Transitions from Authoritarianism: The Role of the Bureaucracy

by Randall Baker

Overview

Baker and his colleagues provide a blend of the theoretical and the empirical evidence in an examination of the nature of bureaucracy under non-democratic, authoritarian forms of government, whether on the right, as in Portugal, or the left, as in Bulgaria. In all these instances, the bureaucracy was constructed to serve the distorted interests of centralized, unaccountable power. Following the remarkable spread of democracy in the seventies in Iberia, the eighties in much of Latin America, parts of Asia and Africa, and the nineties in the former USSR and the Warsaw Pact countries, the main focus was on reforming the economy and the political institutions.

Distinguished scholars concentrate on the inherited bureaucracy—the arm of government with which the people most often have to deal. They highlight the undemocratic, and sometimes antidemocratic, nature of the civil service that is supposed to serve democracy. Others consider the nature of reform as experienced, and as needed, why there is no major policy for real reform of the bureaucracy in many countries, and the similar experience of reforming from the left and the right. Contributors discuss specific experiences as case studies and examine the more general question of what lessons can be learned from this unique perspective into comparative public administration reform. Essential reading for scholars, students, policy makers, and others involved with comparative government and public administration.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780275964580
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	10/30/2001
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.88(d)

About the Author

RANDALL BAKER is Professor and Director of International Programs, School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University. He was a founding member of the School of Development Studies at the University of East Anglia in England and its Dean during the 1970s. He has written extensively on the problems of small countries and states in political transition. Among his earlier publications are Comparative Public Management (Praeger, 1994) and Environmental Law and Policy in the European Union and the United States (Praeger, 1997).

Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction: Transition and Reform in Post-Authoritarian States by Randall Baker
Theoretical and Historical Insights into the Nature of the Public Service under Left and Right Authoritarianism
Predestining Ineffectuality: Administrative Theory and the Early Soviet State by Stanley Vanagunas
Creating a New Civil Service System on the Ruins of the Soviet Bureaucracy by Georg Sootla
Restructuring the State in Latin America in an Era of Transitions by Lawrence S. Graham
Case Studies in Transition
Soviet Administration in Estonia: Continuity and Shifts in Attitudes in the Course of Reform by Harry Roots and Natalia Karotom
Transitions in the Public Service Sector of the Former German Democratic Republic after 1989/90: The German Experience (The Absorption Model) by Rupert Eilsberger
Reforming Local Government in Bulgaria: Bringing Democracy to the People by Ljudmil Georgieve
Transition in Slovenia from a Cooperative Perspective by Mik Strmecki
The Local Response to Democracy and Bureaucracy: The Case of Slovakia by Juraj Nemec
The Role of Public Administration in the Consolidation of Democracy in Portugal by Rui Afonso Lucas and Joao Francisco de Magalhaes Ilharco
Transitions from Authoritarianism: The Case of Spain by Manuel Villoria Mendieta and Laura Huntoon
Modernizing Public Organization from a Client/Citizen Perspective: The Experience of Brazil by Paulo Roberto Motta
Redemocratization and the Modernization of the State: The Alfons´in Era in Argentina by Oscar Oszlak
A Re-examination of the Political/Administrative Interface with Particular Reference to South Africa's Recent Democratic Experience by Christopher Thornhill
The International Response to Civil Service Reform Needs
The European Union and Public Administration Development in Central and Eastern Europe by Tony Verheijen
From Public Administration Reform to European Integration: Cooperation between the European Union and the Transitional States of Eastern and Central Europe by Paul Collins
Perspective and Conclusion
Reforming Post-Socialist Federations: Can It Really Work? by Zeljko Sevic
Comparative Overview and Conclusion by Randall Baker
Index; Contributors