Class notes
Lecture Notes on Bureaucracies in Sub-Saharan Africa
- Institution
- University Of Cape Town (UCT)
Summarised, yet detailed notes on the functionality of rational bureaucracies in a sub-saharan context.
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WEEK 9 LECTURESBUREAUCRACIES IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA
Readings to complete:
Adamolekun, L. 2002. Africa’s evolving career civil service systems: three challenges – state continuity,
efficient service delivery and accountability.International Review of Administrative Sciences, 68: 373-387.
Medie, P.A. 2013. Fighting gender-based violence: the women’s movement and the enforcement of rape
law in Liberia. African Affairs, 112(448): 377-397.
Committee of Experts on Public Administration. 2004. Developing Institutions of Governance and
Public Administration in Africa: Report of the Secretariat. United Nations Economic and Social Council.
Factors affecting the function and structure of bureaucracies in Africa:
I. Colonialism
• The first Bureaucracies in Africa were created to enforce colonial rule over African people,
and therefore displaced local political and administrative structures/organizations (chiefdom-
ship and communal government).
• There colonial bureaucracies were structured like a deformed rational model:
- Rational features included: hierarchal, centralized and legalistic, careerist, rule-governed.
- Non-rational: officials sometimes also had jurisdictional powers – administrative, political
representatives, judicial powers. They were also not subject to accountability and
legitimacy (democracy).
II. Civil war
III. Social issues: lack of basic services, corruption, poverty, unemployment, low GDP.
Post-Independent African Bureaucracies:
• Hopes to reconstitute Bureaucracies to a fully evolved full rational model
- which could be used to pursue agendas which aided socio and economic development
• New African leaders felt hesitant to cultivate professionally insulated bureaucracies
• African leaders instead wanted to politicize their bureaucracies (birth to corruption)
, • Political parties in Africa at the time tended to be: single party dominated, authoritarian,
patronage, military rule.
- This made it hard to reform and restructure African bureaucracies, hampered to adoption
of rational norms, and were the opposite of professional and meritocratic.
® The more Weberian a countries’ bureaucracy is, the higher the rate of economic growth
® African countries tend to have low levels of weberianness, and therefore have lower level of
economic growth.
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