The International Environment: External Influences and Governance

Abstract

Throughout this book, and particularly in Chapters Two and Five, reference has been made to the ways in which international factors shape and influence the nature of public administration and policy-making in developing countries. These international factors have included the activities of colonial powers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the operations of international development agencies — such as the World Bank and UN agencies — and the current promotion of ‘market forces’ and privatization. This chapter explores the international environment in detail. Initially it describes the historical background of the colonial and post-war eras and identifies their administrative legacy. Subsequently it explores the contemporary scene and in particular the implications of the end of the Cold War and the increasing globalization of production, exchange, media and ideas. During the 1990s the choices open to the governments of developing countries about the reorientation of public sector activities have narrowed and an increasingly powerful orthodoxy, arguing that all countries should practice the ‘new public management’, has emerged.