Institutional innovation,development and environmental management: An ‘administrative trap’ revisited. Part I

In the first section of this two-part study the author considers the relationship between administrative structure and the persistence of broad ecological problems. This is set in the context of the issues leading to, and identified at, the Stockholm Conference on the Environment in 1972. It is evident that, despite all the interest and effort, the main parameters of environmental well-being show that the situation remains at least as bad. The case is made that there is a considerable dysfunction between the nature of ecological problems and the ‘problem-solving’ structures within the public arena. This dysfunction is here termed the ‘administrative trap’. This section concludes by reviewing three areas in which administrative innovation resulted very largely from the Stockholm initiative: Global Conferences and their attendant Global Institutions; Ministries of the Environment; and ‘reforms’ in the legislative apparatus.     

‘Trainingism’ revisited in Papua New Guinea

Despite much training in public administration over the past 20 years there has been little improvement in public service management in the Third World. This was anticipated in Schaffer's critical notion of ‘trainingism’. This concept, when applied to Papua New Guinea, helps us to understand why training has been unable to produce dramatic changes in public service performance. Training has been used to perform latent functions and has not been evaluated. The situation is currently under review as new initiatives are taking place to improve training's contribution to public service efficiency and effectiveness.     

Putting ‘projectized’ development in perspective

The project approach to development assistance has been attacked for its inability to make results self-sustaining. This has been attributed to a short time horizon, an inability to pick up recurrent costs, and a tendency to either by-pass or fragment local institutions and therefore to neglect the need for local capacity building. At the same time, claims have been made that projects are politically advantageous due to quick high visibility results and they are useful instruments for experimentation, social learning and capacity building. This article examines both arguments and concludes that there is a need for radical changes in project development processes, but that there should not be a rush to abandon the project as an instrument for development.     

Cultural relativism, ‘good’ governance and sustainable human development

The vacuum left by the collapse of colonial empires has been filled by new forms of cultural and ideological imperialism conceived largely in the West. The new imperialism is evident in such notions as sustainable human development (SHD) and ‘good’ governance, which in many ways are prescribed for poor countries by rich countries. It is suggested that there is no one best way to ‘good’ governance or SHD and that, while elements of a universal best practice may be found, considerable room should be left for local variations.     

Trajectories of public administration and administrative history in Australia: Rectifying ‘a curious blight’?

Anyone who has taught courses or conducted research under the rubric of ‘public administration’ must have been troubled more or less frequently by two characteristics of his ‘field’‐ its nebulous scope and its lack of any distinctive technique. He must have felt himself a Jack of all trades as he pottered amateurishly about, now on the fringes of administrative law, now at the margins of accounting and budgeting, and then at the edges of industrial relations and occupational psychology. As a teacher, how often did he face a class of public servants, each more expert and experienced in some specialty than he was in any?     

Prisoners of the paradigm: process consultants and ‘clinical’ development practitioners

It is argued that process consultancy and clinical development practice, which are the dominant methods underlying much of the consulting work undertaken by development practitioners, are adopted for ideological rather than pragmatic reasons. The behaviour of process consultants is said to bear the hallmarks of the puzzle-solving activity of normal scientists operating within a ruling paradigm. The scientific and practical limitations of process consultancy are discussed within this context. A pragmatic approach, which attempts to match consultancy method with the circumstances in which it is to be applied, is presented on logical and empirical grounds as being more likely to produce desirable outcomes. It is also suggested that, in many development contexts, desirable outcomes are more likely to be achieved where emphasis is given to ends rather than means. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Public Admin. Dev. Vol. 17 , 341–349 (1997). No. of Figures: 0. No. of Tables: 0. No. of Refs: 38.