Building Professional Bureaucracies in Less Developed Countries

This thesis is about how to measure the capacities and capabilities that national governments in poor countries have in developing the institutions that govern their country and how they can promote their development. As International Financial Institutions (IFIs) and rich countries have emphasized the importance and role of institutions and governance structures, we can investigate whether the exercise of collecting data on the quality of these institutions has led to a deeper understanding of the underlying process and better development outcomes. At first we will see how the developments and results of development assistance have launched the concept of good governance in recent times. Further on, we will see that this emphasis on good governance needs a deeper and broader understanding of the functioning and the structure of the national governments in poor countries. The question is whether the tools and models that are used to measure governance aspects of the administration in poor countries are adequate & whether the role and the quality of the national administration in LDCs is adequately featured in Governance measures.