issues of public policy and public administration in the commonwealth caribbean || some notes on...

SOME NOTES ON DECISION-MAKING AND CHANGE IN CARIBBEAN ADMINISTRATIVESYSTEMSAuthor(s): Edwin JonesSource: Social and Economic Studies, Vol. 23, No. 2, ISSUES OF PUBLIC POLICY AND PUBLICADMINISTRATION IN THE COMMONWEALTH CARIBBEAN (JUNE 1974), pp. 292-310Published by: Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies, University of the WestIndiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27861508 .

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292

SOME NOTES ON DECISION-MAKING AND CHANGE IN CARIBBEAN ADMINISTRATIVE SYSTEMS 1

By

Edwin Jones

These notes are intended to explicate, mostly in a theoretical way, some

elements of administrative decision-making in the Commonwealth Caribbean. Ref erence will, however, be made in a general way to the decision-making processes in

Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica and Trinidad. The collective thrust of the argument will be that problems of decision-making in the region have their origin in colonial practice, but that their persistence into the post-colonial phase is largely attributable to the deliberate maintenance of means-ends incongruence and reliance on the legal machinery as a problem-solving device. New, effective problem-solving mechanisms, it is suggested, can only emerge within the framework of radical universal ideological systems which pay close attention to correcting certain middle class attitudes and behaviour.

ASPECTS OF CARIBBEAN ADMINISTRATIVE DECISION-MAKING State bureaucracies in the 'developing areas' tend to have a monopoly on some

crucial political functions, namely, those of rule-application or enforcement and 'gate keeper' of the output side of the political system. This is, of course, why their members

normally feel a great need to communicate and interact, in an orderly way, with relevant

segments of the population. Organized publics themselves feel a similar need, and in the interaction process they offer State bureaucracies a potentially important basis of

support for both the expedient and the principled interests of bureaucrats themselves.

Historically, however, these interaction processes in the Commonwealth Carib bean have been characterized by a distinctive style which bears some serious negative implications for administrative decision-making in the post-independence era. In the literature on Public Administration there is no general agreement as to what con stitutes an administrative decision. Broadly speaking there are at least two competing conceptualizations on this subject [Popovic, 8]. One approach defines an adminis trative decision as a separate and authoritative decision taken within the framework of law in an administrative matter, by the State bureaucracy or by an agency which has the constitutional characteristic of an organ of State. The other, perhaps more prag

matic approach, holds that since such decisions do not generally represent the uni lateral exercise of authority by a State agency, but is more frequently arrived at in co-ordination with other participants (e.g., politicians and interest groups), the con

cept must be defined to accommodate this type of co-ordinative activity. It thus admits that four basic tenets combine to make up an administrative decision, viz.,

1. that the decision must have the authority and characteristic of a legal act,



NOTES ON DECISION-MAKING AND CHANGE 293

2. that the decision must relate directly to an administrative matter,

3. that the decision must be mutually arrived at by political, social and adminis trative components in the system, and

4. that the decision must be the last step in the chain of administrative pro cesses.

But administrative decision-making processes are seldom so clear-cut or simple. In

particular, much confusion persists between the administrative and political functions in decision-making processes. Although for the most part the 'administrative sector' is

predominantly oriented toward administrative action, it may also be involved in what are explicitly political and other types of action. Nonetheless, certain generalizations have been made about administrative decision-making as a concrete activity. First, the broader society must recognize decisions made by the administrative organization or decisional unit as authoritative, i.e. normatively binding on themselves. Such decisional units usually have rules which guide choices and which are subject to modifications

[Riggs, 10, p. 228]. Innovative decision-making thus involves deliberate departure from established patterns of action. "When such innovation follows a conscious choice among alternatives," Riggs [10, p. 228] writes, "we speak of a decision". And or

ganized decision-making, he continues, are

processes whereby groups decide to replace culturally prescribed or habitual modes of behaviour with new rules. This involves the conscious adoption of new norms which are

subsequently regarded by members of the organization as authoritative. Such decision

making need not affect all organizational behaviour, but only that part by which a group imposes upon itself new or changed goals, rules and ways of acting.

Secondly, decision-making is said to occur in two broad stages: the choice of norms, values or goals on the one hand, and the action or means required to implement it, on the other. Analytically, therefore, organized State decision-making has a political and administrative function. Choice among competing values in the process of selecting a goal constitutes the 'political' aspect of decision-making; and the innovation of means for the purpose of implementing the goals decided upon represents the 'administrative'

aspect. In the popular mind, of course, these co-operative actions are not always viewed separately, but decisions are likely to have both these aspects although one dimension may clearly loom larger than the other. Thus Riggs [10, p. 228] writes ?

If a decision is viewed contextually, in terms of the responsibilities it is designed to fulfil, it is understood administratively. But if the same decision is viewed intrinsically, in terms of the value choices it entails, it is conceived of politically. In assuming that all decisions are

partially administrative, I suggest that the decision context always includes some prescribed norms which are given as parameters by the deciders. But even the most rigidly circum scribed decision involves some choice among competing values which, from the standpoint of the actors, inhere in alternatives all of which fulfil equally well the contextually defined

goals.

In so far, therefore, as any decision is oriented toward the implementation of a

contextually prescribed goal, it involves an exercise of "accountability." In so far as it is oriented toward value choices, it involves an exercise of "power". The administrative aspect of decision, then, involves accountability toward prescribed norms; the political aspect arises from a power struggle within the decision unit.



294 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC STUDIES

Whether or not this model of decision-making is applied to the colonial or

ex-colonial context it is likely to create some potential or real difficulties for political systems modelled on Westminster. Decision-making power is a key political resource in

any system ? and especially perhaps in competitive party systems there is likely to be

competition among executive-legislative-administrative-private groups for this resource. The capture or control of decision-making power in this context is likely therefore to

predispose its possessor(s) to use it for the defence of expedient interests. The fact that group competition is never equal points to the great difficulties that certain

groups, particularly the unorganized and inarticulate, would experience in penetrating, controlling or making such structures accountable.

There is, secondly, the general problem associated with the relationship between decisional units and the broader cemmunity. This means in effect that because there are (formal and informal) rules of access to decisional units, differences concerning the distribution of access are bound to arise even if the situation is superficially com

petitive. Precisely when, how and on what criteria these allocations are to be dis tributed constitute the problematical bases to the society at large.

A third area of problems is inherent in the fact that in conditions of scarcity, decision-making relationships become necessarily instrumental in character. Con

ceptions regarding these relationships, or rather the equity of these relationships, will

diverge. In so far as they diverge or are conceived as unequal the relatively deprived interacting social forces are likely to withhold support from or seriously question decisional structures or the whole 'system'.

These potential problems seriously challenge the organizational capacity of

political and administrative leaders; and the stability of these social systems will largely depend upon the extent to which these problems can be perceived, avoided or solved.

Some, or all of these difficulties were actually overlooked, ignored or repressed during the stabilized colonial period in the now independent territories of the Commonwealth Caribbean because norms of public accountability and responsibility were con

spicuously lacking. Bureaucratization was, in fact, the predominant response to these

problems. One aspect of that response was the deliberate establishment of special clientelic relationships between the state bureaucracy and the socio-economic elites ?

particularly the plantocracy and commercial interests. A high degree of self consciousness and a measure of relative cohesion combined with growing isolation from the broad masses of the society, resulted from this network and helps to explain why public policy tended to move consistently in the direction of these dominant groups. By extension, these factors also help to explain why it was extremelydifficult for less favoured mass publics to modify the traditional patterns of access and influence

[Jones, 6].

Thus, this essentially bureaucratic process of building 'structured access' made the state decisional machinery basically hermetic and largely non-bargaining with the lower worker-peasant stratum. What is to be inferred from all this is that the leadership cadre throughout the region, then and now, came largely to be defined by its occupa tion of state and party bureaucratic positions and its command over economic wealth.




This leadership cadre is also relatively privileged and increasingly conscious of itself as a group (even if it remains somewhat permeable by Outsiders'). To this group is

assigned, at least in theory, significant responsibilities for the overall development of the society. And such relationships point to the conclusion that the entire machinery of government is likely to exist in order to harmonize and conciliate existing dominant interests and where possible, to extrude other interests.

Another of the bureaucratic responses, calculated to harmonize interests within decisional structures, was that of official sponsorship of interest groups, as was the case regarding all the national agricultural societies in Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica [Jones, 6]. But the motives behind the practice were many-sided. Govern mental desire to put a brake on mass demands was one such motive. This related also to the notion of legitimacy of the regime. For uncontrolled or excessive mass demands on the political and administrative structures, were likely to challenge colonial policy of selective re-distribution of goods and services to the society. To forestall the

possibility of conflict and its potential for eroding governmental legitimacy, the

principle of group-colonization via bureaucratic sponsorship was regularly invoked. Another motive resided in the need of the Imperial power and the local politico administrative class to discourage free-floating associational groups which might attract 'Communists' to their leadership; and a third motive behind this principle resided in the Imperial philosophy of 'preparation for self government'. The philosophy resented any but 'non-political' associational groups and this associational and ideological form would be best achieved under official guidance and supervision of social forces! Limited clientelism and official sponsorship of interest groups combined to make administrative decision-making informal, ad hoc and private. These features, in turn, opened up the decisional machinery to considerable external involvement, especially by economic groups who had local interests.

Focus on a number of governmental decisions relating to the rural sector, for

example, implies that differential allocation of goods and services ? prestige and

power, access and information ? severely disadvantaged rural peoples. Such policy decisions, land legislation in particular, were designed to maintain neo-feudal relations and to pre-empt any possible politico-administrative role which the rural sector might wish to play. Even where peasant co-operatives were encouraged, the underlying aim of strategy was certainly not to arrest the process of class-formation or the alienation of the rural sector, but rather to secure greater official control over rural social forces

through bureaucratic organization [Beckford, 1A]. This tilting of resources ? includ

ing decision-making power ? towards an increasingly consumption-oriented managerial

class has continued into the post-independence period and has made for the gross discrepancy between the amounts sent abroad for importing high-priced consumer durables as against the foreign exchange used to purchase productive inputs.

Given also a bureaucratic class ill-prepared to exemplify equality or to build a

developmentally relevant mobilizational system which would elicit constructive collective effort and voluntary self-denial, several premises of decision-making need to be drastically revised if peaceful transformations are to take place. Radical re-orien tation of the process of class formation, alterations of the premises of technocrats'




education and liberating of the levers of decision-making from the control of con

servative elements are urgent systemic requirements.

Re-definition of the premises of the education of technocrats by placing them

structurally closer to the masses of society, for example, might make public policy more responsive in the sense of more accurately reflecting mass aspirations, values and needs. But this process needs to be conducted within the framework of a broader universal mobilizational system. It is particularly important to emphasize that since

political independence none of the independent Commonwealth Caribbean States,

apart perhaps from Guyana, has changed the premises of the educational system. Bureaucratic reorganization within the various Ministries of Education and in creased budgetary allocations to education have been embarked upon. But there has been no attempt at modifying the basic ethos of the inherited educational

systems themselves. The national bourgeoisie in these States seem more eager to assert their role as the new elite, but are unwilling or unable to change the status

quo. One of the most unhappy symptoms of this unchanged educational and social structure is the continued colonization of the decision-making apparatus by social and economic notables.

Rules of access to the decisional centre after independence have, similarly, changed little. In Jamaica the technique initiated by the new Manley government (since 1972) of inviting to a 'National Suggestion Box', ideas and comments for

improving the responsiveness of the governmental machinery is largely symbolic in intent and manipulative in practice. A largely illiterate and increasingly alienated

polity is unlikely to make use of techniques of demand-presentation requiring written memoranda and it merely substitutes for closer leader-mass contact. This technique also strengthens the prestige of incumbent leaders vis-a-vis those who seek to challenge the existing authority structure, and increases the capacity of these leaders to maintain the status quo. The technique is, of course, manipulative because it supplies the facade of genuine participation while permitting the evasion of substantive issues.

Because of the political situation there since the beginning of this decade ? the absence of a parliamentary opposition

? Trinidad has approached the problem of access mainly through a system of 'national consultation'. By this process government ministers and senior bureaucrats meet with and canvass the opinions of, invite demand from and make allocations to a wider clientele. Self-evidently, the opportunities here for mass manipulation are very great; for in Trinidad there is, intermittently at any rate, greater structural closeness of leaders and masses and the idea is more likely to be

conveyed that there exists 'government of the people' (Interview Response: Permanent

Secretary, Trinidad, June 1973).

Guyana's post-independence approach to the problem of restructuring access and liberating the decisional machinery from the control of traditional notables is

perhaps less cynical in intent and practice. The major explanatory factor for this is that a yet underdeveloped mobilizing philosophy of 'cooperative' activity is likely to

discipline and liberalize participation and may therefore go much further in educating the polity as to what the system can bear and what the normal constraints on national

decision-making really are.




Yet, there is throughout the larger independent English-speaking territories in

the region, a 'strong tendency' to over-represent major economic groups, traditional

notables and technocrats in the formal decision-making agencies. This strong tendency has elicited the complaint among forty out of fifty-six bureaucrats interviewed, that

'committee imperialism' or 'government by committee' has been substituted for mass

and to a certain degree bureaucratic participation in decision-making. Elsewhere

[Jones, 6], we have argued with a great deal of supportive, non-interview data that the

vast expansion in the number of statutory boards in Jamaica, Trinidad and Barbados

since independence had little conscious connection with the principle of securing

greater administrative specificity, efficiency or responsiveness. Less so were they con

cerned with widening autonomous mass participation or with securing structural

changes. Rather, the circumstances surrounding the establishment of these agencies and the nature of their memberships directly related to official desire to create greater

opportunities for the defence of vested interests and for cementing elite consensus.

The broader and obvious implication of this style of structuring access is that it has

maintained the traditional trajectory of public policy ? its movement in an anti

egalitarian, anti-working class direction.

By deliberately mamtaining the inherited colonial social structure (and hence the

pattern of decision-making) it is obvious that the use of the strategies mentioned above

had wider politico-administrative and expedient purposes ? all reflecting the move

ment toward a conserving ideology. One of these appears to be aimed at controlling mass demands upon the politico-administrative machinery in a condition of induced

material scarcity.2 Another is, surely, that of widening party political control over

free-floating community support as a political resource; and a third purpose is to make

such techniques substitute for wider mass mobilization.

Apart from the difficulties or unwillingness to institutionalize new modes of

access to the decisional centre, problems associated with official attitudes towards

policy-data and information-flows also emerge. It is a commonplace that inadequate data and inefficient information-flows create difficulties for effective problem-analysis and decision-making. In the Commonwealth Caribbean all but the most trivial pieces of information are privatized, classified by artificial rules of bureaucratic secrecy.

Moreover, several senior bureaucrats complained about the 'inadequacy' and

'common-place' nature of the information supplied them by governmental research

units and administrative field officials. An index of this overall inadequacy might be

implied both by the limited flow of information to the public (which they presumably

already have) and by excessive reliance on Old reports' to inform current policy. Thus, for instance, certain agricultural reports of the 1940s still inform agricultural policy in

Jamaica today.3 It is particularly significant as well that a substantial amount of the

information which informs administrative decisions typically comes from sources

often ideologically hostile to structural changes. Such sources include the international

agencies whose functionaries are rarely experts on local conditions and needs, and who

more often than not are inflexibly committed to institutional forms and patterns of

economic organization and practices found in the Western pluralistic democracies.

Private sector associational groups such as the various Manufacturers Associations, are




another source and because they typically have a vested interest in the extant social

system the information they supply is likely to be selective and biased toward self interested motives.

Competitive party politics has been inherently obstructive to the type of

decision-making that would lead to serious transformation in these systems. Rather, it

has made for the persistence of administrative decisions which effectively fragment community support for broad official programmes, while simultaneously de-emphasiz ing macro-level structural modifications. Everywhere considerations relating directly and indirectly to 'political competitiveness" and the 'dominance' of the 'private economic interests' have led to the 'reversal of previously announced policies', and made for the distribution of goods and services in a manner which breached principles of administrative equity and economy efficiency. In addition, the administrative

machinery has been forced to 'participate' in schemes which made concessions on

what appear to be 'purely ethnic considerations.' (Summary of Interviews, June 1973). What is being suggested is not simply that administrative distributive policies will

normally move in favour of special clients, but rather that competitive policies push up the social costs of that style once it becomes institutionalized. Thus, for instance, selective distribution of goods and services along the line of known political support or on ethnic premises, severely limits the possibility for securing concerted community support for broader schemes of change. Furthermore, on another level, pre-occupation with micro-level decision-making

? the kind often necessary for selective as opposed to general distributive exercises ? does tend to destroy social and economic develop

ment as well as remove the need for bolder policy-making affecting the whole system. As George Beckford's [1] analysis implies, by ignoring macro-level administrative

decision-making which would bear implications for the total societal configurations, dependent economies merely prolong persistent poverty

? the product partly of

sectoral, ad hoc, tinkering.

As the areas of planned administrative activities expand, as they are said to do when popular expectations of independence are high, decision-makers typically face the problem of having to use limited instruments to deal with a wider range of

conflicting or potentially conflicting choices. As the 'expectant' constituencies become

larger and push a greater number of more varied demands, new types of administrative skills and institutions are often required to confront these problems. Compounding those problems is the difficulty of planning to cope effectively with the changed and

changing relations, the consequence of the 'expectant' attitudes to the bureaucracy's allocations or services. The need for changing the premises of public policy allocations is difficult for any institutionalized system, especially for competitive systems which need to select from among groups with various resources without alienating critical ones. The concrete reflection of these theoretical difficulties takes two forms in the societies we are discussing. One of these forms is intensified departmental struggle over allocations (Interview Response, June 1973); the other, greater reliance on tech nocratic d?finition and analysis of administrative policy alternatives.

Tendencies towards departmental struggle over decision-making or allocation functions definitely relate to the competitive political milieu in which popular




demands far outstrip the capacity of the system as it is currently organized, to fulfil. A

species of this problem is a consequence as well of narrow boundaries between depart ments. Likewise, when a Minister of government has a 'particular interest' in a subject not normally in any of his ministerial departments, such a struggle tends to emerge. Thus we find in Barbados that the subject 'civil aviation' for precisely the reason

mentioned above, falls within the Ministry of Finance and not, as one would normally expect, in the Ministry of Communications. There is, therefore, as we shall see, a sense in which this particular problem helps to frustrate cohesive administrative decision

making which in turn eliminates some of the dynamic in the policy-determining struc tures that might have conduced to change.

In particular, technocratic domination of policy alternatives constitutes another

input of resistance to modification of existing configurations by politico-adminis trative action. This dependence is particularly heavy when there is need for decisions

relating to modes of national economic management. Specifically, technocrats are

supreme in the national planning exercises as well as in research. This dependence and the 'style' which it generates lead us to recognize the power potential for policy sabotage. For the utilization of administrative consultation is one way of entrenching the status quo. In these systems, technocrats, government and opposition alike, are

parts of the 'establishment' and the decisional 'style' we have been discussing is one of several ways of securing elite convergence and of cementing their consensus against changes which would modify the establishment.

Overall, therefore, our argument is tending toward the central proposition that the presence within decision-making structures of inordinately strong capitalistic interests on the one hand, and the weakness of mechanisms which would make the administrative machinery responsive to change on the other, are the key variables which explain problems of reformist administrative decision-making. Precisely because the international and local capitalist forces appear to be inordinately strong in the

region [Girvan and Jefferson, 5] the bureaucrats concerned with economic decision

making cannot ignore these forces and act autonomously. Anti-business attitudes or decisions are likely to antagonize the capitalists and the political class who are

sponsored by the former. What is being implied is that in all of these systems there are

countervailing loci of decision-making both externally and internally situated and that their 'political resources' make them into virtual veto groups. The reversal of public policies previously announced (e.g. 'the Bank over-draft issue in Jamaica in 1974') and the 'permanent' shelving of official reports of enquiry into several areas of public policy indicate the power of the 'informal', i.e. non-politico-administrative decisional

machinery in these States.

Of course, the persistence of these decision-making relationships has helped to institutionalize a misfit between means (various resources) and ends (collective goals), thus making it difficult to realize even those limited goals posited by the political class.

Reinforcing this condition is the lack of revolutionary intellectuals within the adminis trative structures [Robertson, 11], suggesting a limitation on the administrative

machinery to transform generally the nature of the elite from within. To these con siderations must be added the rather general point that most processes of adminis




trative decision-making make for the condition in which the interests of the decision

maker and his client tend naturally to conflict or diverge. Especially in long-established decisional structures their leaders tend to see almost every issue 'as something which is

wholly familiar' completely 'precedented' and therefore to be viewed as falling into a

fixed, unchanging set of rules. There is, therefore, a strong inclination to apply a

standard set of solutions or choices to particular 'problems', even though each might have unique features [Schaffer 12, p. 193]. These theoretical and practical difficulties are likely to have severely constricting effects upon processes of initiating planned changes; and even where the initial step of problem-definition is accomplished, follow

up processes of problem operationalization and problem-solution are bound to be frustrated by these conditions.

Thus, in the larger Commonwealth Caribbean States there is evidence to suggest, overtly and by implication, that it is the un-coordinated use of all the available

problem-solving devices which constitutes major problems for broadly-based decision

making. As we have argued, much of the information which informs public-policy decision-making is, for example, very selective in the sense that it ignores popular inputs

? demands, aspirations and values. Competition among group forces for access

to the policy-making machinery is also unequal and apparently institutionalized, access

being based essentially on indices of class, colour, economic status and command over 'technocratic' skills. Furthermore, several decision-making agencies have not pene trated the society, and, are instead, aloof, and hermetic to the broader social system.

Moreover, the re-education of technocratic decision-makers has not broadened or

deepened to the point where the cultural and physical gap between them and the masses

would be reduced. On all of these fronts there has been the institutionalization of

premises, institutional practices and attitudes which can only result in narrow based

public policies directly benefitting the already privileged sectors and perhaps affecting the broad masses only via the 'spill-over' effect.

It should be self-evident that the major purpose behind identifying problems associated with decision-making is to sharpen the problem-solving instruments of these administrative systems. The question therefore is what sort of suggestion can be given to make'decision-making more instrumental in the context of development. Obviously, administrative decision-making as a problem-solving device requires a degree of

co-ordination, the aim of which is to see that major purposes do not conflict. Lack of co-ordination within the administrative sector is here viewed as a major problem. But the way in which policy-relevant information is handled is crucially related to the idea of proper co-ordination. Such a notion requires "a sensitive, easy and rapid two-way movement of policy data and political data" [Schaffer, 12], between different depart ments and agencies. No less it requires that the information which informs public policy be drawn from the widest possible sources and that its interpretation is not left

entirely to a single class. Furthermore, some agreement on data measurement and

interpretation is also essential to broadly based decision-making.

Thus, what is needed is some regularized mechanism for system-wide data

collection, data storage and data retrieval. A mechanism for centralized control and a sense of 'timing' are requisites for this functional co-ordination. Of course, develop




mentally relevant problem-solving or decision-making is that form which organizes and best sustains wide public support; and such support is more likely when the wider

society has participated in the selection of choices. A more responsive relationship between decision-making and the community is thus the crucial factor and this might be secured once purposive action is taken not merely to change the premises of the administrator's education, but also to change the entire social structure and existing patterns of relationship.

To change the premises of the administrative technocrat's education would, for

example, require a formula to reverse completely the orientation identified in The Trinidad Five Year Plan 1969-73:

Many persons in managerial positions still have to learn that their job consists essentially of

decision-making. The shadows of dealing with files and writing long minutes is often mis

taken for the substance ... In far too many ministries and Statutory boards the deplorable

practice of writing unnecessary inter and even intra office minutes is made to substitute for

the arrival of quick decisions on the basis of a telephone call or a face-to-face meeting ....

[p. 146].

Here, as elsewhere in the English-speaking Caribbean, the critical problem is

personal insecurity of incumbents within decisional structures. The consequence of this insecurity has manifested itself in tendencies toward the substitution of

personal needs over organizational ones and this has been observed in the failure to delegate. Accumulation of paper to prove compliance, and fear of innovation are also consequences of that insecurity. The distinctive need therefore is to remove the bases of insecurity which as we have seen, mainly have their sources

in the mode of competition for political power as well as in elite socializing experiences.

What is undoubtedly needed, secondly, is a new style of decision-making, but within the framework of different administrative structures. For the particular style of

decision-making will usually be affected by organizational structures. And depending on the particular organizational mix, the decision-making style might be either broadly 'innovative' or largely adaptive. "Where there is a high degree of uncertainty in the

relation between the goal of a programme and the technology available", Schaffer

[12] writes, "the structure employed ought to be innovatory". But we have already

argued that decision-making processes in the Commonwealth Caribbean have been non-innovative and for reasons of the absence of mobilizational politics which weaken

political structures as well as bases of popular support. Middle-class dominated decisional units which are used for self-aggrandizement and the institutionalization of hermetic political structures are also some other inputs making for non-innovative

policy making style.

More adaptive or community decision-making appears, on the evidence of ex

perience in Tanzania under President Nyerere's leadership, to be a style which has enormous potential for changing structures and societal attitudes, mobilizing the creative energies of the society and for promoting the kinds of structural changes desired by the masses. But the Tanz?ni?n experience also suggests that prior changes in




social structure and economic arrangements are pre-conditions for this style of

decision-making.

The over-all thrust of our prescriptions, then, points to the need for the

conscious fashioning of a developmentally relevant ideological system in each of these

systems. Such a system seems historically necessary for the region since patterns of

mal-distribution of existing resources and various forms of dysfunctional institution alization (See Jones, "Administrative Institution Building" p. 264 in this volume) point to the importance of a universal organizing and problem-solving principle.

A prime task of a developmentally relevant ideological system would be to

describe and analyse the present situation in terms of the needs of the wider

community and devise strategies for dealing with these conditions. In addition to its tasks of re-socialization, mobilization and re-distribution aimed at a collective good, it would discipline widespread support and participation as well as demand and con

sumption.

Self-evidently these prescriptions are not all-embracing and, indeed, harbour a

variety of difficulties; but they do call attention to traditional problem-handling strategies

? mainly the use of law, which did not facilitate any means-ends congruence

nor discipline consumption, support or participation. In order to focus on that problem we need to make explicit some salient features of Caribbean administrative decision

making.

ELEMENTS OF CARIBBEAN ADMINISTRATIVE DECISION-MAKING

Though current knowledge of the dynamics of Caribbean administrative

decision-making leaves much to insight and speculation, a few general features implied by the discussion so far might be usefully explicated. We already know from Mills' [7] analysis that:

The conditioning of older generations in a cultural situation of non participative decision

making beginning with the parent-child relationship and running through relations between

teacher and pupil and employer or manager and lower level employees, finds expression in a

variety of political and administrative situations. It is illustrated in excessive centraliza

tion .As a consequence a premium is placed on over-cautiousness, attributes of

creativity, innovativeness and dynamism.are stultified and experience in decision

making restricted to a few.... (and) senior positions of authority are monopolized by older groups whose conditioning runs deep.

Similarly, we have alluded to the tendency for administrative decision-making to be controlled and manipulated by the dominant economic interests operating within and without these societies. Such a pattern has been facilitated by the institutionaliza tion of a certain decision-making style and reinforced both by conditions generated by competitive politics and weak systems of communication between administrators and the broad masses of these societies. Public ignorance of decisional processes also con tributes to the persistence of this pattern.

Several of the top bureaucrats interviewed in Jamaica, Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago in June 1973 were aware of the 'extremely segmented' nature of decision




making processes in these systems. By this they meant that public policy choices were

intermittently dominated by private economic interests formally through their

memberships in governmental agencies and informally through the 'exertion of private group pressures'. Another component of the segmented policy deciding structure is the

political class itself, and the final elements in the triad are top level and some middle

range bureaucrats whose policy initiatives come through consultation and advice, but not on a continuous basis. Because each of these segments is activated in accordance with the nature of the choice to be made, the locus of effective decision-making tends to shift rather violently. These shifts in turn tend to confuse or to frustrate processes of efficient interest articulation and aggregation

? evidenced in part by the fact that "too many groups do not know that we (bureaucrats) take very few decisions"

(Interview Response, June 1973). Because decision-making functions are segmented in this way there is very rarely

a 'full sharing' of information among the different policy-making centres. Of course, this style exposes the fact that there is little institutionalization in terms of 'stages' of

decision-making. The result is a high degree of informality making for ad hoc alloca tions. This condition helps us to understand more fully why decision-making processes are often left vague, facilitating the formal and informal involvement of the economic elites in government and also in order to promote non-planned public works activities which are legitimizing props for competing political parties.

It is a natural consequence of the presence of segmented decisional structures, the prevalence of informality in selection of alternatives and the emphasis on

expedient policy making, that these systems have come to express the need constantly to avoid taking decisions in several spheres as a desirable political response. Dozens of

official reports, for instance, have identified several systemic problems and have

suggested solutions, but these have been shelved by succeeding regimes and never

referred to the administrative machinery. Thus, this particular tactic has been utilized to kill issues, engineer delays and to institutionalize the 'buck-passing' principle.

From these notes on the nature, scope and style of administrative decision

making in these English speaking Caribbean States flow four broad implications ? all

relating to the notion of change. First, tendencies toward 'prime ministerial' domina tion of administrative decision-making at levels relating to welfare distribution and

personnel recruitment are, in a sense, indicative of the persistence of the colonial

centralizing ideology ? which was used in the direction of personalizing power rather

than for mobilizing community resources. Most of the interview responses confirm that the persistence of this tendency has helped to stifle junior executive initiative and

also explains patterns of bureaucratic self-protection throughout the hierarchy. The

idea can also be explained theoretically. Operating within the framework of this type of centralization, subordinates are not really in a good position to assess that aspects of administration are of special interest to their executive superiors. Superiors are

themselves not in a structural position nor are they inclined to spell out matters in

great detail to lower level functionaries as this would interfere with the centralizing

principle. In this way subordinates supply information which they think is necessary




and, of course, such information is normally self-serving. Such behaviour is not likely to challenge existing social relations whether in the administrative sector or in the

wider society. Furthermore, this style of decision-making also exemplifies an approach to social change, the initiative towards which would be entirely dependent on the dominant vested interests. Out of this arrangement has come only incrementalist

approaches or strategies toward change. Pressures within the bureaucracy for alterna

tive strategies are weak largely because bureaucrats themselves rely on the perpetua tion of the existing system for their promotion up the hierarchy.

This situation has negative implications for interest group activity as well.

Arising out of this relative imbalance in control over the decisional machinery is the situation where those groups with greater political resources are likely to exclude the less favoured groups or merely manipulate them. What emerges, then, is the hypothesis that executive involvement in lower-level decision-making reinforces administrative

centralizing tendencies, opens up the policy machinery to domination by the tradi tional elites, and limits the autonomy of certain interest groups.

Segmented administrative decision-making bears a second set of implications for social change and administrative efficiency. Obviously this pattern has made for

difficulty in identifying the real locus of decision-making power at any particular time. When there is this confusion there tends to be an inundation of the Prime Minister's office. Long delays in selecting policies are a natural consequence and these features in turn conduce to group alienation and the existence of hermetic poHcy-machinery. Again, this pattern of decision-making reduces the number of countervailing forces which might protect the bureaucrat and community interest. In consequence adminis trative morale, often dependent on patronage politics, tends to become low and in crementalist strategies predominate.

Altogether the factors we have been discussing tend to obscure the importance of the distinction between issues of policy (purposive, new political activities) and issues of administration (general routine activities of the state bureaucracy). Where this distinction remains obscure certain politico-economic issues (such as alternative

strategies of economic development) are unlikely to reach the national platform in a

clear form, and the mistaken belief that government and economic interests are

separate is likely to persist. The simple, but, nonetheless, significant hypothesis which

emerges is that in systems where the actual or potential change-inducing instruments are under the control of a narrow, cohesive ruling circle (in this case the plantocratic industrial-commercial triad) these instruments will be largely manipulated in favour of

maintaining the status quo. Attempts at structural changes will, under these

conditions, have to be conducted through non-institutionalized channels.

Finally, the prevalence of decision-making by inaction points to the fact that, in

large measure, governmental legitimacy derives from public ignorance. The pattern of elite-mass relations which is inherent in this syndrome is further reinforced by patterns of client-patron relations and by emphasis on manipulative politics by the political class. Together these techniques not only supply the illusion of movement, but also inform the hypothesis that far from helping to institutionalize innovative processes,




decision-making by inaction in dependent political systems becomes a conscious bureaucratic device to maintain the status quo. These considerations make it easier to

understand, if even in a theoretical way, the past and present relationships among law,

change and decision-making in these systems.

LAW, CHANGE AND DECISION-MAKING A concern for the centrality of law has dominated the history of western

thought about nation-building and politico-administrative development. It is a per sistent belief that the essential pre-requisite for transforming 'developing' societies into

modern States was the estabHshment of codified legal systems. Gradually, however, it became clear to public administrators and policy scientists that in order to change 'backward' societies inte developed States more than just a legal system was needed. If

orderly social intercourse together with the beneficial effects of law were to be achieved it would be necessary to supplement legal systems with more dynamic administration, referred to in contemporary literature as 'development administration'.

Thus, political and administrative theories came to be conceived of largely in terms of these two pre-requisites

? law and administration. The extent to which western scholars clung to this conception is evidenced, for example, by the over-riding importance given by Americart foreign aid agencies to the development of adminis trative effectiveness and the establishment of western legal norms in the new States

[Binder, Almond et al., 2]. For scholars and aid agencies alike, a rational, hierarchical,

disciplined, expert and professional administrative/legal structure (imperfectly found in the West) was regarded as the most efficient and effective means of implementing social, economic and pohtico-administrative development in the new States. Elsewhere

we have suggested, indeed demonstrated that administrative and political innovators in the Caribbean area may find such systems too rigid and therefore a formidable obstacle to efficiency and change [Jones, 6A].

A basic relationship between law and decision-making has been that the former will bring effective behaviour into conformity with the formal norm; that law will consolidate institutional procedures thereby stabilizing the environment so that

developmental change can be broadly planned. Pye [9] has shown, however, that in the developing 'world' of Africa and Asia the introduction of codified legal concepts to ensure greater stability, order and problem-handling capacity that would facilitate

development, had precisely the opposite effects. In the one milieu, extremely stable

communities, relationships and decisional mechanisms quickly broke down. In the

other, after certain "land laws were introduced, real estate began to change hands in the most erratic and chaotic fashion" so that planned development was hindered rather than promoted. It would seem, therefore, that law makers must take full account not only of elements of particular political cultures, but also the idiosyn cracies of particular decisional units if there is to be any developmental congruence between law and effective behaviour.

Many lawyers and administrators assume a close fit between 'law' and develop mental 'change' but Caribbean experience appears to deny this assumption. Dunn [3]




has elaborated certain propositions concerning law-development relationships in the Caribbean which support the view that legal instruments have largely been used by the

political class to protect the status quo and justify and rationalize administrative behaviour. As such, law has not really induced structural change in the region. Rather, it has almost always exercised a conservative restraint on structural change

? since it has been manipulated mainly to secure acceptance of prevailing institutions and

patterns of power distribution. This willingness to posit a close relationship between law and effective decision-making stems, in part, from the tendency to assume that law is the 'best' and Only' instrument to initiate change. But this view appears to ignore the change-inducing potential of institutional adaptability, individual innovation and symbolic gestures. To illustrate briefly: when President Nyerere of Tanzania decided to extend his political strategy of mass mobilization and also to take a salary cut, this symbolic gesture needed no legal sanction to induce changed behaviour among his Cabinet colleagues, bureaucrats and many in the private sector. Significant changes in society can and do take place independently of codified laws. But apart from law which has been used in a conservative direction, very few other change-inducing in struments have been used in the Caribbean.

A more obvious and persistent relationship among law, development and

decision-making inheres in the stress law places on stability as a precondition for effective decision-making and development. This relationship is not free from con fusion. Obviously, stability can assist in making development possible. But stability is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for development. Where absolute stability is regarded as a pre-condition for development, the society concerned is likely to

pre-occupy itself with eliminating or repressing even those 'moderate tensions' which

typically generate change. The dialectic of this argument about stability would, there fore, seem to lead to actions which would check forces of change, and neither stability nor development might be possible. Moreover, should it become necessary to destroy existing socio-economic and political configurations, logic would require that such actions be rejected on the ground that they would undermine stability. This line of argument also suggests the conservative nature of the law-development nexus.

Only when law begins to operate within the framework of a radical ideological system might it succeed in securing large scale structural transformations. Students of law and development must therefore show a prior concern for the building of aggress ive ideological systems before the change-inducing potential of law can become fully activated or realized. Excessive reliance on formal-legal norms is responsible too, for the maintenance of means-ends incongruence which has also created other obstacles to structural change.

Decision-making ? which refers to the process by which actors choose among

ends and means - is a salient feature of development politics. And it is suggested that means-ends incongruence in the Commonwealth Caribbean is largely the result of a situation in which the local political class defines (limited) ends, but the means towards achieving these ends are controlled and determined by powerful economic interest groups operating within and without these societies.




Means-ends relationships are problem-solving devices. When there is no con

gruence between ends and means then there is a problem; conversely, when there is a

good fit between the two, things might at least go predictably. Normally, the decision to develop requires some means-ends congruence as well as the deliberate introduction of some 'change agent' (e.g. a mobilization system). The critical point is, however, that there must be a strong mutual independence between political culture and the in

struments which are selected to solve problems or aid development. Because there is this transactional relationship between culture or the historical totality of society and the change agents, it becomes immediately questionable whether the tenets of the

Western bureaucracy can be regarded as key instruments for securing desired transfor mations in these societies [Jones 6]. Similarly, elite commitment to capitalist forms of economic and social organization is subject to even more telling objections. For

capitalism in its Caribbean form is an exact antithesis of what are the requirements of these systems, namely, the radical re-distribution of goods and services in favour of the broad masses and the relaxation of the dependency economic relationships. What is

being suggested is the need for political leadership to engage in social experimentation with alternative strategies and institutions so that the more workable of these can be institutionalized.

It is clear that an ideological system which aims at broadening the autonomous

planning function of the State, institutionalizes wider distributive policies, places on

the agenda the destruction of the present forms of collaboration between external economic forces (including multinational corporations and international finance

agencies) and the political class, would face many difficulties. An investigation into these 'difficulties' would be interesting in so far as it might inform alternative

strategies for change. From the perspective of these notes, however, it is the paradox involved in the immediate adoption of such an ideological system which must be noted. These Caribbean systems, like most post-colonial societies, are notoriously dependent on middle-class ideas, initiative and skills [Fanon, 4]. It might become

necessary in the initial stages of ideology-building to tilt redistribution of income in favour of the middle class till general re-socialization takes place. Without this con

cession the difficulties inherent in asking the middle class to help destroy itself might indeed be insuperable and the process too uncertain. Only after general re-socialization has taken place, are the difficulties of reducing class differences and even phasing out

classes, likely to be considerably reduced.

Knowledge and ideology, then, will invariably become key variables in the

means-ends-development matrix. Knowledge about the society is obviously necessary in order to facilitate the organization of congruence between means and ends. The 'task environment' and the choice of a developmentally relevant ideological system are

the important instruments that will inform the nature of law that is to guide develop ment.

Back again we come to the initial proposition that in the Caribbean the gap between the rhetorical ends posited by the political class [cf Stone 13] and their

unwillingness to use the political and administrative instruments available to them to




mobilise various resources (means), make for an incongruence which is the basis of the

region's underdevelopment.

CONCLUSION

What these notes suggest is that problems and peculiarities of Caribbean ad

ministrative decision-making processes derive largely from existing economic and

political arrangements which facilitate domination of the decisional machinery by economic interests. Their decision-making power has been institutionalized informally overtime and political expediency induced by competitive politics, reinforces their dominance. They have therefore used this decision-making power in a conservative direction to maintain the status quo. Thus, economic dependence on foreign and local

capitalists virtually forces governments in the region to adopt middle-of-the-road

policies or incrementalist strategies, compromising between the interests of the national bourgeoisie and the administrative bureaucracy on the one hand and inter national capitalists on the other. The result has been that more radical policies articulated from outside these formal structures have fallen into the background. The aim of current administrative decision-making, therefore, is not to direct or

control, but to harmonize existing elite interests and make the environment stable for these interests.

Secondly, these notes have suggested that reliance on law as an instrument for

inducing changed behaviour which is functional to 'development' is more likely to

generate negative effects if it does not take fully into account the political culture and mass needs or the idiosyncracies of the major decisional units. Effective 'development' strategies will depend not so much on the use of legal instruments as upon an accurate

appraisal of systemic conditions and upon means-ends continuum which are congruent or contextually relevant.

Finally, this essay implied, albeit in a preliminary way, that in the absence of the development and use of a non-evolutionary ideological system, non-institu tionalized force to restructure social relations might well be the single most important

politico-administrative instrument for inducing structural changes in these societies and for liberating the levers of decision-making from the private, economic groups.




FOOTNOTES

1This study is partly based on a series of open-ended interviews conducted among 56 senior

bureaucrats and ministers of government in the larger Commonwealth Caribbean States -

May-June, 1973.

2It is submitted that elite policies of industrialization by invitation and their unwillingness to devise and effect policies of economic nationalism have both ceded control over the local

resource base to foreign private investors, particularly the multinational corporations - hence

'induced' resource insufficiency.

This point has been extensively developed by Carl Stone in a preliminary report based on

his study of "Agricultural Policy in Jamaica". Also cf. Stone's contribution to this volume p. 145.

REFERENCES

[1 ] BECKFORD, George, Persistent Poverty, Oxford University Press, 1972.

[ A] -, Plantations, Peasants and Proletariat in the West indies, Mimeo,

May 1973, University of the West Indies.

[2] BINDER, L., ALMOND, G. et al, Crisis and Sequences in Political Develop ment, Princeton, 1971.

[3] DUNN, W.N., "Law and Political Development in New States: Review and

Commentary", in Social and Economic Studies, Vol. 20, No. 1, 1971.

[4] FANON, Frantz, The Wretched of the Earth, Penguin Books, 1967.

[5] GIRVAN, . and JEFFERSON, O. (eds.) Readings in the Political Economy of the Caribbean, New World Group Ltd., Kingston, 1971.

[6] JONES, Edwin, The Role of Statutory Boards in the Political Process of Jamaica 1955-1965, Unpublished M.Sc. (Govt.) thesis, Department of

Government, U.W.I., 1968.

[6A] -/'Bureaucracy as a Problem-Solving Mechanism in Small States: Less Developed Caribbean Countries ? A Re-interpretation." Paper

presented at Conference on Small States, Barbados, Cave Hill, March

1974.

[7] MILLS, G.E., "The Environment of Commonwealth Caribbean Bureau cracies" in International Review of Administrative Sciences, Vol.

XXXIX, 1973, No. 1, pp. 14-24.




[8] POPO VIC, Siavoljub, Judicial Review and Administrative Decisions, Mimeo.

Paper, N/D.

[9] PYE, Lucien, Aspects of Political Development, Little Brown, 1965.

[10] RIGGS, Fred, "Administrative Development: An Elusive Concept" in Mont

gomery and Siffin (eds.) Approaches to Development: Politics Ad ministration and Change, New York: McGraw Hill, 1966, pp. 225-56.

[11] ROBERTSON, Paul, "Ruling Class Attitudes in Jamaica: The Bureaucratic

Component", ? Mimeo

- I.S.E.R., Mona, ND.

[12] SCHAFFER, . "The Deadlock in Development Administration" in Politics and Change in Developing Countries, Cambridge University Press, 1969.

[13] STONE, Carl, Class, Race and Political Behaviour in Urban Jamaica, I.S.E.R., U.W.I. 1973.



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