Crises and continuities in development theory and administration: First and Third World perspectives

Abstract

‘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.

Ensino superior em administração entre os anos 1940 e 1950: uma discussão a partir dos acordos de cooperação Brasil-Estados Unidos

“…Thus, the request for support and the acceptance of help is a form of recognition, albeit taciturn, of Brazil's position as subordinate to the USA. The obvious hierarchy in terms of the material wealth of both nations is strengthened (not determined) by the nature of these agreements that mostly aim to transplant certain institutional models and forms to the countries that receive support (for more on this matter, see DWIVEDI and NEF, 1982;COOKE, 2004;. This work is part of a study conducted for a doctoral thesis.…”

Can Top-Down and Bottom-Up be Reconciled? Electoral Competition and Service Delivery in Malaysia

“…This is not a new insight. The point was recognized following the wave of participation experiments in countries like Libya, Tanzania and Yugoslavia in the 60s and 70s as well as industrialized countries like the US (Dwivedi, 1982;Mayhew, 2004;Miller, 1970;Pagano & Rowthorn, 1996;Richardson, 1983;Wolfe, 1970).…”

The Conference on “Knowledge‐building in Asian Public Administration”

“…Yet, the post‐colonial academic endeavor to indigenize such theories and models led to the creation of public administration knowledge that still reflected the dominant Anglo‐Saxon administrative thinking without much practical relevance to the Asian context. In other words, the exogenous colonial and post‐colonial formation of public administration not only led to an administration–society incongruence, it also created a theory–practice gap in Asian countries (Dwivedi and Nef, ; Haque, ; Subramaniam, ).…”