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Impact of Globalization
on the Study and Practice of Public Administration
By Fred W. Riggs
Prepared for use in Nancy Lind and Eric Otenyo, eds.
COMPARATIVE PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION:
THE ESSENTIAL READINGS
Elsevier, 2006 (pp.917-967)
PREAMBLE
I. SYNARCHY – Visualizing Anarchy as a Concomitant of Synthesis
II. TRANSITION – Historical Perspective on the Dynamics of Change
III. TWO CONSTITUTIONAL MODELS – Proto and Ortho Modern
IV. CONTEMPORARY CRISES – Clash of Models and the Rise of Dictatorships
V. FUTURE GOVERNANCE – Erasing the State/Non-state Divide
PREAMBLE. Although globalization may be seen as a long-term process, its acceleration in recent years is a result of the launching of the Internet, satellite communications and cell phones, the growth of the UN system and innumerable trans-national organizations, plus fast and easily available trade, transportation, and migration throughout the world. As a result the way we understand public administration needs to be reconsidered – especially its ramifications for comparative analysis.
The traditional unit of analysis for comparative purposes was the nation state, and public administration was understood as a governmental function. For most Americans, the term was understood by reference to public administration in the United States. Restrictive adjectives were added only when one thought of administration outside the American context and “Comparative Public Administration” came to be viewed, especially after World War II, as primarily the study of administration in the countries that had been liberated from imperial control. On the optimistic premise that these countries were uniformly in the process of “developing” modern institutions linked with their formal independence, the term “development” came to be a virtual synonym – thus to speak of “development administration” became a euphemism for talk about administration in new states. Moreover, constitutional governance was thought of in terms of the American Constitution as a model without critical assessment of its limitations or its deep-rooted implications for public administration.
In the context of globalization we need to re-think these parameters and it seems appropriate to conclude this collection of essays with some thoughts about the conceptual and constitutional implications of established practices, especially in the U.S., and what may be understood as a future scenario for comparative public administration. We will discuss the subject in the five section listed above:
Section I, Synarchy, is conceptual and sets the stage by discussing some key concepts needed for the analysis that follows.
In Section II, Transition, we take a broad historical look at forces that have set the stage for modern governments to evolve. The next two sections discuss the structures of governance and public administration that have emerged in the modern context:
Section III, Two Constitutional Models, focuses on Europe and the Americas;
Section IV, Contemporary Crises , deals with the rest of the world.
Section V, Future Governance , offers a more futuristic look at evolving forces that have eroded the state/non-state distinction and posed new problems for Public Administration.
I. SYNARCHY-- visualizing anarchy as a concomitant of synthesis
To clarify our analysis, we start with a conceptual explanation of synarchy and the key terms that we need to use in this chapter. Synarchy is a neologism that combines synthesis with anarchy. We will first look at how these two contrasting ideas are linked. In juxtaposition, they provide a basis for understanding contemporary public administration in a global and comparative context.
A global synthesis is evolving in which a host of international organizations, public and private, voluntary, for-profit, and sectarian, participate. The United Nations is the core institution of global synthesis, but it’s a weak core and a vast number of global and regional organizations do coordinate their activities in remarkably coherent patterns. The traditional purview of International Administration has grasped the superstructure but largely ignored its vast underpinnings. The highly complex and extensive list of linked international organizations can be found, with their hyperlinks, at:
This explanation is adequate for present purposes, and more will be said about it in Section V.
Anarchy, however, is an ambivalent and ambiguous term that requires some explanation. It may be viewed as a synonym for chaos and disorder, or a recipe for harmony and freedom. Both notions are manifest in the world today where anarchy has grown, partly because of resistance to the global synthesis and its salient organs, and partly also because new technologies, especially the Internet, now enable individuals and groups to promulgate their preferences and recruit followers anywhere in the world. Much anarchic activism takes harmless, even benign, forms as manifest in voluntarism and sportsmanship. However, the same opportunities are open to terrorists and criminals who can spread violence and death. To enable us to discuss this phenomenon clearly, we need to distinguish clearly between “malignant” and “benign” anarchy.
MALIGNANT ANARCHY. In everyday usage, “anarchy” typically refers to a malignant nightmare vision that implies no government, chaos and violence. This idea is supported by the two senses of the word offered in The Encarta Dictionary:
http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/dictionary/DictionaryResults.aspx?refid=18615854341. chaotic situation: a situation in which there is a total lack of organization or control
2. lack of government: the absence of any formal system of government in a society
Interestingly, this definition fails to mention the positive concept intended by those who speak of philosophical anarchism about which there’s a substantial literature. Because the world system and much public administration involves benign anarchy, we need to say more about this idea.
BENIGN ANARCHY. In its positive sense, one may value anarchy as benign, enabling harmony among free peoples acting without the oppressive tyranny imposed by arbitrary rule. For a general discussion see the classic essay on “Anarchism” from the 1910 edition of Encyclopedia Britannia, as reproduced for Anarchism Archives.
http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_archives/kropotkin/britanniaanarchy.html
It provides historical background information about various important writers and anarchist theories.
Dana Ward teaches a course on anarchy and the Internet – for details see:
http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/dward/classes/Anarchy/anarchyinternet98.html
He offers an extensive collection of URLs for texts from leading philosophers and writers on benign anarchy in his Anarchy Archives:
http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/aboutus.html
Contemporary philosophical anarchism is taught by the Institute for Anarchist Studies:
http://www.anarchist-studies.org/
This organization is dedicated to: Promoting critical scholarship on social domination and the reconstructive vision of a free society. Their humane goals and pacific orientation is surely opposed to the chaos and disorder we usually associate with anarchy.
Militant leftist or working class anarchism is espoused by authors and texts reported at:
http://www.anarkismo.net/docs.php?id=1
An extended list of anarchist writings can also be found at:
http://dmoz.org/Society/Politics/Anarchism/Theory/
One way to distinguish between the positive and negative conceptions of anarchy is to use “anarchism” to refer to philosophical ideas of benign anarchy, and reserve “anarchy” for the negative senses identified in the Encarta Dictionary. A better way, however, might be to adopt a different word for the positive vision expressed in the definition of panarchy offered by James N. Rosenau in 1955:
A new form of “anarchy” has evolved in the current period -- one that involves not only the absence of a highest authority but that also encompasses such an extensive disaggregation of authority as to allow for much greater flexibility, innovation, and experimentation.
Christian Butterbach has compiled an extended annotated bibliography for the relevant literature:
http://www.butterbach.net/prolong.htm
He writes: as a panarchist, I do always stress that my primary aim is maximum tolerance for all tolerant actions, however much I may disapprove of them in their contents. As long as people are tolerant they can be tolerated.
Another comprehensive bibliography of Web Sites that relate to anarchy and panarchy can be found at:
POLYARCHY. A better term for our purposes is ‘polyarchy.” This word presupposes the need for government but stresses popular control and responsibility. The word expresses the idea of rule by many. Ideally speaking, all democracies are forms of polyarchy. Whereas panarchy and anarchy both imply the absence of government, the concept of polyarchy accepts the need for governance but stresses popular participation in the choice and monitoring of rulers. Dahl’s definition of polyarchy in Democracy and its Critics (1989) is authoritative. It prescribes seven attributes:
1) elected officials; 2) free and fair elections; 3) inclusive suffrage; 4) the right to run for office; 5) freedom of expression; 6) alternative information; and 7) associational autonomy.
http://www.iue.it/Personal/Researchers/Andreev/COD/zara/idem/polyarchy.html
More generally, “polyarchy” refers to any system of governance in which authority is widely dispersed among many actors, even if all the criteria mentioned by Dahl are not implemented. More diffuse and technologically oriented discussions of polyarchy identify technology and the Internet as factors that lead to the diffusion of power. An example can be found in Tiscali’s extended treatise on polyarchy in which he writes:
Polyarchy is the organization/diffusion of power in the age of universal electronic communication and ubiquitous cybernetic regulation.
http://www.polyarchy.org/manifesto/english/present.future.html#polyarchy
Another perspective is illustrated by works cited by the Liberty Fund:
http://www.libertyfund.org/about.htm
This libertarian tradition does not advocate polyarchy, but it accepts the need for minimal regulation by government of a system that maximizes free choices in a market-controlled environment. The maintenance of such a system hinges on an effective ordering regime so it’s not fully anarchic. However, its vision of minimalist governments reduces public administration to the maintenance of public order while assigning maximum scope to private enterprise and free market competition.
DICTATORSHIP. A logical antonym for polyarchy is “monarchy.” However, this term has historical connotations discussed below in Section II. A more apt term for this discourse is “dictatorship” which connotes the use of force by rulers to dominate subject populations. For a discussion by Gilbert Pleuger of the history and meanings of this word see:
http://www.history-ontheweb.co.uk/concepts/dictatorship43.htm
In contemporary thought, the word has negative connotations and it is hard to think of any polity dominated by an unaccountable ruler that is seen as benign or beneficial. We may, however, make a couple of distinctions involving words that are often used as synonyms. A “tyranny,” for example, refers to oppressive rule by a dictator, leaving open the possibility that some dictators are not oppressors. The word, "totalitarian" is also used synonymously. However, this term involves comprehensive control over everyone's life by a regime. In practice some dictatorships have more limited aims, and they may not succeed in their aspirations. This leaves open to empirical enquiry questions about the possibility of benevolent and limited dictatorships. No doubt dictators often present themselves as benevolent and set no limits on their efforts to control everyone. It is useful to use dictatorships -- a concept to be elaborated below in Section IV -- as a broad term, and to consider "tyranny," "despotism," and "totalitarianism" as narrower concepts.
All of the terms discussed above apply to some degree to parts of today’s world, yet none of them capture the contradictions inherent in the dynamics of today’s synarchic system. The world today and many parts of it link synthesis and anarchy in complex ways that require further discussion.
SYNARCHY. The synarchic model, by definition, involves linked synthesis and anarchy. The model is therefore consistent with increased governmental functions, even including socialism and the welfare state. This implies, therefore, substantial growth of administrative structures and operations. However, the concept also includes the co-existence of vast areas of public interest in which a congeries of governmental and private organizations have overlapping jurisdictions and imperfect mechanisms for reconciling their activities or handling conflicts between them. Indeed, these mechanisms often fail and they enable individuals and groups to engage in anti-social conduct and even provoke such behaviors.
My own use of "synarchy”is based on the need for a term that clearly juxtaposes the ideas of cooperation among independent authorities and individuals with the notion of disorder and chaos as linked phenomena. The word has an early meaning reported in Webster’s 1828 dictionary: “joint rule or sovereignty.” In this early sense, “synarchy” has a meaning that’s very close to polyarchy.
http://65.66.134.201/cgi-bin/webster/webster.exe?search_for_texts_web1828=synarchy
Most dictionaries do not list the word so we may view it as a neologism. However, to avoid any possible ambiguity we might coin a truly new word like “synanarchy”. However, we find this word awkward and unnecessary. The shorter form is easier to remember and use. Should anyone protest that the word already has another meaning, we might suggest that it now has a new sense, and in cases of possible ambiguity, use synanarchy to disambiguate the new meaning from the earlier one.
REVISIONS. Writers about public administration often presuppose the existence of a system of governance in which a congeries of bureaucratic structures are formally organized and guided by a sovereign – or even a dictator -- to implement public policies. Although that image was somewhat valid in the past, especially in monarchic regimes, modern democracies have substantially revised the foundational premises of public administration to recognize the influence of public opinion and dispersed political forces in the conduct of governance. However, this pluralistic expansion of the administrative model is scarcely adequate for understanding our contemporary global system. We need to see the world as synarchic and base our thinking about the design and problems of public administration on this context.
Because this requires a fundamental revision of the foundational paradigm for our work, it seemed necessary to elaborate its conceptual premises, as given above. Now we can turn to the historical context in which the study and practice of public administration has evolved. Comparisons are needed not only between different contemporary regimes or countries, but also between historical periods. As we shall see, historically, principles of governance were first conceptualized as occurring in monarchic contexts. In today’s world, by contrast, the context of all governments should, ideally speaking, be polyarchic. Our theories of public administration normally presuppose the existence of polyarchic regimes as the context – or, especially in third world countries, they imagine that “development” will lead in that direction. However, the reality of the contemporary world is highly synarchic and in many parts of the world, synarchy also prevails as transitions between past and present modes of conduct and administration have become jumbled. One need only mention extreme cases like Iraq or Sudan to make such generalizations concrete and specific.
Following this historical analysis, we will look more narrowly at the American model and how it has shaped much of our thinking about public administration despite the evidence of very different forces elsewhere in the world. Finally, we will talk about how these synarchic conditions are erasing the boundaries between public and private management and between the domestic and international levels of governance and how that will affect the theory and practice of public administration.
II. TRANSITION – historical perspective on the dynamics of change
In the context of global synarchy, we are not thinking of a single administrative system but, rather, a vast array of entities, including many states, inter-national organizations, and autonomous non-state organizations in each of which we can find organized bureaucracies. Ideally speaking, the global system would be a vast panarchy in which these independent entities and their bureaucracies work amicably together to reconcile conflicts and optimize the general welfare.
In fact, however, global synarchy prevails, which means that there are vast zones of anarchy marked by the absence of order and the prevalence of conflict between organized entities and their administrations. How can we best make sense of this disorder and develop strategies for understanding and working with it? Of course, Public Administration is a contingent perspective by which we mean administrative systems do not stand alone – they always hinge on a political context. There must be some embracing organization that contains any administration. Sad to say, our world system contains a vast number of synarchic organizations – this includes many countries as well as non-state entities.
To understand why this is so, we need to be clear about the macro-historical transition through which the world is now passing. Most writings about public administration presuppose the ubiquity of states, each organized according to Dahl’s polyarchic model. Unfortunately, this model is rarely implemented though it is usefully imagined as an ideal type that no doubt is approximated in some cases. A more realistic picture of the current status of public administration in today’s world can be formed if we think about the dynamics of the transition from pre-modern to modern forms of government and the transitional structures of organization – or disorganization – that have arisen in this process.
MONARCHIC SOVEREIGNTY. For most of human history, established polities have been organized under the aegis of sacred legitimation as ritualized in the coronation of kings. Let me add that, archeologically speaking, humans lived on earth long before history began – “history” begins with civilizations that were able to leave records in their writings and artifacts from which we can learn something about how they were organized. We know that in these civilizations, state sovereignty was visualized as divine in character and “sovereigns” were their human deputies. Subjects accepted their human masters because they saw them as part of a divinely ordained order from which they benefited – no doubt force was also involved, but stable structures of governance hinged on supernatural forces as well depicted in the remains of ancient Egypt, China, India, Babylon, Greece, Rome, and other ancient societies.
In these polities, all authority descended from above in hierarchic chains: superiors were viewed as rightful masters over those to whom they delegated power in hierarchies that extended down to the lowliest serfs and slaves. Humans were viewed as inherently unequal and legitimate power was exercised only by delegation from above. Public administration, therefore, could be viewed as fully and essentially hierarchic. The Indian caste system carried this concept to its logical extreme, but casteism in various degrees prevailed in all traditional polities: humans were not viewed as equals but as essentially unequal. Their rights and duties hinged on birth, including differences of gender, race, speech, and especially occupational prerogatives marking status differences.
CONTEMPORARY EXAMPLES. The most familiar example of such a hierarchic structure that persists today can be found in the Roman Catholic Church which is organized, under the authority of a Pope vested with a sacred mandate and ranked office-holders extending down to individual congregations and parishioners to be found today throughout the world. Such a complete hierarchy includes everyone in the system, and derives its authority from super-natural forces as we have recently seen in the ordination of a new Pope. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11451b.htm, the Papacy is the “ecclesiastical system in which the pope as successor of St. Peter and Vicar of Jesus Christ governs the Catholic Church as its supreme head.” Readers of this Encyclopedia on the Web who click on the underlined terms will find official explanations of these terms as taught by the Roman Church.
Traditional civilizations organized their monarchies under similar principles. Sacred coronation rituals were employed to confer upon each new sovereign the sacred right to rule. Exceptionally, as in Tibet, a new Dalai Lama was to be discovered at birth as a sacred reincarnation. Since Tibet today is under Chinese rule, we cannot find an independent Web Site in Tibet, but a Chinese explanation is available at: http://www.tibet-tour.com/tibet/reincarnation.html. The Dalai Lama, in exile, posts a beautiful web site with much useful information but no account of the reincarnation tradition: http://www.dalailama.com/. However, the persistence in diaspora of a global Tibetan community provides evidence for the survivability of the traditional system of sacred rule.
Both the Catholic and Tibetan institutions are global and non-territorial except for the vestigial Vatican State. It is hard to find any contemporary state that retains the traditional form of sacred monarchy.
Bhutan may be the nearest exception. No web site depicts Bhutan’s traditional structure and outlook, but an official news site is available that provides a Westernized view of the contemporary scene:
http://www.bhutannewsonline.com/monarchy.html
Readers may supplement this perspective by viewing the news of Bhutan offered by émigrés living in America. Not surprisingly, it stresses tourism and the attractions of this mountain country:
http://www.bootan.com/bhutan/bhutan.shtml
FORMER REGIMES. Historical and anthropological records are needed to provide information about former regimes. After eons of stateless anarchy, the institutions of divine kingship evolved. Usually they were monarchies where a single ruler, enthroned by coronation ceremonies in which a divine mandate conferred sovereignty on the person of a sovereign, presided over a hierarchy of office holders subject to the will and mandates of the ruler. From sovereign to subjects to slaves, everyone in a given domain was assigned a status and functions in the hierarchy as manifest in a caste-like social system. With many variations of detail – no doubt with some exceptions where republicanism gained a foothold -- the monarchic formula prevailed globally. Hierarchic order, imposed from above, had a supernatural ritual foundation. These regimes were typically accepted by their subjects because of the benefits they were thought to confer on all who accepted the sovereign’s authority. A brilliant analysis of the traditional sacred structure of governance can be found in Arthur Hocart’s Kingship (1927). His work is evaluated and extended by reference to anthropological studies in many parts of the world in Sasaki Kokan’s Priest, Shaman, King:
http://www.nanzan-u.ac.jp/SHUBUNKEN/publications/jjrs/pdf/313.pdf
An essay on Sacred Kingship to be found in the Encyclopedia Britannica contains an extended bibliography on the subject reproduced at:
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-38733
My own reflections on this subject, drawing heavily on Hocart, can be found in a 1996 paper.
http://www2.hawaii.edu/~fredr/6-lap9e.htm#top
An essay by David Livingston contains this quotation:
Perhaps there never were any gods without kings, or kings without gods. When we have discovered the origin of divine kingship we shall know, but at present we only know that when history begins there are kings, the representatives of gods (Our emphasis. A. M. Hocart, Kingship. Oxford, 1927, p. 7).
http://www.ancientdays.net/sonsofgod.htm
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE. No doubt there were exceptions and we may trace notions of democratic equalitarianism to antiquity, but it was not until modern times that these principles became widely institutionalized in political regimes. For many different reasons, but especially the clash of competing religious doctrines and sects, secularism came to be widely accepted, leading to the separation of church and state in Europe and America. To legitimize authority, equalitarianism and popular sovereignty gained wide-spread acceptance, including polyarchic theories based on the people’s right to elect representatives to create legitimate governments. The vast literature on this subject is widely known and scarcely needs bibliographic reinforcement. The founders embraced republicanism as an ideal, not democracy. They derived this ideal from ancient Roman and more recent European thought as explained in The Reader’s Companion to American History at:
http://college.hmco.com/history/readerscomp/rcah/html/ah_074800_republicanis.htm
Republicanism in 1776 meant more than eliminating a king and instituting an elective system of government; it set forth moral and social goals as well. Republics required a particular sort of egalitarian and virtuous people: independent, property-holding citizens who were willing to sacrifice many of their private, selfish interests for the res publica, the good of the whole community. Equality lay at the heart of republicanism; it meant a society whose distinctions were based only on merit. No longer would one's position rest on whom one knew or married or on who one's parents were.
The meanings of “democracy” are quite similar as shown by this definition in the Encarta Dictionary:
http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_1861603633/democracy.html
the free and equal right of every person to participate in a system of government, often practiced by electing representatives of the people by the majority of the people
Freedom and equality are important criteria in both concepts, but freedom is stressed more in the concept of republicanism whereas equality takes priority in the concept of democracy.
Together they show that the ideals and practices of republicanism and democracy do have ancient roots, but they came to prevail in Europe and America only in modern times. Today they are celebrated globally, in theory if not in practice. It is useful to make a broad distinction between the situation in Europe and the Americas where modern constitutionalism based on popular sovereignty replaced monarchism in the 18 th and 19 th centuries; and the situation in most of Asia, Africa and Oceania where this process is contemporary, i.e. in the 20 th and 21 st centuries. We usually do think of globalization as a contemporary process although it has been going on for a long time. However, it has greatly accelerated in modern times.
We may refer to the first modern phase of globalization in Europe and the Americas as proto-modern and the more recent phase as ortho-modern. The distinction is important because two different models for the design of a constitutional democracy evolved during these two periods and they have significant implications for their survivability and for public administration. In Section III, we describe and compare these two models. Both of them are being spread around the world today, but the persistence of monarchic traditions and ways of thought seriously disrupts their application and leads to many lawless tyrannies and endemic violence for reasons to be explained in Section IV. Finally, in Section V, we contemplate the future and speculate about some further implications of accelerated globalization as it erases many of the boundaries that have hitherto insulated states.
III. TWO CONSTITUTIONAL MODELS – Proto and Ortho Modern
Unfortunately, most of the American literature in Political Science and Public Administration is premised on the historical experience of the United States, and the word, “comparative” is really used to refer to studies based on experience elsewhere in the world. This practice blinds us to important realities that become apparent when we transcend this parochialism. Taking an historical perspective, we can first distinguish traditional monarchic polities based on supernatural sovereignty from modern polyarchic regimes based on popular sovereignty. We can use “polyarchy” to overcome some semantic perplexities raised by both “republicanism” and “democracy.” As noted above, republics by definition have elected, not hereditary, heads, but constitutional monarchies may be more democratic than some republics. The term, “polyarchy” is one of the technical terms Political Scientists try to avoid, yet its use can be helpful. The IPSA Committee on Concept and Methods has recently published a Working Paper by Frederic Schaffer on this question:
http://www.concepts-methods.org/working_papers/20050909_02_PC%207%20Schaffer.pdf
It’s opening paragraph includes this question:
Despite the importance of coining new terms to the scientific enterprise, political scientists continue to rely heavily on everyday terms like "politics," "freedom," "democracy," "power," and "interest." Why haven't political scientists invented more neologisms to replace these ordinary words, words that are arguably loose and unscientific?
Without going into the reasons for this terminological taboo, it is helpful to coin and use technical terms that convey intended concepts more precisely than our everyday language. Here we will use “polyarchy”, as defined by Robert Dahl – see above. We may also define “modern constitutions” as basic charters for governance that embody polyarchic principles. The American Constitution, as originally promulgated, approximated the polyarchic norm which is why it can be called “proto-modern.” It was created in 1787 and did not accept the notion of full equality until the 19 th Amendment (1920) gave women the right to vote. We can call it proto-modern because the principle of popular rather than royal sovereignty was accepted, even though its application was incomplete.
The basic structural difference between fully modern and proto-modern constitutions, however, involves the right of the elected legislature to name and remove the chief executive, thereby making public administration fully accountable to the sovereign people. The American proto-modern constitution retained the traditional principle of monarchic power by vesting the executive power in a surrogate king, an elected president who combined the ceremonial and executive authority for a fixed number of years and was not vulnerable to removal by a Congressional majority. Because all polities following this proto-modern model elect their presidents, we may conveniently and unambiguously call the systems “presidentialist.”
We cannot use “presidential”, however, because many non-presidentialist regimes also call their head of state a “president.” In fully modern constitutions, these functions are divided so that the executive power can be rendered accountable by making it subject to removal by a vote of the elected assembly. The head of state may be a president or a king. Because the sovereign power is vested in a “parliament” we can unambiguously call these systems “parliamentarist.” We cannot use the word, “parliamentary”, however, because many polities have an assembly called “parliament” which is not able to hold the chief executive accountable. A regime is parliamentarist only if its parliament is able to exercise effective control over the chief executive.
In order to understand the virtues and limitations of the proto-modern constitutional model, one needs to compare all the polities that have accepted this polyarchic formula for governance. Sad to say, by separating the study of American government from that of other countries using the same design, we avoid recognizing the real problems the system creates. Because most of the world’s presidentialist regimes have been in Latin America, research about them has been monopolized by Latin Americanists, and area specialists have also monopolized the study of presidentialist regimes in Africa, Eastern Europe and elsewhere. But area specialists do not link research about presidentialism in their region with the American case, and this means that the most important case for understanding presidentialism by comparative analysis is ignored. A global framework for studying all presidentialist (proto-modern) governments provides a more solid basis for understanding both politics and administration in these countries.
PROTO-MODERN STRUCTURE. The pioneer proto-modern system, articulated in the U.S. Constitution, was actually only semi-polyarchic because it excluded women, slaves and native Americans from suffrage. This abridges Dahl’s definition of polyarchy which stipulates “inclusive suffrage” and “the right to run for office.” Since more than half the American population was excluded from suffrage and the right to seek office by the original Constitution, we see that the full implications of a polyarchic design were not accepted. Ironically, the privileges of slave-owners were enhanced by Article 1, section 2 of the Constitution which stipulated that slaves were to be counted as two-thirds of a person for purposes of representation and taxation:
http://www.archives.gov/national-archives-experience/charters/constitution_transcript.html
Even citizens were not to be treated with full equality -- property qualifications denied suffrage to the poor, and women were excluded.. The founders stressed the republican norm of freedom but looked with suspicion on democratic goals of equality. It took a civil war to end the slavery system and it was not until 1920 that the 19 th Amendment finally gave equal representation to women including the right to run for office. The hard-fought struggle for equality is reported at:
http://teacher.scholastic.com/researchtools/articlearchives/civics/election/vote.htm
More importantly, however, the executive power was vested in a surrogate monarch, the elected president, not subject to discharge by Congress. Like a king, the president would be both head of state and head of government. Because of the separation of powers, however, the actual powers of the president were limited and had to be shared with members and committees of Congress. This meant that effective control over the bureaucracy and public administration was shared between the two branches – actually three because the Supreme Court could invalidate legislation and therefore the nominal hierarchy of authority in the federal government’s bureaucracy was exercised under three competing jurisdictions. Moreover, because of its federal design, government operations had to be divided between levels – sometimes with seriously dysfunctional results as seen recently in the New Orleans disaster following Hurricane Katrina. The extreme complexity of relief activities following this monstrous disaster is revealed on the official page for the recovery efforts which identifies a wide range of cooperating organizations.
http://www.firstgov.gov/Citizen/Topics/PublicSafety/Hurricane_Katrina_Recovery.shtml
The Internet is now facilitating coordination to solve problems that often arise in the context of our presidentialist system as further complicated by overlapping federal, state, and local jurisdictions.
Throughout Latin America the presidentialist model was replicated. Because of the power and wealth of the United States, its influence and example has induced other countries around the world to copy this 18 th century constitutional model. Our unconscious suppositions based on the American model lead to two fundamental misconceptions: the first involves our failure to recognize the basic fragility of the proto-modern constitutional design which almost certainly leads to the collapse of democracy and the rise of dictatorships; and the second relates to the difficulties that occur in the management of any republic based on “presidentialist” constitutional foundations, including the United States
FRAGILITY. Looking first at the difficulties faced by all presidentialist regimes, we need to compare the U.S. with virtually all Latin American countries and scattered polities throughout the world. Such comparisons highlight the fact that presidentialist regimes are extremely fragile and almost always experience periods of tyranny under dictatorships. Often this occurs when an elected president usurps power. However, presidents are often too weak to master serious emergencies and an unelected military officer, leading a coup group, seizes power. Because this has not happened in the United States, we tend to assume that the collapse of presidentialist regimes was not caused by any basic weakness in their design. Instead, we look for other reasons to explain political instability and dictatorships. Because Latin America is the main region where presidentialism has prevailed and so often failed, we easily fall into the trap of looking for an “area studies” answer. We assume there must be something about this region and its ecology, history, religion, or culture that accounts for political tyranny. The literature is extensive, but let me just mention one example, a report by Mario Vargas Llosa, a novelist who in 1990 was an unsuccessful candidate for the presidency of Peru.
http://www.cato.org/pubs/policy_report/v25n1/llosa.pdf
His analysis of the terrible experiences of governance in Latin America are attributed to moral, social, and historical forces without any mention of the constitutional rules that apply in all these countries. He writes, inter alia,
It’s not possible for countries to develop if those who govern, or those with political responsibilities, are Alemán (Nicaragua), Chávez (Venezuela), Fujimori (Peru), real gangsters, authentic bandits who go into government like thieves go into houses—to rob, to sack, to enrich themselves in the fastest and most cynical way possible. How can politics be an attractive pursuit for idealistic people? The young, naturally, look on politics as robbery. And the only way to clean up politics is to bring decent people into politics, people who don’t steal, people who do as they say they will, people who don’t lie or who lie only a bit, since some lying is probably inevitable.
Latin Americans who do talk about the United States are more likely to blame U.S. foreign policies and intervention for the failures in their region than they are to use the American case as a basis for comparison to identify the essential problems of presidentialism.
If presidents are popularly elected and checked by Congress, how can we account for this pathological behavior? Among the structural features of presidentialism, the basic principle of “separation of powers” was seen by the American founding fathers as providing protection against tyranny, a premise based on faith that presidents would respect the constitution and congress would be powerful. Unfortunately, however, when clashes between the executive and legislative branches escalate, Congress lacks the effective power to resist and presidents are often able to mobilize military force to dissolve or dominate Congress. Alternatively, when stalemates between the two branches arise, impatient officials, led by military officers, seize power and Congress is powerless to resist. The details in each case are, of course, unique but this basic weakness seems to pervade most presidentialist regimes.
THE EXCEPTIONAL CASE. The U.S. experience has been exceptional. If this is so, then we must ask for an explanation of the American case. If we should expect presidentialist regimes to collapse, then should we not seek to explain the exception? Finding an answer to this question may shed light on the conditions needed to enable any presidentialist system to succeed – or show why a different kind of system is more likely to work properly.
The basic problem for public administration in all presidentialist regimes, therefore, is how to establish and maintain responsible and coherent political control over government bureaucracies, military and civil. We impede our ability to understand this problem because we fail to consider the U.S. system in our comparisons.
The first point involves the requisites of congressional power. In many countries we find puppet legislatures easily dominated by a ruling party or the chief executive. Strong assemblies seem to require competing parties but not too many of them. When most members of a legislature belong to one party, the leaders of that party can dominate the assembly and it becomes a pawn – if the president is also leader of this party, presidential domination is assured. When too many parties are represented in an assembly, competition between them leads to instability, shifting coalitions, and indecisiveness. The resulting frustrations, especially in times of crisis, lead to executive intervention or military coups.
Since members of congress are typically loyal to the political party that nominated them and supported their election, it is understandable that they do not rush to support their opponents. Yet the survival of legislative power seems to require an understanding by members of any legislature that the maintenance of their institution’s power hinges on the safeguarding of opposition. Indeed, legislatures are the only institution whose self-interest requires the protection of opponents. Presidents, courts of law, political parties, and bureaucracies can all survive and exercise power without opposition. Of course, a powerful legislature aware of the need for opposition will also support laws and policies that protect the countervailing power of institutions such as the executive, courts and even bureaucracies. However, in the heat of daily controversies it is easy to forget the need for opposition and all political and administrative actors are tempted to prioritize the current issues that confront them.
The need for political opposition is most easily overlooked when current controversies escalate to a fever pitch. If the executive authority cannot manage effectively, the stage is set for a coup d’etat, the seizure of power by some group able to defeat rivals and impose order. The leaders in such a movement are normally military officers. Sometimes they may lead a militant political party.
At least one foundation for the maintenance of congressional power seems to be a two-party system which, in turn, requires single-member districts. Proportional representation and multi-party legislatures are inherently vulnerable to instability and polarization. However, the key to success for a two-party system is also a liability – it involves the need for centrist orientations which make bi-partisan cooperation possible. This, in turn, hinges on financial arrangements that favor middle and upper-class constituencies augmented by electoral rules that permit wide-spread abstention by alienated and indifferent citizens. Where compulsory voting has prevailed, as in several Latin American countries, extremist parties are likely to arise that can capture mass support and polarize views on truly divisive issues that seriously block compromise agreements. Ironically, the conditions favorable for survival of a presidentialist regime appear to be those that are intrinsically undemocratic.
No doubt there are other factors. For example, in order for military officers to succeed in staging a coup, they need to be concentrated in the capital city. One of the interesting effects of federalism in the United States has been the widespread distribution of military facilities in virtually every state, a response not just to security needs but even more to pressures in Congress designed to give every state some of the benefits of a military presence. In most countries, the centralization of power and large concentrations of troops in the capital have meant that during times of unrest and indecision, it is possible for coup leaders to mobilize overwhelming force in the nation’s center of power.
As for dominant political parties, they often come to power during periods of extreme national trauma when a country is torn by civil and international wars. People become desperate and turn to leaders who promise solutions based on monopolizing power, especially in the legislature. Once in control, such parties are able to oust opponents and rule tyrannically. The executive authority may be exercised by party leaders – or their puppets.
FULLY MODERN FORMAT. Democratic norms of equality play a dominant role in notions of democracy, a term that replace republicanism. Moreover, many democracies are constitutional monarchies, whereas every republic, by definition, has an elected head of state. Although expanding the suffrage to include all citizens is a major feature of the development of modern constitutional design, a feature that has even more decisive importance involves popular control over the chief executive. The presidentialist formula, as we have seen, does not empower the legislature to discharge the executive by a simple vote, a limitation on the exercise of democratic control of government. That right was created in England after the effective power of running the government was taken away from the King and given to a Cabinet headed by a Prime Minister, subject to Parliamentary authority. Since there is no written Constitution in the UK, the process of making this change was gradual on the basis of historical events and evolving traditions. A series of reform acts, most notably in 1832 and 1867, extended the suffrage without making it universal. No such acts marked the parallel devolution of power from the King to Parliament, but during the 19 th century this process did occur in England and spread throughout Europe:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutional_monarch#Constitutional_Monarchy
By the mid 20th Century, the political culture in Europe had shifted to the point where all constitutional monarchs had been reduced to the status of effective figureheads, with no effective power at all. Instead, it was the democratically elected parliaments, and their leader, the prime minister who had become the true rulers of the nation
A summary of this process in England can be found in:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Minister_of_the_United_Kingdom#History
The office of Prime Minister is governed not by codified laws, but by unwritten and to some extent fluid customs known as constitutional conventions, which have developed over years of British history. These conventions are for the most part founded on the underlying principle that the Prime Minister and his fellow Ministers must maintain the support of the democratically elected component of Parliament, the House of Commons. The Sovereign, as a constitutional monarch, always acts in accordance with such conventions, as do Prime Ministers themselves…
The Prime Minister's powers are also limited by the House of Commons, whose support the Government is obliged to maintain. The House of Commons checks the powers of the Prime Minister through committee hearings and through Question Time, a weekly occurrence in which the Prime Minister is obliged to respond to the questions of the Leader of the Opposition and other members of the House… a Member of Parliament may be expelled from his or her party for failing to support the Government on important issues... In general, the Prime Minister and his or her colleagues may secure the House's support for almost any bill.
COMPARISONS. No doubt constitutional regimes of all kinds are vulnerable to collapse and we cannot assume they will last forever. However, the record shows that governments following the ortho-modern parliamentary model are less likely to collapse than those adhering to the proto-modern presidentialist model. We've made this case in earlier papers and shall not repeat the argument here – see:
http://webdata.soc.hawaii.edu/fredr/taipei.htm
In this paper we offer an extended discussion of the history and experience of presidentialist and parliamentarist regimes, stressing the importance of parliamentary control over the government. This reform gave teeth to the fundamental principle of polyarchy – it not only made government more effectively accountable to democratic control, but it also improved public administration by enabling the government to exercise integrated control over all branches of the bureaucracy. By contrast, under the proto-modern format of presidentialism, administrative control has to be divided between the President, Congress, and the Courts. Precisely because no President under presidentialist rules has an assured majority in Congress, he (or she) needs to concede power to members on matters not central to executive policy. Hopefully, in exchange, the President will garner enough votes to win on core issues.
Because members of Congress can call the shots on so many matters, their ability to favor the interests that support their election and re-election becomes crucial. These interested parties, through their lobbyists, act to support and finance the election of those who will favor them. The effective dispersal of bureaucratic power also means that public officials who are employed to implement these policies have a stake in their perpetuation and revision. As a result they are far more responsive to policies set in legislative committees than they are to over-all policies set by the Administration. A third force that sometimes overrides both Presidential and Congressional control arises when Courts invalidate laws as unconstitutional – but since proper discussion of judicial review will take too much space, let me just mention it as another factor that disrupts coherent polyarchic control of public bureaucracy in presidentialist regimes.
When we compare the features of proto-modern presidentialism with ortho-modern parliamentarism, we discover a striking paradox. The first involves the status of legislatures:
PARLIAMENTS are strong but their members are weak
CONGRESSES are weak but their members are strong
The second involves the position of chief executive
PRESIDENTS are weak but invulnerable
PRIME MINISTERS are strong but vulnerable
DISCUSSION. By way of further explanation, consider that because, in presidentialist regimes, the office of Head of State is ceremonial and therefore basic for political legitimacy, it cannot be effective if it is vulnerable to political forces – hence the office must not be vulnerable to legislative responsibility. Clearly monarchs hold office for life, and elected presidents for a fixed term. Reciprocally, since the President in presidentialist regimes cannot be accountable to Congress, he/she cannot count on congressional support. The consequence is that the office is invulnerable (cannot be removed by act of Congress) but weak (cannot count on Congressional support). As noted above, under parliamentarist rules, governments are able to expel from their party any members of Parliament who fail to support their policies. This is a double-edged sword: it’s a way to assure support for government policies, yet it also undermines any government that loses its majority and hence must resign. It means, however, that so long as a parliamentarist government has a majority in parliament, it’s able to exercise strong power, while individual members of Parliament lack independent power over public policies.
In sum, by splitting the functions of chief executive, it is possible in parliamentarist regimes to combine an invulnerable Head of State possessed of ceremonial authority with a vulnerable Prime Minister who has great political power so long as he/she can count on parliamentary support. When that support evaporates, the PM is ousted by parliamentary vote and replaced by someone else who can succeed. This support enables a PM, with assured cabinet support also, to shape policy over a wide spectrum, making the office powerful though vulnerable.
IRON TRIANGLES . The administrative consequences of presidentialism have often been noted but not really explained. Because Presidents must share power with members of Congress, many autonomous “empires” arise, each controlled by a legislative committee exercising power within its “special interest” domain. They can make policy and reward supporters, in alliance with the officials who benefit and help create these “iron triangles.” At one corner of the triangle are interest groups (constituencies). These are the powerful interests that buy Congressional votes in their favor and which guarantee re-election for supporting their programs, using well-paid lobbyists as intermediaries. At another corner sit members of Congress who seek to align themselves with a constituency for political and electoral support. These congressional members support legislation that advances the interest group's agenda. Occupying the third corner of the triangle are bureaucrats, who are often captured by those they are designed to regulate. The result is a three-way, stable alliance that is sometimes called a subgovernment because of its durability, impregnability, and power to determine policy.
Dan Brody’s expose of the Carlyle Group provides a popular exposition of a spectacular example:
http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0471281085.html
A current example involving the pharmaceutical industry is discussed in a letter from House Speaker Dennis Hastert to Democratic Leader Pelosi and others on January 25, 2006. It calls for a congressional investigation into the role played by the Alexander Strategy Group, a lobbying firm closely linked to Tom DeLay and Jack Abramoff, in the passage of the Medicare Prescription Drug Act and the drafting of the budget reconciliation bill currently before the Congress. The letter alleges that: We know from lobby disclosure forms that the largest single client of the Alexander Strategy Group was the pharmaceutical industry, which paid the small firm over $2.5 million, including nearly $1 million in 2003 when the prescription drug law was being written.The full text can be found in:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/012506Q.shtml
Sad to say, these accounts describe the symptoms and lament the pathology without recognizing their constitutional foundations. Recent publicity about the machinations of Jack Abramoff received cover page attention in Time Magazine on Jan. 9, 2006. Administrative implications are rife but the whole scandal is explained as a result of immoral behavior by the individuals involved, not as a symptom of the complex constitutional process which invites such operations. Yet it’s just because of the power the system gives to members of congress and their ability to reward beneficiaries, including the President, that lobbyists and the special interests that fund them, in collaboration with their bureaucratic allies, are both motivated and empowered to create such triangles of power.
BUDGETS. The weakness of the presidency is revealed by the inability of the chief executive to manage a national budget full of pork barrel appropriations and “add-ons” or “ear-marks” that increase the costs of government and favor special interests. An analysis of Defense Department appropriations passed at the end of 2005 is illustrative:
http://www.elitestv.com/pub/2005/Dec/EEN43a8ccb8323be.html
The practice is old and, although often portrayed as partisan, in fact favors any party in power as an essay on “ear-marking” in 2003 shows:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/1208-11.htm
By contrast, since members of parliament are obligated to support (or oppose) cabinet policies that include comprehensive budget management, they lack the power to ear-mark appropriations for favored clients and special interest communities. This makes MPs individually weak. However, they are institutionally strong because they have the collective power to retain or oust the government.
PAROCHIALISM & COMPARTMENTALIZATION. Our inability to grasp the constitutional foundations of such problems reflects mainly our parochialism as displayed in the way we equate “Political Science” with its American version, and pin the “Comparative” label on the study of foreign polities. This blinkering factor is compounded by the way we compartmentalize academic disciplines. The study of government has become partitioned. Studies of the Constitution and the Judicial branch of government are lodged in Law Schools, Political Science departments analyze the polyarchic structures of governance as manifest in the election and performance of politicians, and Public Administration focuses on the operations of hierarchies of appointed public servants. We are like the blind men feeling an elephant who all “see” quite different unrelated phenomena.
The dichotomy between the polyarchic and hierarchic dimensions of governance is also reflected in the professional dualism manifest in the separate organization of the American Political Science Association and the American Society for Public Administration. Each association pays scant attention to the counterpart dimension. The sub-field of P.A. is studied in just one of 37 organized sections sponsored by APSA, and Law and the Courts by another.
http://www.apsanet.org/section_300.cfm
All the other sections are concerned with matters relating to polyarchic (political) matters – as, no doutbt, the term “Political” science indicates. The holistic study of “Government” has virtually vanished in American universities.
ASPA, of course, reciprocates – none of its 21 organized Sections looks at links between politics and administration or considers constitutional matters. Moreover, it is not surprising that all but one of these sections generalizes about public administration on the basis of American experience. The rest of the world is left to Section #1, SICA, which seeks to combine the fields of Comparative and International Administration.
http://www.aspanet.org/scriptcontent/Index_listing_page.cfm
Neither APSA nor ASPA has a section that studies constitutional design and its implications for politics or administration. Moreover, the persistence of the dichotomy that separates the study of “Public Administration” from “Comparative P.A.” leads to irrational generalizations from the exceptional American case and conclusions based on experience elsewhere are often wrong because they are not checked against the very different American experience.
PARADIGM CHANGE. A more objective look at the global problems and phenomena of “Public Administration” needs to be based on comparative analysis of all countries. In short, the study of “Public Administration” in America needs a paradigm change. To be truly worthy, it must be comparative. Indeed, outside the United States, this is already the case. No Indian, German, or Egyptian, studying “Public Administration” would use the term to refer to “P.A. in America.” Everywhere except in America, Public Administration, as a field of scientific or objective analysis, is already comparative. No doubt specialists in any country naturally focus on administration in that country, with a nation-specific qualifier. If Americans would insist on adding a qualifier, then the study of “American Public Administration” could properly be recognized as one of the many fields of application of the general study of ‘PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION.” It will become what we now call COMPARATIVE PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION.
Sadly, however, this field already needs another paradigm shift. In our discourse so far we have presupposed nation states under some kind of polyarchic constitutional governance as the basic unit of analysis. Today, in the context of accelerating globalization, we need to see that many so-called “states” are fields of conflict more than domains of order. To gain a proper understanding of the impact of globalization, we need to think not only about the different models – proto-modern and ortho-modern discussed above – but also the clash between traditional monarchic models based on supernatural sovereignty and the modern idea of governance anchored in popular sovereignty. Very often, this clash has led to dictatorships and civil wars, even where constitutional formulas have been promulgated as a legitimizing fiction. The next section, #IV, focuses on this theme. The final section, #V, will look at the spread of overlapping organizations outside the framework of nation states, leading to further complications for the study of public administration.
IV. CONTEMPORARY CRISES – Clash of Models and the Rise of Dictatorships
Some of the new states created by collapsed empires have established viable constitutional democracies. Not surprisingly their citizens are mainly immigrants from Europe, as in Australia, New Zealand and Canada. For the most part, however, countries composed of conquered peoples have experienced dictatorships. Exceptionally, India has avoided this fate and been able to maintain democracy since it obtained independence in 1947, despite serious internal crises and wars, as reported in this BBC Chronology:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/country_profiles/3020583.stm
Another former colony that has maintained democratic self-government despite serious troubles is Jamaica whose chronology of main events can be found at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/country_profiles/1191049.stm
However, most Jamaicans were also immigrants, though more from Africa than Europe.
DISORDER. For the most part, however, the new states of the world have experienced serious difficulties in their efforts to govern themselves. Neither modern democratic processes for self-government nor traditional kingships worked for them. Regardless of which constitutional formula – proto- or ortho-modern -- was adopted, it presupposed a sense of shared national identity and commitment to democratic values based on the acceptance of popular sovereignty that had not been established. Nor could traditional kingships function because they also require beliefs that had eroded. Many newly independent countries were composed of diverse peoples who had been linked by imperial conquests and united only by their resistance to the conquerors. Although tribal and clan identities often remained, these tended to divide rather than unite a country, and new religions like Christianity and Islam were rarely shared by everyone. Where they were, especially in some Islamic countries, believers rallied around leaders whose teachings repelled non-believers and created deep schisms.
Under such conditions, it was difficult to gain consensus on any traditional or modern formula for legitimate government, creating political vacuums that were filled, temporarily, by brute force. Military men or demagogues were able to mobilize coup groups or political machines able to seize power by force and stay in power by tyrannical means. No doubt traditional loyalties and beliefs survived, especially those based on the supernatural premises underlying sacred kingships, as well as tribal or clan identities. However, new concepts and classes generated by imperial rule, urbanization and migrations also flourished, clashing with traditional views and practices. In the chaotic conditions generated by these overlapping forces and beliefs, it was difficult to create a viable constitutional system and neither traditional nor modern could prevail.
A third force often arose on the basis of the imperial bureaucracies that had been created to manage conquered territories. They often survived and served new bosses but not in a homogeneous way. Especially when dictators came to power, the old bureaucrats faced critical choices. Some climbed on the bandwagon and stayed in office, whether for expedient self-interest or as loyal followers. A few rejected the dictators and fled, some coming to Europe or America as refugees where, in some cases, they were able to find new employment using their knowledge of languages and culture in their former homelands. Some also entered contradictory double lives, posing as willing accomplices of dictators while secretly conspiring to undermine or overthrow them. The dictators who came to power were generally ruthless and ambitious men who relied on their ability to use violence, wealth, and their own shrewd organizational and political skills. They typically needed and sought the help of former officials while adding personal followers to the bureaucracy. In many cases the dictators were themselves bureaucrats, especially military officers, but in a few they were politicians able to manipulate mass sentiments and wealth to gain power. After a brief historical comment, we will examine several different types of dictatorship and offer some illustrative data. An excellent source of data for most countries of the world up to 1998 can be found in the handbooks posted by the U.S. Library of Congress as part of the Country Studies/Area Handbook Series.
HISTORY. The concept of a dictatorship is quite old and was originally viewed as a constitutionally justifiable way to deal with emergencies. In ancient Rome, in times of emergency, dictators were appointed by the Senate to rule, with sweeping authority, but their terms of office were limited to six months and financial limits were imposed. Historically, however, many regimes have suffered under the brutal control of one man, whether called pharaoh, king, emperor, or president. A summary can be found in the Encyclopaedia Brittanica at:
http://www.britannica.com/ebi/article-209000
A convenient summary of the history of dictatorships can be found at:
http://dictatorship.biography.ms/
It ends with a list of dictators and links to Web sites with information about them. In modern times we use dictator rather broadly to refer to any ruler who governs authoritatively without benefit of constitutional norms, whether traditional or modern. They may be “kings” whose rule is rejected as illegal and arbitrary by their subjects, or “presidents” whose election was stage-managed by a ruling party or simply appropriated by a usurper following a coup d’etat. Descriptive terms like “tyrant”, “despot,” and “totalitarian” are often used for dictators, but each of these words has negative connotations that may or may not apply. Thus a dictator might be benevolent and hence not a tyrant or despot, and many dictators are not totalitarians because they are unable or unwilling to exercise comprehensive control over all aspects of life within their domain. Qualitative judgments are needed when using these terms, so they will not be used here.
Among dictators a broad distinction can be made between traditional and modern forms. Historically, monarchs benefited from the sacred rituals that legitimized their rule and put them above the law. They were not subject to countervailing powers, however, and this meant that they were free to abuse their powers and, as hereditary offices, they were not subject to evaluations before taking office. This meant that those who wanted to abuse their powers and rule in an arbitrary way were often able to do so.
Modern dictators lack the legitimacy conferred upon kings, which means that, after seizing power they may feel compelled to take brutal measures to defend themselves from their enemies. The way they proceed to gain and use power, however, differs according to structural criteria we may call “populist” and “bureaucratic.” Populist dictators gain power on the basis of mass mobilization and elections managed by a ruling party – they are likely to be seen as totalitarians who seek to mobilize mass support to stay in power. By contrast, bureaucratic dictators are public officials who rely on the support of fellow bureaucrats, mainly military officers. They are likely to be viewed as despots who rely more on money, brutality, and intrigue to extend their rule. A few examples of each type are offered below. After that, we will examine three possibilities that qualify the way dictators operate and help determine whether or not they will succeed. First, failure of dictators to govern effectively can lead to chronic civil war and failed states as we see in Somalia today. Second, some dictators are able to manipulate elections and/or traditional institutions to mask their dictatorial practices with legitimating fronts – a classic example occurred in Thailand after the absolute monarchy was overthrown in 1932. Third, a peculiar paradox can also arise when traditionalists discover that they can use elections to gain public support for their efforts to come to power. All these possibilities confront public administration with horrendous difficulties and social costs.
POPULIST DICTATORSHIPS. Classic examples are provided by the Fascist regime in Italy under Benito Mussolini, the National Socialist period in Germany under Adolph Hitler, and the Communist system in the Soviet Union under Josef Stalin. All are well known with a readily available literature so we need say no more about them. However, some contemporary regimes follow these examples but there are not many of them.
North Korea . A good example can be found in North Korea under Kim Jong Il who boasts that the Chollima Movement, which he leads, has “become a great revolutionary movement of millions of workers.”
http://www.korea-dpr.com/history41.htm
Kim Jong Il does not accept any supernatural legitimation of the North Korean regime but he promotes a new secular “religion” called “Juche.” According to him,
The Juche viewpoint and attitude to the world are truly revolutionary in that they enable men to transform the world and shape their destiny independently, creatively and consciously, with a high degree of awareness that they are masters of the world and their own destiny.
This quotation is taken from a statement by Kim posted at:
http://www3.cnet-ta.ne.jp/j/juche/pdf/e-works2.pdf
The philosophy of Juche is promoted internationally as a kind of religion. See:
http://www3.cnet-ta.ne.jp/j/juche/DEFAULTE.htm
Generally speaking, populist dictatorships are secular, reject supernatural sovereignty and espouse the rhetoric of democratic equalitarianism and justice for all. Although Marxist premises are evident, Juche presents itself as an original doctrine or ideology. In general we may conclude that populist dictatorships can promulgate quasi-religious doctrines to legitimize their rule even though they reject the supernatural basis for royal sovereignty found in traditional societies.
Iraq. Saddam Hussein’s Baathist Party regime in Iraq may also be seen as a populist dictatorship. A history of the Baath Party is offered by Aljazeera.net, the Arabic language network posted at:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/AFBF5651-45AF-45E7-910E-ECA0AFEA24C1.htm
The ideology of this party is explained in these words: The Baath movement in one country was considered merely an aspect of, or a phase leading to, "a unified democratic socialist Arab nation". However, just as Stalin broke with CP univeralism to develop communism in one country, so Saddam found it necessary to abandon the pan-Arab ideology in order to focus on Iraq. However, he did so in a brutal way that is described in the Ajazeera account thus: In one display of his brutality, Saddam stood in front of an audience of party members where he named several high-ranking Baathists who were quickly ushered out of the auditorium and executed for allegedly planning a coup.The infamous speech was videotaped and used to strike fear in anyone who dared consider challenging Saddam's authority.
A parallel history of the Baath by the BBC can be found at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2886733.stm
It contains this comment: Though the Baath party was formally the institution that ruled Iraq, actual power, even in the early days, was in the hands of a narrow elite united by family and tribal ties, not ideology .
Everyone knows about the problems confronting contemporary Iraq since the overthrow of Saddam as it seeks to link Kurds, Sunnis and Shi’a and develop patriotic loyalties to this artificial creation of British Imperialism. A chronology of events in Iraq can be found at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/737483.stm
Other Cases . More familiar examples include China under Mao Tse Tung; Vietnam under Ho Chi Minh; and Cuba under Fidel Castro. These cases are so well known that no documentation is needed here, but we might add the observation that, over time, even a one-party system may soften, as it did in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe before the Communist regimes collapsed.
No doubt each individual case has its own distinctive properties but all share the myth of democratic constitutionalism and use elections to select leaders. However, since a dominant party compells everyone to vote for official candidates, these systems offer only a façade of democratic equalitarianism. Without viable oppositon parties, these regimes are dictatorships wearing a constitutional mask .
Administratively, populist dictatorships blur the lines between partisan and administrative roles. Members of the ruling party infiltrate the bureaucracy at all levels and it is not easy for anyone to determine whether they are acting to support party or public interests. Moreover, corruption in office is endemic because there are no truly independent sources of authority to monitor and control the conduct of public officials. Sometimes the regime creates secret police forces to protect its interests and monitor bureaucratic conduct, but their very secrecy makes this device difficult to assess. Although one might assume that strict party control over a regime would enhance administrative efficiency, in practice the reverse is true: corruption and the need to follow a party line undermine performance.
BUREAUCRATIC DOMINATION. The most common form of contemporary dictatorship is bureaucratic. Without troubling to mobilize a mass following, a small group of public officials led by military officers is able to conspire secretly and use brute force to assassinate and replace whoever is currently running a country. A coup group that has seized power by a coup-d’etat can often rule by fear and force without either traditional or modern forms of sovereignty and legitimation. Sometimes the dictator comes to power after a civil war in which one of the contending forces triumphs. Civil servants, facing the choice of supporting the military regime or disaster, often go along to save their lives and income, thereby giving the dictator an organizational infrastructure able to govern, however corruptly or inefficiently that may be. The regime relies on coercion and fear rather than popular support and legitimacy. This means that such dictators live in fear of assassination and unseen opponents, justifiably so as the violent history of these regimes demonstates. No doubt this is an oversimplification of a process that has varied greatly in details yet replicated itself in many countries. Consider a few examples.
Nigeria. The basic historical experience of Nigeria is narrated by the BBC in a country profile:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/country_profiles/1067695.stm
This country received its independence from the UK in 1960 as a parliamentarist regime under a civilian president heading a negotiated coalition government but it promptly encountered insuperable problems. The first of seven coups took place in 1966, a second following in the same year, and others in 1975, 76, 83, 85, and 99. Lieutenant-General Olusegun Obasanjo, who seized power in 1976, was subsequently elected president in 1976 and introduced an American-style presidentialist system. However, he was overthrown by a coup in 1983. Further coups followed in 1985 and 1993. However, efforts to legitimize the regime continued and in 1999 Obasanjo was elected president again, and he was re-relected in 2003. The experience of this country illustrates the instability of bureaucratic dictatorships. Throughout the period since independence citizen movements, with the help of friendly foreign powers and voluntary agencies have kept up a continuing effort to re-legitimize the regime by holding elections. An optimistic perspective on these events can be found in the CIA Factbook on Nigeria to be found at:
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ni.html
Following nearly 16 years of military rule, a new constitution was adopted in 1999, and a peaceful transition to civilian government was completed. The president faces the daunting task of reforming a petroleum-based economy, whose revenues have been squandered through corruption and mismanagement, and institutionalizing democracy. In addition, the OBASANJO administration must defuse longstanding ethnic and religious tension if it is to build a sound foundation for economic growth and political stability. Although the April 2003 elections were marred by some irregularities, Nigeria is currently experiencing its longest period of civilian rule since independence.
The longer-term historical experience that created the country by conquest and brought unification under imperial control despite continuing conflicts with many disparate peoples and parties is recorded at:
http://www.factmonster.com/ce6/world/A0860005.html
The Nigerian government maintains an official site that offers a somewhat euphoric account of its history and government. It is posted at:
http://www.nigeria.gov.ng/government.aspx
There are, of course, a great many other countries that have also experienced many coups and conflicts with unstable and inefficient government but enough has been said to illustrate the problem. Let us look next at some of the problems that arise when not even a dictator is able to impose any semblance of order on a fractured and conflicted society.
ENDEMIC WAR . In some states born from the collapse of imperial rule the forces of integration are so weak that all efforts to create a viable new state structure seem doomed to fail. Indeed, the term “failed state” is often used to refer to these countries. An extreme case can be found in Somalia where an inclusive Somali state was planned on the basis of a union of the former Italian and British colonies. Sadly, not all Somalis were actually included, and internal differences between them were not understood or cared for. As with many other new states, they were constituted by international agreements with scant reference to the capacity of local people and their leaders to form a viable state. The key events that followed Somali independence are summarized in “Fact Monster”, a site offering information based on the Columbia Encyclopedia:
http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0107979.html.
From this source we learn that Britain and Italy granted independence to their respective sectors, enabling them to join as the Republic of Somalia on July 1, 1960 with an agreed-upon government for the new state. However, there was dissatisfaction because Somalis in neighboring Ethiopia and Kenya were not included. In 1977 Somalia backed rebels in easternmost Ethiopia’s Ogaden Desert. The new state was defeated after 8 months of fighting, having lost much of its 32,000-man army and most of its tanks and planes. President Siad Barre fled the country in late Jan. 1991. His departure left Somalia in the hands of a number of clan-based guerrilla groups, none of which trusted each other. The area formerly under British rule broke away and formed an unrecognized state they called Somaliland. They have no official Web site, but one is is maintained by friends and emigres, with support from advertisers. It can be viewed at:
http://www.somaliland.org/aboutus.asp
Several warlords set up their own ministates in Puntland and Jubaland. Although internationally unrecognized, these states are reportedly peaceful but it’s not easy to get reliable information. A time-line reporting the chronology of events in Somalia can be found on the BBC site at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/country_profiles/1072611.stm
In countries like Somalia, endemic civil war has continued for a long time and some localites have created sub-states or split off to become new states, like Somaliland, which claims independence but has not yet been internationally recognized. A brief summary of Somalia’s sad history can be found at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/country_profiles/1072592.stm
According to this report: In 2004, after protracted talks in Kenya, the main warlords and politicians signed a deal to set up a new parliament, which later appointed a president. The fledgling administration, the 14th attempt to establish a government since 1991, has no civil service or government buildings. It faces a formidable task in bringing reconciliation to a country divided into clan fiefdoms.
As for Puntland, it claims to be part of Somalia and operates a commercial Web Site, but offers precious little information about its situation.
A more informative Somali site, maintained by “Wardheernews”, offers a continuing flow of current comments and information about the country. See:
http://wardheernews.com/index.htm
A number of other failed states, especially in Africa, retain international recognition yet do not have any effective governments. War-lords and tribal leaders war with each other and sometimes maintain order within their own domains. It’s not possible to identify and discuss them here, but interested readers can find information about all 191 members of the United Nations at:
http://www.un.org/Overview/unmember.html
Other sources of information about the countries of the world include the CIA’s World Factbook:
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ni.html
The Columbia Encyclopedia offers a computerized “Fact Monster” database that includes a list of countries of the world, with appended lists of dependencies and hyperlinks to their Web sites:
http://www.factmonster.com/countries.html
No doubt there are many other good places to look for this information but these suffice for present purposes. They show how difficult it has been to establish peaceful and viable states in the countries that have evolved following the collapse of the great empires.
PARTIES OF TRADITIONALISTS. To cope with anarchy and promote democratic self-government, the United States, the UN and many internationalists have provided technical assistance and financial subventions to facilitate the growth of political parties and electoral systems. No doubt they have often been successful, but sometimes they produce a surprising amalgam of traditional and modern ideas. Consider Palestine where recent elections have produced a victory for Hamas (the Palestine Liberation Movement). Its charter, published in 1988, provides an elaborate exposition of the religious basis for its activities:
http://www.palestinecenter.org/cpap/documents/charter.html
The thrust of this movement can be learned from its opening paragraphs:
Hamas Charter (1988)
Article One: The Ideological Aspects
The Islamic Resistance Movement draws its guidelines from Islam; derives from it its thinking, interpretations and views about existence, life and humanity; refers back to it for its conduct; and is inspired by it in whatever steps it takes.
Article Two: The Link between Hamas and the Association of Muslim Brothers
The Islamic Resistance Movement is one of the wings of the Muslim Brothers in Palestine. The Muslim Brotherhood Movement is a world organization, the largest Islamic Movement in the modern era. It is characterized by a profound understanding, by precise notions and by a complete comprehensiveness of all concepts of Islam in all domains of life: views and beliefs, politics and economics, education and society, jurisprudence and rule, indoctrination and teaching, the arts and publications, the hidden and the evident, and all the other domains of life.Their opposition to international initiatives for peace that include acceptance of Israel is expressed in:
Article Thirteen: Peaceful Solutions, [Peace] Initiatives and International Conferences
[Peace] initiatives, the so-called peaceful solutions, and the international conferences to resolve the Palestinian problem, are all contrary to the beliefs of the Islamic Resistance Movement. For renouncing any part of Palestine means renouncing part of the religion; the nationalism of the Islamic Resistance Movement is part of its faith, the movement educates its members to adhere to its principles and to raise the banner of Allah over their homeland as they fight their Jihad… the Islamic Resistance Movement, which is aware of the [prospective] parties to this conference, and of their past and present positions towards the problems of the Muslims, does not believe that those conferences are capable of responding to demands, or of restoring rights or doing justice to the oppressed. Those conferences are no more than a means to appoint the nonbelievers as arbitrators in the lands of Islam.On Jan. 26, 2006, the New York Times reported: With discipline and a well-financed campaign to turn out its faithful, the Islamic group Hamas scored an overwhelming victory in legislative elections, taking 76 out of 132 seats, with the former governing faction, Fatah, winning only 43. We see here a striking example of the clash between tradition and modernity: a movement fully committed to traditional sacred concepts of governance has accepted the polyarchic electoral process and won a popular victory. Will Hamas now move toward accommodations with Israel, the United States, the UN and the rest of the secularized world, or insist on its exclusive vision based on deeply held religious convictions? It is hard to see how a peaceful polyarchic regime can evolve when such contradictory positions confront each other. A search, Jan. 30, 2006, for Palestine & Hamas on the BBC site produced 80 hits:
The perplexing seriousness of this development has caused global concern. It highlights what may be a growing phenomenon, the ability of traditional religious groups to manipulate modern technology and electoral processes to create regimes that support their agendas. The outcome antagonizes non-believers in their own countries and provokes ambivalent international responses. The results resemble the seizure of power by dictators, but when they are accomplished through popular elections, it is hard not to accept them as legitimate. Populist dictators, as noted above, learned long ago how to manipulate elections to bring their factions to power. Their ideologies were essentially secular, however, as most recently illustrated by North Korea’s Juche movement, explained above. The Hamas victory in Palestine repeats similar episodes in other Middle Eastern countries where mass support for religiously-oriented parties have flourished, sometimes leading the United States and others to support dictators whose efforts to suppress dissent have, unfortunately, helped fuel the rise of religious opposition parties.
COMPLEMENTARY FACADES. Dictators have often paid lip service to legitimate sources of authority in order to win popular support for their arbitrary rule. In an increasingly interlocked global context, political leaders whose local power is weak may depend on international support to maintain and extend their authority. To illustrate a variety of possibilities, three countries may be singled out for comment: Thailand, Iran and Afghanistan. All of them have retained their formal independence throughout the modern era's history of imperial conquests so their situations are exceptional.
A number of other third world countries also maintained their formal independence throughout all or most of the modern period: Ethiopia, Egypt, Bhutan, but the list is short. All of them were seriously affected by Western ideas and influences and have suffered disruptions and dictatorships as have the countries that came under imperial rule. Bhutan was the most successful in retaining its traditional institutions as mentioned above, but even this country is now experiencing global impacts as evident from its official Web site at:
http://www.kingdomofbhutan.com/
Thailand. An early and classic case can be seen in Thailand where, traditionally, an absolute monarch anchored in Buddhist beliefs ruled with sacred authority. The revolution of 1932 brought an end to absolutism but not to the monarchy which survived by accepting a compromise based on the acceptance of parliamentary principles. The result, however, was a military dictatorship created by coup leaders who proceeded to put up a double façade: retain the monarchy as a front to appease traditionalists and create an elected parliament to placate the secularized urban modernists. It was this example that led me to think of the prismatic model as a prototype for similar transitions taking place in many other new states of the third world. A detailed account of the Thai experience is offered in Fred Riggs, Thailand: The Modernization of a Bureaucratic Polity. Honolulu: East-West Center Press,1966.
An autobiographical account explaining the way this idea evolved can be found at:
http://webdata.soc.hawaii.edu/fredr/autobio3.htm#thai
The Thai case was exceptional among third world countries in that it was never conquered. This meant that the monarchy was still loved and honored by most Thai people even after it lost its absolute power.
At the same time, the urban population, especially in Bangkok, was seriously influenced by Western ideas, and this was particularly true of public officials. The new military rulers who seized power in 1932 accepted these realities and so they compromised with the King and permitted him to retain the throne though without effective power, and at the same time they established an elected Parliament but appointed military officers and civil servants to fill half its seats. Thereby they knew they could also control the legislature. Thus, rather exceptionally, the Thai dictatorship set up a double façade to shield its arbitrary exercise of power: it appeased traditionalists by keeping the monarchy and it wooed modernists by creating a puppet assembly.
Nevertheless, military rule proved unstable and a series of dictators ruled the country. It experienced 17 coups before effective parliamentary rule was established in 1992. There were several aborted efforts to replace military with civilian rule during this period. Gradually, the forces favoring democracy came to prevail. A time-line for the main events in modern Thai history is posted at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/country_profiles/1243059.stm
Iran (Persia). Quite a different scenario is reported for Iran. Under Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi, government pursued modernizing policies with strong support from the US and UK, but alienated growing numbers of Iranians. They finally revolted and a traditionalist regime was established in 1979 in the form of a republic dominated by clericals under the leadership of Ayatollah Khomeini. The electoral system, under strict controls, has produced reforms, but the latest round in 2005 brought to power an ardent traditionalist, Mahmoud Ahmadnejad. He is a religious conservative who links Islamist and populist views. Islamist movements seek to re-shape the state by implementing a conservative formulation of Sharia, views not shared by many Muslims who reject Islamist fundamentalism. Ahmadinejad also has modernist training as a civil engineer and he was an assistant professor at the Iran University of Science and Technology. His biography reveals a complex personality:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4107270.stm
He combines western education with a Ph.D. in engineering, revolutionary activism, and religious fervor. He even posts a personal web site at:
http://www.mardomyar.ir/aspx2/elamieh12p.aspx
To read it, however, one must know Farsi but browsers will find interesting photographs. His presidency constitutes a double-façade. In his presidential role, it's a façade using modernist electoral democracy to sustain a traditionalist autocracy while defying the outside world by developing nuclear power, allegedly for peaceful purposes. A report about him from the Arab point of view can be found in the Beirut-based Dar Al-Hayat at:
It reads, in part: Ahmadi-Nejad’s campaign themes were social justice for the poor, the redistribution of Iran’s oil wealth, a crackdown on corruption in high places and a return to the traditional values and the ‘spiritual purity’ of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. His website was called mardomyar – ‘friend of the people’.
His effective power is constrained, however, because the Iranian presidency is also a façade for the higher authority of the “Supreme Leader of Iran,” Ayatollah Ali Khamanei, whose constitutional powers surpass those of the elected president. His functions include commander-in-chief of the armed forces and control of the Islamic Republic's intelligence and security operations; he alone can declare war. He has the power to appoint and dismiss the leaders of the judiciary, the state radio and television networks, and he is the supreme commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
This quotation is taken from an article on Iran's politics posted at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran#Government_and_Politics
A summary of Iran's history up to 2004, can be found on the U.S. Library of Congress profile posted at:
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/profiles/Iran.pdf
The CIA Factbook for Iran, up-dated to Jan. 2006, can be found at:
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ir.html
The Iran Press Service, published outside Iran, is an international Web site with comprehensive news coverage of current Iranian politics and problems. It’s site is at:
http://www.iran-press-service.com/
Afghanistan. This country was never annexed but it retained its independence as a buffer zone between the Russian and British spheres of interest and, as such, acquired artificial boundaries that patched together a set of incompatible tribal societies. After the Taliban “dictatorship” with traditionalist content, it now has a popularly elected president under U.S. tutelage with hopes of gaining power and coping with strong local factions based on clan and traditional loyalties. A good source of information about Afghanistan, its history and current events, can be found at:
This is a multi-lingual expatriate Web site with commercial funding that offers fairly objective information about Afghanistan. Whether or not the administration of President Hamid Karzai is an effective national government remains in question, but he has an interesting background and history as explained in a bio-sketch posted at:
http://www.afgha.com/?af=who&op=read&id=243
The Popolzai are the Pashtoon clan of Ahmad Shah Durrani, the Persian army commander who conquered the southern Afghan city of Kandahar and in 1747 became the first king of Afghanistan. Because tribal position is of great importance in Afghan society, the mujahideen always trusted the Westernized and moderate Karzai. The same went for the Taliban, who sought him out long before they seized power and later offered him the post of United Nations ambassador.
Local and tribal identities remain entrenched in much of the country, but Karzai bridges many divides, internal and international. His administration seems as adept at managing façades as did that of the Thai rulers noted above.
ZONES OF UNCERTAINTY. To summarize our argument in this section, we have argued that the collapse of global empires in the mid-twentieth century launched a period of wrenching transformations throughout the third world. A host of new countries gained their independence and joined the United Nations. A list of today’s 191 member states can be found at:
http://www.un.org/Overview/unmember.html
The contemporary phase of globalization is spurred by the global extension of the UN system and the rise of American power (following the collapse of the Soviet Union) as the world’s only super-power.
All these states are encouraged to adopt international standards and develop modern democratic institutions, but obviously many fail and dictatorships of various kinds, as noted above, have emerged. Readers interested in any particular country can learn more about it by doing a Google search.
Global influences are felt by every country, coming through many channels. Among them are many technical assistance and development programs that focus on administrative (bureaucratic) reform as an independent process divorced from its constitutional context. Dealing with political and constitutional structure is considered too sensitive for direct intervention. Yet, if a bureaucracy, especially its military components, is strengthened while the political system designed to direct and control its policies is not well formed, the unintended result may be that the polity collapses and in the power vacuum that results, public officials (especially military officers) are empowered. Not intentionally, no doubt, but unintentionally, and with dire consequences bureaucratic domination most assuredly leads to dictatorships. Moreover, when appointed officials rule a country, their ability to monitor and sanction other officials is inhibited and corruption and abuses flourish.
In our optimism, we have tended to visualize “development” as a universal process and imagined that the peaceful and incremental growth of democratic institutions, supported by efficient bureaucracies inherited from former imperial masters, would surely occur in most countries. In my own thinking about this process, after having studied events in several new states, I found the “prismatic model” helpful as a way of visualizing turbulent transitions from traditional “fused” systems of governance where religion, economy, and politics were seen as mere aspects of a single gestalt or whole, to modern “diffracted” polities in which a host of separate but coordinated and functionally-specific institutions could evolve and function autonomously.
In the prismatic model, a state is captured by ambitious cliques or tyrants ruling arbitrarily and violently with scant respect for the rule of law – i.e. as dictators. Usually, dictators come to power through the bureaucratic apparatus created under imperial rule, typically as part of its military component, although they are sometimes able to lead a single party to power on the basis of mass mobilization and totalitarian tactics. They manipulate both traditional and modern criteria of legitimacy to build support for their own arbitrary actions. A personal account of how I developed the prismatic model while studying the Thai system of governance is offered in an autobiographical account posted at:
http://webdata.soc.hawaii.edu/fredr/autobio3.htm#thai
As my research on Thailand revealed, when a regime is dominated by a bureaucratic coup group, appointed officials come to play a dominant role in policy making as well as implementation, generating huge conflicts of interest and many opportunities for corruption. Admittedly one cannot generalize from a single case study, but hypotheses based on this research have been tested elsewhere and found to have wide-spread validity. An evaluative essay by Howard McCurdy provides some background data on the origins of the prismatic theory and its relevance to understanding contemporary administrative problems in third world countries. His text can be found at:
http://www2.hawaii.edu/~fredr/mccurdy.htm
Admittedly the prismatic model was an over-generalized image, but it seemed to capture key features of a global process in which every individual case has its own unique and highly variable characteristics. However, the main defect I now see in the prismatic model was that it presupposed the existence of states as relatively stable units of analysis. It failed to take into account the pervasive waves of globalization that have continuously penetrated contemporary states, many of which are merely imagined constructs or “failed states.” The dynamics of change within each state were shaped by a combination of domestic and external forces. These pressures complicated and often conflicted with competing domestic pressures based on the clash of traditional and modern values and practices.
So varied are these patterns that we abandon efforts to generalize about them and resort to idiographic case studies treating every case as truly exceptional and intelligible only on the basis of local forces and historical events. Yet, in the context of globalization, it seems necessary and possible to think about a broader global framework in which we can understand governance as a generic process that takes a wide variety of forms under the impact of overlapping and competing jurisdictions in today’s world. We may close this essay by taking a quick look at some of these dimensions.
V. FUTURE GOVERNANCE – Erasing the State/Non-state Divide
Traditionally, we have been accustomed to think about public administration as a function of nation states in which government employees were agents working under mandates from the political system. Globalization has erased the boundary between state and non-state actors in ways that confuse our understanding of what is PUBLIC administration by contrast both with private administration and politics. Again, the American model and our presidentialist regime provide benchmarks and a basis for comparison. However, the phenomena are ubiquitous on a global scale and in all countries.
In the U.S., iron triangles epitomize the phenomenon inasmuch as government officials, working hand-in-glove with members of Congress and private corporations, form complexes in which the public-private divide can scarcely be found. Moreover, increasingly non-profit organizations are engaged in public service functions that complement or even duplicate governmental operations. The use of private contractors working for government as though they were state employees has also become endemic. The armed forces provide extreme examples where all kinds of operations that could have been performed by government are actually carried out by private enterprises working for government.
MILITARY ADMINISTRATION. Speaking of the armed forces reminds us that even for American public administration, the scope of inquiry has normally been restricted to open civilian agencies. The military establishment is one of the largest and most powerful arms of public administration and needs to be included in any comprehensive framework for our field of study. True as this is for the U.S., it’s even more important in most third world countries where, all too often, the armed forces dominate the government for reasons explained above in Section II, dealing with historical perspectives. There is no shortage of information about the operations of agencies in the U.S. Department of Defense:
http://www.defenselink.mil/sites/
Here one can find an index to so many agencies and functions that they baffle the imagination. No doubt there are historical reasons for this blind spot in the American tradition of public administration studies, but if the field is to mature as a comprehensive comparative field of teaching and research, the role of military and security agencies needs to be included. Intelligence agencies, incidentally, operate under a mantle of secrecy that defies inquiry, but nevertheless a great deal of information about them is available as one can discover at:
http://www.intelligence.gov/1-members.shtml
STATE GOVERNMENTS. Another essential limitation of American public administration has been its preoccupation with national government. In the federal system, there are, of course, 50 sovereign states and the word, ‘state’ is used ambiguously to refer to them as well as to the whole federal system. Information about all state and local governments in the U.S., p