perspectives on the retrospective: lessons from five decades of debate

Perspectives on the retrospective: lessons from ®ve decadesof debate

PAUL COLLINS1* and BRIAN SMITH2{1Editor, Public Administration and Development, London, UK

2Department of Politics, University of Exeter, UK

SUMMARY

This article provides perspectives of the current and immediate past Editors of PAD on theretrospective papers contained in this special commemorative issue. Each and jointly, the sixpapers take stock of the cumulative experience and thinking promoted by PAD, particularlythe core areas that still dominate: decentralization and local government (Allen), urbanservices and the market (Blore), NGOs (Hailey), devising institutions of governance(Warrington) and training (Clarke and Kirke-Green). The article assesses the papers interms of the following. First, the papers carry a number of important lessons in terms oftransfer of ideas and practice, continuity, impact and issue of `convergence'. Second, possi-bilities are raised of alternative paradigms, the challenges of `non-government' within govern-ance and the importance for future agendas of addressing the problems of the poor.Institutionally speaking, pro-poor governance, from the point of view of a journal concernedwith administration and management, can be divided into a number of spheres: constitutional,political, administrative and judicial. The article concludes with a PAD agenda on thethreshold of past and future, in terms of the orientation, scope and tenor of the journal overthe next 50 years. Copyright # 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

LEARNING THE LESSONS FROM FIVE DECADES

The objective of the PAD retrospective was to review the state of the art in publicadministration and development, taking stock of the cumulative experience andthinking promoted by PAD, particularly the core areas that still dominate. Theseinclude decentralization and local government (Allen), urban services and the market(Blore), NGOs (Hailey) and devising institutions of governance (Warrington).Articles by Clarke and Kirke-Green on training are also included. Training is an areaof human resource development that has frequently featured in the journal.

In each of these areas, interesting contemporary questions are raised with regard tothe transfer of ideas and practice across countriesÐamongst which there had been acertain continuity; PAD's impact through reporting experiments; the growing con-sciousness of alternatives and the need to explore these more thoroughly; and theopposing trend towards convergence of `globalization'.

CCC 0271±2075/99/050427±11$17.50Copyright # 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND DEVELOPMENT

Public Admin. Dev. 19, 427±437 (1999)

*Correspondence to: Dr. Paul Collins, 56 Clapham Common North Side, London, SW4 9RX, UK.

{Immediate Past Editor.

Re-inventing Local Government?

The Public Administration and Development (PAD) journal started its life 50 yearsago as the Journal of African Administration of the then British Colonial O�ce. In hisreview of `Changing conceptions of local governance in PAD and its predecessors',Hubert Allen, himself a former colonial ®eld administrator, concludes on a note ofoptimism with regard to global trends. `Everywhere', he says, `local communities are. . . becoming more articulate, more discriminating and demanding. Centralauthorities in all countries are under greater and greater pressure to make it possiblefor each of those local communities to seek its own salvation in its own way.Moreover, much greater consciousness of alternative models now makes it possiblefor governments and communities to identify features which may be pertinent fortheir local circumstances'.

As with other retrospective papers, Allen's seems to underscore the cyclical natureof a lot of development thinking over half a century with respect to local government.Hence the pages of PAD at the turn of the century are beginning to witness the ways inwhich local government in many countries is experiencing a rebirth on a scaleenvisaged for it in the journal's ®rst pages in 1949: at local level, increasingly artic-ulate, well-organized political groups demand it as a vehicle for delivering servicesand a counter-weight to central governments; at the centre, overextended govern-ments are under pressure to decentralize from donors overseas, multilateral lendingagencies and local elites. The perceived link between vigorous local government andquality service delivery is the subject of a second, parallel retrospective study dealingwith urban services.

Poor People, Poor Services: Market Success?

Ian Blore's study likewise illustrates a certain continuity of `development' thinking,with earlier examples of participation/partnership in housing (Hong Kong, Seychellesand South Korea) and policy debates about limited access to basic services by thepoor and equity in service delivery. He also notes, in an urban context, the increasingstress on decentralization in service management, not just to local structures but alsoto local NGOs.

Assessment of `market success', in the annals of the journal, has led to conclusionsthat, according to Blore, point towards the need for a mixture of institutionsÐNGOs,private operators and local groups. Studies have emphasized the importance of theinterplay, for example, between private contractors, their customers and publicagencies. Blore's conclusion is that agreement on appropriate public action andappropriate institutions in urban service delivery is still in a state of ¯ux.

Blore's other concluding point on the future of services identi®es an area of neglect:the advent of the global service utility company. This is itself an outcome of privat-ization and, increasingly operating urban services such as sanitation, solid waste,electricity and telecommunications, is an important potential carrier of new, practicaland tested ideas. He points out that cities with low barriers to entry by capital andskilled people have tended to be economically more successful than closed cities.However, all of the foregoing pose challenges for the future: how can equity be done

428 P. Collins and B. Smith

Copyright # 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Public Admin. Dev. 19, 427±437 (1999)

and seen to be done in a world dominated by the ideas of the global service company?How may the city poor be serviced?

An interesting observation in Blore's review, from the point of view of PAD's futuredirections, is his periodization of various eras in terms of the dominance of di�erentkinds of writers: those of the `economist' and the `sociologist' respectively, eachbringing a variety of perspectives. This has been important in PAD's development.One of the unique features of PAD has been its consistent ability to link theory withpractice and to serve as a forum for working out new ideas.

Over the next 50 years the new praxis that PAD will need to develop in its pages willbe most e�ectively pursued through continued multidisciplinarity. The dangers ofcapture by any single, discipline-based school of thought are only too apparent from,for example, the `new institutional economics', its clone the `new public management'and public choice approaches to decentralization. These patently ignore the broader`governance' goals and the imperative of developing local government as a democraticinstitution, for example.

One major value added of PAD's articles is that they have and will continue to o�erthe pragmatic perspectives of leaders from di�erent professions practising their craftin disparate countries and political systems, as well as rigorous comparative analysisin the best traditions of public administration. As compared with the generalliterature and several other development-oriented journals, PAD o�ers a moreconcrete approach to concepts that tend often to be broad, vague and occasionallyhackneyed.

The Increasing Role of NGOs: Partnership Versus Autonomy

John Hailey's study of `Ladybirds, missionaries and NGOs: voluntary organizationsand co-operative in 50 years of development' provides a historical perspective onfuture challenges with regard to the increasing role of NGOs in the developmentprocess.

Most major NGOs have been long established; for example, the Red Cross from the1880s, Save the Children from the end of World War I and Oxfam and Care from theend of World War II. Contrary to the perception of contemporary commentatorssuch as David Korten, colonial authorities actively promoted voluntary organizationsand community-based institutions. More enlightened colonial o�cials were keen towork, alongside and encourage the work of indigenous NGOs, self-help groups,village organizations and local co-operatives.

Thus approaches to development policy and the voluntary sector have in fact comefull circle, from its early ¯edgling years in Africa, for example, as a partner of colonialo�cials, to its current, enhanced and diversi®ed position in most parts of the world.Now there is recognition that it must work alongside both government and privatesectors. Lessons of the past of continuing relevance today include the importance ofdeveloping productive working relations with government (including the politicaldimensions of this relationship) and issues in the organization, management andgovernance of NGOs. Important amongst these is the strategic challenge of maintain-ing autonomy while continuing to play a central role in the development process.How these dynamics are played out will deserve appropriate space in future issues ofPAD.

Perspectives on the retrospective 429


Devising Institutions of Governance

The foregoing retrospective studies demonstrate that concern about a wide variety ofdevelopmental issues required choices about institutional forms, roles, powers andrelationships. Furthermore, just as ideologies, historical trends, personal preferencesand, at times, random events shaped the goals of and paths towards development, sotoo they in¯uenced institutional design. This is the subject of the ®nal retrospectivestudy, undertaken by Warrington in his review of `Five decades of debate, experi-mentation and innovation documented in Public Administration and Development andits predecessors'.

Warrington argues for the relevance of past innovations in institutional design.This is premised in the view that `the way in which (states) were built usually has mostimportant consequences for the way they become governed'. By extension, this wouldalso include the ways in which states or their governmental capabilities are often beingdismantled or even destroyed.

Despite the great diversity amongst states, certain common features can bediscerned in the historical experience of devising governing institutions for emergingpolitics. These could have ongoing relevance for states which, at the turn of thecentury, are still in transition from one political or economic system to another, orwhich face global threats to sovereignty or internal strife, or which need institutionrebuilding to cope with natural disasters. Among these common features, three maybe mentioned:

. ®rst, the need for adaptation of imported models and the importance of synthe-sizing the `traditional' and the `modern';

. second, the negative e�ects on governmental capacity of chronic, repeated reorgan-izations and modi®cations;

. third, the tensions which characterized the decolonizing world, albeit somewhatdi�erent from the contemporary world of sovereign states, are remarkablysimilarÐon the one hand, there was and remains the tension between centraldirection and local autonomy; on the other hand, there was and remains the tensionbetween administrative e�ciency and political education.

The Role of Training

The role of training has both advanced and ebbed over the last 50 years. Kirke-Greenis thus silent on the question of whether the training available to post-colonialadministrators is worthwhile or needed. Perhaps this, according to him, is becausecolonial administrators (of which he, like Allen, was one) did not need trainingÐapart from that obtained òn the job'. Clarke, on the other hand, surveying the historyof a major UK institution devoted to formal òverseas' but increasingly ìn-country'training over the years, concludes that training needs to be underpinned by creativethinkingÐwhich in turn needs a research base. This link of training to research iscrucial because it throws into sharp relief the spurious distinction between academictheorists and experienced practitioners.



One example of less than creative training is the fashionable `leadership in govern-ment'. This is touted in many management schools as the panacea for an uncertainworld, one which will almost certainly be based on `diversi®ed' sources of power(NGOs, business corporations, subnational and supranational government) and beexpressed in new forms.

One striking feature of the Oxford debates following the PAD retrospective was therecurring importance attached to local administrative traditions and models ofprofessionalism in di�erent types of countries. At a time of increasing economic andpolitical crisis in many, it is disturbing that schools and institutes of public admini-stration are often being marginalized when they have an important role to play.Poverty of thinking and institutional destruction are a dangerous combination.

ALTERNATIVE PARADIGMS

One of the most challenging questions for any international journal devoted to theanalysis of events in di�erent cultural contexts is posed by a number of the retro-spective papers commissioned for the jubilee conference: how far do the topicsselected for analysis by contributors to PAD and its predecessors, and the conclusionsreached, re¯ect the type of people writing for the journal, predominantly white,western, academic, male, English-speaking and analytically bourgeois? Thus JohnHailey's 50-year survey found no ideological debate or marxist analysis and fewreferences to class, gender or human rights. This is seen as a re¯ection of the majorityof PAD's contributors being white, male and writing from a Euro-centric perspective.Hubert Allen bemoans the replacement of the practitioner by academic contributors.Ian Blore also notes `the relative silence of the practitioner', as well as the fact that `theLatin American dimension is hardly represented in PAD and its predecessors'.

Such comments raise some very interesting questions of fundamental signi®canceto the development e�ort, as well as for future editorial policy. Would the `realities'have been di�erent if the balance of contributors had been tilted more towards black,southern, practitioner, female, non-English-speaking Marxists? It is di�cult to knowfor sure, but from the contributions of those who have satis®ed some part of thedescription aboveÐand there have been considerably more than just a handfulÐitwould seem that they have been as thoroughly imbued with western concepts andtheories as any white Anglo-Saxon academic. This raises the possibility that there isan intellectual hegemony that the journal's contributors tend to re¯ect no matter whattheir cultural background or gender, rather than that the journal determines what thedominant approach to development administration will be by careful selection of itsauthors.

The relative absence of authors working within a Marxist theoretical frameworkcould possibly re¯ect such bias, but the fact is that the discipline of public admini-stration and the mode of thinking of practising public administrators, unlikesociology, have traditionally not operated outside of bourgeois liberal social science.Thus a journal such as PAD has hardly any opportunity to exercise bias in theunlikely event it would want to.

The possibility of alternative approaches to development administration beingformulated within the pages of PAD by a di�erent kind of authorship looks slim.After all, Ed Warrington's survey revealed the phenomenon of western models of



organization and western ideas `wedded to real or mythical indigenous forms, valuesand processes', with regimes showing ingenuity in adapting imported western modelswhich become ®rmly rooted even when appearing counter-cultural. Furthermore, forindigenous, feminist or leftist models to become practical realities, it would require aninternational order without the World Bank and other multilateral and bilateralsources of conditionality.

The practitioner±academic imbalance raises equally intriguing questions. Why didthe practitioners so fondly recalled by some retrospectives unceremoniously dump thejournal in 1980? Why is it so di�cult for editors to persuade practitioners other thanconsultants to write for the journal? Is the dwindling coverage of local administrationdiscerned by Hubert Allen (despite the perennial appearance of papers on decentral-ization) in favour of governance at all levels really explained by the academics'succession? And how con®dent can we be that `the man on the spot' will alwaysimpart something of value if he (or she) knows little or nothing about other `spots'?

NON-GOVERNMENT WITHIN GOVERNANCE

Governance is increasingly seen as a prime factor in development (and developmentassistance). Attention has consequently turned to the role which the non-governmentspheres of action may contribute to the pursuit of public objectives, whether in theform of privatization, partnerships between governmental and non-governmentalagencies, including the private commercial sector, enabling agencies or the govern-ment sponsorship of and engagement with NGOs, community associations andvoluntary bodies. John Hailey's paper is entirely devoted to voluntary organizationsand co-operatives as part of the development administration e�ort, but Hubert Allenreminds us that in 1962 a UN study was urging `partnership' between governmentaland non-governmental `entities' and local communities `to foster national and localdevelopment'. Similarly, Ian Blore found references to partnerships for developmentin a speech by the Secretary of State for the Colonies made in 1951. His paper alsonotes the signi®cant contribution made by self-help housing to the urban sector,advocacy of the `integration' of all actors in the urban scene, and the emergence ofenabling or `supportive' policies as an option for urban managers.

Much has been written in the journal to reveal the complexity of the non-governmental world. In the future it will become imperative to expose problems whichemerge as NGOs become more incorporated into government programmes andservice delivery, especially those related to accountability and control. There are costsas well as bene®ts to be assigned to the practice of providing public services throughnon-governmental means, both to the members of the organizations concerned and tothe taxpayers supporting conventional administrative agencies.

The journal will need to address such pertinent issues as resource substitution andthe question of whether the mobilization of resources, human and material, throughnon-governmental action, either in self-help projects or in partnership with govern-ment programmes, means that NGO activity adds to the stock of developmentresources available or simply substitutes for state interventions. Other contestedclaims will need to be explored: that NGOs are more cost-e�ective than governmentalalternatives; and that they are more adaptable to changing conditions and newproblems than state bureaucracies, freer to experiment, incurring less cost if things go



wrong (especially if based on voluntary e�ort and self-help), and particularly good forpilot projects which, if successful, can be taken over and extended by governments.

The NGO topic relates closely to our next point of interest: the journal's coverageof problems of poverty and pro-poor government interventions. However, there arefeatures of the NGO scene which may prove too controversial for a journal such asPAD. NGOs often represent important opportunities for the mobilization of politicalpressure and action on behalf of disadvantaged groups, sometimes resorting to directand even illegal action, as in the case of some peasant and trade unions, squattergroups, urban social movements, landless groups and ethnic associations. They raisepolitical awareness by providing disadvantaged groups with opportunities to beinvolved in collective decision-making, such participation strengthening politicalconsciousness and awareness of the causes of the problems facing the poor.

Local organizations, especially those representing the interests of the poor, exist ina highly charged political environment and can expect to encounter resistance fromlocal and regional elites such as important landowners and merchants who oftendominate the formal structure of local government, and from national governmentleaders and administrators who regard local organizations as a challenge to theirauthority and bureaucratic convenience. Strategies that seek to facilitate the involve-ment of the non-governmental sector into governance generally and public admini-stration in particular have to contend with the political facets of the NGO world.

POVERTY: THE SALIENCE OF PRO-POOR PERSPECTIVES

One feature of major signi®cance to the future of public administration in developingcountries and therefore to the future agenda of the journal is an issue raised by Blore:the relative shortage of consideration in the journal of the problems of the poor.Hailey found some references to poverty in his survey of work on NGOs, but `littleanalysis of the causes of poverty'. Blore points out that the role of the poor moved alittle towards centre stage only around the time of the Rio Conference in 1992.Otherwise the limited references to the poor had dealt with such issues as the com-patibility of income-generating programmes for the poor with a limited role for urbangovernance; the failure of much public intervention to reach the `really poor'; and theresistance of powerful interests to low-cost housing for the poor.

Blore concludes that `the people' hardly appear in the journal's pages. However, thede®ciency is of a slightly di�erent order. The `people' do appear, but too often as anundi�erentiated whole, as if public policy and administration impact equally on allsections of society. This may be a function of the unwillingness of both practitionersand academics to di�erentiate between social strata when considering administrativereforms, policy innovations and public management techniques.

It has to be recognized that a problem for development administration and thejournals that try to serve it is that the analysis of poverty and strategies to deal with itraise political issues. The conventional distinction between politics and admini-stration, both in social science and the practice of government, inhibits politicaldiscussion in an administration journal. Warrington reminds us that the journal wasfor many years a semi-o�cial organ of a UK government department. However, inthe analysis of poverty the focus often has to be similar to that in studies of pressure



group politics, concerned with relations between those civil society groups that havepoverty alleviation as their purpose (even if, like some NGOs, they combine `voice'with service delivery) and the state in its di�erent forms: bureaucracy (at di�erentterritorial and organizational levels), members of the political executive, legislatures(where they exist) and, crucially, local governments.

The persistence of poverty throughout so much of the world and its accelerationin some regions suggest that one area of investigation that needs to be brought tothe forefront is the subject of pro-poor governance. Since `governance' combinesboth policy and the complete range of institutions, both governmental and non-governmental, through which societies are ordered, it follows that pro-poor govern-ance will combine policies that reduce poverty and create greater equality; andinstitutions that both empower the poor and enable the poor to enjoy full citizenship.A focus on programmes for poverty reduction would at times require the journal tomove away from the managerialist orientation of much contemporary administrativeanalysis.

At the policy level there is a need for a better understanding of poverty and of theindividual and family strategies for productive activities adopted to cope with andreduce it. Analysis is also needed of how groups of people organize themselvescollectively to strengthen their ability to earn a decent living. A key question here iswhether the poor should concentrate on productive activities or political mobilizationand whether these are distinctly di�erent activities.

More obviously, there is the need for analysis of what governments can do and havedone to alleviate poverty and inequality. It is here that ideological persuasions mayneglect the obvious lessons of the past: that poverty can be reduced by redistributive®scal and social policy. At the central level of government, responsibility can be takenfor income redistribution (through ®scal policies and social security schemes) and forterritorial equality through grant allocations to subnational levels. At the local level,many local government services are conventionally regarded as redistributive, such asprimary and secondary education, housing and social care.

Pro-poor policy analysis also needs to attend to the economic, social and politicalconditions conducive to e�ective policy interventions on behalf of the poor. Of specialsigni®cance here are the e�ects of interventions in markets for inputs such as land,labour, credit and water. The organizations of such markets is also an important partof understanding how collective experience of markets by the poor leads to collectiveaction to improve their bargaining capacity.

The institutional aspect of pro-poor governance can be divided into a number ofspheres, some of which will be more appropriate for discussion in a journal concernedwith administration and management, but all of which are relevant to pro-poorstrategies of institutional development. These spheres are constitutional, political,administrative and judicial. Each corresponds to a cluster of problems which the poorexperience in attempting to exert political in¯uence in defence of their interests and toclaim their rights and entitlements under existing regimes and legislation.

Constitutionally, the poor have as much if not more need for their political and civilrights to be protected than other social strata who have material resources thatenhance their political power. The importance of universal su�rage, free and fairelections untainted by intimidation or the purchase of votes, and rights to freedom ofspeech and association, including political parties, should not be underestimated.Viable representative institutions that re¯ect the numerical weight of the poor and



which are not dominated by the executive branch are of obvious signi®cance to pro-poor institutional development.

This suggests that the decentralization of power to territorial levels over which thepoor have some possibility of control is also important constitutionally. Ways have tobe found to defend such decentralization against encroachments by the centre andcapture by local socio-economic elites. An understanding of the potential for povertyreduction is also dependent upon analysis of the capacities of local institutions forpoverty alleviation (their resources, ®nancial, human and political; their consti-tutional and legal status; and their formal responsibilities) as well as the extent towhich poverty ®gures in their strategies, interventions and relationships with otheragencies, both state and non-state.

Equally important is an understanding of the political limits placed on institutionsby regimes, civil society (social institutions such as patron±client relations may a�ectthe ability of political institutions to alleviate poverty or may enable the poor toobtain bene®ts in exchange for votes) and international actors (is external assistancein support of `good governance' aimed at poverty alleviation rather than otherobjectives such as economic liberalization which may harm the poor; or democratiza-tion which alone is unlikely to reduce poverty and inequality?).

Politically, pro-poor governance would focus on the poor's freedom and capacityto organize in defence of their interests. The experience of the rural poor di�ers fromthat of the urban poor in this respect. Strategies to free the poor from the constraintson political participationÐtheir physical isolation, the competitive con¯ict betweenthem, their organizational incapacity (derived from low levels of literacy andeducation generally, extreme parochialism, respect for traditional authority, limitedaccess to the mass media, dependence on external leadership) and their culturalsubordinationÐneed to be developed. The importance of `identity' (ethnicity,gender, religion, caste, occupation) to pro-poor collective action and institutionsneeds to be understood.

The political sphere also requires examination of the type of regime, its ideology, itsleadership and its party organization needed to pursue redistributive policies andavoid co-optation by propertied classes especially in the rural areas. Kohli's study ofthe state and the poverty in India shows that it is necessary to separate political andsocial power if pro-poor reforms are to be carried through within a capitalist economy(Kohli, 1987). Particular attention needs to be given to political parties and thesurvival qualities of parties with pro-poor agendas.

Administratively, pro-poor governance requires public organizations which areaccessible to the poor physically and, equally if not more importantly, in terms ofdelivering entitlements in an unbiased fashion. Weberian principles of treating likecases alike protect the poor against administrative corruption and capture by middle-class groups at points of service delivery. The `good administration' elements of goodgovernance are needed if the poor are to receive the bene®ts prescribed for them inpublic policies. These elements are politically neutral public services; e�cient, e�ec-tive (in both policy formulation and implementation) and economical publicadministration/public sector management providing value for money; openness andtransparency; accountability, including e�ective audit to encourage the three Esabove and the probity which is a further element; and a clear distinction in policyformulation between the roles of politicians (elected representatives and executives)and public o�cials so that the latter can be recruited on the basis of technical merit.



Clearly some of the traditional concerns of development administration are impor-tant to pro-poor governance.

Juridically, pro-poor governance recognizes that there are always powerful classeswilling to obstruct what governments might initiate in the way of reforms. Themethods used are often illegal. It is always di�cult for the rural and urban poore�ectively to assert and claim their rights. Successful appeals to the judiciary arerarely made, even if they can be attempted because of the costs involved. Pro-poorgovernance therefore requires a truly independent and accessible judiciary tounderpin accountable and incorruptible administration, to ensure the rule of law inall parts of government, and to administer the law in ways which do not discriminateunfairly between classes. The administration of the police also needs to be examinedto see why the poor rarely receive fair treatment from them and how trust in the forcesof law and order generally can be built up.

CONCLUSIONS: THINKING ABOUT FUTURESÐPEOPLE, LEADERS,IDEAS AND AGENDAS

Thinking about futures from the standpoint of an international journal moving intothe next century involves fascinating questions. The six historical papers reviewed inthis article, together with the debates at Oxford, have, in our opinion, suggested thefollowing.

An important lesson of ®ve decades of public administration applied in develop-ment concerns the role played by stories about experienceÐbe they the recipients ofpoor or non-existent services or those supposedly administering the sameÐand theneed to listen and then take care in how we comment on others' experience. Perhapstherefore it is more meaningful to learn to distinguish rather than to `conquer'legacies. The very process of exchange also raises the need sometimes for a clearde®nition about `practice', principles, theory and reality, and in each case whose andfor what?

Applying these considerations to the next century, as Allen points out, the futurealways has and always will lie with people (or `human/social' capital as they are nowlabelled). It is their future. But what kind of people? For Blore, in a world increasinglydominated by the global service company, how can the city poor be serviced? Urbanareas, which present particularly acute problems of poverty, con¯ict and adminis-tration, also o�er signi®cant possibilities for the emergence of civil society andinstitutional adaptation.

What concepts and theories can help in these connections? Again, Blore notes howeras in PAD's annals have been dominated by the economists and sociologistsrespectively. Words have power, and journals can play an important role in thetransfer of ideas. A globalization process has been taking place with regard forexample to government objectives, organization and management. Given the oftenEuro-centric and unidirectional ¯ow of ideas, management science journals have aprofessional role to play through the explication of alternative models of state reform,for example. Maintaining objectivity and breadth of analysis is critical.

In this connection, there is need to move on from, for example, `new institutionaleconomics' and away from the managerialist orientation of much contemporaryadministrative analysis.



Here Warrington's analysis becomes relevant, in particular his discussion of choiceof institutional forms and the relevance of past innovations. Many of the challengesconfronting those who devised governing institutions will undoubtedly remainrelevant in the 21st century, despite the general trend in favour of leaner, better-focused, decentralized government and subsidiarity. Now and in the future, e�ciency,responsiveness and integrity remain prizedÐif somewhat elusiveÐgoals of institu-tional reformers, as they were at the start of decolonization.

Again and related to this, as we point out earlier, attention has increasingly to bepaid to the political environment and to variables such as political regime type, powerand rights.

In sum, the Oxford debates following the PAD retrospective have enriched thejournal's agenda for the new millennium in a number of ways.

First, PAD, to maintain the relevance of its agenda, will be doing more to enhancemutual understanding between public administration and the NGO sector, echoingsimilar earlier endeavours with regard to government±private sector relations (Collinsand Wallis, 1990). More could be done to reveal for example the complexity of theNGO world, the problems of accountability and control created by delegation of localservices to the non-governmental sector, and con¯icts between advocacy and partner-ship roles for some NGOs.

Second, there is ongoing importance in the study of policy management in all itsaspects (e�ectiveness, for example in poverty alleviation; impact, again on the poor;and implementation capacities). This is underscored by the experience of governancein transitions to democracy, raising in turn issues about the role of the non-governmental sphere in the public policy process.

Third, the PAD retrospective papers also set a tone for the future approach ofPAD. By eschewing utopian thinking and conventional rhetoric, they o�er soundergrounds for optimism about the next 50 years of public administration applied indevelopment. This approach is a more concrete one, in contrast to concepts that tendoften to be broad, vague and occasionally hackneyed. It is also consistent with theunique traditions of the Public Administration and Development journal, which hasconsistently linked theory with practice, shared experience and served as a forum forworking out new ideas.

REFERENCES

Collins P, Wallis M. 1990. Privatisation, regulation and development: some questions oftraining strategy. Public Administration and Development 10.

Kohli A. 1987. The State and Poverty in India. The Politics of Reform. Cambridge UniversityPress: Cambridge.



perspectives on the retrospective: lessons from five decades of debate

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