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Bureaucracy
This governance arena refers to the
issues of how the policy implementation machinery is
organized. Public servants working in bureaucratic type
of organizations are engaged in formulating, implementing
policy and delivering services. Their public impact,
however, comes foremost from their role in carrying
out policy. This is the most visible part of their role.
How bureaucracy is structured and how it relates to
the political leadership have been issues of great significance
to academics and practitioners alike ever since the
days of Max Weber some hundred years ago. The idea that
rules must be legal-rational, i.e. formal and logical,
has dominated especially in modern democracies.
It is important that the bureaucracy
is included in any governance assessment. The democratization
literature typically ignores this arena; yet, it is
very important in shaping overall perceptions of how
a political systems functions. At the same time, by
placing it side by side with the other five dimensions
of governance, any public impressions of its performance
is not blown out of proportion as the case easily is
when "graft" or "improper practices"
are chosen as major indicators of malgovernance.
New Paper: The Bureaucracy and Governance
in 16 Developing Countries
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