Representative bureaucracy,international organizations and public service bargains

Academic interest in the administrative aspects of international organizations is on the rise. Yet, an issue that has received little attention is bureaucratic representation—the extent to which international bureaucracies are representative of the polity that they serve. The article theorizes the rationales for and forms of representative bureaucracy in international organizations by combining insights from the representative bureaucracy literature with the ‘public service bargains’ framework. It argues that bureaucratic representation is highly relevant in international organizations, given the diverse polity these organizations serve and their precarious legitimacy. It distinguishes three types of representational ‘bargains’ between international organizations and those they serve, centred on power, equal opportunities and diversity, and discusses under which conditions each type of bargain is likely to be struck. The argument contributes to discussions about representative bureaucracy in international organizations and to broader theoretical debates about international public administration.     

A Challenging State of Affairs: Public Administration in the Republic of Lebanon

ABSTRACT

This article highlights Lebanon’s administrative challenges and reform efforts, since the end of its Civil War (1975–1990). In recent years, Lebanon and international donors have worked to improve transparency, promote modern management techniques, and encourage the use of information technology throughout the public sector. Despite these efforts, Lebanon’s public institutions remain constrained by the centralization of power, corruption, outdated bureaucratic structures, and deficiencies in administrative knowledge. The success of future reform efforts will depend on whether the Lebanese bureaucracy can overcome the challenges created by regional political tensions, its Syrian refugee crisis, and an increasingly indifferent Lebanese public.     

Public administration and the rule of law

This article deals with the enduring problem of administrative discretion in the modern American democratic-constitutional state. In the American constitutional tradition, administrative action is legitimate when and only if it adheres to the rule of law. This implies that administrators must be able to link directly their actions to grants of authority in statutes or the Constitution. But the growth of the state apparatus and the increasing intensification of the public administration's role in society have necessitated rather broad legislative grants of discretion to the bureaucracy. The result has been a seemingly perennial tension between the rule of law ideal and the modern administrative reality.

Attempts to control discretion via evolving doctrines of administrative law have proved unsatisfactory for a variety of reasons explored in this essay. The most important shortfall has been that the continuing expansion of the administrative state threatens directly the rule of law itself. After a survey of the weaknesses of these doctrines, we conclude that the rule of law is fundamentally incompatible with the necessary work of administration in the modern American state. Administrative discretion is thus seen to pose an intractable problem for the liberal democratic society, which accounts for its problematic persistence.     

Sovereign Commitment and Property Rights: the Case of Ukraine’s Orange Revolution

Conventional wisdom in new institutional economics suggests that property rights become more secure following sovereign commitment. The article tests this axiom in the crucial case of the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine. I show that despite the wide-ranging constraints imposed after the Revolution on the upper executive, the security of property rights declined. Theoretically, the article argues that the link between sovereign commitment and secure ownership hinges on vertical accountability in the state apparatus. While institutionalizing commitment by the presidency, the Revolution simultaneously exacerbated principal-agent dilemmas within the bureaucracy. Methodologically, the article contributes by triangulating available historical narratives and cross-national quantitative studies. Instead, the focus on one contemporary developing country and the use of qualitative process tracing dissects sovereign commitment and shows the mechanisms through which it can be subverted at lower administrative levels. Sixty-four semi-structured interviews with entrepreneurs and government officials from six Ukrainian regions, as well as analysis of the local media, provide the data.     

State,bureaucracy and change in India

The article discusses the nature of the Indian state and of the Indian bureaucracy. During the 1980s, it was widely believed that the Indian bureaucracy constituted a dominant class and that this dominance is the root cause of economic stagnation. When confronted with empirical evidence, this assertion seems less convincing. The complex picture that emerges of the Indian state does not totally contradict the dominant view. This complexity points to a need for a more elaborated theoretical understanding of the role of the state and of the public bureaucracy. The article concludes by sketching the outlines of such a possible revised theoretical framework.     

The effects of hierarchy,centralization and formalization on municipal fiscal health: An empirical test of the bureaucratic ideal

This research examines the effects of three defining features of bureaucratic organizations – hierarchy, centralization of decision‐making, and the formalization of administrative procedures and rules – on the fiscal health of city governments in the US. It utilizes data from a national survey of top appointed city officials in the US to measure the bureaucratic features of city governments, and assesses budgetary solvency using actual financial data from audited financial reports. Using factor analysis to develop a composite bureaucracy index, and addressing unobserved heterogeneity and possible simultaneity bias through least squares dummy variable regression and instrumental variable regression, the empirical analysis shows that excessive bureaucracy leads to poorer fiscal health. Analysing the effects of the individual components of the index, the results indicate that centralization and formalization exert a statistically significant and negative effect on city budgetary solvency.     

Citizen Participation in Governance Through Representation: Issue of Gender in East Asia

Abstract

In the modern age, although East Asia represents some of the most successful economies such as Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, and (now) China, the level of political and administrative development in the region remains controversial. One of the major indicators of such politico‐administrative development is the extent of citizen participation in governance through various democratic means, including the formation and expression of public opinion, people's involvement in government decisions and deliberations, and direct representation of citizens in governing institutions. However, the direct representation of citizens is considered one of the most effective modes of participation in institutions such as legislature, cabinet, and bureaucracy. In this regard, although the representation of women in these governing institutions has gained global significance, it still remains relatively weak in most East Asian cases. This article evaluates the extent of such women's participation in governance through representation in East Asia, examines the major factors constraining this representation, and suggests remedial alternatives to improve the situation.     

The impacts of the revolution of 1978-1979 on the iranian bureaucracy and civil service

This paper deals with the complex relationship between bureaucracy and revolution. It explains some of the major impacts of the Iranian revolution of 1978-79 on the civil service and the bureaucracy of the country. Three major phases of the revolution are identified: the Provisional Government (February-November 1979), the turbulent radicalization (November 1979-1982), and the institutionalization, stabilization, and Islamization (1983- ).

The revolution was not only against the Shah, but also aimed at altering Iran’ bureaucratic machinery which, as a power instrument, served system- (regime-) enhancement. During the first and second periods, a debureaucratization of society and a democratization of the administrative system was begun. While the bureaucracy increased as a result of nationalization, its functions declined as more and more activities of public administration were taken over by the non-bureaucratic, independent grass-roots organizations that sprang up during and after the revolution.

This trend has been reversed during the third phase by the policy of consolidation, centralization, control and system-maintenance pursued by the Mousavi administration. A rebureaucratization of society commenced and application of most of the old laws and regulations was resumed. Patronage and many patho-logical behaviors, includinf corruption, of the bureaucracy are becoming pervasive again, resulting in the dissatisfaction of the general public. In short, despite some initial revolutiohary attempts to change its structure and nature, the bureaucracy has prevailed as a well-entrenched, established institution of power and administration in Iran.

Finally, the author briefly describes the sources of public dissatisfaction and suggests conceivable remedies. These involve major reforms in the Iranian bureaucracy to achieve both administrative efficiency and popular responsiveness.     

On the Relationship between Political Science and Administrative Science in Germany

The theoretical and empirical analysis of administrative activities has been an important area of research since the establishment of political science as an academic discipline in Germany at the end of the 1960s. But is administrative science still a significant part of political science in Germany today? I argue here that in Germany a political science oriented administrative science has developed from a science focused on public administration, that is, on organizational questions, to one focused on public policies and thus on questions concerning the conditions and consequences of political problem solving and control (Steuerung). The question of the internal organization of government is increasingly regarded as an irrelevant one; in addition, the institutional promotion and funding of political science administration research has dramatically decreased since the 1970s. Today's new challenges (economization and internationalization) for both government and public administration seem to exceed the capability of political science administrative research. These challenges open up new opportunities, however, since, in the search for solutions beyond the dichotomy of market/managerialism on the one hand and traditional bureaucracy and state government on the other, political science in particular regains more importance. As will be shown, there are now tendencies which indicate that political science administrative research might encounter a stronger political demand. If the consequent research is able to find a new mixture of theory and practice, this in turn could help revitalize political science administrative research in Germany.     

Bureaucratic Perceptions to the Politics–Bureaucracy Relations in Bangladesh: A Moral Dilemma in between Political Neutrality and Responsiveness

Irrespective of the systems of government, a major question is: what are the views and perceptions of the bureaucrats about politics–bureaucracy relations? Aiming to address this problem, in this article an attempt has been made to undertake an empirical study of bureaucracy in Bangladesh. The study reveals that as a post-colonial structure, government bureaucracy is an essential and integral part of the administration in Bangladesh but the bureaucracies are always in a dilemma regarding their relationship with the political leaderships. The relationship between politicians and bureaucrats is neither normatively dichotomous with political neutrality nor abundantly cohesive or responsive to the political leaderships according to the perceptions of bureaucracy. Moreover, bureaucracy in Bangladesh is suffering from a moral puzzle between political neutrality and political responsiveness even though the bureaucrats are still in a dominant position in some cases.     

USING BUREAUCRACY SPARINGLY

'Using bureaucracy sparingly' (UBS) is a well-known and traditional canon of good public administration — but one that has a number of meanings which are not wholly compatible with one another. Looking at the interface between government administration and the outside public (rather than at the internal operations of government bureaux), this essay identifies three rather different senses of UBS, all of which are in common currency. The implications of two of these are then explored, in terms of the kinds of preferences they imply for the use of government's administrative instruments. Finally, there is a brief discussion of what the different senses of UBS have in common and of the extent to which they have divergent implications, posing dilemmas for those who might wish to 'use bureaucracy sparingly'.     

Bureaucratic Elitism in Bangladesh: The Predominance of Generalist Administrators

This article briefly examines bureaucratic elitism in Bangladesh, which basically inherited a transformed version of the British colonial administrative legacy. With its distinctiveness as a special social group, the bureaucracy maintains itself as a subsystem with pronounced autonomy. The Administrative Cadre of the civil service preserves the elitist tradition in supportive political conditions. It virtually shields itself from other functional groups and its members occupy key positions in the governmental structure and wield tremendous power and authority over policy making. Indoctrination and training is its own preserve and highly politicised groups within it regulate civil service recruitment and placements. Within the Administrative Cadre, elite integration is strong, while there is wide differentiation between this group and other cadres. Reform attempts failed to make inroads into changing bureaucratic behaviour mainly due to resistance from the elitist cadre, which remains the dominant instrument of the political executive.     

Representative Bureaucracy in the Public Service? A Critical Analysis of the Challenges Confronting Women in the Civil Service of Ghana

In the public administration literature, the debate concerning the representation of minorities in the public bureaucracy continues to attract attention. The idea is that passive representation may lead to active representation with the later helping to develop policies and programs that will benefit minorities. Consequently, a number of governments have been implementing policies to enhance the involvement of minorities in public services. The Ghana government has not been left out in this endeavor. Since 1957, it has continued to institute measures to ensure a fair gender representation in the bureaucracy. This notwithstanding, the upper echelons of the bureaucracy continue to be dominated by males despite the over representation of women at the lower levels. What are the challenges confronting women in the public sector that make it difficult to achieve active representation? In this article, we examine the challenges confronting women to achieve active representation from a representative bureaucracy perspective.     

A representative bureaucracy perspective on workforce composition in international organizations: The case of the United Nations Secretariat

This article provides a representative bureaucracy perspective on staff composition in international organizations (IOs). Contrary to previous studies in international relations, I argue that staff composition is not only driven by power but international organizations are also concerned with bureaucratic representation. Therefore, I examine one potential barrier and one driver to passive representation, namely the available local labour pool and political representation. The empirical analysis is based on an original database of human resources statistics in the United Nations Secretariat which allows for a differentiation between staff categories. The resulting regression analyses suggest that headquarters locations, political representation and diplomacy are the main determinants of member states’ representation, but these determinants vary in strength depending on the staff categories. This article contributes to the study of staff composition in IOs by examining additional determinants and to the recent discussions on representative bureaucracy at the international level.     

Administrators as Deliberative Representatives: A Revised Public Service Role

We suggest a role for public administrators as deliberative representatives. The goal is to apply a re-conceptualization of representation within the context of public administration based on a literature review on the following concepts: 1) representative democracy, (2) representative bureaucracy, and (3) deliberative democracy. We find that dominant models of representative democracy are ill suited for ensuring the true interests of citizens and communities are met and that representative bureaucracy is not satisfactory to address the failings of representative democracy. Finding promise in deliberative democracy models, we consider how the re-conceptualization of representation for the administrative role might shape the advancement of public participation in order to enhance the quality of representation. Specifically, a fourth construction is defined to add to the list of three above: deliberative representation.     

With Strings Attached? Improving the Administration of Central State Financed Investment Projects in the PRC

This article takes a new look at the institutional core of China's economic planning—the State Development and Planning Commission (SDPC, 1998–2003)—focusing on its role in approving and fundraising for major capital investment projects. The primary objective of this inquiry is to identify changes in the network structure and procedures of inter-agency relations and central planners’ interactions with national legislators, which have produced a diversity of ‘organizational microclimates’ that shape the coherence of the national economic bureaucracy and central–local fiscal relations. Based on interviews of high-level officials and case studies of investment projects in energy, information technology, and transport sectors, it is argued that administrative reforms aiming to improve SDPC's regulatory capacity have been predicated on a concerted effort by key agencies and ministries under the State Council to reduce the window of opportunity for local and industrial interests to politicize capital allocation decisions. This finding suggests caution in interpreting contemporary China through the comparative lenses of a developmental state, a regulatory state, or a fiscal federalist system.     

The Ambivalent Relations Between Bureaucracy and Public Innovation: The Case of the Successful Failure of Dial Police

Building on a growing body of literature on public innovation and the rediscovery of bureaucracy, this article explores the relations between innovation and bureaucracy. A framework for studying innovation in a bureaucratic context is developed and its relevance assessed through a case study of the successful implementation but failed diffusion of an innovation project. The case study demonstrates how a bureaucratic context represents not only barriers to innovation but also a number of complex drivers. The outline of these ambivalent relations is used to tease out the Janus face of the new spirit of innovation in public administration.     

Hong kong public administration under stress: the significance and implications of management paradoxes

The purpose of this study is to identify the major obstacles to administrative reform in Hong Kong so as to generate a basis for addressing one critical question, “what is to be done to ensure the occurrence of effective reform?” Based on 35 interviews with 48 public executives, this researcher finds that there are various paradoxical forces acting in concert in their impacts upon the bureaucracy, that public executives are unable to cope with those forces, and that unless those paradoxes are effectively managed, administrators' ability to act (or to undertake reform measures) is seemingly very limited. Policy and research implications are discussed.     

ADMINISTRATIVE TRADITION AND REFORMS IN SPAIN: ADAPTATION VERSUS INNOVATION

The main purpose of this paper is understanding public administration formation and change in Spain. Its development before and since the years of Franco from 1939 to 1975, is noticeably path dependent in nature. As this paper will show, the foundations were laid before the Franco regime. Then came a period of political domination of the bureaucracy and the emergence of a key structural element of Spanish administration, the special corps. The paper covers the period of political transition, democratic consolidation, and the many processes of administrative reforms. These include the reforms of the Spanish civil service as well as the deep processes of reform.     

Transfiguring the golem: technicism,human relations technology,and the human project

The original Minnowbrook perspective is described as part of a broader human relations technology movement in which the organization of human activity could be accomplished without the negative features of bureaucracy—routinization, rationalization, depersonalization, mechanization, computerization. But, the problem is really not bureaucracy, it is technicism—the technological imperative. The article contrasts masculine and feminine perspectives on organizations and the implications of this contrast for wars between nation-states, human and organizational communication, and human relations technology. In this technicism era, public administered institutions are the best bet to hold together the fabric of society.