Like Chameleons: Civil Servants And Corruption In Malawi

Anders, Gerhard

doi:10.1163/ej.9789004171282.i-347.33

Cited by 17 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…The hybrid arrangements around the environmental law in Taita Taveta are thereby to a large extent a joint product of the interaction between EOs, communities and other local actors. Although this interaction rarely takes place on a level playing field, it emphasizes that we should avoid notions of state organisations as somehow detached from local society and processes of bricolage (Anders 2009).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Local bureaucrats as bricoleurs. The everyday implementation practices of county environment officers in rural Kenya

Funder

Marani

2015

Int J Commons

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Bricolage in natural resource governance takes place through the interplay of a variety of actors. This article explores the practices of a group whose agency as bricoleurs has received little attention, namely the government officers who represent the state in the everyday management of water, land, forests and other resources across rural Africa. Specifically we examine how local Environment Officers in Taita Taveta County in Kenya go about implementing the national environmental law on the ground, and how they interact with communities in this process. As representatives of "the local state", the Environment Officers occupy an ambiguous position in which they are expected to implement lofty laws and policies with limited means and in a complex local reality. In response, they employ three key practices, namely (i) working through personal networks, (ii) tailoring informal agreements, and (iii) delegating public functions and authority to civil society. As a result, the environmental law is to a large extent implemented through a blend of formal and informal rules and governance arrangements, produced through an interplay of the Environment Officers, communities and other local actors.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Local bureaucrats as bricoleurs. The everyday implementation practices of county environment officers in rural Kenya

Funder

Marani

2015

Int J Commons

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“…It is well known in Malawi that the government officers who are entrusted with the implementation of the state's fisheries management programs have low salaries (Anders 2009), in addition to facing numerous other challenges in getting the resources they need for their job. Our analysis therefore found it unreasonable to expect the government officers to sanction offenders of fisheries regulations or not be tempted to accept petty handouts in the form of fish or money.…”

Section: The Department Of Fisheries (Dof) and State-based Sustainabimentioning

confidence: 99%

Actor-Based Design of a Management System for the Elephant Marsh Fishery in Malawi

Kosamu

Groot

Kambewa

2016

Society & Natural Resources

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In Malawi, fishing community user groups known as beach village committees, traditional chiefs, government officers, and fishers are the key players in fisheries management. Fish catch trends at the Elephant Marsh Fishery in southern Malawi are declining. Based on interviews and participant observation, this article uses an actor-based framework (known as Action-in-Context) to unveil the issues that are crucial in devising a sustainable governance system for the fishery. We establish and propose that the key social variables for the design of a three-pillared (locally based, weak, and amorphous) resilient institution for sustainability of the Elephant Marsh Fishery are (i) the social reputation of the leaders of local fishery institutions (beach village committee leaders), and (ii) the power dynamics between traditional chiefs and these local fishery leaders. We end the article by exploring the implications of the findings on the sustainability of the fishery under rising resource pressure. ARTICLE HISTORY

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“…One of the starting points of the APPP is the relatively recent but now quite substantial body of research which, for a number of sub-Saharan African countries, documents in precise detail the ways in which behaviour in public-sector organisations, including service-delivery organisations, fails to correspond to the 'expected' pattern (Blundo and Olivier de Sardan 2006). For some countries, this includes a convincing historical narrative of how things came to be the way they are (Anders 2001;Golooba-Mutebi 2007;Anders 2008;Olivier de Sardan 2008b;Becker 2009). This research portrays a situation which is more complex than implied by the standard account of public sector deterioration underlying the 'Washington Consensus'.…”

Section: A Realistic Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

Towards a Theory of Local Governance and Public Goods Provision

Booth¹

2011

IDS Bulletin

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Under-provision of essential public goods is making development in Africa slower and more inequitable than it needs to be. A good part of this problem concerns the governance of provision at sub-national levels. This article provides a mid-term report on a multi-country research effort to shed light on the institutional sources of variation in local public goods provision. The particular focus is on key bottlenecks to improvement in maternal mortality, water and sanitation, facilitation of markets and enterprise, and public order and security. Drawing on fieldwork evidence and secondary literature, it identifies three clusters of issues and associated explanatory variables which seem to account for much of the variation in intermediate outcomes. They concern the extent of policy-driven incoherence in the institutional framework, the strength of corporate disciplines in provider organisations and the degree to which self-help is able to be 'locally anchored' in two particular senses.

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Like Chameleons: Civil Servants And Corruption In Malawi

Cited by 17 publications

References 15 publications

Local bureaucrats as bricoleurs. The everyday implementation practices of county environment officers in rural Kenya

Local bureaucrats as bricoleurs. The everyday implementation practices of county environment officers in rural Kenya

Actor-Based Design of a Management System for the Elephant Marsh Fishery in Malawi

Towards a Theory of Local Governance and Public Goods Provision

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