Las estaciones y el personal

Since the colonial period, there have been various efforts to introduce Western structures and models into African societies. During

colonialism, the European colonizing powers introduced their governmental structures in their African colonies. The European public administration had its roots in the formation of state structures in Europe during the nineteenth century. The character of this

administration is often referred to as a “Weberian bureaucracy”, due to its base in the professionalism of public officials and legalism in terms of how the public affairs are supposed to be handled. The difference between the structures established in Europe and the ones transferred to the colonies was the racist ideology and practice of the structures (Young 1994). Africans had to comply with European laws and administrative regulations, although they had no access to any rights as European citizens had. Within this direct rule, where European structures were established in the colonies, very few of the traditional African institutions were recognized (Mamdani 1996). In addition to direct rule, the colonial powers also exercised their control indirectly, through the use of existing traditional structures and through

controlling the local chiefs. The two ways of ruling were often used in parallel, where indirect rule was common in rural areas and the direct rule was practiced in the larger towns and capitals (ibid).

A breaking point for the colonial administrations was the Second World War, where Africans participated on the side of their colonial powers. After the war, there was no possibility of returning to the conditions before the war, since Africans had made significant contributions to the war and their expectations had changed. Nationalist movements started to grow and they demanded

expanded rights as well as independence. Accordingly, the colonial powers began to increase the rights for Africans in their colonies. For instance, the British established ways enabling educated Africans to work in the central and local administrations as well as extending their possibilities to education (Young 1994 p. 182-186). Although there was a change of attitudes among the colonizing powers after the war, naturally the gradual expansion of rights was not only due to the generosity of the colonial powers, but also a result of struggle and resistance from the African people.

Although a significant amount of aid projects had been carried out by voluntary organizations, mainly churches, and by governments throughout the colonial period, the period after the Second World War is generally regarded as the starting point for larger amounts of aid to the developing countries (Riddell 2007 p. 24-29). Taking inspiration from the Marshall plan, and how well it proved to work in Europe, the aim was to create the same success in the developing world.5 _{The main focus of the Marshall plan in Europe}

was infrastructure, which also became a large part of the development programs in African countries. In addition to infrastructural

programs, technical assistance programs to strengthen the capacity of institutions in the developing countries also characterized the first period of aid (ibid). At that time, the predominant idea was that administrative state structures in African countries could be developed mainly by transferring and replicating models from industrialized, i.e. Western, countries. No account was taken of possible specific characteristic in the African context; instead, what had been proven to be successful in Western countries was assumed to have the same effect in these countries (Hyden 2006; Turner & Hulme 1997).6

5 The Marshall plan was an initiative from the US secretary of State, George Marshall, who in 1948 held a speech in which he presented his very ambitious plan of aid for the reconstruction of Europe after World War II (Riddell 2007, p. 24) .

After several African countries had become independent, during a short period in the 1970s, there was an attempt to reform the governmental administrations in African countries into development administrations. The character of the colonial administration had been a stiff and bureaucratic organization and in the 1970s this kind of organizational structure was considered to having difficulties in handling the new challenges of development after independence. The new development administration was supposed to be more flexible and more like an entrepreneur in the role of developing society (Hyden 1983 p. 76).

The new development administration approach did not last very long. Nor was it possible to return to the old bureaucratic structures, even if there were African public officials who argued for the advantages of a more “Weberian” bureaucratic structure. Since these structures were considered to represent the old colonial system, such voices were ignored in general. Hyden (1983) argues that this period created room for new patrimonial structures to be established, where public officials did not separate private from public and where the reliance was on informal relationships instead of formal institutions ( p. 75-79, 2006 p. 65-66, see also Young 1994 p. 290-292). Others argue that this parallel system, where informal rules override formal structures, was already established at the beginning of the colonial period. Since the public administration represented a Western colonial system, the loyalty of African public officials was directed instead towards informal networks, in terms of family ties or tribe affiliation. This created a situation with two structures existing in parallel (Ekeh 1975), which continued to exist even after independence. Even though new informal rules and networks based on new loyalties, were then created (Bratton & Van de Walle 1997).