Download Blue Team 2

Blue Team
“There is no shortcut to human resource
development”
- Picard (2005, 231)

Story of a wealthy banker (Cowperwood) engaged
in various troublesome financial dealings
◦ Seeks to give to high-profile causes (university
telescope) to raise his public profile. He plans to give
several hundred thousand dollars to university.

Is in line to benefit from a city ordinance that
would leave him directly profiting
◦ Ordinance puts mayor, engaged in reelection campaign
soon, in a bind
◦ Should he push this through? Ultimately, is forced to not
contest the ordinance due to Cowperwood’s pressure

Take-away: corruption can work in subtle,
behind-the scenes ways; brings theoretical
concepts to life through literature

Focuses on character in understanding
political corruption
◦ Character: psychological and moral characteristics;
independence, greed, insecurity, confidence, virtue,
aggressiveness, passivity, malice, untruthfulness
(603)

Many people in positions that enable them to
profit at public’s expense, but vast majority
do not




Example of Spiro Agnew, governor of Maryland,
who had a system of kickbacks through state
contracts set-up while governor
Agnew’s character “fueled by resentment” (605);
insensitive to conflicts of interest, ethical issues;
lacked conscience; action preferred to
introspection (also characteristic of political
process)
Concludes with standard corruption-fighting
recommendations (transparency, civil service,
etc.)
Ultimately if we want to combat corruption we
need to look at it through lenses of honesty and
integrity, as well as vice

Studies of bureaucratic structure/behavior (373)
 Structure: the centralization of power and
authority; the establishment of a hierarchy of
offices with special requirements and
prerogatives; the existence of rules governing the
exercise of functions and authority
 Behavior: institutional or behavioral concomitants
of structures (ex. caution in interpreting rules,
self-interest among officials, and their conduct
toward public)

Western concepts and findings revealing limitations for nonWestern setting (373-5)
 Ex. bureaucracy in Egypt got influenced by various culture
and political control
 The degree to which personal initiative is related to
bureaucratic behavior (which behavior is more highly
bureaucratic?)
 Robert Merton’s summary on structural and behavioral
patterns of bureaucracy
 Dees it match with Egyptian officials highly exposed to Western
culture?

Reexamination
 Rationality and universalism; hierarchy; discretion (378)
 Bureaucratic tendencies and professionalism

Colonial territories/ transition/ colonial public servants
 The speed of political evolution tends to outstrip that
speed at which the educational system can meet the new
demand
 The evolution of the administrative services should be
adjusted to suit the pace of political advance (2).

Special list scheme: intended to retain experienced staff
 Especially designed for Nigeria (7-10)
 Serving on salaries, conditions, pensions, compensation
payments
 Finding continuous employment for all officers on the
special line up to at least the age of 55
 Failure of the special list
 Special report B: superseding the previous place; UK
encourage the Nigerian government to make use of the
“freezing”; few younger officers

Administrative reform as a means to better policy
implementation
◦ Osborne and Gaebler: “We do not need more government or
less government, we need better government. . . we need
better governance . . . The process by which we collectively
solve our problems and meet our society’s needs” (24)
◦ Picard: Change via…
◦ Institutions
◦ Functions
◦ Techniques
◦ Implementation: improved policy process


Development and Human resource management
Corruption
Johnson/
Picard/
Wallis/
Younger
Osborne &
Gaebler/ Barzelay:
NPM
Corruption
Administrative
Reform
Development
Managemet
Human
Resource
Management
Jreisat/
Dunn
Policy
Implementation
Dreiser/
Riordon/
Heidenhimer
Berger/
Armstrong/
Baker/Picard

Reinventing government (Osborne & Gaebler)
◦ “Crisis of confidence in government” (xxi)
◦ Decouple policy decisions (“steering”) from service
delivery (“rowing”) (35)
◦ Governments that are centralized, hierarchal,
strong on rules; regulations no longer work; are
wasteful and ineffective (12)

Reinventing government (Osborne & Gaebler)
◦ Comparison made to corporate sector that has
made “revolutionary changes: decentralizing
authority, flattening hierarchies, focusing on
quality, getting close to their customers…” (13)
◦ Focus on “results” (14)
◦ Solution: “entrepreneurial government”
 Competition, empowerment, outcomes, missions,
customers, prevent problems, earning money,
decentralization of authority, market over bureaucratic
mechanisms, catalyzing all sectors (20-21)

Barzelay’s Breaking Through Bureaucracy
◦ Critique of “bureaucratic paradigm” focused on
rules, centralization, economy, efficiency
◦ Improved service delivery key
 Separate service and control
 Changing the culture
 “Entrepreneurial spirit” (77)

New public management
◦ Customers, service quality and efficiency (Hood
1991; Pollitt 1990; Kickert 1997)

Synthesis

Berger:
 Studies of bureaucratic structure and behavior (373)
 Western concepts and findings revealing limitations for nonWestern setting (373-5)
 The degree to which personal initiative is related to
bureaucratic behavior (375)
 Three dimensions of bureaucratic behavior: rationality and
universalism, hierarchy, and discretion
 Exposure to Western influences, age, and place of higher
education do not uniformly influence three components of
bureaucratic behavior (381)
 Irreducible concepts of professionalism: skill, selfprotection, and service (382).
 Bureaucratic and professional predispositions may not be
unitary tendencies (384)

Younger:
◦ Colonial territories/ transition/ colonial public servants
 The evolution of the administrative services should be
adjusted to suit the pace of political advance (2)
 Special list scheme: intended to retain experienced staff
 Especially designed for Nigeria (7-10)

Wallis:
◦ The importance of human resource management
◦ The scope of human resource management
◦ Recruitment, training, planning, staff appraisal and MBO,
morale and motivation, participation and communication

Johnson
◦ Discrepancy between the formal authority (constitutional)
and the actual location of power (actual locus of
sovereignty) in Japan
◦ Japan’s feudal past and the emergence of the
developmental state during the Meiji era
◦ The evolution of a genuine Japanese institutional invention:
industrial policy of the developmental state
 E.g., creation of MITI (Ministry of International Trade and Industry) and
the renewal of the development policy

Armstrong
◦ Ways in which modern administrative elites may relate
to economic development
◦ Two salient counter-roles: both the traditional
particularistic elite role and the new entrepreneurial
role (50)
◦ Recruitment and class role model: tension between the
aristocratic and the official roles (74)

Baker
◦ Understanding the evolving roles of PA
◦ Interdependence as mutual vulnerability
◦ Alternatives facing American PA education

Picard
◦ Institution building during the transition period in
South Africa (176)
◦ Bureaucratic dysfunction (176)
◦ Good human resource performance requires a
combination of education, training, technical
knowledge, networks and values (183)
◦ No shortcut to human resource development
◦ A lethal combination of patronage, corruption, and
privileges, and gravy train
 Threat to the long-term institutional effectiveness of
the South Africa (230)

Synthesis
◦ Development and institution-building
◦ HRM as development management skills
◦ Public policy implementation and administrative
discretion
 Policy is a process as well as an authoritative one

Riordon
◦ Honest Graft and Dishonest Graft
◦ the example of the most thoroughly practical politician,
Senator Plunkitt

Dreiser
 Story of a wealthy banker (Cowperwood) engaged in various
troublesome financial dealings
 Is in line to benefit from a city ordinance that would leave
him directly profiting
 Take-away: corruption can work in subtle, behind-the
scenes ways; brings theoretical concepts to life through
literature

“Spiro Agnew and Maryland Customs” by Bruce L. Payne
◦ Focuses on character in understanding political corruption
 Character: psychological and moral characteristics:
independence, greed, insecurity, confidence, virtue,
aggressiveness, passivity, malice, untruthfulness (603)
◦ Many people in positions that enable them to profit at public’s
expense, but vast majority do not
 Concludes with standard corruption-fighting
recommendations (transparency, civil service, etc.)
 Ultimately if we want to combat corruption we need to look
at it through lenses of honesty and integrity, as well as vice
 Synthesis: corruption as a way to improve policy
implementation and administrative effectiveness for
citizens





Baker, Randall. 1994. Comparative public management: putting U.S.
public policy and implementation in context. Westport, Conn.: Praeger.
Barzelay, Michael. 1992. Breaking Through Bureaucracy. Berkeley:
University of California Press.
Berger, Morroe. 1957. “Bureaucracy East and West” in Raphaeli, Nimrod,
1967. eds. Readings in Comparative Public Administration. Boston: Allyn
and Bacon.
Dreiser, Theodore. 1969. “Corruption” in Green, Philip and Michael
Walzer, eds. The Political Imagination in Literature. New York: The Free
Press.
Heady, Ferrel. 2001. Public administration: a comparative perspective. 6th
ed. New York: Marcel Dekker.






Heidenheimer, Arnold, Michael Johnston and Victor T. LeVine, 1990. eds.
Political Corruption: A Handbook. New Brunswick, NJ.: Transaction
Publishers.
Johnson, Chalmers. 1982. MITI and the Japanese Miracle. Stanford:
Stanford University Press.
Jreisat, Jamil E. 2002. Comparative public administration and policy.
Boulder, Colo. Oxford: Westview.
Osborne, David and Ted Gaebler. 1993. Reinventing Government. New
York: Plume.
Peters B. Guy. 1989. The Politics of Bureaucracy. New York: London.
Picard, Louis A. 2005. The state of the state: institutional transformation,
capacity and political change in South Africa. Johannesburg: Wits
University Press.



Riordon, William L. 1963. Plunkitt of Tammany Hall. New York: E.P.
Dutton.
Younger, Kenneth, 1960. The Public Service I New States. London: Oxford
University Press.
Wallis, Malcolm. 1989. Bureacracy: Its Role in Third World Development.
London: Macmillan.