Book Reviews
| Published date | 01 October 1968 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/j.1099-162X.1968.tb00353.x |
| Date | 01 October 1968 |
Book Reviews
Administrative Problems in Pakistan, Ed. GUTHRIE S. BIRKHEAD;
Syracuse
University
Press,
1966; maps, index; pp. 223; $5.
The
six contributors to this book have all been connected with the Pakistan
Administrative Staff College in Lahore - an institution set up by the Pakistan
Government with the advice and help of the Maxwell School of Citizenship
and Public Affairs
of
Syracuse University in U.S.A. and of the Administrative
Staff College of Henley-on-Thames in England. Professors Birkhead,
Gorvine and Ziring helped to draw up the training programme for the senior
administrators whom the Pakistan Government sends to the College; while
Professors Fritschler, Platt and Miller spent several months there collecting
material for their Doctorate theses.
Professor Birkhead, as Editor, contributes an Introduction which sets out
the main features of the administrative history of Pakistan since the Revolu-
tion of 1958, and thus serves as a background for the detailed studies of
particular aspects of that history which make up the rest of the book. These
aspects include basic democracies: the measure
of
participation of business
interests in the administration: the problems presented by agricultural
development: the Pakistan Government's rather individual use of corpora-
tions as instruments of progress in a variety of fields: the directions which
administrative reform ought to take; and - rather oddly - a detailed study of
the Karachi Port Trust. As might be expected, the papers are not of equal
merit; but together they cover a wide field in a manner especially calculated
to enlighten American students of public administration, for whom, no
doubt they are primarily intended. Once more, American scholarship has
filled a gap in the existing literature dealing with present-day Pakistan.
Fromthe point of view of the British reader, Professor Birkhead's contribu-
tions - his Introduction, and his admirable survey of "Government by
Corporations" - are perhaps the most outstanding. It is true that with a
primarily American audience in mind, he has to spend time and space on
explaining points which may seem either obvious or over-laboured to those
of us who are familiar with the country; but none the less, it is good to be
reminded that the Pakistan Government has inherited from the British raj
certain characteristics which astonish foreign observers. I well remember,
when I was working with Lionel Curtis and E. S. Montague how startled
both men were when a senior member of the I.C.S. told them, as a matter of
simple fact: "You must realise that the I.C.S. are the Government
l",
And
much the same thing still holds good with the C.S.P. today; for although the
overall formulation of policy rests with President Ayub Khan and his Cabinet,
the execution of that policy, and the ultimate shape that it takes, rests largely
in the hands of the all-Pakistan Services. In such a situation, it is greatly to
the credit of these Services that
"the
strong concern with administrative
reform" which is noted with approval by several of the contributors to this
volume, should be so characteristic of the atmosphere of Pakistan today.
Professor Gorvine, who writes the chapter dealing with this subject, has
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