Sabotaging Civil Service Reform in Aid-Dependent Countries: Are Donors to Blame?

Unmasking the open secret of posting and transfer practices in the health sector

“…Many governments have demonstrated rhetorical commitment to reforming posting and transfer ( United Nations 1998 ; UNDESA 2001 ), and their degree of success speaks to the potency of policy resistance—when the system reacts to neutralize the intent of a policy. Since becoming independent, Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Nigeria, Sri Lanka, Swaziland and Tanzania, among others, have undergone several reviews and commissions related to recruitment and transfers that were subsequently overturned, partially (and perhaps poorly) implemented, or just ignored ( Zafarullah and Khan 1983 ; National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution 2000 ; McCourt 2006 ; Kim et al 2007 ; Second Administrative Reforms Commission 2007 ; Jacobs 2009 ; Kim and Monem 2009 ; Gundu 2011 ; Nunberg and Taliercio 2012 ). In some cases, public service commissions, the very institutions mandated to ensure transparent, fair, and rules-based posting and transfer, are themselves an integral part of the system of MI posting and transfer ( McCourt 2006 ; Kim et al 2007 ).…”

Incumbent bureaucrats: Why elections undermine civil service reform in Indonesia

“…When Suharto's authoritarian regime ended in 1998, he left Indonesia with a civil service that was not only highly corrupt but also very inward looking and unresponsive. One of the hopes of Indonesia's post‐Suharto reformasi (reform) was that decentralisation and the institution of direct elections (in Nunberg & Taliercio, ) would serve to foster a more responsive bureaucracy staffed by civil servants appointed on the basis of merit rather than connections. Yet despite the adoption of a range of policies aimed at bureaucratic reform, various studies suggest that money and personal connections remain key determinants of bureaucratic appointments.…”

Merit Versus Kinship: A Category Mistake? The Case of the Philippine Civil Service

“…True, patronage is not entirely incompatible with merit at the very top of a Weberian bureaucracy; and at all levels, the two often co‐exist for some time (Blunt, ; Nunberg and Taliercio, ) or work together. Indeed, there is an extensive literature documenting how patterns of informal behavior may sometimes work to subvert formal organizations or may be selectively legitimized to help stabilize the organization or improve its efficacy (Goffman, ; Pieke, ).…”

“…Yet, for the most part, securing a properly functioning, Weberian‐style, meritocratic bureaucracy is treated as imperative in developed countries, in Central and Eastern European states (see Korenica et al ., ) and perhaps nowhere more so than in the developing world. Here there exists a raft of mutually reinforcing problems including extended families, personalism, centralized rule, a weak private sector, low government salaries, weak controls, a shortage of resources, ineffective coordination, a neglect of policy design, a failure agree on policy objectives (see, for instance, Siddiquee, ; and Olowu, ; Kearney, ), a lack of political commitment (McCourt, ), and foreign‐aid projects which poach the best local staff and hollow out the civil service (Nunberg and Taliercio, ). The prescription is reform.…”