When Means and Ends are at Variance: Administration for Sustainable Development

Abstract

Chapters 2 and 3 have demonstrated that administrative reforms suggested to the Third World countries were derived from changes being made in the internal administrative systems of the industrialised nations themselves. Since the 1950s a parade of administrative reforms has been suggested, starting with that of Paul H. Appleby from the United States. His report, Public Administration in India, prepared for the Government of India in 1953, very clearly suggested that India should consider strengthening ‘democratic administration’: Democracy hinges first of all on the manner in which responsibility is fixed and held accountable; second on responsiveness and considerateness. There are techniques that enhance responsibility and accountability, that enrich responsiveness and considerateness; these are democratic techniques. There are methods that diffuse and conceal responsibility, that reduce accountability, that misinterpret responsiveness, that over-burden citizens and that convert considerateness into sticky sentimentality. These damage effectiveness and demean democracy.1 KeywordsPublic AdminAdministrative ReformIncomplete DevelopmentPublic Service CommissionBusiness MethodThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.