Socio-economic growth in Third World demands transformation of bureaucracy

Today's powerful administrative machinery embracing highly developed societies and equipped to deal with almost all events blossomed over a long period of time. In fact, it is claimed that the history of civilisation started with the formation of bureaucracy. It was the priestly hierarchically organised classes of scribes that created and protected the magic and sacred character of life in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. This class, based on the economic productivity of the canal system, was probably the most totalitarian bureaucracy that ever existed. The ancient great civilisations of China and India were also based on the economic use of canal systems on the Huang He (Yellow River), Yangzi Jiang (Yangzi River), the Ganges and Indus rivers. They also revealed similar bureaucratic tendencies.
In the present-day world, the role of bureaucracy has been considered crucial for development of newly independent developing states. The important role of bureaucracy has been emphasised to organise and administer a society's manpower, its resources and external relations, so as to set or continue the growth process. The concept of development administration emerged on this major premise.
The basic assumptions have been that in many developing countries, the bureaucracy is the only significant social class willing to assume responsibility for transformation - as it controls and directs the major segment of the professional, technical and entrepreneurial resources that are available to a developing society. Thus, bureaucracy has been considered to be a vital variable for socio-economic progress and scholars have argued that development of the administrative system would lead to the achievement of economic, social and political growth.
But from the experiencs of the post-colonial era since the middle of the 20th century, the vicious cycle of poverty and stagnant development has become almost synonymous with the vicious cycle of bureaucracy engulfing the whole socio-economic, political and cultural fabric of societies. In most of these countries, the over-bureaucratic administrative systems, instead of promoting development and acting as catalytic agents of development, appear to have perpetrated a state of underdevelopment. Development of administration seems to have become an end in itself, rather than a means for development, thus giving rise to a phenomenon that can be dubbed 'non-developmental statism' as opposed to 'developmental statism' of some developed countries.
Statism had, in fact, been haunting both the developing countries and the so-called communist states in one guise or another, and the failure of the communist bloc in Europe may be attributed to this factor alone. In the former Soviet Union and among its East European allies, statism thrived in the name of socialism, and in the developing world it was pursued in the name of development administration. In the absence of truly democratic institutions and other countervailing socio-political forces as seen in the capitalist West, the bureaucracy in the developing states constituted the de facto ruling class and thrived as an elite group in the name of development and administration.
The Bureaucracy has perpetuated this state of underdevelopment in many developing countries in two ways: firstly, through direct involvement in productive, promotional and regulatory pursuits; and secondly, by not allowing indigenous socio-political and economic institutions to develop and flourish. The outcome has been inefficient, corrupt and loss-incurring public enterprises on the one hand, and the dominance of the civil-military bureaucratic oligarchy, on the other. Time and again democratic institutions were demolished or molested and state-power usurped by this unholy alliance all over the developing Third World. The task of developing the administration was then taken up in right earnest, not as a means of development, but as an end in itself.
The outcome has been an accelerated expansion of bureaucratic dysfunctions, which in many cases exceeded in enormity even those during the colonial era. Parkinson 's Law of multiplication of work and workers with no net gain ultimately got a stranglehold in these countries, driving the life-force out of them and perpetuating a state of underdevelopment and economic backwardness.
This bureaucratic oligarchy had been aided and supported by the capitalist West in two ways. Firstly, the administrative set-ups which the newly independent countries inherited were mostly the work of the colonisers who had developed the networks in order to rule and exploit, and teach their own brand of civilisation. Once expelled from the colony, the former colonisers continued to extol the virtues of these administrative systems, and this was further reinforced and strengthened by the newly-coined concept of development administration with the promotion of bureaucracy as the leading social class. "The uncivilised natives had to be developed and the West-oriented bureaucracy was in the right position to do it" - a true reflection of the colonial mentality indeed. For nation-building and socio-economic progress of developing countries, the substantive, managerial, social and political roles of bureaucracy were viewed as indispensable by many Western scholars, and transition to modernity appeared to have hinged very much on their success.
Secondly, as claimed by the dependency theorists, the capitalist West, which included the former colonisers, could do business with the bureaucratic lackeys they left behind, and this led to the patronisation of this class by them. The bureaucracy served as satellites of the Western metropolitan centres and profitably engaged in the procurement and administration of development aid from the West. This continuous flow of Western development aid has continually filled the pockets and morale of the ruling elites - mainly the bureaucracy, endowing them with enhanced prestige and power and allowing them to enjoy special privileges and discretionary powers. All these acted as effective deterrents against the growth of indigenous, alternative and countervailing socio-political-cum-economic institutions.
The development programmes of the developing economies have therefore remained overwhelmingly aid-based, where the bureaucracy has remained the key actor in the master-plan. The outcome has been statism, over-bureaucratisation and the concomitant dispatch of viable and countervailing socio-economic agents to the periphery. The bureaucracy has thus remained the chief abettor-cum-agent in the perpetuation of underdevelopment and indebtedness.
In recent times, there has been a growing realisation and concomitant articulation that inefficient bureaucracies were the major obstacles in the development efforts of Third World countries. Even Western institutions took this up as an issue for the structural transformation of these countries. There is, thus, an almost universal consensus on reducing the role of state bureaucracy, transforming it structurally, functionally and orientation-wise, confining it mainly within the social sectors, and deregulating state control in the economic arena.
Developing countries should now embark on a programme where development is not administered from above, but comes about from within society through a dialectic social process. For this to happen, bureaucracy must be contained, made fully transparent, efficient and accountable, and countervailing socio-political-cum-democratic institutions must be allowed to thrive. Such lofty ideals as embodied in the humanist perspective of development like self-esteem, freedom from servitude, socio-economic equality-cum-equity, sustainability and empowerment cannot materialise in a statist-administered society.

Dr. Helal Uddin Ahmed is a former Editor of Bangladesh Quarterly. The article is an edited version of his 1994 essay titled 'Transforming Third World Bureaucracy' published in the then monthly publication 'ISEAS Trends' of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.
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