The Populist Front in Rural Development: Or Shall We Eliminate the Bureaucrats and Get on with the Job?

The Populist Front in Rural Development: Or Shall We Eliminate the Bureaucrats and Get onwith the Job?Author(s): John D. MontgomerySource: Public Administration Review, Vol. 39, No. 1 (Jan. - Feb., 1979), pp. 58-65Published by: Wiley on behalf of the American Society for Public AdministrationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3110380 .

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58

The Populist Front In Rural Development: or Shall We Eliminate The Bureaucrats And Get On With The Job? John D. Montgomery, Harvard University

Distrust of the bureaucracy as an instrument of progress is nothing new. But it is flourishing with extraordinary vigor in this era when little else is taken for granted. Waves of suspicion now pervade the American domestic scene; and on the international front both the World Bank and the UN specialized agencies are now encountering the same skepticism that has already overtaken the once-exuberant U.S. foreign aid program. There is a fashionable turn in the old populism that rejects, in the United States and abroad, technicians and administrators, along with politicians and judges.

The current populism began on the international scene after social reforms initiated by planning agencies and aid donors, and entrusted to technicians and administrators, simply failed to materialize. High expectations of the 1960s were frustrated both in Latin America and Southeast Asia as the results of their development and reform activities were examined and appraised. Technocratic ap- proaches to a better quality of life, relying on guided democracy and planned social change, are now pejorative terms. The experiments in political modernization and administrative reform that flourished during the past fifteen years have produced political hypertension and administrative disillusionment. The public has begun to reject cen- tralized authority whether located in national capitals or in city halls. One solution is the current effort to seek more effective and thorough-going means of involving citizens in decisions made and actions carried out in their name. In- ternational banks and foreign aid agencies are attempting to export demand politics and popular participation along with capital and technology. It would seem that the only good bureaucrats are those charged with the task of dis- arming, or at least unmasking, other bureaucrats.

Attitudes Versus Evidence

Public suspicion of bureaucracy is understandable but not wholly rational. Over the decades its rise has paralleled the rise of governmental interventions into society, rather than that of bureaucratic failures as such. For there is no real evidence that governmental performance has declined in quality as the quantity of services has increased. On the contrary, American experience with governmental services is much more favorable than the popular stereotypes about bureaucracies. But unfavorable cliches have a life of their own. A careful study of public experience with government services in seventy-four sample areas of the U'.S.I showed

that most (58 per cent) of the population are now using at least one direct service rendered by bureaucrats, and satis- faction with the quality of their performance ranges as high as 90 per cent for retirement benefits and 75 per cent for work-related services, down to just under 60 per cent for hospital and welfare services. Only 15 per cent reported "difficulty" with what might appear the least crowd-pleas- ing functions of all, those involving taxing, policing, and driver licensing. There was little or no support for the stereotypes of bureaucrats as inefficient, unfair, error-rid- den, elusive, irresponsible, or authoritarian. Even reports of experience with the "constraint" functions of government, which were seen as less efficient and less equitable than the "service" functions mentioned above, were not overwhelmingly unfavorable (more than one-fourth, however, thought they had perceived threats or pressures in the administrators' behavior). No fewer than 80 per cent reported that they themselves had been "fairly" treated in their bureaucratic encounters; yet only 42 per cent rated government offices as being "fair." General attitudes or beliefs about government administration, it seems, are not easily displaced by one's experience with it.

Drawing on the stereotypes of bureaucracy and citing the successes of non-bureaucratic action, enthusiasts have now created a kind of populist front in rural development based on the proposition that participation is the key to improvement.

In less developed countries (LDCs), similar stereotypes exist, perhaps in still more extreme forms. Western technicians frustrated with intransigent problems describe LDC bureaucrats in almost pathological terms: they are seen as remote from their immediate social environments, sepa- rated by culture and "evolution" from their country cousins, rarely seen by villagers, and indifferent to the needs of their citizen-clients. If they are individually excul- pated for this behavior it is only because the system itself is

John D. Montgomery, professor of public administration at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, is author of Technology and Civic Life, and other studies of development administration.

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1979



THE POPULIST FRONT IN RURAL DEVELOPMENT 59

blamed for encouraging them to have little to do with the rural population and the urban poor. The "administrative state" in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East presides over a dual economy of co-existing riches and poverty, which in turn is part of a dual culture of bureaucrat and peasant.

One interpretation of the twentieth century experience with land reform2 has been taken as proof that bureaucrats are, in the last analysis, superfluous in the development process. Evidently the countries that have succeeded best in redistributing land and increasing the security of farm ten- ure are those that have relied most heavily on non-bureaucratic institutions to implement one or more functions of the land reform program. The institutions that "replaced" the bureaucracy in these countries ranged from formal locally-elected structures to unofficial organizations of tenants and landlords chosen for the specific purpose of implementing various elements of the land reform program. In one case-Korea-traditional village procedures were successfully used to perform certain major functions of land reform. And in others-notably Japan, Taiwan, and Iran-special organizations of landlords and tenants were created for such purposes. Whichever system was used, performance was better when such popular participation occurred in the administration of land reform than when the bureaucrats did it all.

Emergence of the Populist Front

Such popular instruments, it is argued, have certain in- herent advantages over the bureaucracy in performing some of the functions of land reform. They have instant access to local information which is available to itinerant administrators only after research. They also have the ad- vantage of a long memory, the collective family histories of those most deeply involved in the transactions in ques- tion. And they have commitment: it is their land that is to be affected, and their neighbors; what happens to it as a result of their efforts is not just a matter of carrying out orders or executing policy, but is the essence of their collective existence. Where land issues are involved, the information and the commitment available to bureaucratic organizations are no match for the resources available through popular participation.

Drawing on the stereotypes of bureaucracy and citing the successes of non-bureaucratic action, enthusiasts have now created a kind of populist front in rural development based on the proposition that participation is the key to improvement. Without stopping for evidences of its preconditions and its limitations, the populists are devoting their attention to the task of working out details for diverting various functions of government from the capital cities to the villages. They are ready to abandon the center, some- what as the middle classes abandoned the core cities of the United States. They see bureaucrats as instruments of control, and not very successful ones at that. What they do not see is that bureaucrats can also provide decisive influence in moving local organizations to repond to local needs.


Values and Problems of Popular Participation

There is, of course, no satisfactory substitute for popular initiatives and public support in development programs; the objective of this paper is not so much to deny the value of popular participation as to describe the role of administration in creating preconditions for it, and in giv- ing it balance. For the weaknesses of extreme localism are as debilitating as the pathologies of an unrestrained bureaucracy. The ideal models of popular participation are incomplete unless they define appropriate bureaucratic structures and establish performance criteria for the administrative cadre. The crucial point is that just as bureaucracies have to be restrained, so do local organizations have to be created, nourished, and counter-balanced. The landlord-tenant committees that succeeded so well in land reform administration, for example, were organized and reviewed by professional administrators. Few local organizations capable of performing developmental functions can emerge and survive without support from bureaucratic systems that are independent of local decision makers. Local organizations are no more immune to human weak- ness than are the national bureaucracies. If there is a bureaupathology, there is also acute localitis.

. . . the weaknesses of extreme localism are as debilitating as the pathologies of an unrestrained bureaucracy . . . just as bureaucracies have to be restrained, so do local organizations have to be created, nourished, and counter-balanced.

There are at least four symptoms of acute localitis, a disease calling for sustained dosages of either administrative or political action:

1. Local institutions, especially in their early stages of development, can be colonized by local elites and made an instrument of control, repression, and systematic restric- tion of individual opportunities. These processes often lead to severe conflict situations in the absence of external procedures for mediation and resolution.

2. If majority rule does succeed in displacing traditional elites or upstart oligarchies, there is still likely to be "majority discrimination" against the very poor. The moderately prospering majority despise the deserving poor just about as much as they do the underserving rich.

3. Even local improvements that succeed can create problems in the larger context of national development. Few villages can develop adequately in isolation. Economies of scale and spatial continuities require links to other villages and new technologies; beyond a certain minimum level of self-improvement, villages cannot be effectively developed by local leadership. Local leadership is doubtlessly necessary to mobilize and sustain popular commitment, but the skills appropriate for that purpose seldom include either the technical knowledge and capacity for long-range



PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW

planning, or the managerial ability that is needed for any but fairly small-scale, entirely local operations. Village leaders may satisfy the community development criterion of responding to "felt needs" without supporting development goals.

4. Most local organizations are extremely limited in financial resources and management capabilities. Reliance on local bodies as instruments for distributing funds supplied by the central government is extremely hazardous to developmental objectives unless there is adequate external supervision or review.

Possible Remedies

The more closely local participation in development is examined, the clearer it becomes that important elements have to be supplied by administrative or political resources outside the rural collectives, the farmers' associations, and the village structures. "Localitis" requires constant attention, and if the political leadership cannot supply it (which, because of other demands, it can almost never do except momentarily and randomly), it is up to the despised bureaucrat to find ways to offset village elites and village apathy so that participation can occur. It is he who must arrange services to the poor-if indeed any are to be forth- coming-in the many cases where the majority is inclined to neglect them. He has to create the links among the independent village initiatives so their activities can merge and multiply if political organization does not do so. In the absence of others, he is usually the only spokesman for the future and pleader for the long term.

Beyond these specific services, the very permanence of the bureaucratic institutions provides some promise of program stability. Bureaucracies may be attacked, but they persevere; they may be reorganized individually, but they persist collectively. They are as inevitable as the taxes they collect; they outlast the whims of reform and can, if mobil- ized for the purpose, protect at least its procedures. By their very presence, they can help integrate and manage the external resources that are needed to supplement local efforts.

One of the major achievements of agricultural extension programs, when their functions are disaggregated and dis- counted, has been their ability to go beyond the functions of supplying information, or conditioning, catalyzing, or accelerating local responses. It is now generally accepted that another important contribution has been their ability to manage and coordinate the inputs that come from many public and private sources outside the village.3 The Cornell University studies of local participation have concluded that links between villagers (however organized) and governmental activities (in whatever ideological or political context) play a decisive role in development. The links are more important than the functions.4

Land Reform Revisited

Land reform, whch offers a prototype of successful local participation, also demonstrates the role of bureaucratic institutions in the larger context of the events that

have to follow. In the first place, without continuing improvements in the technological and institutional supports to the newly independent farm holdings, land reform offers only transient social gains. But equally important, sustained administrative support offered by the professional bureaucracy to local institutions is an essential ingredient of long-term agrarian reform.

There are twenty countries for which sufficient standardized information is available on land reform to permit a comparative analysis of the different functions administrative systems perform in promoting agrarian development.5 In twelve of these countries, significant productivity increases were reported. In all twelve cases, credit facilities accompanied the reforms, of which nine involved public (i.e., bureaucratically administered) programs to supplement private sources. In eleven of the cases, extension services were provided, and in nine public transporta- tion facilities were made available. In five cases, price policies supported the reforms (price policies were perhaps too blunt an instrument in these cases, too far removed from farm-level decisions to provide the same response that credit did).

. . . sustained administrative support offered by the professional bureaucracy to local institutions is an essential ingredient of long-term agrarian reform.

The institutional relationships involved in the reforms were equally striking. In all twenty countries, the bureaucracy was called on to develop or advise the local organizations that were expected to provide a basis for popular participation. It was the administrators who established the criteria for local organization, provided guidance or training for local leaders, or advised them on procedures for local decision-making. These functions may be designated the "institutionalizing" elements in generating popular participation. Even after the institutions were in place, the responsibilities of the bureaucrats continued. Among the specific functions discharged by the bureaucracy were extension (17 countries),6 the management of irrigation services (18 countries),7 and the supplying of fertilizer (17 countries),8 and seeds (16 countries).9 All of these functions are seen by agriculturalists as essential to productivity increases, but the productivity results required institutional as well as technical services.

"Control" versus "Receptivity" Linkages

A crucial distinction among the post-institutionalizing functions of administration is that between the "control" and the "receptivity" linkages that connect central bureaucracies to local organizations. In sixteen of the twenty countries where local implementing organization were newly created, there is some evidence available about the subsequent linkages between them and central bureaucracies. Curiously enough, in view of the popular stereotypes,





the control functions did not dominate the relationships in the land reform context, In only five of those twenty coun- tries1? was the continuing bureaucratic relationship with local organizations essentially that of "control." In eleven of the twenty countries " I the system permitted local institutions to communicate their needs to the bureaucracy for further action. This function, designed "receptivity," shows a striking correlation with productivity gains reported in the studies. As Table 1 shows, most of these situations enjoyed "good" productivity results according to the original studies.

Control linkages dominated the relationship in five countries, and the relationship was rarely associated with "good" productivity results in these cases. These bald fig- ures are not to be interpreted as a showing of causation, of course, but they are surely indicative of characteristic relationships accompanying the administrative functions of control and receptivity. What is not known about these cases is how the bureaucratic organizations were able to maintain a posture of "receptivity." Organization theory, extrapolated from other environmental settings, would at- tribute this posture to perceptions of individual administrative leaders who were in a position to create appropriate institutional responses, but the processes remain obscure and speculative. 12

Invisible Bureaucratic Services

Productivity gains are not the only benefits associated with appropriate administrative linkages to local government. The existence of centrally-connected bureaucratic resources has also been shown to strengthen local institutions, which in turn provide new political outlets and chan- nels of appeal for villagers who might otherwise be ex- posed to monocratic controls. What is striking about these findings is that neither the services described here, nor the linkages the Cornell studies have identified as essential elements in successful local organization, nor even the integrative and managerial functions defined by Rice's study of agricultural extension, are directly perceived by individ-

ual peasants as a bureaucratic function. Peasant experience with government is indirect; the irrigation ditch riders and the managers of supply warehouses are not perceived as "bureaucrats." The phenomenon of the invisible bureaucrat is at least partially explained by the peasant's defi- nition of government and administration, which often ex- cludes the backing that bureaucratic entities provide to the functions discharged by their own community. The persist- ence of the stereotypes is reminiscent of the opinions ex- pressed by Americans surveyed in the study of bureaucratic encounters, for whom the government is unfair even though they themselves report only fair treatment at the personal level. The maligned bureaucrat may be forgiven for concluding, with President John F. Kennedy, that life is unfair.

Politicians and Bureaucrats

Government leaders in the Third World have long antici- pated political scientists in perceiving the need for local developmental institutions. The Cornell Study comparing the relations between productivity and local organization in sixteen countries showed striking differences between the eight classified as "more organized" and the eight that were "less organized," with the former showing markedly higher productivity, and greater gains in the average yield of cereals as well as a more equitable income distribution and access to welfare services. These achievements were the result of conscious decisions at the center.

Perhaps the most extensive effort in "democratic decentralization for development" was the Indian legislation en- abling states to establish local representative institutions, the "Panchayati Raj." The intention was explicitly developmental:

"So long as we do not discover or create a representative and democratic institution [that] will supply the local interest, supervision [,J and care necessary to ensure that expenditure of money upon local objects conforms [to] the needs and wishes of the lo- cality, invest it with adequate power [,] and assign to it appropriate functions, we [shall] never be able to evoke local interest and excite local initiative in development."'3

TABLE 1

ADMINISTRATIVE FUNCTIONS AND PRODUCTIVITY GAINS IN TWENTY POST LAND-REFORM COUNTRIES

Function Total No. Reported Rroductivity Gains Of Cases

"Good" "Slight" "None" "Negative" N.A. "Institutionalizing9" of local organizations 20 12 2 3 2 1

"Control" of local organizations 5 1 1 1 1 1

"Receptivity" to needs of Local organizations 11 8 2 - - I




62 PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW

Variations in local organization and function, arising from decisions made by the participating states, provide a natural experiment in the relations posited by the Cornell study, and also of the hypothesis presented in this paper about appropriate "receptivity" functions from the bureaucracy.'4 Since there was no specific effort to address the bureaucratic responsibilities for supporting this decentralization, the relationship was as much that of "control" as of "receptivity," though both functions have been observed.

When the bureaucracy fails persistently in its local service functions, then political intervention becomes necessary. Planners and politicians can identify these bureaucratic failures by observing symptoms as clearly recogniza- ble as those of "acute localitis." The corresponding symptoms of "bureaupathology" in the local context include the following familiar behavior:

1. Bureaucrats often attempt to discourage local entre- preneurship, especially when it develops in the private sec- tor. One indicator of such efforts is the requirements that local entrepreneurs perform in uneconomic and self-de- structive ways.

2. Because bureaucrats prefer to associate with elites, their relationship with local leaders may deteriorate into a patron-client connection, often resulting in a co-optation into the bureaucratic tradition, and producing a loss of re- sponsiveness to their own constituency.

3. In case of a conflict of interests between local and national objectives, bureaucrats tend to side with the latter in order to enhance their career prospects regardless of the merits of the situation. Where careers depend exclusively on national agencies rather than some elements of local ap- proval, central planners should be especially attentive to structural causes of poor "receptivity."

4. Bureaucrats often fail to encourage and foster direct links between local participation and national political action. This behavior is the obverse of the third symptom, corresponding to the phenomenon sometimes described as "going native." However, failure to provide or encourage national links is seldom the result of a local commitment so much as of apathy, a psychological surrender to locally prevalent fatalism.

5. They may tend to regard or treat all local organizations alike, attempting to equalize them (sometimes in the name of equity and balance) at the cost of recognizing regional particularism or outstanding leadership. This behavior is characteristic of systems that assign all upper level administrators to token local duties early in their careers, or that rotate civil servants among different regions as a form of career development.

6. Bureaupathologies also attack the central planners. One important symptom is their tendency, when the actual or opportunity costs of decentralization rise, to adopt "re- centralization" as a preferred solution rather than to attempt to improve local performance.

Conclusions

If the desired outcome is increased agricultural development and an improved quality of rural life, then the func-

tions best performed by mutually supportive local and bureaucratic institutions can be defined fairly precisely. Local institutions can supplement the contributions bureaucracies can make to development (supplying credit, seeds, technology, and marketing services) by providing the services that are the most difficult for career administrators to perform. These services include the following:

(1) providing detailed knowledge about local experience with natural phenomena like seasonal flooding or successes and failures of different crops; or about local behavior related to possible infrastructure emplacements like roads and schools; or about social history affecting dis- puted claims like boundary disputes and land and water rights.

(2) mobilizing local cooperation and investment, including the scheduling of volunteer labor and the coordination of private activities including irrigation requirements.

(3) generating good project proposals for possible central support, including community development activities that would supplement regional or national programs.

(4) accepting collective responsibility for the performance of agreed functions such as the repayment of credit extended for community projects or the operation of com- mon use facilities.

(5) articulating local needs and demands in the context of participating political action so that central decision makers can respond effectively and responsibly.

What is striking about these findings is that neither the services ... nor the linkages . . . nor even the integrative and managerial functions ... are directly perceived by individual peasants as a bureaucratic function ... The maligned bureaucrat may be forgiven for concluding, with President John F. Kennedy, that life is unfair.

Nations that elect to pursue the promising strategy of development via local organization, however, place upon their administrators the responsibility for making political judgments for which their training does not equip them very well. Successful development administration always involves political choices and political influence, but the capacity for identifying the distress signals of development-either the symptoms of acute localitis or of bureaupathology-call for political discretion of a high order. Since both disorders can occur simultaneously, it is not even certain that either one can be prescribed as a homeo- pathic cure for the other.

What is certain is that while local organization can be an important spur to development, it also requires appropriate institutions derived from the rural population as well as administrative intervention at critical points in the life of those institutions. An appropriate populist strategy, in short, requires even better administration than does the classic administrative strategy. Fortunately, it also obtains better results.





Notes

1. Daniel Katz, Barbara A. Gutek, Robert L. Kahn, and Eugenia Barton, Bureaucratic Encounters, A Pilot Study in the Evaluation of Government Services (Ann Arbor: Survey Research Center, 1975). The "services" were employment, training, compensation, medical/hospital, and retirement pensions. The "constraint" functions were taxing, policing, and driver licensing.

2. John D. Montgomery, "Allocation of Authority in Land Reform Programs: A Comparative Study of Administrative Processes and Outputs," Adm. Sc. Quarterly 17:1, March 1972. But Kanta Ahuja found that in India, professionalism improved land reform implementation. "Land Reforms and their Implementation," Social Change 4:1, July-Dec., 1976, pp. 43-54.

3. E.B. Rice, Extension in the Andes (Washington: Agency for International Development, 1971).

4. Norman Uphoff and Milton J. Esman, Local Organization for Rural Development: Analysis of Asian Experience (Ithaca: Center for International Studies, Cornell University, 1974). The functions are important, too, of course. The Committee on Plan Projects (the Mehta Committee) reported that its interview with 573 respondents from 6 states (Madras, Bihar, Bombay, Assam, Kerala, and Uttar Pradesh) volun- teered that they had benefited from community projects-31 per cent mentioning the seeds they supplied, 29 per cent the fertilizer, and 20 per cent the roads. Differences between responses in the states emphasized the fact that programs and needs were not identical (in Bihar, 54 per cent mentioned seeds but only 3 per cent in Madras). Local extension agents (gram sevak) were personally known to 83 per cent of the respondents. Report of the Team for the Study of Community Projects and National Extension Service, New Delhi, Nov., 1957, VOL. II, pp. 98-104.

5. For these classifications I am indebted to Subramanian Ramakrishnan and Safiur Rahman. The country studies are based on papers prepared for the land reform spring review held in Washington, D.C., in 1970 by the Agency for Interna- tional Development. The twenty countries for which data are available from these sources are Korea, Hungary, India, Philippines, Iraq, Taiwan, Algeria, Tunisia, Italy, Yugo- slavia, Mexico, Japan, Venezuela, Bolivia, Kenya, Iran, United Arab Republic, Colombia, North Vietnam, and Ecuador.

6. The 17 countries were Korea, Hungary, Indonesia, Philippines, Iraq, Taiwan, Algeria, Tunisia, Italy, Yugo- slavia, Mexico, Japan, Bolivia, Kenya, Colombia, United Arab Republic, and North Vietnam.

7. Korea, Hungary, India, Philippines, Iraq, Taiwan, Algeria, Tunisia, Italy, Yugoslavia, Mexico, Japan, Bolivia, Kenya, Iran, United Arab Republic, Colombia, and North Vietnam.

8. Korea, India, Philippines, Iraq, Taiwan, Algeria, Tunisia, Italy, Yugoslavia, Mexico, Japan, Bolivia, Kenya, Iran, United Arab Republic, Colombia, North Vietnam. In the case of India, the extension service is credited with changing fertilizer from a "little-used and much-suspected object into one eagerly demanded." Guy Hunter, TheAdministration of Agricultural Development (London: Oxford, 1970), p. 100.

9. Korea, Hungary, Philippines, Iraq, Taiwan, Algeria, Tunisia, Italy, Yugoslavia, Mexico, Japan, Bolivia, Iran, United Arab Republic, Colombia, and North Vietnam.

10. The countries are India, Iraq, Tunisia, Kenya, and Iran. 11. Korea, Taiwan, Philippines, Algeria, Italy, Yugoslavia,

Japan, Bolivia, United Arab Republic, Colombia, North Vietnam. This classification is based on evidence of bureau-


cratic decision making that involved local organizations such as Small Farms Development Agencies, marginal farmers and agricultural laborers agencies, and other special projects. The countries in which "good" productivity results were reported are Taiwan, Korea, Yugoslavia, Japan, Bolivia, United Arab Repubic, Colombia, North Vietnam, Philip- pines, Iran, Kenya, Venezuela, Mexico. "Slight" improvement was reported for Italy, India. "No" improvement for Algeria and Tunisia. There was deterioration in productivity during this period in Iraq and Ecuador.

12. I am indebted to Professor Dennis Rondinelli for this suggestion. See his paper with Kenneth Ruddle, "Appro- priate Institutions for Rural Development: Organizing Ser- vices and Technology in Developing Countries," (Hawaii: Technology and Development Institute, the East-West Center, 1977).

13. Described in the Mehta Report cited in n. 4, at p. 5. On the political motives that produced the policy of decentralization, see Norman K. Nicholson, Panchayati Raj: Rural De- velopment and the Political Economy of Village India (Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Center of International Studies, 1973).

14. As these lines are written, a second study commission, successor to the Mehta Commission of 1957, is evaluating the experiment. For inconclusive studies currently available, see Henry Maddick, Panchayati Raj: A Study of Rural Local Government in India (London: Longman, 1970) and S.V.S. Juneja, "Panchayati Raj-A Survey," Indian J. of Pub. Admin. XIX: 1, Jan-Mar 1973, pp. 54-81 and Abida Samiud- din, "A Uniform Organizational pattern for Development Administration." Ind. J. of Pub. Admn. XXIII:3, Jul-Sept 1977, pp 768-780.

Bibliographic Supplement

On the frustrations of planners, see Gary W. Wynia, Politics and Planners (Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1972). On U.S. legislation to promote political development through foreign aid, see Ralph Braibanti, "External Inducement of Political Adminis- trative Development," in Braibanti et al., Political and Adminis- trative Development (Durham, N.C.: Duke Univ. Press, 1969). The laws such as the Foreign Assistance Acts of 1961 (PL87-195, 75 stat. 425, Preamble and Pt. 3, Ch. 1, Sec. 601); 1962 (PL 87-565, 76 stat. 253, Pt. 2, Ch. V, Sec. 461); and 1966 (PL 89-583, 80 stat. 795, Ch. 2, Title IX, Sec. 281), include injunctions "to encourage the development and use of cooperatives, credit unions, and savings and loan associations as well as programs of community development which will promote stable and responsible governmental institutions at the local level." U.S. aid was also to be used to help "build the economic, political, and social institutions which [sic] meet [the people's] aspirations for a better life, with freedom, and in peace."

The aid experience in Latin America and Southeast Asia are dis- cussed in Jerome Levinson and Juan de Onis, The Alliance That Lost Its Way (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1970); John D. Mont- gomery, The Politics of Foreign A id (New York: Praeger, 1962).

The movement called "the new public administration" was an amorphous but deeply felt criticism of traditional views of bureaucratic functions. See Frank Marini, ed., Toward a New PublicAd- ministration: the Minnowbrook Perspective (Scranton: Chandler Publ., 1971); Dwight Waldo, ed., Public Administration in a Time of Turbulence (Scranton: Chandler Publ., 1971); Vincent Ostrom, The Intellectual Crisis in American Public Administration (Birm- ingham: Univ. of Alabama Press, 1973). See, for a history of such movements, Robert H. Simmons and Eugene P. Dvorin, Public Administration: Values, Policy and Change (Port Washington, N.Y.: Alfred Publ., 1977).



64 PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW

The movement toward popular participation is documented in Max Millikan et al., The Role of Popular Participation in Devel- opment (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1%9); Norman T. Uphoff and Milton J. Esman, Local Organization for Rural Development: Analysis of Asian Experience (Ithaca: Center for International Studies, Cornell University, 1974); Strategies for Small Farmer Development: An Empirical Study of Rural Development Projects (Washington: Development Alternatives, Inc., 1975); John M. Cohen and Norman T. Uphoff, Rural Development Participation (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University, Center for International Studies, Rural Development Monograph No. 2, 1977). An anti- dote suggested converting popular participation to mobilization of the rural constituency demand for services, Milton J. Esman, "De- velopment Administration and Constituency Organization," Pub. Adm. Rev. 38:2, Mar/Apr 1978.

Earlier disillusionment with bureaucracies is illustrated by such titles as, for example, Lawrence Sullivan, Bureaucracy Runs Amok (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1944); Thomas Hewes, Decen- tralizeforLiberty (New York: R. R. Smith, 1945). A more serious analysis of the problems is Henry Maddick's Democracy, Decen- tralization and Development (London: Asia Publ. House, 1963).

Evidence of rising bureaucratic productivity appears in Charles Adolini and Jeffrey Hohenstein, "Measuring Productivity in the Federal Government," Monthly Labor Review, November 1974, and Joint Financial Management Improvement Program, Annual Report to the President and the Congress: Pfoductivity Programs in the Federal Government (Washington: GPO, 1975).

Early "scientific" studies of the rural alienation from local administrative services began to appear in the 1960s. The classic study is S. J. Eldersveld et al., The Citizen and the Administrator in a Developing Democracy (Glenview: Scott, Foresman, 1968). Myron Weiner explains the elite culture of the Indian bureaucracy in "India: Two Political Cultures," in Lucian W. Pye and Sidney Verba, eds., Political Culture and Political Development (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965), p. 227f and 243f. Stanley J. Heginbotham doubles the ante, with similar explanatory results: Cultures in Conflict, the Four Faces of Indian Bureaucracy (New York: Columbia University Press, 1975). See also Monroe Berger, Bureaucracy and Society in Modern Egypt (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957); John D. Montgomery, "The Bureaucracy as a Modernizing Elite. . . ," in David Hapgood, ed., Policies for Promoting Agricultural Development (Cam- bridge: Center for Int. Studies, MIT, 1965), reprinted in N. Bhalerao, ed., Administration, Politics and Development in India (Bombay: Lalvani, 1972). B. B. Schafler, "Deadlock in Develop- ment Administration," in Colin Leys, ed., Politics and Changes in Developing Countries (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1969) pp. 177-211. Robert Chambers, Managing Rural Development: Ideas and Ex- perience from East Africa (Uppsala: Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, 1974) esp. Ch. III.

The proposition that "the people know best" is supported by evidence that good ideas are spread by social processes whether aided by government action or not. An extreme view regards the "natural" process of communication of knowledge as more efficient in the diffusion of innovations than "artificial" interventions by extension agents. See Everett Rogers, "Communications for Development: The Passing of the Dominant Paradigm," Com- munications Research 3, April 1976. A criticism of the "diffusion- ist" school as one factor responsible for unequal access to innova- tion appears in David K. Leonard, Reaching the Peasant Farmer (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1977).

Where bureaucracies have been considered part of the ruling elite, the idea of using them as a support to reformist local organizations is unthinkable. For example, in Elias H. Tuma, Twenty- Six Centuries of Agrarian Reform (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada: Author, 1965), it is suggested that in general land reforms

improve the social conditions of the peasants, in proportion to their significance for the stability of the reforming group. There- fore the role of bureaucracy can never be an independent variable. It always subserves the dominant political interests. But "reformers" interested in carrying the political base in a country can use bureaucracy as an instrument. Even when bureaucracies start out independently, they are often captured by local elites. See, for example, John N. Cohen, "Rural Change in Ethiopia: The Chila- leo Agricultural Development Unit," EDCC 22:4, July 1974, pp. 580-614. Even the Comilla project encountered the "infiltration" of cooperatives and their management committees by the wealthier farmers and moneylenders. Wahidul Haque, N. Mehta, A. Rahman, and P. Wignaraja, "Towards a Theory of Rural Devel- opment," Development Dialogue 1977:2, p. 93F. Even when the "colonization" or "infiltration" is invisible, reformers do well to remember that the status quo elites usually have the patience and momentum to outlast most of the meliorists.

On attitudes of the poor toward bureaucracies, see, for example, Frances Fox Piven and Richard C. Cloward, Regulating the Poor, the Functions of Public Welfare (N. York: Random House, 1971), pp. 33-40, 97, 112, 148ff, 165-175, 263, and 34345.

Evidence that local leaders require administrative support appears in Robert Chambers, op. cit., p. 102. See also Samuel Pop- kin's study of village leadership in four regions of Indochina, to be published by the University of California Press; Edgar Owens and Robert Shaw, Development Reconsidered (Lexington: D.C. Heath, 1972); Norman K. Nicholson, Panchayati Raj, Rural De- velopment and Political Economy of Village India (Ithaca: Rural Development Committee, Cornell University, 1973).

On the kinds of administrative services required for agricultural improvement, see Arthur T. Mosher, Getting Agriculture Moving, (New York: Praeger, 1966); John M. Cohen, Arthur A. Gold- smith, and John W. Mellor discuss these functions as services to peasant organizations in "Rural Development Issues Following Ethiopian Land Reform," in Africa Today 23:2, Apr-June 1976.

The most extensive experience with local organization as an instrument of development occurred in India, where the issue has been extensively documented. I am indebted to Mr. S. Ramakrish- nan for many of these insights into the local experiment in India. The local elected leaders became "far too dependent" on personal favors, according to one experienced observer. S.V.S. Juneja, "Panchayati Raj-A Survey," Indian J. of Pub. Admin. XIX:1, Jan-Mar 1973; see also M.V. Mathur and Narian Iqbal, eds., Pan- chayati Raj, Planning and Democracy (New Delhi: Asia Publish- ing House, 169) especially Narian's chapter, pp. 19-34. Dan Fritz in "Official and Non-Official Roles in Mysore State's Panchayati Raj," Ind. J. of Pub. Admn. XIX:2, Apr-June 1973, pp. 164-76, reported, unsurprisingly, that bureaucrats were concerned with their traditional roles, while local elected officials were responding to local needs and "maintaining political support." (p.166) Anter Singh emphasizes the "receptivity" relationship and the value of information derived from local sources. "Contribution of Pancha- yati Raj to Administrative Efficiency," Ind. J. of Pub. Adm. XX: 1, Jan-Mar 1974, pp. 118-126.

The gap between locally assigned bureaucrats and locally elected officials appears to be reduced by action at the central level. Local association between the two have been observed to derive from constructive functional relations. S.N. Puranik, "Administration and Politics in the Context of Panchayati Raj," Ind. J. of Pub. Admn., XX:1, Jan-Mar 1974, pp. 108-117. While one cannot ex- pect the civil service to accept a structural change placing the collector (highest ranking district official) under an elected authority, some states (notably Gujarat and Maharashtra) have succeeded in making the local development bureaucracy responsible to district level local institutions. Juneja, op. cit. The role of central decision making as an influence on bureaucratic





"receptivity" was implied in a paper by S. Rahman. He noted that countries that had carried out land reform legislation through devolved processes were more likely to display bureaucratic "receptivity" than countries that used decentralized procedures. S. Rahman, "Comparative Study of Bureaucratic Functions Following Land Reform," unpublished seminar paper, Harvard University, Jan. 1978.

S. N. Dubey, "Organizational Analysis of Panchayati Raj Insti- tutions in India," Indian Journal of Public Administration, Vol. XVIII, no. 2, Apr-June 1972, pp. 254-269, analyzes the problems arising out of multiple control over the personnel assigned to work with Panchayati Raj institutions in India. The bureaucrats invaria- bly tend to take a "universalistic" view as opposed to the "parti- cularistic" positions taken by leaders of local organizations during conflicts. Apart from structural factors, psychological barriers also challenge the smooth functioning of local organizations staffed with "borrowed" bureaucrats or technical personnel. See Iqbal Narain, "The Administrative Challenge to Panchayati Raj," Indian Jour. of Pub. Admn., Vol. XII, no. 3, July-Sept 1966, pp. 564-578.

Specific studies of the bureaucratic functions include many discussions of the work of agricultural ministries. Extension and other bureaucratic services tend to benefit "progressive" farmers more than average (and especially small) holders. Harry W. Blair, "Rural Development, Class Structure and Bureaucracy in Bangla- desh," World Development, 6:1, 1978; Frederick V. Fox, Larry E. Pate and Louis R. Pondy, "Designing Organizations to be Re- sponsive to their Clients," in Ralph Kilman, Louis Pondy and Den- nis Slevin, eds., The Management of Organization Design: Strate- gies and Implementation, V.I. (Amsterdam: North Holland, 1976) p. 58. David K. Leonard, Reaching the Peasant Farmer: Organiza- tion Theory and Practice in Kenya (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1977). Jan Van Hekken and H.V.E. Thoden Van Velzen, Land Scarcity and Rural Inequality in Tanzania (The Hague: Mouton, 1972). R. M. Price, Society and Bureaucracy in Contem- porary Ghana (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1975). George H. Honadle, Organization Design for Development Administra- don: A Liberian Cqfe Study of Implementation Analysis for Proj- ect Benefit Distribution, Ph.D. dissertation, Syracuse University, 1978. A study by Carlos Salinas, Political Participation, Public In- vestment and Systems Support: Study of Three Rural Communi-

ties in Central Mexico (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Harvard Uni- versity, 1977). suggests that there are important differences among communities' organizational capacity and in the sense of political efficacy. He ascribes them partly to differences in the manner in which bureaucracy responds to local needs. The author classifies communities into four categories based on variations in bureaucratic functions (such as slow and incomplete response, indiffer- ence) and leadership factors (such as leadership oriented by external agents, lack of effective leadership, and leadership by the wealthiest sections) and suggests interrelations between these "contextual" variables and community action. See also AID Spring Review of Small Farmer Credit, Vols. I-XX, (Washington, D.C.: Agency for International Development, 1973), and Dale W. Adams, "Policy Issues in Rural Finance and Development," (Columbus: Ohio State University Agricultural Development Council, June 15, 1977).

The relations between bureaucracies and other local actors have sometimes been distant. See Paul A. London, Merchants as Pro- moters of Development: An Indian Case Study (New York: Praeger, 1975). The principle of "co-optation" was tried in Nepal with little success, since the local leaders, once absorbed into an administrative career, lost their commitment to heir local consti- tuents. A description of the village and ward committees formed for this purpose may be seen in M.A. Zaman, Evaluation of Land Reform in Nepal (Ministry of Land Reforms, His Majesty's Gov- ernment of Nepal, Kathmandu, 1973).

A general approach to popular participation as a research topic appears in John D. Montgomery and Milton J. Esman, "Popular Participation in Development Administration," J. of Comp. Adm., 3:3, Nov. 1971; Sharon Perlman Krefelz and Allan E. Goodman, "Participation for What or for Whom?", J. of Comp. Adm., 5:3, Nov. 1973; Carole Pateman, Participation and Demo- cratic Theory (London: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1970). For other discussions of the issue, see Herbert Kaufman, "Administrative Decentralization and Political Power," Public Administration Re- view, 29:1, Jan-Feb. 1969; Irving Kristol, "Decentralization for What?" in The Public Interest, No. 11, Spring 1968; Peter Schwab, "Decision Making in Ethiopia: A Study of the Political Process," (Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson Press, 1972); and, especially, Merilee Grindle, "Power, Expertise and the 'Tecnico,' Suggestion from a Mexican Case Study," Journ. of Pol. 30, 1977.

Grant Garvey Student Manuscript Rules The deadline for manuscript submission to the Grant

Garvey Student Manuscript Award competition has been extended to February 28, 1979.

The competition is open to undergraduate juniors and seniors taking courses in public administration or public affairs and candidates for the master's degree in public administration or public affairs. The theme for this year is "Intergovernmental Management," and the winning manuscript will be published in Public Administration Review. The winner will be announced at the Society Luncheon during the ASPA National Conference in Baltimore in April. The winning author also will receive a $200 cash award and a one year free membership in ASPA.

Manuscripts should not exceed 3,500 words in length and must be typewritten on one side of the page. Each essay must contain a complete reference of source materials immediately following the conclusion of the text in the rec- ommended format of a recognized style manual.

A cover page should precede the essay and contain only the title of the essay. A sealed envelope must be stapled to the cover page and must contain a 3x5-inch card with the name of the author, name of the college or university at- tended, name of sponsoring faculty member and mailing address and telephone number of contestant. Also in- cluded in the envelope should be a letter of transmittal from a faculty member or educational administrator veri- fying the status of the student as meeting the criteria for participation. The letter also must include verification that the manuscript is an original work which has not been published or previously accepted for publication elsewhere.

All entries will be judged on the basis of academic quality, clarity and style, demonstration of creativity and inno- vativeness, and potential for further research or discussion.

Manuscripts must be postmarked no later than February 28, 1979, and sent to Frances Burke, Suffolk University, 47 Mt. Vernon St., Boston, MA 02108.




Documents

The Populist Front in Rural Development: Or Shall We Eliminate the Bureaucrats and Get on with the Job?