Book Reviews 83

and Systems Modelling; Enterprise Budgets; Mathematical Programming; Project Analysis; Natural Resource Projects; International Trade; Macroeconomic Linkages to Agriculture; and Index Numbers. The list of topics is not comprehensive. Among the topics notably missing are: time series, price and market analysis survey methods and data sources, and more than limited discussion of macro-economic issues.

The chapters have a large number of authors, and are written at different levels, varying between those that are self-explanatory and ones that require some fairly advanced background understanding. The chapters are not well integrated. There is no linking narrative explaining the order of subjects or their role in policy analysis. This no doubt reflects the type of short course to which the book owes its origin. There are no examples of policy analysis in practice to provide a guide to the use of the different ‘tools’ that are explicated. There is brief and mainly theoretical analysis of recurrent policy problems in the chapter on Classical Welfare Analysis, but nothing on structural policies such as land reform, irrigation policy or agricultural research.

While most of the chapters are useful in one context or another they are an extraordinary mixture of elementary introductions, ‘how to’ expositions of basic tools at elementary levels (which need augmenting with workshop materials if the tools are to be properly learnt), and fairly advanced exposition of economic theory used in policy analysis. Those who need the use of microcomputers described will be unable to cope with most of the rest, while those who can grasp what is being offered in Demand Theory will be bored by almost all the rest. Those who tackle the chapter on simulation models will be frustrated by the lack of the GESSA template file to operationalize the example used.

A major problem with the book as a whole is its failure to engage with the ‘political economy’ of agricultural policy. It takes a naively ‘unilinear’ view of policy analysis (Clay and Schaffer, 1984). It neglects the political (and other) influences on policy in reality, and hence provides little insight into the limitations of treating policy analysis as a primarily technical issue of choosing and correctly applying tools to the problems of agriculture and rural society.

The lack of integration and variability in the level of materials is a pity because there are needs for much of what is offered here. In particular, fairly detailed material on operationa- lizing economic theory for policy analysis would be very valuable. Nevertheless, some of the chapters provide supplementary reading for an integrated and coherent course on agricul- tural policy analysis for 2nd or 3rd year undergraduates, or Masters students, or short courses for graduates in agricultural economics. But at this price it is quite expensive to recommend to students for this purpose. It may be useful to those designing such courses and as a partial refresher to practising agricultural economists.

REFERENCES

Clay, E. J. and B. Schaffer (eds) (1984). Room for Manoeuvre: an Exploration of Public Policy

R. W. PALMER-JONES School of Development Studies

University of Eust Angliu

in Agricultural and Rural Development. Heinemann, London.

CIVIL SERVICE PAY IN AFRICA Derek Robinson International Labour Office, Geneva, 1990,220 pp.

There was a time when the ‘public sector’ was regarded benignly as the driving force for economic development in Africa. Economic crises in the 1980s, particularly in countries south of the Sahara, have contributed to a very different view orchestrated by structural adjustment policies, supported in particular by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Whatever one’s view on structural adjustment, there is no doubt that public administration reforms need to be given serious consideration now in Africa. A major problem confronting

84 Book Reviews

those concerned with such reform efforts is the dearth of relevant data pertaining to these countries. Information on such basic matters, for example, as civil service pay, grading and employment procedures have not been available since publication in 1966 of the United Nations’ Handbook of Civil Service Laws and Practices. Derek Robinson’s excellent, detailed study of these subjects is therefore greatly to be welcomed.

The study provides a compendium of information on pay and employment practices over the period 1975-1985 in the public services of 22 African countries - Algeria, Angola, Benin, Central African Republic, Chad, Ethiopia, Gambia, Guinea, Kenya, Mali, Mauritania, Mor- occo, Niger, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, United Republic of Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Zaire and Zimbabwe. The data were obtained mainly from the results of a questionnaire-survey sent out to all these countries. The problems of uneven coverage, gaps, inaccuracies and so on from such a procedure are candidly acknowledged. Even so, similarities and differences in employment practices in these various countries are clearly brought out as regards numbers employed, grading systems, recruitment and promotion, salary systems and structures, increments, processes of salary determination, allowances, pay comparabilities, pensions and atypical employees. But this is not only a compendium. A number of important findings emerging from the data are also analysed and discussed, e.g. the dramatic fall in wages in most countries, the compression of wage differentials, demoralization of civil servants, and the general ‘lowering of efficiency in the civil service’ (p. 218). The author concludes that coordinated proposals covering all aspects of civil service employment are needed to deal with what is truly a crisis within African states.

DAVID POTTER The Open University

MALE BIAS IN THE DEVELOPMENT PROCESS Diane Elson (ed.) Manchester University Press, Manchester and New York, 1991,215 pp.

The publication of Male Bias in the Development Process is a further sign of the new strength growing in the field of gender and development. After a number of path-breaking studies which brought women into the development agenda, the new paradigm was subjected to the attacks which have themselves become paradigmatic: for excessive duality; assumptions of homogeneity within the dualisms; neglect of the connections between them. This highlighted the need to focus on gender, the social constitution of male and female and the relations between them, rather than simply ‘women’, in and by themselves.

This is the challenge which Male Bias ably takes up. The book has four great strengths. First, the notion of male bias is easy to understand, empirically testable, and in principle can be rectified. It is upfront and risky (it may be disproved) and so a strong focus for analysis and action. Second, the problematic of male bias is clearly pursued through case study chapters. This gives the book an important coherence. Together, the chapters effectively make the case for male bias as a focus; they draw out a number of different ways in which male bias operates; and their collection in a single volume adds weight to each of the chapters taken individually. Third, the case studies demonstrate that gender relations cannot be under- stood in isolation, as they site their analyses within the broader economic, historical, social and policy contexts. Fourth, there is explicit recognition of diversity and flexibility in the outcomes of development policies and the ways that these interact with gender relations.

The case studies draw on experience in Africa, Asia and Latin America, both rural and urban, involving agriculture, trade and industrial employment. They trace male bias in the formulation, outcomes and evaluation of policies. They consider how it figures in population programmes; the small-scale organization of production; and career patterns, They also point out how male bias affects not just what is done, but what is seen to be done, as it features in economic models such as the divide between formal and informal sectors; structural adjust- ment programmes; and assessments of the significance of export-oriented industries. A final chapter considers strategies for combatting male bias. On the whole, the studies concentrate on the business of getting a living rather than on the management of sexuality and raising