Democratising policy implementation in Africa

Public administration (PA) and democracy are mutually supportive in their operationali-sation. Democratic systems rely on public bureaucracies for efective implementation and delivery of public services to remain legitimate. Similarly, PA has an inherent democratic element because it relies on support from citizens and politicians for its survival and viability (Spicer 2019). However, despite this reciprocal and reinforcing relationship between democracy and PA, obscurity remains about their compatibility (Spicer 2019). Traditional PA is undemocratic mainly because the hierarchical structures and chains of command isolated the citizens from the administration of the state and implementation of policies (Bryson et al. 2014). Haque et al. (2017) contend that the approaches used by PA to deliver public goods are non-participatory and leave important stakeholders and citizens with little or no opportunity to make inputs. Thus, PA confines management of the state to elected politicians and civil servants, thereby rendering policymaking elitist and exclusionary.

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Published in: Routledge Handbook of Public Policy in Africa
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
See article on publisher's website: https://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9781003143840-34