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Foreign assistance and development in a small‐island economy: The case of Fiji
Author(s) -
Baker Randall
Publication year - 1990
Publication title -
public administration and development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.574
H-Index - 44
eISSN - 1099-162X
pISSN - 0271-2075
DOI - 10.1002/pad.4230100404
Subject(s) - impartiality , context (archaeology) , per capita , government (linguistics) , administration (probate law) , scale (ratio) , per capita income , state (computer science) , economics , economic growth , development economics , political economy , political science , sociology , law , geography , population , linguistics , philosophy , demography , cartography , archaeology , algorithm , computer science
In many works on comparative public administration and development management the arguments put forward are often presented within the framework of comparing developed and less‐developed countries. However, within the latter category there are fairly substantial differences, usually categorized within the context of system of government, or degrees of per capita income. Rarely is the question of scale addressed head on. One dimension of this, for instance, is the nature and operation of public administration where the proliferation of traditional ministries, and the impartiality of the administration, become very problematic in terms of the extremely limited resources and the very personal nature of public life— especially in the microstates. In this paper the question of scale is addressed in the context of the relationship between one island state, Fiji, and its bilateral and multilateral partners. This is considered not just in terms of aid and loans, but in terms of such issues as the ‘critical mass’ of skilled professional people, and the problems of functioning in a system where the rules for such things as overheads seem to have been evolved in the context of the Third‐World giants. It is shown that the scale variable is a very powerful one in both the effectiveness and efficiency of governments working in tandem with major external sources of capital assistance.