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The intention of this paper is to examine the political and administrative limits on the effective implementation of privatization in developing countries and so to present a challenge to the view that slow progress is primarily attributable to economic constraints. After examining these economic aspects, the paper provides an explanatory framework which incorporates those political and administrative processes central to an understanding of what happens to state economic policies in practice. The significance of these processes is demonstrated by drawing on research material from India, Pakistan, Thailand, and Sri Lanka. The conclusion drawn is that responses to pressures for economic reform will be determined, not so much by economic criteria as by the political and bureaucratic resources available to decision makers. Since policy processes in developing countries show considerable variety it is likely that there will be substantial variations in the practical achievement of privatization objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: This paper argues that recent developments in practice and theory provide a more promising basis for public service reform in developing countries than we have had since at least the turn of the century. There have been significant instances of large‐scale reform success, such as Nepal's Public Service Commission and Malaysia's delivery unit, Pemandu, and also “pockets of effectiveness” in individual agencies in many countries. They contribute to a more fruitful and diverse repertoire of reform approaches than generally realized. Policymakers can draw on all those instances and types of reform, together with relevant rich country experiences, as they improvise and tailor responses to their always unique reform problems. Proceeding in this way helps reformers to expand the “reform space” available within the political economy. Donors can help reformers if they facilitate reform in the spirit of the Busan Partnership rather than impose their preferred models. In short, the new direction which this paper identifies can be stated as creative problem solving by local actors facilitated by sympathetic donors, building on examples of reform success and drawing on a repertoire of poor and rich country reform approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents abstracts of articles on poverty and economic development. "Broadening the Agenda for Poverty Reduction: Opportunity, Empowerment, Security," by Nora Lustig and Nicholas Stern, published in the 2000 issue of "Finance and Development"; "Building on Poor People's Capacities: The Case of Common Property Resources in India and West Africa," by Tony Beck and Cathy Nesmith, published in the 2001 issue of "World Development"; "Economic Mobility and Poverty Dynamics in Developing Countries," by Bob Baulch and John Hoddinott," published in the 2000 issue of "Journal of Development Studies"; "From the Culture of Poverty to Inclusive Cities: Re-framing Urban Policy and Politics," by Jo Bealt, published in the 2000 issue of "Journal of International Development.

Authors of recent case studies of the political and administrative practices of small developing states continue to disagree about the consequences of 'smallness' in promoting development. This paper reviews these arguments and attempts to clarify the issues surrounding the factor of state size and its impact on the relationship between politics and administration. The most important difficulty with providing any resolution to these arguments is the continued lack of comparative studies of administrative problems and potentials in small developing states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with some aspects of practical experience in the implementation of regional planning in developing countries in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly Kenya and Malawi. It is also specially concerned with the role in pursuing regional planning policies of physical planners. After some discussion of general experience with physical planning's role in regional planning in Africa the experience of Kenya is discussed in some detail, a country with more commitment than most in elaborating such policies but still limited success in implementation. The main emphasis is on the analysis of the experience of Malawi, a poor and very crowded country whose development in several ways parallels that of Kenya, while in other respects being very different, especially with its even more limited resource base in any economic activities other than agriculture. The limited effectiveness of physical planning is discussed in some detail, both within particular projects, and generally in rural areas, with particular reference to the administrative machinery within which it operates. Malawi's experience underlines the need, if physical planning policies are to be successfully implemented, for them to be consistent with regional planning activities of other Government agencies, as welt as other macro-economic policies including those for agricultural pricing and other policies affecting the relative success of the estate and smallholder sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Variants of the project planning sequence or cycle are widely employed to provide the conceptual framework for investment in developing countries. However, the current models attempt to generalize activity sequences across a range of projects with differing objectives. They also tend to abstract project planning from its institutional context, and to make little allowance for the possibility that alternative approaches to organizational and managerial problems may be available. The article outlines a technique that facilitates the analysis of active-organization patterns. Commencing with the classical tripartite system, a number of standard forms are identified and described. A series of observations are then offered on the organizational choices and control procedures that are available for public sector projects. The paper concludes with some remarks on the relationship between project planning and strategies for the development of indigenous institutional capacity in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article investigates whether differences in public sector management quality affect the link between public debt and economic growth in developing countries. For this purpose, we primarily use the World Bank's institutional indices of public sector management (PSM). Using PSM thresholds, we split our panel into country clusters and make comparisons. Our linear baseline regressions reveal a significant negative relationship between public debt and growth. The various robustness exercises that we perform also confirm these results. When we dissect our data set into 'weak' and 'strong' county clusters using public sector management scores, however, we find different results. While public debt still displayed a negative relationship with growth in countries with 'weak' public sector management quality, it generally displayed a positive relationship in the latter group. The tests for non-linearity shows evidence of an 'inverse-U'-shape relationship between public debt and economic growth. However, we fail to see a similar significant relationship on country clusters that account for PSM quality. Yet, countries with well-managed public sectors demonstrate a higher public debt sustainability threshold. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With growing uncertainty over the value and impact of traditional bilateral foreign aid to advance development in poor countries, there is disquiet about the future of national public agencies and ministries with responsibility for managing and delivering international assistance. Growing reputational damage to foreign aid has triggered a lively discussion in development policy circles about the best structural configuration for organizing and governing international development functions within donor countries. To date, public administration scholars with expertise in questions of bureaucratic design and performance have yet to weigh in on this debate. This article is an attempt to present current controversies about donor governance and offer guidance for resolving current dilemmas by exploring the potential contributions of public administration. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SUMMARY Effective economic governance is a key condition for economic growth and development, and donor support to developing countries has increasingly been focused on regulatory reforms that are intended to enable markets to function more efficiently thereby providing a stable and supportive environment for investment, private sector development, and market-led economic growth. This article reviews the empirical evidence on the impact of regulatory reform in developing countries. The evidence is broadly consistent with a priori expectations, showing a positive relationship between regulatory reform and improved economic performance. However, various methodological and data problems weaken the robustness of these findings and point to the need to broaden the range of designs and methods for evaluating the results of donor-supported regulatory reforms in developing countries. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses how fragile states and the international community can strengthen their capacity to find a path from fragility to socio-economic progress. It focuses on a brief summary of capacity and capacity development (CD) in fragile states. CD in fragile states is said to share similarities with interventions in countries where fragility is not a problem. A model of CD intervention is presented which identifies three dimensions that can be used to characterize interventions to build capacity which includes the amount of time required, the degree of difficulty and complexity and the scope and depth of change involved. The article concludes with some emerging guidance for CD such as donors in fragile states should choose targets selectively and sequence CD assistance.

Against the background of paucity of complete and reliable data as the basis for sound policy, this article reports on the results of a major international survey of government employment and wages in about 100 countries. Key findings are that: in developing countries as a whole, relative government employment is now less than half the level of OECD countries; the reduction in the role of the state in the 'decade of adjustment' is striking, and so is the erosion in real government wages in the poorest countries--particularly in anglophone Africa; decentralization in Latin America is visible in the substantial shift of employment from central to subnational government levels; and the lean and well-paid civil service of East Asia is one possible reason why rapid economic growth could coexist for so long with the governance weaknesses that have surfaced in the form of the Asian crisis. The article then undertakes an aggregate cross-sectional analysis of the determinants of government employment. In Africa and Latin America, relative government employment is positively associated with per capita income and the fiscal deficit, and negatively associated with relative wages and population. Clearly, the tendency for government to expand as the economy grows--the so-called 'Wagner law'--is still operative in developing countries. However, it seems no longer at work in OECD countries, suggesting that Wagner's law ceases to operate beyond certain per capita income level. The article concludes, nevertheless, with a reminder of the limits of cross-sectional analysis: even 'good facts' prove little by themselves--good analysis and policy must rest on country-specific quantitative and qualitative evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SUMMARY While many developing countries experience a short period of economic boom and then spiral quickly into periods of deficit, currency fluctuation, and indebtedness, China has been able to sustain rapid economic growth and maintain solid fiscal capacity for the past 30 years, even during the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s and the global recession in the beginning of the 21st century. This article examines three key strategies behind China's fiscal success - its flexibility in adapting tax policies to the changing economic and social conditions, its success in realigning the intergovernmental fiscal relationship in 1994 and forcing subnational governments to become more entrepreneurial in revenue generation, and its pursuit of institutional reforms since the mid-1990s to improve the government's capacity in budgeting and financial management. The article evaluates the implications of the Chinese experience for other developing countries and discusses the future challenges of fiscal reforms in China. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article starts by sketching the shape of the institutions and mechanisms which currently aim to protect the environment in developing countries. The form these have taken is largely based upon the environmental institutions created in the United States in the early 1970s, under the influence of the outburst of environmental concern at that time. The sudden re-emergence of environmental concern at the top of the political agenda in the 1980s is attributable in significant measure to the 'Green Movement', that has evolved out of the concerns originally expressed in the early 1970s. The new institutions and mechanisms have, however, failed to check environmental deterioration in many developing countries; it is necessary to focus on the macroframework determining development priorities and practices if environmental problems are to be adequately addressed. The root of the problem is not merely institutional, or even macroeconomic, but is primarily cultural, stemming more specifically from the imposition of European cultural values. The environmental crisis is not restricted to developing countries and is unlikely to be solved without considerably more far-reaching initiatives than we have seen so far. According to the literature of the Green Movement, the process of the 'greening of development' is far from completed in the creation of current environmental agencies and management mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Managing socio-economic development according to highly detailed pre-implementation plans rigidly applied has not had a high degree of success in generating sustained progress in the world's poorer nations. At the other end of the spectrum is the process approach that avoids specifying targets in advance, and concentrates upon building problem-solving capacity among the people involved. Many international donor and developing country agencies favour the blueprint model, despite its performance weaknesses, for its control and specificity. The process approach is limited by its lack of fit with agency procedures and incentives. This article discusses a structured flexibility approach to development management that integrates the blueprint model's planned structuring of action with the process model's flexibility and iterative learning orientation. This blend provides the basis for the programmatic and financial accountability required to obtain support from donor and developing country bureaucracies, and facilitates adaptive management to deal with uncertain and changing task environments. Case examples from the Caribbean, Portugal, and Pakistan illustrate the application of the structured flexibility approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first part of this article [vol 9, no. 1] examined the ways in which the structure and division of responsibilities within public administrations often rendered them unable to perceive or cope with broad problems of environmental decline. In the developing world this is compounded by the contradictions between pressures for economic survival versus the long-term considerations for sustainability and conservation in the policy arena. In this second part the author reviews and evaluates further areas of administrative innovation in this area and considers the climate for policy and institutional change 25 years after the Stockholm Conference. In conclusion, basic principles guiding policy formulation, methodology and administrative organization are presented to allow administrations to gain some ground in the worsening environmental balance sheet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article traces the evolution of the concepts underlying development administration since its origin as a distinct subdiscipline in the early 1960s. It relates the main thrusts in development administration to changing theories and approaches to economic and social development, especially the appropriate functions of' the state, the implications of modernization, and the capabilities of people outside the modern core in urban centres. Seven major themes have emerged during the past decade. Their acceptance among academics and practitioners has produced a more sophisticated, realistic and useful appreciation of the relationships of public administration to development. Though this bodes well for the future, an unsolved problem is the continuing intellectual hegemony of Western concepts and practices, despite an impressive number of highly trained Third World scholars and well-established Third World institutions operating in this field. There is evidence that the ongoing search for effective indigenous management practices will greatly enrich development administration as a field of inquiry and of practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1971, the Algerian government promulgated the Charte de l'Organisation Socialiste des Entreprises. By means of this Charte it ostensibly sought to reform Algerian public enterprise law and to correct increasingly disruptive problems in public enterprise management. It also sought to reduce the widening gap between workers and the technocratic elite managing the state-controlled economy. The Charte and its subsequent implementing legislation have been criticized as being, at best, ambiguous; at worst, insincere. Moreover, implementation of la gestion socialiste, as the reform came to be known, was uneven and slow. This article discusses Algerian public enterprise law before and after the 1971 reform. It does so within the context of comparing the utility of applying a symbolic rather than an instrumental view of the role of law in development. On the basis of analysis of the Algerian experience, the article suggests that the symbolic view of law allows a much deeper understanding of the role of law in development, primarily because it allows, if not requires, consideration of the influence of economic, political and social factors on the role of law in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India, as the largest democracy, second most populous country, ninth largest industrial power and fifteenth poorest nation, has in respect of health care to be considered as a special case among developing countries. Nevertheless, the identification in India, as an alternative to national welfare provision, of opportunities for returning social and economic responsibilities for health care to local communities is important for both developing and developed countries. This article outlines and comments upon recent developments in providing primary health care in rural communities in India. It concludes by examining possible parallels between self-sustaining community health schemes and the search in developed countries for community and personal involvement so as to overcome emergent limitations of professionalized and welfare systems of care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Development Administration' as an academic discipline originated in the West and has been dominated by Western thought. This article traces the development of the discipline and outlines its Western theoretical foundations and assumptions. The failure of Development Administration to solve the problems of the Third World is outlined, and the 'indigenization of underdevelopment' is discussed. New challenges to the discipline, that have been previously seen as 'heretical', are presented as alternatives to Western models that have proven their ineffectiveness. China, Guinea-Bissau, India, Tanzania and Libya are used as examples of countries attempting alternative routes to development and development administration. The article stresses the need for open examination of non-traditional models that may provide valuable clues in the struggle for a viable developmental strategy. It concludes by suggesting four major issues around which a new conceptualization can be built: accountable development administration, the role of values, the emergence of fundamentalist ideologies, and the challenges posed by the Third Development Decade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents an abstract of the study "Improving Rural-Urban Linkages Through Small Town Market-Based Development," by G. L. Gaile.