Callahan 1

Ryan Callahan

Professor Natsios

INAF-353: Issue Paper

April 12, 2010

Less is More: Civil Service Reform in Africa

From the 1980s to today, public sector reform has been a consistent strategic priority of

the development community, accelerated by the World Bank’s structural adjustment programs.

At the heart of these reforms in each country—public sector employees who have found

themselves caught in the crossfire of African behavioral norms and Western performance

expectations. At varying times and from several Western perspectives, these African countries’

civil services have been criticized for being too large, slow, inefficient, lazy, corrupt,

uncommitted, and especially, beholden to “neo-patrimonial” cultural norms that inhibit the

growth of democracy. The pressure is not waning. The more that “governance” comes to be

seen as the keystone for peace and prosperity, greater is the pressure put upon African

governments to curb corruption, improve performance, and embrace reform.

This paper will take as its departure the case of Liberia, a post-conflict country that as

recently as 2005 had no functioning institutions of democratic governance or civil service and

whose current government has displayed the political will to improve governance and build a

democratic society. Development scholar Steve Radelet has stated that “the government is

aiming to build a more professional and better paid civil service, and introduce systems that

guard against corruption and ensure transparency and accountability.”1 Certainly, political will

1 Radelet, Steve. “Reviving Economic Growth in Liberia.” Center for Global Development: Working Paper 133. November 2007.

Callahan 2

for reform is crucial, but similar goals have been set for many civil service reform projects in

African countries over the last 30 years, and few of them have been able to claim success. While

it may be the case that some countries are making progress, be it incremental, the long time

horizon necessary to see substantial progress in reforms of government and society cannot

unburden the development community from asking critical questions about the design and

execution of civil service reform efforts to date. In Liberia’s case, the opportunity to learn from

the mistakes of past civil service reform programs is a valuable one, and it is toward that end that

this paper will critique the prevailing attitudes of the development community toward civil

service reform.

In this paper, I will examine the New Public Management (NPM) approach that grew out of

the efficiency drive of structural adjustment programs. This approach remains the dominant

paradigm for civil service reform today. In many ways, it is ill-suited to the task. I will advocate

for a greater influence for African context-specific needs in designing civil service reform

programs in an alternative to NPM based on the experiences of Ghana and Uganda. Douglass

North’s description of modernizing societies, Larry Harrison’s culturalist critique of

development, and Merilee Grindle’s compromise of ‘good enough governance’ will inform the

discussion and I will attempt to privilege empirical evidence and African perspectives in charting

a path forward.

I. Early Civil Service Reform Efforts in Africa

In the second half of the 20th century, newly democratized African states engaged in the

“Africanization” of their civil services to replace colonial administrators with African ones. In

many states, the size and influence of the state ballooned as governments were called upon to

Callahan 3

engage in state-building, nation-building, and economy-building in the pluralistic vacuum left by

a colonial power’s departure. Some autocratic rulers and socialist regimes further centralized

power and grew the size of the executive branch to support state-controlled industries. Personal

patronage and ghost employees swelled the ranks of the civil service even further.

By the 1980s, the World Bank’s structural adjustment programs, designed to restore

macroeconomic stability to poor and heavily indebted African countries, were targeting civil

services for reform. These reforms focused heavily on the structural factors inhibiting the

efficient delivery of public services. In particular, the Bank advocated for shrinking its overall

size of the public sector, improving pay structures, and reducing costs (including those from

corruption) to improve the climate for private sector investment and export-led development.

Evaluations of these programs in the late 1990s found that they were generally ineffective;

although it was relatively easy to eliminate ghost employees and lay off the worst-performing

workers, improvements in governance were still elusive. Focus shifted to improving

“performance” and evaluating the progress of indicators of good governance—especially

transparency and accountability.2

II. New Public Management

From the drive for better results and improved service delivery to citizens came the

application of New Public Management programs to Africa in the late 1990s into the 2000s. It

remains the dominant paradigm of public administration reform in the developed world and the

development community today. In 2003, the UN’s Economic Commission for Africa esteemed

NPM as a “business approach to running the affairs of state,” featuring “efficiency of service

2 Olowu, Bamidele. "Redesigning African Civil Service Reforms." Journal of Modern African Studies 37.1 (1999): Pages 1-5

Callahan 4

delivery and promoting accountability and ethical values.”3 Amid discussions of organizational

structure, accounting practices, and financial management, reform advocates saw the need to

address what they saw as “a deficit of ethical norms” in order to achieve NPM’s goals. Calling

for a “new culture of participation, accountability, and transparency,” it was clear that their

technocratic business-like approach to governance would require instilling business-like mindset

in the individuals executing the public services.4 Without civil servants that would act

“ethically”, the performance of the civil service and the reform of the public sector could be put

into jeopardy.

The difficult pursuit of “performance” through NPM led some to bemoan the African social

and cultural norms that were seen as undermining reform efforts. From a Western perspective, it

seems logical to wonder why, if so many corporations were able to improve corporate

governance and service delivery through transparency, accountability, and performance

management, African governments could not. NPM reformers had to expand their focus to

include some local factors, with culture at the center. A 2003 World Bank report introduced the

governance diamond (a four-part conception of institutions impacting governance, including

formal political institutions, bureaucracy, political interests, and the economy) and lamented

African “neopatrimonial spiral” that undermined bureaucratic performance by delegitimizing

formal institutions.5 Others went further, noting that African organizations themselves have

3 Development Policy Management Division. “Public Sector Management Reforms in Africa: Lessons Learned. Economic Commission for Africa Report. 2003. Page 49.

4 Ibid. Page 51.5 Levy, Brian and Sahr Kpundeh, Eds. Building State Capacity in Africa: New Approaches,

Emerging Lessons. Washington: The World Bank Institute. 2004. Chapter 1.

Callahan 5

particular characteristics not conducive to reform that are “rooted in social values, and will not

be easy to change.”6

III. The Development Community’s Responses to Socio-cultural Frustrations

NPM reformers were not unwise to the challenge of African socio-cultural values to their

efforts, but they remained unsure of the best strategy to push back against a neopatrimonial

culture whose values did not easily mesh with individual accountability and performance-based

management. Entrenched as reformers were in the business mindset, it was even remarked that

“like a mutual fund investing in high-risk equities, many donor investments in civil service

reform will yield unimpressive results, but a small number of winners will make the whole

portfolio shine.”7 The prevailing mindset was that success could be possible under the right

conditions in the country being reformed, but for the most part, conditions were inhospitable, and

due in no small part to cultural dynamics. As Larry Diamond describes the detrimental effect of

this culture in the public sector, “state offices at every level become permits to loot, either for an

individual or a somewhat wider network of family members, ethnic kin, political clients, and

business cronies.”8 The question then to be answered by reformers was how to deal with this

cultural environment within the framework of NPM, or more broadly within any performance-

based measures of reform.

There appear to be five principle responses to the issue in the development literature, which I

will detail and critique here:

6 Wescott, Clay. "Guiding Principles on Civil Service Reform in Africa: An Empirical Review." The International Journal of Public Sector Management 12.2 (1999): Page 151

7 Ibid. Page 166.8 Diamond, Larry. "The Rule of Law Versus The Big Man." Journal of Democracy 19.2 (2008):

Page 145.

Callahan 6

1. Corporate Governance – Acknowledge the existence of neopatrimonialism in the civil

service, but discourage it on a structural level through formal business structures like auditing

and monitoring of performance through skilled managers.9

2. Prosecution – Acknowledge its existence, but punish it quickly and consistently on the

individual level through the judiciary and legal structures.10

These approaches attempt to mediate between the business mindset and the perceived threat

of African cultural values through enforceable rules and institutions. They have similar

drawbacks. The first is human resources capacity: auditing and investigating crimes require

education and financial resources, and it is a struggle to maintain truly independent institutions

for accountability—they can easily become politicized tools of the elite, assuming they exist at

all.11 Furthermore, the institutions themselves can become corrupt and in any case, are rarely

efficient and can take years to make definitive rulings.

3. Demand-driven – Acknowledge its existence, but contain it through consumer monitoring,

surveys and polls, and civil society activism.12

This approach demands a robust civil society (especially the media) that is empowered to

access information about the functioning of their government and have recourse to publish that

information and shame the state into improving governance. It has also been suggested that

“eGovernment”—accessing public records via the Internet or other technologies could enhance

this monitoring capacity.13 The role of the media is central to this approach, and training 9 Development Policy Management Division, Ibid. Page 52.10 Diamond, Ibid. Page 147.11 Ayee, Joseph. Reforming the African Public Sector. Council for the Development of Social

Science Research in Africa. Dakar: Imprimerie Graphiplus. 2008. Pg. 130.12 Langseth, Petter. "The Civil Service Reform Programme in Uganda." Public Administration and

Development 15.4 (1995): Page 376.13 Development Policy Management Division, Ibid. Page 36.

Callahan 7

programs for journalists are suggested as a means of strengthening public accountability.

Unfortunately, this approach presupposes the existence of the sort of liberal political rights that

are all too rare in authoritarian or democratizing African states.

4. Individual Overhaul - Change the prevailing culture of neopatrimonialism through human

resource development, codes of conduct, and training about its negative effects, including

screening in the recruiting process of civil servants.14

Rather than responding to instances of corruption when they do occur, this approach seeks to

reform the individuals operating within the civil service through re-training and codes of

conduct. These can be important demonstrations of commitment, but only if instituted at all

levels of an organization and only with a credible enforcement mechanism.

5. Social Overhaul - Change the prevailing culture of neopatrimonialism completely through

wide-ranging reform. For example, an evaluation of the Ugandan Civil Service Reform

program concluded by suggesting that “rebuilding Uganda involves remaking all aspects of

Ugandan society—from the physical infrastructure to the soul and spirit of the nation.”15

“Bottom-up” proposals to improve governance suggested by NPM reformers place their hope

in instilling ethical values conducive to NPM governance in universities or other educational

institutions. However, even if governments were receptive to such measures, the process of

cultural change would take generations and would likely undermine traditional societal structures

and cause social instability, which could itself set back development.

14 Ayee, Ibid. Page 138.15 Langseth, Ibid. Page 338.

Callahan 8

Ultimately, like most governance reform attempts, the strategies proposed to mitigate the

harm done to the NPM reform agenda are at the mercy of resource constraints, time, and political

climate. This makes their success unlikely. But over and above those practical concerns is a

philosophical one: in all the strategies proposed, the African culture is treated as an adversary to

be overcome or eliminated. This approach cannot be successful, and indeed it has proven so in

some of the democratizing states where it has been tried. To examine further the interaction

between NPM and the African civil service, Uganda and Ghana present themselves as useful

case studies as they have been the subject of long-standing reform efforts whose effects have

been examined in the development literature.

IV. Uganda and Ghana

The Ugandan civil service reform program began in 1992 to reform an “inefficient,

demoralized, and unresponsive” civil service. The approach utilized “Result-Oriented

Management” and aimed to introduce a “performance appraisal system” using measurable

indicators. A 1995 review noted that Ugandan program has been quite successful in reducing

the size of the civil service, decentralizing authority, and improving pay rates. However,

corruption was cited as a continuing major problem, with great emphasis placed on fighting

corruption, using all of the measures outlined in section III.16 Although Ugandan civil service

reform efforts were able to make blunt structural changes, the impact on the behavior of

individual employees was minimal. Indeed, Uganda still ranks far below neighbors Zambia,

Rwanda, and Malawi in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index for 2009,

16 Langseth , Ibid. Pages 367 and 381.

Callahan 9

13th-lowest in Africa and 130th out of 180.17 Even with strong political support, NPM reforms

were frustrated by patronage networks and neopatrimonial cultural legacies.

Beginning in 1995, the Ghanaian civil service reform program aimed to “develop the

capacity of the Ghana civil service to deliver effective, efficient, and customer oriented service.”

Among the interventions described were to “motivate civil servants towards results oriented

practice” and to ensure that high performance was achieved through “transparent, competent,

accountable, and cost-effective” functioning.18 A 2008 review of the program by development

scholars in Ghana and the UK found that the process was too “mechanistic” and failed to

appropriately target interventions, noting that too many occurred at once, spreading resources too

thin. Employee morale and support for reform remained low and political will quickly waned.19

Another report found that the NPM technique of decentralization of authority resulted in

increased opportunities for patronage and corruption, including “outright embezzlement” enabled

by poor performance monitoring of decentralized institutions by central government authorities.20

The World Bank has called the Ghanaian performance improvement program a “building

without foundations” that suffered from insufficient political and financial resources and made

no progress.21

After 15 years of NPM-based civil service reform in Ghana, there is very little to be

encouraged by. Neglect and ignorance of Ghanaian organizational culture in the design and

17 Transparency International. “Corruption Perceptions Index 2009.” http://www.transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/cpi/2009/cpi_2009_table.

18 Antwi, K.B., F. Analoui, and D. Nana-Agyekum. "Public Sector Reform In Sub-Saharan Africa." Public Administration and Development 28 (2008): 253-64. Page 258.

19 Antwi, Ibid. Page 261.20 African Peer Review Mechanism, 2005, Country Review Report and Programme of Action of the

Republic of Ghana. Qtd. in Ayee, Ibid. Page 112.21 Levy, Brian and Sahr Kpundeh, Eds. Building State Capacity in Africa: New Approaches,

Emerging Lessons. Washington: The World Bank Institute. 2004. Page 71.

Callahan 10

implementation of reforms prevented their success. Indeed, the Ghanaian authors of the 2008

report declared at its conclusion that “reform in the 21st century will hardly succeed without

contextualizing reform efforts within country specific realities including its history, culture,

politics, economy, sociology, ideology, and values.”22 Toward this end, we will continue now to

elaborate on the proper role of African ethics in civil service reform.

V. The Proper Role of African Ethics in Civil Service Reform

As Ghanaian scholar Joseph Ayee has written, “without a successful enhancement of ethics,

accountability and transparency resulting from the curbing of corruption, very few reform efforts

in Africa will succeed.”23 Development practitioners and theorists must come to realize that the

convenience of transplanting Western business principles to African governance is far

outweighed by the disappointment of their probable ultimate failure. It is the intention of this

paper to frame ethical consideration as a pragmatic necessity for successful governance

improvement and to distinguish this “consideration” from efforts to reshape cultural forces to the

advantage of the existing paradigm of civil service reform. If treating African culture as an

adversary to be contained or transformed has led to frustration and stagnation, then a new

approach is demanded. Indeed, the development literature has called for “creativity” and

“experimentation and eclecticism” in response to the difficulties of implementing NPM

reforms.24,25

To properly consider African ethics in the context of civil service reform, we must adopt

what has been termed the “culturalist” hypothesis; according to this view, NPM principles, even

22 Antwi, Ibid. Page 263.23 Ayee, Ibid. Page 131.24 Polidano, Charles. “The new public management in developing countries.” IDPM Public Policy

and Management Working Paper #13. November 1999.25 Wescott, Ibid. Page 151.

Callahan 11

the most basic ones like “performance” are not easily transferable, if they are transferable at all,

to all cultures.26 NPM reformers have resisted this approach, contending that a universalist

perspective is valid for NPM’s management principles.27 As a result, one evaluation of NPM

programs concluded that “the proponents of NPM have underestimated the culture clash that lies

underneath a change towards the principles of NPM.”28 This evaluation was of a program in the

Netherlands! The cultural gulf between the western Weberian tradition of management that

underpins NPM and most African societies demands that westerners reconsider their instinctive

conceptualizations of good governance.29 NPM seems natural, well-ordered, and right to

scholars raised in the liberal individualist tradition of the modern West. It can be just as foreign,

unnatural, and anathema to someone from another cultural background and this dissonance can

generate such resistance and confusion as to doom reform efforts from the outset. Admitting that

one’s own “universal” good may have no place in a civil service reform program is a difficult,

rare, and necessary step. NPM is not alone in its reluctance to consider cultural factors.

Speaking broadly about development efforts in relation to culture, a controversial theory

advanced by Larry Harrison attacks the “insufficient attention [that] has been paid to cultural

values and attitudes that can powerfully influence for good or for bad the political, economic,

and social behavior of individuals and societies.”30

If cultural values in Africa are powerfully influencing civil reform efforts, then we must

endeavor to better understand what they are and what social patterns and norms they predispose.

26 Antwi, Ibid. Page 254.27 Polidano, Ibid.28 Noordhoek, Peter and Raymond Saner. “Beyond New Public Management: Answering the

Claims of Both Politics and Society.” Public Organization Review. 5:35-53. (2005) Page 39.29 Landell-Mills, Pierre. "Governance, Cultural Change, and Empowerment." The Journal of

Modern African Studies 30.4 (1992): 543-67. Page 543.30 Harrison, Larry. Culture Matters Research Project: Executive Summary. Fletcher School of

Diplomacy, Tufts University. April 2003.

Callahan 12

This is a largely neglected question in civil service reform literature, which tends to note only the

incompatibility of African values without characterizing them (except at times clumsily—one

UN report noted the aversion to hierarchy in African societies).31 A 1996 study commissioned

by the Swedish International Development Agency is an exception to this trend; in it, the authors

begin with the premise that “the key to successful development and reform was the adoption of

measures rooted in the specific organizational environment concerned” and attempt to better

understand what the optimal structures and attitudes are for the leaders and managers African

organizations. This is a laudable effort, one that seeks to improve organizational structure by

focusing on the relational needs of supervisors and employees.

The study itself sought to understand the dynamics of change based on the contributions of

“manager” types, who would keep the day-to-day operations of the organization running, versus

“leader” types, who would provide the vision and drive for change.32 This distinction is reflected

in modern corporate structure with a COO as manager and CEO as leader. As it turned out, the

subjects of the study (which took place in a Botswana ministry) did not share the same

conceptualization and could not articulate the values they preferred in leader types because they

did not share the same assumptions about the purpose of leaders and the natural ordering of an

authority relationship. Faced with this reality, the authors then set about understanding the

dominant paradigm of African managerial relations, using sociological studies from as early as

1980. The results could hardly be more damning to NPM assumptions. In reference to the one

of the broadest tenets of NPM, the ideal of improving “performance” was destined to be

undermined in an environment where “managers are overwhelmingly concerned with the quality

31 Development Policy Management Division, Ibid. Page 50.32 Jones, Merrick L., Peter Blunt, and Keshav C. Sharma. "Managerial Perceptions of Leadership

and Management in an African Public Service Organization." Public Administration and Development 16 (1996): 455-67. Page 461.

Callahan 13

of their relationship with their boss and with internal interpersonal issues rather than the

Ministry’s performance.” In contrast to the decentralizing, evaluative, task-oriented and

individualistic NPM, the authors find the following predisposition in African societies:

African societies find expression in organizations in rather authoritative,

paternalistic leadership styles and centralized hierarchical structures. The

customary dependency relationships that this entails are often

accompanied by a reluctance by mangers to make critical judgments of

individual performance.33

It takes a great deal of tunnel vision to believe that performance-based business-minded

Western-style reforms could achieve progress in such an environment. And yet the dominant

paradigm in the international development community for at least 20 years was NPM. More

generally, it is a fallacy to believe either that interventions built on diametrically opposed

cultural foundations could survive in a foreign cultural environment or that cultural foundations

can be feasibly reformed to fit a new set of cultural assumptions, if at all. Rather, what is

required is an examination of both the reform package to ensure that it is appropriate and feasible

to the cultural milieu of a democratizing country—which must itself be holistically and fully

understood. This must be coupled with a gestalt shift toward including cultural characteristics

not as a bemoaned afterthought in program implementation, but a limiting assumption at the

outset on the level of cost or feasibility.

VI. Reconceptualizing governance reform

The practical manifestation in governance reform of the above approach, which may appear

to be a horribly complex conflation of cultural realities, best practices, domestic priorities for

33 Jones, Ibid. Page 466.

Callahan 14

donor agencies and precedent is really rather simple. It is prioritization. Prioritization of civil

service reforms means disaggregating its component elements and evaluating each of them for

appropriateness and feasibility. This is the approach advocated by Harvard professor Merilee

Grindle, who champions “good enough governance” that focuses on providing the minimal,

rather than the optimal, conditions of governance.34 As was demonstrated in Ghana, attacking all

of the problems in one integrated package of civil service reform invites the exhaustion of the

whole process. Attempting to build the rule of law everywhere in the civil service, right now, is

not practical for many reasons, many of them cultural. In Grindle’s model, both context

(country-specific factors) and content (of the reforms) are important to program design and she

takes particular effort to accommodate what she describes as an increasing (and encouraging)

trend among development practitioners to “begin where the country is.”35 To be fair, this point is

not entirely lost on USAID, which notes among its strategic goals and priorities for governance

that “policy change is often multidirectional, fragmented, frequently interrupted, and

unpredictable.”36 On the other hand, much progress remains to be made: its strategic anti-

corruption plan contains only one (adversarial) mention of “culture”.37

The concept of good enough governance is far from perfect. It does not provide clear

guidance on which interventions should be chosen—only that such a choice should happen.38 It

requires patience, both in time, in demonstrating results, and in allowing some unscrupulous

practices that to temporarily continue so that others might be improved. It becomes difficult for

34 Grindle, Merilee S. "Good Enough Governance Revisited." Development Policy Review 25.5 (2007): 553-74. Page 554.

35 Grindle, Ibid. Page 561.36 Center for Democracy and Governance. “Policy Implementation: What USAID Has Learned.”

Washington: USAID. 2001.37 USAID. “USAID Anticorruption Strategy.” Washington. 2005. http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/democracy_and_governance/publications/pdfs/ac_strategy_final.pdf.38 Grindle, Ibid. Page 554.

Callahan 15

aid agencies to justify expenditure on governance if it is not disbursed rapidly with demonstrable

and politically expedient results.39 For that reason, we must seek a more thorough understanding

of why patience and perspective are required in this situation. Stepping back to consider more

broadly the mission of civil service reform in developing countries like Liberia, Douglass

North’s theories of the development of the modern state can provide some perspective to what

can be expected in democratizing African societies. If we are willing to consider governance in

reform in African states by beginning where they are, then we must investigate where they are

expected to be in terms of institutional development.

In North’s Violence and Social Orders, he describes a transition from a “limited access

order” characterized by personal patronage and dominated by the elites to an “open access order”

with functioning democratic institutions. In the process of transition, there are several stages

wherein the role of the elites changes and their power diminishes—stages that are natural and

slow-moving. Elites, agrees development scholar Richard Crook in a study of decentralization,

capture local power structures “facilitated by the desire to create and sustain power bases.”40

Together with the entrenched patronage networks and political resistance to transparent and

accountable institutions of governance that have frustrated civil service reform efforts, these

phenomena would be familiar to North. His theories expect elites to attempt to appropriate rents

(i.e., engage in corrupt practices in the civil service) and distribute them throughout patronage

networks (neopatrimonialism). By the same token, attempts to force an open access order (good

governance) will generate resistance from elites and cause development projects to fail. 41 As

39 Lecture by Professor Andrew Natsios, Georgetown University. March 1st, 2010.40 Crook, Richard. “Decentralization and Poverty Reduction in Africa.” Public Administration and

Development. 28 (2003): 77-88. Page 77.41 North, Douglass, et. al. “Limited Access Orders in the Developing World: A New Approach to

the Problems of Development.” Independent Evaluation Group of the World Bank. Policy Research Working Paper 4359. November 2007.

Callahan 16

North says, “the rule of law cannot emerge by fiat,” neither in Ancient Rome nor Liberia.42

North’s analyses lend some theoretical credence to a “good enough governance” perspective that

is based on incremental and context-specific progress, tempered by feasibility. North confirms

that the institutional factors at play in limited access orders (as most democratizing states in

Africa are) necessitate a healthy regard for the probable reactions of the elites and the stages of

progress through which all societies must progress to reach the open access order that is the goal

of governance reform.

VII. What can Liberia learn from civil service reform efforts?

We must be cautioned by Grindle’s insistence that “there are no magic bullets, no easy

answers, and no obvious shortcuts towards conditions of governance that can result in faster and

more effective development” in recommending a course of policymaking to countries like

Liberia. At the same time, given the opportunity to approach civil service reform with a new

approach, it is evident that their approach ought to look very different from those that other

countries have experienced. Donors who need to back Western theories of public administration

to justify their expenditure back home cannot wrest control of the process away from Liberians

themselves. Neither can any program be designed that creates dissonance between the cultural

assumptions that underlie it and the cultural foundations of the communities it serves.

Accompanying a focus on structures and policies must be one on the civil servants themselves—

not only their pay, but their conceptualization of their relationships within the organization and a

healthy appreciation for their capabilities. Campaigns to eliminate patronage and corruption

must be mindful of the deep-seated historical and social realities that spawn such behaviors and

reformers must take care not to alienate the civil service from entire reform process through 42 North, Douglass, et. al. Violence and Social Orders. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

2009. Page 48.

Callahan 17

exuberance. Some changes will have to wait. Some changes will not happen. All changes will

be slow. This is an unsexy and unrewarding reality that requires a heretofore absent humility,

patience, and perspective on the part of civil service reformers worldwide.

Callahan 18

Bibliography/Sources Consulted

Antwi, K.B., F. Analoui, and D. Nana-Agyekum. "Public Sector Reform In Sub-Saharan Africa." Public Administration and Development 28 (2008): 253-64. Print.

Ayee, Joseph R.A. Reforming the African Public Sector: Retrospect and Prospects. Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa. Dakar: Imprimerie Graphiplus. 2008.

Center for Democracy and Governance. “Policy Implementation: What USAID Has Learned.” Washington: USAID. 2001.

Crook, Richard. “Decentralization and Poverty Reduction in Africa.” Public Administration and Development. 28 (2003): 77-88.

Development Policy Management Division. “Public Sector Management Reforms in Africa: Lessons Learned. Economic Commission for Africa Report. 2003.

Diamond, Larry. "The Rule of Law Versus The Big Man." Journal of Democracy 19.2 (2008): 138-49. Print.

Fukuyama, Francis. State Building: Governance and World Order in the 21 st Century . Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. 2004.

Grindle, Merilee S. "Good Enough Governance Revisited." Development Policy Review 25.5 (2007): 553-74. Print.

Harrison, Lawrence. The Central Liberal Truth: How Politics Can Change a Culture and Save it From Itself. New York: Oxford University Press. 2006.

Jackson, Paul. "Reshuffling an Old Deck of Cards? The Politics of Local Government Reform in Sierra Leone." African Affairs (2006). Print.

Jones, Merrick L., Peter Blunt, and Keshav C. Sharma. "Managerial Perceptions of Leadership and Management in an African Public Service Organization." Public Administration and Development 16 (1996): 455-67. Print.

Landell-Mills, Pierre. "Governance, Cultural Change, and Empowerment." The Journal of Modern African Studies 30.4 (1992): 543-67. Print.

Langseth, Petter. "The Civil Service Reform Programme in Uganda." Public Administration and Development 15.4 (1995): 365-90. Print.

Levy, Brian and Sahr Kpundeh, Eds. Building State Capacity in Africa: New Approaches, Emerging Lessons. Washington: The World Bank Institute. 2004.

Callahan 19

McGovern, Mike. "Rebuilding a Failed State: Liberia." Development in Practice 15.6 (2005): 760-66. Print.

Minogue, Martin, Charles Polidano, and David Hulme, Eds. Beyond the New Public Management: Changing Ideas and Practices in Governance. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar. 1998.

Noordhoek, Peter and Raymond Saner. “Beyond New Public Management: Answering the Claims of Both Politics and Society.” Public Organization Review. 5:35-53. (2005)

North, Douglass, et. al. Violence and Social Orders. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2009

North, Douglass, et. al. “Limited Access Orders in the Developing World: A New Approach to the Problems of Development.” Independent Evaluation Group of the World Bank. Policy Research Working Paper 4359. November 2007.

Olowu, Bamidele. "Redesigning African Civil Service Reforms." Journal of Modern African Studies 37.1 (1999): 1-23. Print.

Polidano, Charles. “The new public management in developing countries.” IDPM Public Policy and Management Working Paper #13. November 1999.

Radelet, Steve. “Reviving Economic Growth in Liberia.” Center for Global Development: Working Paper 133. November 2007.

Rose-Ackerman, Susan “Corruption and Government.” International Peacekeeping. 15: 3, 328-343. 2008.

Sen, Amartya. Development as Freedom. New York: Anchor. 2000.

Transparency International. “Corruption Perceptions Index 2009.” http://www.transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/cpi/2009/cpi_2009_table.

USAID. “USAID Anticorruption Strategy.” Washington. 2005. http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/democracy_and_governance/publications/pdfs/ac_strategy_final.pdf.

Wescott, Clay. "Guiding Principles on Civil Service Reform in Africa: An Empirical Review." The International Journal of Public Sector Management 12.2 (1999): 145-70. Print.