Administrative Culture in Bangladesh

Contents: Preface. Acknowledgment. 1. The normative roots of administrative culture in Bangladesh. 2. Administrative culture: a mode of understanding public administration across cultures. 3. "Good Governance": Tensions between tradition and modernity in Bangladeshi Public Administration. 4. Transactional friction between NGOs and public agencies in a developing country: culture or dependency? 5. Administrative culture in Bangladesh: a tiger in disguise? 6. The culture of Tadbir: the "Building Block" of decision making in the Civil Service of Bangladesh. Appendix One. Bibliography.

""Administrative Culture in Bangladesh" is an attempt to map administrative culture in Bangladeshi public administration. Administrative culture refers to dominant norms and values that shape and influence bureaucrats' interpersonal relationships, behaviour and performance. Such norms influence among others bureaucracy's relationships to politics and to society in general. The inspiration of this book derives from cultural theories. An interest in a cultural explanation of the working norms and values of Bangladeshi bureaucracy is pursued in this volume.

The volume addresses, among others, questions such as: Does culture matter for bureaucratic performance? What are the dominant values and norms in the Bangladeshi bureaucracy? Is public administration in Bangladesh a battle ground of different norms and practices? Are NGOs distinctly different from Bangladeshi public administration in terms of organization cultural features? Does administrative culture in Bangladesh differ markedly from those of the developmental states? Is administrative culture in Bangladesh conducive to economic growth?

Addressing these questions also contribute to the discussions on governance which now occupies a centre stage in social science research, political discourses, and development debates in Bangladesh. The major concern of these debates and discussions is the question of how to streamline the bureaucracy and transform it from a hierarchic, elite, rule following and politically influenced organization to a more citizen responsive, democratic, and result and market oriented one.

It is in this regard, highly pertinent to understand and illuminate characteristics of cultural traditions that have a bearing on contemporary patterns of bureaucratic behavior in Bangladesh. From the point of governance, such an understanding is crucial if the right remedies for administrative development are to be chosen in Bangladesh.

This volume is a collection of six self-contained but interrelated chapters." (jacket)