Fixers as shadow "public servants": A case study of Israel
- 2011
- p.617-630.
- jul-sep
Fixers can thrive in any level of political, bureaucractic, or insitutional development. Paradoxically the academic research of the phenomenon of fixers is in its infancy. There exists no accepted definition of fixers; the boundaries between fixers and lobbysists remain murky, in terms of comparative administration only limited knowledge about the forces that breed different types of fixers in different political settings is available; and no deductive theory was articulated that might determine when and how fixing might become dysfunctional and corruptive. In an attempt to better understand the phenomenon of fixers more theortically; this study analyzes fixers in view of threee theories of bureaucratic corruption, and in view of the emerging theoru of altenative politics. Using Israel as a case in point, the study shows that within certain national and local branches of government fixers not only create a shadow copy of official institutions, but also foster institutional corruption. - Reproduced.