Development, Administrative Capacity and Administrative Reform
| Author | Gerald E. Caiden |
| Date | 01 December 1973 |
| Published date | 01 December 1973 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002085237303900401 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Development,
Administrative
Capacity
and
Administrative
Reform
*
UDC
330.114.2:35.047
by
Gerald
E.
CAIDEN,
Department
of
Political
Science,
Haifa
University
Since
the
early
1950s,
administrative
modern-
ization
has
been
increasingly
recognized
as
an
integral
part
of the
developmental
process.
The
ability
to
assume
new
tasks,
to
cope
with
complexity,
to
subsume
conflict,
to
solve
novel
problems,
to
mobilize
resources,
to
learn
from
experience
and
uncertainty,
and
to
man-
age
crisis
and
turbulence,
depends
on
a
signi-
ficantly
enlarged
administrative
capacity,
broadly
based
on
increased
professionalization,
bureaucratization,
mechanization,
and
admin-
istrative
talent.
As
administrative
systems
change
slowly
and
in
a
conservatively
incre-
mental
manner,
natural
response
and
adaptation
are
inadequate
in
meeting
the
challenges
of
development.
Something
faster
and
more
radical
is
needed,
namely
organized
programs
of
administrative
reform
in
the
major
develop-
mental
sectors,
and
particularly
in
the
more
unresponsive,
sluggish
channels,
which
hamper
progress
and
developmental
efforts
elsewhere.
The
administrative
brake
on
development
is
universally
recognized.
During
the
past
two
decades,
several
countries
whose
administra-
tive
capacity
must
be
judged
high
by
any
cri-
teria,
have
instigated
comprehensive
reviews
of
their
machinery
of
government,
public
enter-
prises
and
private
sector
performance,
and
announced
plans
for
structural
overhaul
and
rapid
expansion
of
management
education
and
training.
An
impressive
number
of
new
states,
obsessed
with
the
problems
of
survival,
instability
and
societal
poverty,
have
radically
altered
their
administrative
systems
or
brought
in
foreign
experts
to
advise
on
achieving
a
substantial
improvement
in
administrative
per-
formance.
International
and
multi-national
bodies
have
been
pressed
to
provide
assistance
and
aid
in
sectoral
and
administrative
reform
projects
and
have
responded
within
their
li-
mited
means.
It
became
increasingly
apparent
that
relevant
knowledge
and
experience
were
scarce
and
inadequate.
As
a
result,
assistance
with
enlarging
administrative
capacity
and
im-
proving
administrative
reform
programs
has
been
made
a
priority
of the
Second
United
Nations
Development
Decade.
... What
is
required
in
many
developing
countries
is
an
&dquo;
administrative
revolution
&dquo;
in
the
support
of
revolutionary
changes
in
the
economic
and
social
fields
in
the
Second
United
Nations
Development
Decade...
Public
administrations
must
be
recreated,
re-
newed
and
revitalized
to
produce
the
chan-
ges
and
achievements
required
in
the
trans-
formation
of
societies.
This
necessitates
a
different
kind
and
magnitude
of
adminis-
trative
capability...
The
challenge
and
the
task
of
the
1970s
is
to
devise
and
install
administrative
systems
that
can
actually
ac-
celerate
development
and
better
enable
developing
countries
to
make
effective
use
of
their
resources...
Dysfunctional
and
in-
applicable
administrative
structures,
systems,
and
practices
must
be
replaced.
Nothing
less
than
dynamic
organizations,
resource-
ful
management
and
streamlined
adminis-
trative
processes
will
suffice...
A
new
con-
centration
on
achieving
goals
and
the
ability
to
solve
complex
operational
problems
be-
comes
indispensable...
Administration
for
development
thus
requires
a
commitment
and
capability
of
implementing
plans,
pro-
grammes
and
projects.
It
must
remove
obstacles
to
action,
mobilize
manpower,
materials
and
equipment,
for
example,
to
*
The
author
has
relied
extensively
on
numerous
case
studies
of
administrative
reform
available
in
the
gen-
eral
literature,
many
of
which
were
used
in
Administra-
tive
Reform
(Aldine-Atherton,
Chicago,
1969),
and
also
on
unpublished
country
studies
compiled
for
the
United
Nations
Interregional
Seminar
on
Major
Administrative
Reforms
in
Developing
Countries,
Institute
of
Development
Studies,
Falmer,
Brighton,
United
Kingdom,
25
October-2
November
1971,
co-
vering
Algeria,
Bolivia,
Brazil,
Burundi,
Ceylon,
Chile,
Colombia,
Dominican
Republic,
Egypt,
France,
Ghana,
India,
Indonesia,
Iraq,
Japan,
Republic
of
Korea,
Libya,
Malaysia,
Mexico,
New
Zealand,
Niger,
Peru,
Philippines,
Poland,
Senegal,
Somalia,
Soviet
Union,
Spain,
United
Kingdom,
Venezuela,
and
Yugoslavia,
plus
two
general
papers
on
Africa
and
Latin
America.
328
erect
a
new
facility,
deliver
a
service,
operate
a
programme,
and
it
must
do
all
these
ef-
fectively
and
with
speed
(1).
Administrative
delays
and
obsolescence
and
the
consequent
need
for
administrative
&dquo;
sur-
gery &dquo;
and &dquo;
therapy &dquo;
are
world-wide
prob-
lems...
An
enormous
amount
of
reform
and
improvement
is
necessary
to
develop
the
administrative
structures
and
systems
essential
to
the
implementation
of
develop-
ment
plans
and
other
measures
to
acce-
lerate
social
and
economic
progress.
The
high
priority
attached
to
this
effort
[by
the
Secretary-General]
is
endorsed,
giving
spe-
cial
attention
to :
(a)
Formulation
of
basic
requirements
for
improving
the
development
administration
of
individual
countries
and
of
groups
of
coun-
tries
with
similar
characteristics;
(b)
Analysis
and
formulation
of
strategies
and
methods
for
making
administrative
re-
form
and
improvement
a
continuous
and
successful
process;
(c)
Preparation
of
guidelines
and
assist-
ance
as
requested
in
the
establishment
of
effective
central
administrative
reform
and
management
improvement
offices...;
(d)
Focusing
reform
efforts
on
creating
capabilities
of
achieving
developmental
goals
and
on
better
management
of
development
efforts
(2).
This
comparatively
recent
discovery
of
insti-
tutionalized
administrative
reform
is
due
partly
to
a
reappraisal
of
the
meaning
of
develop-
ment.
Early
conceptions
of
the
quantitative
differences
between
rich
and
poor
countries,
advanced
and
backward
states,
developed
and
underdeveloped
(or
developing)
societies,
post-
industrialized
and
pre-industrialized
civiliza-
tions,
have
been
revised
of
necessity
as
the
rich,
advanced,
developed,
industrial
countries
have
run
into
developmental
problems
of
their
own
and
the
poor,
backward,
underdeveloped,
non-industrial
countries
have
qualitatively
not
found
themselves
so
badly
off
after
all.
Increasing
attention
has
been
directed
to
&dquo; the
structural
features
of
each
system,
its
internal
linkages
and
logic,
and
to
its
performance
or
capacity
to
respond
to
stimulus &dquo;
(3),
focusing
on
labor
productivity,
sector
growth
and
system
change,
societal
movement
and
social
mobiliza-
tion,
and
mechanics
of
dealing
with
social
change.
Most
recently,
development
has
been
seen
as
the
flight
from
societal
poverty
through
modernization
processes,
or,
more
simply,
societal
ability
to
transform
aspirations,
energy
and
available
resources
into
tangible
and
aesthetic
benefits,
particularly
longer
life
span,
higher
living
standards,
meaningful
work,
per-
sonal
security
and
freer
expression
of
indivi-
duality,
employing
science
and
technology,
entrepreneurship,
human
capital,
communica-
tions,
and
organizing
genius.
The
ability
to
get
things
done
that
are
wanted
done
in
terms
of
the
collectivity
with
minimum
waste,
violen-
ce,
disruption
and
dysfunction
is
adminis-
trative
capacity.
The
administrative
require-
ments
of
a
small
isolated
nomadic
rural
society
are
minimal
as
demands
are
few
and
ways
of
meeting
them
are
fixed
and
unvarying.
Its
administrative
capacity
is
low
but
then
so
is
the
need.
Metropolitan
communities
in
the
current
world
order
with
instant
information
via
mass
media
have
a
much
higher
admin-
istrative
capacity
but
then
their
needs
are
of
an
increasingly
higher
order.
Because
administrative
capacity
is
probably
the
least
perceived
and
tangible
aspect
of
devel-
opment,
compared
with
new
technology,
capital
formation,
individual
artistic
genius
and
stable
but
decisive
political
institutions,
it
is
potentially
the
most
overlooked
and
the
least
measurable
or
identifiable.
Yet
looking
back
on
the
history
of
civilization,
none
of
the
great
land-
marks
could
have
been
achieved
without
substantial
administrative
capacity.
The
build-
ing
of
large
cities
and
public
works,
the
gov-
ernance
of
huge
empires,
the
direction
of
large
armies,
and
the
construction
of
the
wonders
of
the
world
and
great
religious
shrines,
all
these
involved
the
assembly
of
many
people
and
resources
according
to
preconceived
plans
over
lengthy
periods
of
time
and
required
com-
mon
working
rules,
proper
inspection
and
review
of
work,
high
quality
decision-making,
decentralized
error-correction
and
improvised
administrative
techniques.
They
demanded
experience
in
working
with
large
scale
organ-
izations
under
difficult
and
trying
conditions
and
relied
on
organizing
genius
without
modern
technical
aids.
Some
engineering
feats
still
puzzle
us.
Unfortunately
much
of
the
admin-
istrative
record
is
lost
but
from
the
scattered
remnants
that
have
survived,
we
know
that
(1)
Public
Administration
in
the
Second
United
Nations
Development
Decade,
Report
of
the
Second
Meeting
of
Experts,
16-26
January
1971,
Public
Ad-
ministration
Division,
Department
of
Economic
and
Social
Affairs,
United
Nations,
New
York,
1971,
ST/TAO/M/57,
p.
4.
(2)
Ibid.,
pp.
11-12.
(3)
P.
Lengyel
(Ed.),
Approaches
to
the
Science
of
Socio-Economic
Development,
Unesco,
Paris,
1971,
p.
9.
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