The idea and practice of administrative reform involves the twin concepts of change and innovation. Across the world, advances in the theory and working of high-performance organizations envisage not only changes within the system but also modifications in their function in relation to the environment. This reader brings together cutting-edge essays on how administrative change and innovation transform and improve organizational structure and function. The volume discusses recent trends in administrative reforms in India with the adoption of the New Economic Policy in the early 1990s. Underlining the processes of devolution and deconcentration of power, it points out the importance of citizen participation in public affairs, emphasizing accountability in democratic politics. The reader highlights the importance of good governance, participative development, and debureaucratization in an ever-changing scenario. It calls upon the need to use scientific and modern management techniques to upgrade administrative capability. Also emphasized are the significance of effective government machinery against corruption, incompetence, and red tape as also constant evaluation and monitoring. Besides focusing on classical texts on the subject, the essays dwell on the interest of various stakeholders in development; the impact of their evolution on government innovation; and linkages between globalization and administrative reform. The volume further explores administrative reforms in developed countries like the US and UK, and in socialist countries like China and Vietnam. In addition, the reader surveys the functioning of the lower level bureaucracy, and the role of semi-and non-governmental organizations that do much of government’s work. This reader will be useful to scholars and students of public administration, political scientists, bureaucrats and administrative trainers.
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