Public administration in the third world—an international handbook. Edited by V. Subramaniam. Greenwood Press, New York/Westport/London; 1990, 447 pp.
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/pad.4230130211 |
| Published date | 01 May 1993 |
| Date | 01 May 1993 |
| Author | Rainer Rohdewohld |
Book
Reviews
175
In terms of actual practice, the British and French models and their colonial derivatives
come in for a lot of criticism, while the Scandinavian, German, Swiss and American systems
are much closer to the image of good local government. However, the book does not study
what happens when advocates of good local government interact with practitioners of the
models that they seek to replace. Change may not come easily, as Swedish aid has found
in Zimbabwe where the political and administrative culture surrounding local government
is centralist, hierarchical, and beset by conservatism and even lack of clear direction about
basic issues of socioeconomic development (Lindgren, 1991). Rightly, Allen points to the
critical prerequisites for his image: political will and central support.
This brings me to my major criticism of the book: while it recognizes the importance of
the wider political economy, the geography of dominant interests is not adequately explored
in seeking explanations for the variety of experience across the world. The main observation
is that good local government occurs in states that grew historically with strong community
bases, whereas local government systems characterized by central control, hierarchy, restricted
competence and arbitrary decisions about revenues derive from autocratic political histories.
This is undoubtedly too simplistic a formulation, incapable of explaining what amounts to
often significant change within either tradition-for example, municipal decline in Britain
(Loughlin
et
al.,
1985).
A broader framework of understanding is badly needed, otherwise how can Zimbabweans
(and others) understand the constraints and opportunities along the road to improving their
local government system
so
that it can play a useful and creative role in development?
Finally, the book is based on the premise that the main role of local government is in
fostering economic and social development. While this is undoubtedly true, local authorities,
certainly in Europe, are beginning to expand their environmental protection, regulation and
management roles. This trend will strengthen and become more widespread. It
could
be that
bigger, more centrally controlled authorities turn out to be better at these roles: regulation
and environmental issues are hardly explored.
These criticisms should not detract from the usefulness of this short book: it is
a
wide
survey of practice over a wide range of issues, linked by a refreshing adherence to
local
government principles and a strong image
of
good local government. Comparative local
government researchers need to elaborate and test this image, and work out the constraints
and opportunities for its achievement.
REFERENCES
Lindgren, L. (1991).
Local Government Goes South:
A Study of Swedish Development Assist-
ance in the Field of Public Administration. Department of Political Science, Gothenburg
University.
Loughlin,
M.
et al.
(eds) (1985). Harfa
Century
of
Municipal Decline.
Allen and Unwin,
London.
ANDREW
SHEPHERD
Development Administration Group
University
of
Birmingham
PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION IN THE THIRD WORLD-AN INTERNATIONAL
HANDBOOK
Edited
by
V.
Subramaniam
Greenwood Press, New YorkNestport/London; 1990,447 pp.
The editor promises an ‘overview of the public administration of a representative group
of
Third World countries by different authors’ and
‘a
fairly detailed, updated, and objective
empirical account of the evolution, structure and processes of public administration in all
these countries without theoretical presuppositions’ (p. 10). Well, whether the selection of
countries covered is representative is very much in doubt (Latin America is represented with
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