Bureaucratic Capacity

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Scholars have argued that the definition, dimensions, and operationalization of bureaucratic capacity will define future development policies for third world nations. Establishing the aspects of this subset of capacity is necessary for quantifying the relationship between bureaucracy and educational development. The competing primary schools of thought in bureaucratic capacity are the neoliberal and the neo-Weberian school. The neoliberal school of thought consists of scholars who employ countries' economies and global market penetration as the dimensions of bureaucratic capacity. The neo-Weberian school of thought uses the goods and services a government provides to the public to define a state's bureaucratic capacity. Neoliberal School defines…show more content…
Some of these goods "include health services, infrastructure, law and order, education and many more, noting that some functions are more important than others with security-both internal and external- the most important" (Hameiri 2004, 14). The Neo-Weberian approach stresses that state capacity operationalized as GDP does not capture the government's success or failure in providing these goods to the same extent that other operationalizations do. In a Neo-Weberian manner, Cingolani operationalized autonomous bureaucratic capacity through the regular and irregular turnover of local governors and to explore this capacity's relationship with Millennium Development Goals. Cingolani's study furthers our understanding of the connection between bureaucracy capacity and development (Cingolani et al. 2015, 6). However, for our purposes, Cingolani's operationalization will not be successful due to a lack of local data in Western Africa and the lack of applicability to autocracies; this is a familiar crux to the Neo-Weberian school of thought when defining this…show more content…
Hendrix's study, he put forth the term rational legality as a dimension of state capacity that correlates highly to administrative/bureaucratic capacity. Rational legality captures many different aspects of the ideal, democratic and Weberian states such as high revenues, military-technological advancement, bureaucracy, and democratic elections. Rational legality most entirely encapsulates bureaucratic capacity and has a significant correlation with bureaucratic quality (Hendrix 2010). Moreover, Hendrix recommends using bureaucratic quality and tax ratios to operationalize bureaucratic capacity. The construct validity for bureaucratic capacity is higher with Hendrix's operationalization as "It most closely captures the important components of the theoretical construct of bureaucratic/administrative capacity: professionalism, insulation from political pressure, and efficacy in delivering government services" (Hendrix 2010, 6). Also, using bureaucratic quality (neo-Weberian approach) in addition to total taxes/GDP (neoliberal approach) will help "distinguish between states that rely on administratively sophisticated revenue instruments and those that do not" (Hendrix 2010, 7). Hendrix's approach combines the best of both schools of thought. His definition of bureaucratic capacity provides a reasonable means for quantifying varying levels of bureaucracy in developing countries over

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