Sources: Therborn (1977); Elections (1989); Maddison (1995)
1. GDP p.c. in 1948.
2. GDP p.c. in 1950.
3. Universal suffrage was granted in 1946 under the constitution drawn up by the occupying forces after the Second World War, but it did not come into effect until 1952 with the end of US military rule.
4. When dominion status was achieved.
5. When the Election Act that year granted full franchise.
3.2.2. The bureaucracy and the Judiciary
Few people, even those who are generally sceptical of state activism, would disagree that an effective and clean bureaucracy is crucial for economic development.[24] There is, however, currently a serious debate on how exactly we should define effectiveness and cleanliness, and on how we should design a bureaucratic incentive system to attain these characteristics.
The dominant view during the last century was that espoused by the German economist-sociologist Max Weber. In his view, the modern bureaucracy is based on meritocratic recruitment; long-term, generalist and closed career paths; and corporate coherence maintained by rule-bound management.[25] More recently, however, ‘New Public Management’ (NPM) literature has challenged the Weberian orthodoxy. It argues for a bureaucratic reform based on more short-term, specialist and ‘open’ career paths; keener monetary incentives; and a more ‘businesslike’ (or arm’s-length) management style based on quantifiable and transparent performance.[26]
Although some of the changes advocated by the NPM may be useful in fine-tuning what is basically a Weberian bureaucracy that already exists in the developed countries, the more relevant question for most developing countries is how their bureaucracies might attain even the most basic ‘Weberian-ness’.[27] This is also the task with which the NDCs were confronted with in the earlier days of their development.
It is well known that, up to the eighteenth century, open sales of public offices and honours – sometimes with widely-publicized price tags was a common practice in most NDCs. Prior to the extensive bureaucratic reform in Prussia under Frederick William I (1713-40), although offices were not formally sold, they were very often given to those willing to pay the highest amount for the tax that was customarily imposed on the first year’s salary.[28]
Partly because they were openly bought and sold, public offices were formally regarded as private property in many of these countries. In France, for example, it was very difficult to introduce disciplinary measures for bureaucrats until the Third Republic (1873) for this very reason.[29] In Britain, prior to the reform carried out in the early nineteenth century, government ministries were private establishments unaccountable to Parliament, paid their staff by fees rather than salaries, and kept many obsolete offices as sinecures.[30] Associated with the sale of public office was tax farming, which was most widespread in pre-Revolution France but which was also practised in other countries, including Britain and the Netherlands (see section 3.2.5.D for further details).
The ‘spoils’ system, where public offices were allocated to the loyalists of the ruling party, became a key component in American politics from the emergence of the two-party system in 1828 with the election of President Jackson. This got much worse for a few decades after the Civil War.[31] There was a loud cry for civil service reform throughout the nineteenth century to create a professional and non-partisan bureaucracy, but no progress was made until the Pendleton Act of 1883 (see below for further details on the act).[32] Italy and Spain continued the spoils system throughout the nineteenth century.[33]
In addition to the sale of public office, there was widespread nepotism. Although concrete historical data on this is obviously difficult to come by – and whatever data we do have should be interpreted with caution - Armstrong reports that significant proportions of elite administrators in France and Germany had fathers who were top officials themselves, suggesting a significant degree of nepotism.[34] For instance, among the high-ranking bureaucrats of pre-industrial France (the early nineteenth century), about 23 per cent had fathers who served as elite administrators. At the country’s industrial take-off in the mid-nineteenth century, the proportion was still as high as 21 per cent. Corresponding figures for Prussia ,were 31 per cent and 26 per cent respectively.[35] Feuchtwanger argues that, even after the extensive bureaucratic reform under Frederick William I (see below), ‘nepotism was still rife and many offices were virtually hereditary’.[36] In Prussia, competition from educated lower-middle class men was eliminated by changing the entrance requirements, such that by the 1860s, ‘a carefully controlled recruitment process produced an administrative elite including the aristocracy and wealthier middle-class elements’.[37]
24
World Bank 1997, chapter 6, sums up the current debate on this from the IDPE’s point of view.
26
See Hughes 1994 and Hood 1995, 1998, for some critical appraisals of the NPM literature.
28
See Kindleberger 1984, pp. 160-1 (for England); pp. 168-9 (for France); Dorwart 1953, p. 192 (for Prussia).
37
Armstrong 1973, pp. 79-81. However, the term ‘aristocracy’, should be interpreted somewhat carefully in this context. Since the days of the Great Elector, Frederick William (1640-1688), it was customary in Prussia to ennoble commoners who had risen high in the royal service (Feuchtwanger, 1970, p. 45-6).