, the I.M.F. policies were still being imposed relentlessly while the
Republic of South Africa had abandoned apartheid. In Asia, as elsewhere,
nationalist, racial and religious pressures were promoting instability and making
several spots flashpoints for regional war. In South America, Brazil and
Argentina were going through particularly hard times and much of the Andes
region was being destabilized by international narcotics developments. Even
North America was not spared as Canada faced constitutional problems still over
the French Canadians while the checks and balances of the American system of
government were suffocating policy initiatives and making for an ineffective
bureaucracy. All of these events revolved around government and the inability
of their administrative systems to cope with the most pressing problems of
society (March and Olsen, 1989, 97). Thus, for the United States,
Perhaps the essence of the problem of governance today is that current administrative
structures, erected mostly during the Progressive era and the New Deal, are so entrenched
314 14. Necessary Preventive Medicine
that their adaptations to new conditions contribute little to overall government effective-
ness. Established structures no longer can contain political tensions between Congress, the
president, and the bureaucracy, and riven by conflict, they often do not permit successful
management of the nation's problems. (Chubb and Peterson, 1989, 5)
This lament could have been echoed almost anywhere in the world and similar
comments were being made in countries as diverse as Grenada, Israel, The
Gambia, Sri Lanka, Papua New Guinea and Fiji where public policies crucial for
the future were being mangled by defective institutional, particularly adminis-
trative, arrangements.
Administrative reform was only a minor part of global institutional initiatives
but the larger transformations could not take place without fundamental
overhauls of the machinery of government and long needed changes in
administrative systems had to be linked to wider political initiatives. There was
no mistaking the linkages between institutional, governmental and adminis-
trative reforms. In this, the general lessons that had been learned from past
experiences in administrative reform were all the more relevant:-
* reformers have to accept that half a loaf is better than none and that whatever
gains are made have to be consolidated into a springboard for further gains
* reformers have to realize that participation eases acceptance given that at any
point of time capacity for reform is restricted and capability poor
* reformers have to institutionalize their reforms, change the prevailing culture
and provide ongoing machinery for continuous reform
* reform is endless, oscillating and repetitive for there is always need for
improvement.
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Index
Name Index
Abalkin, L. 181 Gorbachev, M. 7, 20, 74, 175-183,
Abueva, J. 97 189
Acton, J. 115 Gouldner, A. 124
Andropov, Y. 177 Grace, J.P. 216
Market socialism 7, 173, 175, 178, Nomenklatura 175, 177, 180, 186
181, 188-189, 198, 271
Marxism 171,174-175,177,189,313 Ombudsman 9,23,119-120,142-143,
Medical sciences 10, 293-296 145, 186, 211, 222-223, 234, 248,
— analogy 307-309 250-252, 259, 294
Mellownization 125 — International Ombudsman
Merit system 156,186, 226, 264, 304 Institute 251
Mexico 79, 263 Organization and Methods
— Administrative Reform Program services 4,55-56,60,66,103,255,
262 258
— Mexicanization 190 Organization development 2, 54-55,
Middle East 250 160
Military 9, 58, 172, 175, 212, 235, Organization for Economic
245-246, 257, 275-276, 279-280 Cooperation and Development 66,
Mismanagement 243, 256-258, 279, 133-134, 211, 301
301 see also maladministration Organizational health 54, 298, 307,
Modernization 55, 79, 81, 182-183, 309
185-187, 199, 210, 214, 243-244,
264, 266, 271, 296 Paperwork reduction 104-106,
Monitoring 274, 278, 303 122-124, 215
— of administrative reform 7, 163 — Paperwork Reduction Act of
— performance 210 1980 105, 214-215 see also red
Morroco 254 tape
Moscow 180 Papua-New Guinea 251, 314
Murphy's Law 23, 56, 58, 115 Para-statal organizations 9, 202, 255,
276-278
National Academy of Public — N.G.O.s 277-278, 283
Administration 214 — P.V.O.s 277
National development 4, 21-22, 58, — Quangos 202, 255, 277-278
61, 164, 168, 171-172, 255, 257 Parkinson's Law 56,115
National planning 61, 65, 151, 164, Pennsylvania Department of
172-173, 178, 247-248, 291 Transportation 106
Nazism 20, 120, 197, 284 People-centered development
Nepal 265 248-249
Nepotism 172, 186, 193 Perestroika 7, 76, 175-181
Netherlands 210, 254 Performance audits 142, 145, 148,
New York City 27 212, 218
New Zealand 8, 148, 222, 227-232, — improvement program 261
250, 277 — indicators 208-209, 302
— Douglas Government 229 — management performance 253
— Lange Government 228-230, 232 — measures 10, 95, 225, 228-229,
Nigeria 119-121,257-259 237, 301, 303
— Yoriba 119 Peru 81, 252, 262
344 Index
Charles J. McMillan
The Japanese Industrial System
Second revised edition
1985.15.5 x 23 cm. XII, 356 pages.
Paperback. ISBN 3-11-012033-X; 0-89925-577-9 (U. S.)
Cloth. ISBN 3-11-010410-5; 0-89925-005-X (U. S.)
(de Gruyter Studies in Organization 1)
" . . . McMillan's The Japanese Industrial System is a superior work and its
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major contribution to the literature."
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