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Patrimonial economics and informal bureaucracies: Public administration and social reality in the least developed countries of the 1990s: A review article
Author(s) -
Garvey Brian
Publication year - 1991
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.4230110606
Subject(s) - bureaucracy , relevance (law) , state (computer science) , politics , government (linguistics) , latin americans , administration (probate law) , developing country , political science , development economics , political economy , economics , sociology , economic growth , law , linguistics , philosophy , algorithm , computer science
Commentators in many poorer countries, examining the political realities of the Third World from within new and interesting micro‐economic perspectives, have rediscovered the relevance of dysfunctions in government as pointers to the true nature of state relations and economic development. The result has been the appearance of a literature on two commonly observed phenomena in the least developed countries of Africa, South Asia and Latin America: the enhanced economic role of ‘second’ or ‘informal’ economies, and the declining relevance of formal state structures which results partly from economic incapacity. This paper surveys some of the more significant recent examples of this literary output and relates their findings to the problems of public administration in those countries which experience or are likely to experience these phenomena.