| 000 -LEADER |
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01968pab a2200205 454500 |
| 008 - FIXED-LENGTH DATA ELEMENTS--GENERAL INFORMATION |
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180718b2001 xxu||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d |
| 100 ## - MAIN ENTRY--PERSONAL NAME |
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| Personal name |
Berman, Bruce J. |
| 245 ## - TITLE STATEMENT |
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| Title |
African states, bureaucratic culture and computer fixes |
| 260 ## - PUBLICATION, DISTRIBUTION, ETC. |
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| Date of publication, distribution, etc. |
2001 |
| 300 ## - PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION |
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| Extent |
p.1-13 |
| 362 ## - DATES OF PUBLICATION AND/OR SEQUENTIAL DESIGNATION |
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| Dates of publication and/or sequential designation |
Feb |
| 520 ## - SUMMARY, ETC. |
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| Summary, etc. |
Our central argument in this article is that the introduction of computers in African states fails to produce the intended results. This is precisely because the trajectory of development of bureaucratic institutions in Africa has resulted in internal and external contexts that differ fundamentally from those of the Western states within which computing and information technology has been developed. This article explores the context in which computers were developed in Western industrialized societies to understand the circumstances that the technologies were designed to respond to and the bureaucratic culture that helped produce desired results. We then proceed to analyse the truncated nature of institution building in the colonial state, and how it structured the peculiar setting of the post-colonial African state and dynamics surrounding the integration of the new information and communication technologies. We argue that the colonial state bequeathed to its post-colonial successor three crucial characteristics that are of central importance to understanding why the introduction of computers does not produce anticipated improvements in public administration. These are the very limited technical capabilities of the bureaucracy; authoritarian decision-making processes under the control of generalist administrators; and the predominance of patron-client relationships. - Reproduced |
| 650 ## - SUBJECT ADDED ENTRY--TOPICAL TERM |
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| Topical term or geographic name entry element |
Civil service - Africa |
| 650 ## - SUBJECT ADDED ENTRY--TOPICAL TERM |
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| Topical term or geographic name entry element |
Computer - Africa |
| 650 ## - SUBJECT ADDED ENTRY--TOPICAL TERM |
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| Topical term or geographic name entry element |
Public administration - Africa |
| 650 ## - SUBJECT ADDED ENTRY--TOPICAL TERM |
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| Topical term or geographic name entry element |
Public administration |
| 700 ## - ADDED ENTRY--PERSONAL NAME |
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| Personal name |
Tettey, Wisdom J. |
| 773 ## - HOST ITEM ENTRY |
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| Main entry heading |
Public Administration and Development |
| 909 ## - |
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| -- |
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