Governance, administration and development: making the state work

Abstract

This book provides a comprehensive introduction to public policy and management in developing countries and transitional economies. It assesses both traditional and new models of public administration with particular emphasis on the challenge to the centrallity of the state in development and current debates about the conditions of effective governance. The authors identify the particular challenges and complexities of the economic, social and political environment in developing countries and challenge the uncritical way in which often inappropriate institutional arrangements have been imported from Western industrialized countries. They focus in particular on attempts to introduce aspects of the 'new public management' to developing countries and challenge the contemporary orthodoxy that 'reinventing government' means reducing its role and functions to those of a 'mimimalist state'. The book is illustrated with up-to-date case studies based on the authors' experience.