A mature and well-organized civil service is one of the items hight
on almost any list of the needs of developing countries. The new
nations, it is commonly argued, face almost insurmountable
obstacles on the path toward economic development, and a civil
service is a crucial necessity if they are to overcome their
difficulties. Yet many commentators are critical of the
existing civil services in these countries. Bureaucracy in
developing countries, the critics suggest, is synonymous with red
tape, nepotism, and corruption. Such critics complain either that
the services have declined in efficiency since the departure of the
colonial rulers or, conversely, that civil servants are still
excessively wedded to obsolete colonial traditions. Remarkably few
of these reports are based on careful empirical analysis of works
at their work, or on systematic investigation of workers' attitudes
toward it. Taub, who spent sixteen months in the capital of
an Indian state studying the Indian Administrative Service, reprots
here on his interviews with administrators, as well as with the
politicians, technicians, and educators with whom administrators
have to work. He examines both the attitudes that men bring to
their jobs and to one another an the nature of the tasks that they
must perform. His findings suggest that officials behave as they do
because of the nature of the situation in which they must
function--reflecting the bureaucratic systems and the tasks that
they are required to perform--rather than because of any defect in
their training or deficiencies in their cultural
background. Taub identifies four sources of strain that
affect administrators in India: the changing nature of their work,
the democratization of government, the limitations on their income,
and the impact of the British legacy. He indicates how these
strains interact and place severe limits on the potential
performance of administrators. IN an appraisal of the
analytic framework used in previous discussions of bureaucracy in
developing nations, he suggests that the prevailing commitment to
democratic socialism--that is, to a democratic government
responsible for large-scale economic development--may be more an
act of faith than a statement of empirical possibility. This
title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which
commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out
and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and
impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes
high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using
print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in
1969.
General
Imprint: |
University of California Press
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Release date: |
April 2022 |
First published: |
1969 |
Authors: |
Richard P. Taub
|
Dimensions: |
216 x 140 x 18mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Hardcover
|
Pages: |
248 |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-520-35853-9 |
Categories: |
Books
|
LSN: |
0-520-35853-8 |
Barcode: |
9780520358539 |
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