Developmental studies

Development Administration and Development Management This essay is modest, I do a number of things. First, I highlight the difference between Development Administration and Development Management; second, I show the role of value systems in these definitions; finally, I try to show which strategy I believe would best serve the course of international development. I start by examine the main difference (s) between the two terms. According to Esman, whereas the terms development administration and development management are now increasingly used synonymously, actually, initially, the former “included the higher-level tasks of senior public officials—shaping policy, taking decisions, and supervising the implementation of government activities oriented not to normal routines, but to the promotion of social and economic development” (Esman 1988, 15). Development management denoted, on the other hand, a narrower focus “involving the details of government procedures and the routines of program implementation” (15).Development Administration dates to the post World War II period. After the war and then the onset of independence for former colonies around the world, there emerged a feeling that for them “political independence without steady and broadly based improvement in economic capacities and in material levels of living would be a hollow achievement” (5). According to Weatherby et al, behind this emergence was “the idea that international efforts could, or should, be undertaken to build the economies and societies of the other world …” (Weatherby et al., 2000, 37). The hope to achieve transformation of less developed countries along the same lines as what had happened both in North America and Western Europe.

Modernization theory, the leading paradigm up to the 1960s, was behind this thinking. In the main, the theory conceptualized development as an evolutionary process so that over time the less developed countries would attain to the same standard of welfare as their more developed counterparts in both North America and Western Europe. Modernization theorists contended that to effect this transformation, less developed countries would be guided by technocratic elites operating from their countries’ seats of power, who using national planning, would gradually help transform their countries from their by then supposed traditional status into modern ones. In other words, modernization theory perceived the problem of development in the less developed countries as ones of tradition and lack of institutions—a solution to which called for technocratic expertise. In the main, given the magnitude of the perceived developmental challenges that confronted the less developed countries, a view developed within development administration circles that the market mechanism could not get the job done. Rather, drawing important lessons from successful state-led efforts in economic recovery first during the Great Depression in the 1930s and then the reconstruction of

both Western Europe and Japan after WW II, a consensus

emerged that to tackle the problems and thus accelerate development, utilize the power of the state. Specifically modernization theorists insisted, based on recent history, that only the state had the capacity to coordinate a broad-based agenda of economic development involving large inflows of international aid to supplement the inadequate domestic savings to promote development (Myint 1980, 143). Specifically,

As a logical outcome of this focus on the power of the state to coordinate economic activities, development planning formed the core of development administration. (CHAMPTER 6). By “planning” explains Waterson, it is meant “ ‘an organized, conscious and continual attempt to select the best available alternative to achieve specific goals’” (Quoted in chapter 6, pp. 132). A number of factors informed this resort to planning. First, explains the author, there was the example of recent success stories that had utilized such a strategy. For most developing countries, the Soviet Union stood as the best example in this respect. Second, development

planning also articulated with extant Keynesian views of the role of government in stimulating economic development. RATIOONALES undergirding development planning: state direction needed to combat perceived market failure However, development planning did not always produce the intended results. Indeed, save for a miniscule number of countries, the majority of less developed countries remain mired in poverty. Therefore, critics increasingly focused their attention on the model that had informed that process. The model in question here centers on the classical view of administration. In the main, in the classical model, organizations were conceptualized as “relatively closed systems, dependent largely for their success on internal efficiency of operations (Miles 1988, 189). According to this perspective, explains Miles, “structures and processes were presumed to serve stable tasks and enduring goals” (ibid.,).

Thus, to the extent that formal structures were well

articulated, then organizational success was a foregone conclusion; the converse was thought to hold true as well. However, Miles points out that in stark contrast to the preceding view, modern organizational theorists see organizations “as open … systems struggling to perform and survive in a larger context that, ... is both complex and dynamic” (ibid., 8). Contrary to the classical view of organizations, then, a behavioral model of organizations posited that to fully understand such entities, it was essential to look at both their formal and informal aspects (Miles 1980). Students of the behavioral model argued that as instruments of rational behavior, normal structures never “succeeded in conquering the non-rational dimensions of institutional behavior “ (Litterer 1974, 388). In pointing to both the informal and formal aspects of organizations, students of the behavioral model argued that formal structures are made up of persons who may interact as whole, and not simply in terms of their formal roles. Equally, they also argued that formal structures are subject to the pressure of the environment within

which these entities must operate. According to Allison and Zelikow, institutions “interact with the environment thus deviating from officially stated goals” (Allison and Zelikow 1999, 150). Applied to development administration, critics argued that development planning did not usually take into consideration a number of key considerations that should have informed that process. First, some argue that the model failed to conceptualize development as a complex process—running from policy formulation to implementation. Because of this oversight, the model tended to operate with a simplistic view of the process thus leading to failure. Equally, others argued that the model also failed to understand the policy environment as a dynamic one, one that also had an influence on policy even as it was being influenced by that policy.The failures of development planning have been traced to a number of flaws inherent in that strategy. First, explains one observer, “the majority of plans were wildly over-ambitious in terms of the rates at which development could be achieved, assumptions about resource availability and in their assumptions about the degree of control that a government could exert …” (136). Second, the plans were also usually based on inaccurate data, thus leading to inaccurate projections. Third, in some other instances, such plans did not have in-built mechanisms for anticipating both domestic and external changes. Finally, some of the plans also failed to factor politics into their operations. Working on the assumption that policy and politics were separate spheres, such plans quickly ran into trouble once they moved from the formulation to the implementation phase. In the face of this perceived failures, critics, especially on the right, increasingly called for a shift from a macro—development planning—to a micro—project-planning approach. In practical terms, this meant a replacement of the state from the commanding heights of the economy with market forces. Neo-liberalism, explains Peet, “is a broad structure of beliefs founded on right-wing, yet not conservative, ideas about political democracy, individual

freedom, and the creative potential of unfettered entrepreneurship” (Peet 2004, 62). In this respect, neo-liberalism tended to reject the historic rationale for governmental involvement in economic affairs. Governmental involvement in economic affairs has traditionally on the perceived failures1 of the free market system. Middleton explains that market failure has traditionally been examined at two levels: “technical market failure, that is, problems of allocation efficiency, such as monopoly …, and social market failure, where technically efficient markets may … produce results … that …are not accepted …” (Middleton 2001, 54). As a result of this reality, explain Sannwald and Stohler (1959), the classical2 theory upon which the rejection of state participation in economic affairs was usually based was finally cast3 a side, thereby opening the way for “intensified theoretical analysis of economic problems and increased attention to [economic] issues by policy makers” (Sannwald and Stohler 1959). However, neo-liberalism works on the assumption that “ the main restriction on an inherent tendency for free capitalist economies to grow is market failure resulting from perverse governmental policies” (Peet 2004, 62). Middleton perhaps best encapsulates the neo-liberal logic at work here. In Middleton’s words, while market failure may provide initial impetus for governmental action, however, “it has also to be demonstrated that such an intervention produces socially more desirable results than if market failures are allowed to continue unabated.” He goes

1

th

th

On this score, see: Brown and Jackson, 28-57; Edwin Mansfield, 8 Ed., 8 Ed. Microeconomics Theory/Application (NY, London: WW.Norton & Co, 1994). See especially pp. 333-8, 543-7; M. Porter 2 For the tenets of classical theory, see: William P. Glade, The Latin American Economies (NY: American Book Company, 1969), see especially pp. 376-401; 3 The theory was jettisoned, in part, on the understanding that while it appeared to present markets as natural phenomena, actually, however, they were social constructions called into being by human interactions. For markets as social constructions, see, among others: Granovetter Mark, “Economic Institutions as Social Constructions: A Framework for Analysis.” Scandinavian Sociological Association, (1992), pp.3-12.

on to argue that even in light of market failure, governmental intervention must not be taken as a given, for even under such conditions, “there remains, of course, a further option: that of action to improve the operation of the market” (Middleton 2004). So understood, or so reports Peet, under neo-liberalism, it is taken as an article of faith that when it comes to economic affairs, “governments may play a productive role in providing public goods4, such as infrastructure …” (Peet 2004, 62). On the other hand, neo-liberalism insists, that when, it comes to other areas of the economy, for purposes of efficiency and equity, the state must give way to the private sector. Middleton attributes this implicit debate about the role of government vis-à-vis that of the private sector in economic affairs to the fact that in the end, every society has to come to grips with the issues of “allocation, distribution, and exchange …” (Middleton 2001, 41). In this re4spect, supporters insist that the private sector holds a number of distinct advantages over its public sector counterpart with respect to the provision of some public goods and services. Specifically, Public Choice theorists advocated for market-based approaches to public service delivery on the grounds that that way, nations would be able to reverse their allegedly declining economic fortunes, while at the same time reaping a number of important benefits from both the retreat of the state from economic affairs coupled with the unleashing of the latent potential of the private sector. More specifically, Public Choice theorists base their advocacy for marketbased approaches to public service delivery in terms of two key criteria: cost-savings; and efficiency.

4

For a sampling of this line of thought, see: Mansfield, 489-504.

Privatization as a Strategy for achieving Efficiency5 In the main, champions of privatization content that as a result of the competition attendant such a strategy, free-market ethos are injected into public service delivery, thereby leading to efficiency. Mark H. Moore puts the thinking at work here thus: “much of the appeal of privatization is based on claims that some form of privatization will increase the efficiency and effectiveness of government” (Kallaway; Moore 2003, 1212). Be that as it may, Brighouse (2003), among other critics, insists that the alleged superiority of the free market in the provision of public services is not a given. Rather, “whether they do so, and the extent to which they do so,” argues Brighouse, depends on “the background conditions, including the regulatory frameworks within which they operate, the character of the goods they produce and distribute, and what the other feasible arrangements6 for the distribution of those goods are” (2003, 36). critics who subscribe to this school of thought even argue that while privatization may be initially efficient, over the long-term, however, the converse is likely to hold true. For example, using the history of tax farming as an example of this situation, Ma shows that whereas that activity began as an efficient system of tax collection for the state, over the longterm, though, it did prove largely inefficient ((MA 441). However, critics reject an uncritical march towards free markets in the provision of public goods and services on the grounds that if everything is left to the sway of free markets, as proposed by champions of that approach, then “issues of equity maybe sacrificed in so far as privatization, hinging as it does, on consumers’ ability to pay for whatever is on offer, would both serve to reproduce and reinforce societal inequities (Moore 2003, 1215)

5

205-7.

As to how the term efficiency is employed in this study, see, for example: Brown and Jackson,

Based on these larger societal considerations-- that might otherwise be swept under the carpet, were everything left to the unbridled sway of free market economics in the provision of public goods and services, Moore, for one argues that when it comes to the larger society, if we accept the fact that society, as opposed to the an individual, has to take this broader view when thinking about privatization, then the “standard to be used in judging the efficiency and effectiveness of a given government policy is how well it achieves those collectively defined purposes, not the extent to which it makes individuals happy” ( Moore 2003, 2212). At the heart of this understanding is, explains Brighouse, the fact that “efficiency is only desirable within constraints described by justice: it may be inefficient to, for example, to educate children with disabilities, but that does not count against doing so, … justice requires that …we do so …” (Brighouse 2003, 37). Otherwise, because of its potential to reinforce societal inequities, explains Ma, “it is not impossible in the long run as the history of tax farming suggests, that privatization might alienate citizens from the modern state and further increase the public’s mistrust of the government …” (Ma 452). According to Moore, cognizant of this conundrum, that is, that if not carefully calibrated, rather than lead to its promised nirvana, privatization could actually have the exact opposite effects, as a solution, some economists envision a situation whereby “society as a whole [w] ould decide how much income or wealth inequality it can bear and then act to ensure that the poorest citizens remain above the some poverty line” (Moore 2003, 1215).

Development and its administration 9Chapter 1) A number of competing paradigms framed that process 6

An extended critique in the same vein can be found in, among others: Sannwald and Stohler,

Critique of the new approach For example, Nelson argues that despite, the World Bank has not undertaken any internal structural reforms within its own standard operating procedures that would reflect this alleged change make it more accessible He argues that without such an operational reconfiguration, that organization will continue to focus on its extant mission of capital disbursement, while paying leap-service to participatory approaches to development. For example, Nelson argues that despite rhetorical commitments to participatory development, the World Bank has not undertaken any internal structural reforms within its own standard operating procedures that would reflect this alleged change. He is therefore concerned that without such a change the Bank cannot creatively respond to new opportunities and challenges. In the main, he fears that this on-going commitment to standard procedures will continue to make that institution inaccessible to Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and thereby vitiate the Bank’s rhetorical commitments to participatory development

CHAMBER’S CRITIQUE OF DEVELOPMENT ADMINISTRATION Chambers, for one, decries development administration’s misplaced priorities; For example, the “concentration of research, publication, training, and extension on what is exotic rather than indigenous … and marketed rather than consumed” (Chambers 1983, 77). According to Chambers, central to the problems of development administration was the fact that “centralized urban and professional power, knowledge and values have frowned out over and often failed to recognize the knowledge of rural people themselves” (Chambers 1983, 82). Contrary to this, he calls for a new attitude, one that would see experts humble themselves and learn “from rural people themselves …” (Chambers 1983, 84). He justifies such an effort by experts on the grounds that “rural people’s

knowledge is the faculties which

maintain, extend, and correct it” [development]” (ibid., 89). In the main, the need to incorporate the views of the poor into the developmental process stems from the fact that they, unlike the

outsider expert, are well placed to articulate their own concerns. He argues that with such a reconceptualization of development, “Objectives for outsiders can then be expressed as a reversal, putting first the wishes of the poor themselves” (Chambers 1983, 145). He justifies such a reversal of roles on the grounds that “In practice … outsiders who are removed from and do not perceive the lives of poor people often treat means as ends.” For example, he argues that time and again "agricultural production is seen by technocrats as an end in itself, regardless of whether poor people can grow the food themselves or buy it …” (Chambers 1983, 148). In terms of outside involvement in rural development, he finds that “projects which are targeted to such groups, and especially those run by voluntary agencies, have had some successes. However, “programmes run by large-scale government field bureaucracies have a less good record” (Chambers 1983, 149). Also, argues that hierarchical approaches have neglected the political dimension of rural development; specifically, the vulnerability of the poor to entrenched local elites. Given the differential interests at stake in such locales, he calls for a developmental strategy that instead tries to “identify who will gain and who will lose” in any given developmental undertaking (160). He therefore proposes an interesting practical strategy for addressing the problem. To be successful, explains Chambers, an a astute development strategy would be one that seeks to encapsulate elites’ interests, for the “ignoring of power and interests of local elites, more perhaps than any other factor, has been responsible for failure to benefit the poor” (Chambers 1983, 163). In other words, although the long-term goal is to empower the rural poor vis-à-vis the elite, still, “It is a question of sequence and directions” (Chammbers 1983, 165).

However, following the shift to a reliance on markets, a number of problems did also surface— thus forcing some adjustments in that strategy as well.

According to the authors, this struggle “”over, meaning [of development] is intense today. It is not a discrete semantic debate conducted by academics but has a direct impact on the lives of billions of people. The struggle over meaning relates to critical policy matters such as what actions will be taken to alleviated poverty, who will have access to what resources, and who will

be empowered? The intensity of the debate reflects a widespread disillusionment with the results of development after four decades of practice” (11). To understand why such battles are critical, I here contrast development administration with development management. By so doing, I throw much needed light either model’s strengths and weakness, which should serve as a basis for deciding which of the two I support. In the main, Development Administration hinged on a view of government as an instrument for positive change; an exalted place for technocrats as agents of transformation; mobilization of extra resources, both material and human, from developed countries. Problems with Development administration as conceptualized under modernization theory. First, it had a narrow conception of development. In this understanding, economic growth became synonymous with economic development. At another level, others pointed out that by trying to replicate Western European or North American models of development in the developing world, the model was ethnocentric in its orientation. Rather, such critics argued that an effective development strategy needed to take into account the issue of context.

In short, “national development planning has retarded rates of economic growth and discouraged the evolution of institutions and procedures that could lead to more effective decision-making” (Governance and Administration, 136).

According to Migdal, given the problems that it was believed framed the newly independent countries, “The term development came to denote the movement from social and political ‘chaos’ … toward some implicitly understood order” (2001, 195). He shows that the “field of development and change was constitutive; it was the musings of scholars seeking the principles of political and social orders and the conditions initiating them” (195). Informed by modern theory, development administration rested on a number of assumptions. First, the theory sought to promote domestic transformation of poor countries through the creation of central institutions. In that conceptualization, developed countries’ experience, “portrayed in grossly oversimplified terms, was seen as a process of change that involved the national centers winning over the minor centers and a shift from unimposing bureaucratic empire and feudal systems to modern, dynamic effective centers. And that process was then presumed to be universal. The direction of development, it was assumed, is always from the primordial, … toward attachment to the large territory, the form of development is a way from weak, non-intrusive centers to active dominant centers; the substance of development is toward a civil society, marked by modern values and procedures” (200). He critiques development administration for having overly focused on state structures to the exclusion of other societal players or actors. The main problem with that strategy, explains Migdal, was that due to that narrow focus, it thereby failed to appreciate “the engagement of social groups with the state, and the mutual transformation that entails, have tempered those broad claims [for the state] to be the ultimate authority” (250). Instead, by understanding how the state’s sails have been trimmed through its engagement with social forces, we begin to build a basis for a twenty-first century … agenda, … that starts with process rather than structure; a

blueprint that focuses on a limited state” (250). He concludes: the engagement of the state with society, which has created sites of struggle and differences in society subverting the state’s efforts at uniformity, has also transformed the state. The mutual transformation of state and society has led to contending coalitions that have cut across both and blurred the line between them. . It is within these dynamic institutional arrangements that one must now approach the study of the state …”(263-4). Development administration looked to the state as the vehicle for effecting these goals. That recourse to the state stemmed from two factors. First, during the great economic meltdown of the 1930s the Great economist John M. Keynes appeared to have conclusively demonstrated that the state could serve as an engine of economic growth and development. Equally, the state, the state, especially the U.S. government, had played a decisive role in both the reconstruction of Western Europe and Japan after World War II. Thus based on this recent history, with the beginning of development administration after WW II, a consensus emerged that “state could and should be the prime mover in economic development” (Esman 1988, 7). Thus from the outset, the state was invested with a major role in the transformation of developing countries. (RATIONALES FOR STATE-CENTRED APPARACHES: MARKET FAILURES, ETC). However, by the early 1970s, failures of state-led development had become obvious. Neoclassical economists or neo-conservative thinkers were particularly central to highlighting these failures. In the main, in their analyses, the critics attributed such failures to “the tendency of governments to overreach their financial and managerial capacities, while overlooking and often thwarting capabilities present or latent in society” (Esman 1988, 12). As solution, they agitated for a shift to a greater reliance on market forces as an engine of development in less developed countries (RATIONALES FOR SHIFT TO MARKETS)—EFFICIENCY.

At the heart of this debate are “practical questions, including relative power and control over resources among politicians and government officials, businesspeople and capitalists, and leaders of community and voluntary associations” (Esman 1988, 10).

Central to the neo-conservative critique was the belief that certain aspects of human existence are better left in the private sphere, never to be encroached upon by the state. Take the issue of private sector in economic activity, for example. According to Scott, neoconservatives decried governmental intrusions on the grounds that not only did such an arrangement help to protect property and create “wealth, but also the economy was too complex for it to be managed in detail by a hierarchical administration” (Scott 2001,101-2). Neo-conservative solution Whereas the big-push Keynesian-based development administration strategy had hinged on fiscal policy as the main tool for managing an economy, the neo-conservative alternative focused on monetary policy. Equally, on the political side, neoconservatives sought to resuscitate Classical Liberal Theory, which had the individual as its unit of analysis. Thus on the basis of both a monetary understanding of the economy and a classical liberal theory of individual freedom, neo-liberals argued that the problems of the Third World stemmed from an interventionist state, which prevented peasants. In short, neo-liberals “questioned much of the logic of state marketing boards, and challenged the principle of skimming resources from agriculture to fuel industrial development” (60). In other words, the critics argued that the big state ‘discouraged the production of potentially lucrative primary goods … too large a state stifled entrepreneurship” (160). Building on these initial critiques, neo-liberals did step up their pressure by the 1960s, in the main arguing that the focus then on ISI’S promotion of industry at

the expense of agriculture harmed the overall economy. They instead called for a shift to an Export-Led Industrialization strategy. This was the critique that they then amplified beginning in the late 1970s to launch a major assault on the Keynesian approach to international development (Rondenelli 1998). In the main, some critics argued that hierarchical social transformation was apt to display the full range of standard bureaucratic pathologies. Specifically they argue that given the irrationalities that frame human existence, such intended social changes can not occur without recourse to force or without violating the subtleties that distinguish human beings from other creatures. Indeed, they contend that by themselves, such arrangements, simplified as they are, cannot “generate a functioning community, city, or economy. Formal order, to be more explicit, is always and to some considerable degree parasitic on informal processes, which the formal scheme does not recognize, without which it could not exist, and which it alone can not create or maintain” (310). Because of this juncture between formal and informal processes, the results of such high-modernist activities are likely to look substantially different from what was intended. This holds true even in those case “where …the state devotes great resources to enforcing a high degree of formal compliance with its directives” (Scott 1988, 257). According to the author, the root of the problem is that formalistic approaches do not pay enough attention to “precisely the practical skills that underlie any complex activity” (Scott 1998, 311). Equally, on private property on the grounds that How state led development unfolded: from 1930s ISI planned industrial development and mixed economy—India). Initially successful; however, by the 1970s, the strategy in shambles. WHY? Due to internal factors—neglect of agriculture; external factors. RAPLEY 32-5). these failures to an over-bloated state.

Your comments are always welcome. Sincerely , Oliver F Chikodzore