Public Administration and Policy in the Middle East

358 Pages·2015·3.96 MB·English

by  Alexander R. Dawoody (eds.)

Public Administration, Governance and Globalization
Alexander R. Dawoody Editor

Public
Administration
and Policy in
the Middle East
AMEPPA Book series
Public Administration, Governance
and Globalization
Series Editor
Ali Farazmand
Florida Atlantic University
Fort Lauderdale, FL, USA
For further volumes:
http://www.springer.com/series/8656
Public Administration, Governance and Globalization
Ali Farazmand, Series Editor
The aim of Public Administration, Governance and Globalization (PAGG) is to
publish primary research and theoretical contributions as well as practical reports
on fi eldwork to help advance the knowledge and understanding about public,
nonprofi t, private, and nongovernmental organizations and institutions. The
governance, administration, and management of these organizations at local,
national, regional, and international levels will be discussed in the context of this
age of rapid change and globalization. This series on public management offers
original materials that contribute to our better understanding of the critical issues as
well as routine processes of governance and public administration, now more than
ever because of the intricate forces of globalization that affect almost every nation-
states and their policy choices at all jurisdictions across the world. The series covers
a wide range of topics that address the key issues of interest to scholars, educators,
practitioners, and policymakers in public administration capacities around the
globe. Books in the series could be research monographs, edited volumes, textbooks,
reference volumes or handbooks.
Alexander R. Dawoody
Editor
Public Administration
and Policy in the Middle East
AMEPPA Book Series
Editor
Alexander R. Dawoody
Marywood University
Scranton , PA , USA
ISBN 978-1-4939-1552-1 ISBN 978-1-4939-1553-8 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-4939-1553-8
Springer New York Heidelberg Dordrecht London
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014948338
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Contents
Civil Society and Democratic Governance in Turkey:
Prospects and Challenges ............................................................................... 1
Naim Kapucu
Democratic Governance Reforms in Turkey
and Their Implications ................................................................................... 25
Hüseyin Gül and Hakan M. Kiriş
Dynamics of Post-crisis Reform in Public Policy:
The Case of Education Policy in Turkey ....................................................... 61
Mustafa Kemal Bayırbağ
Challenges to Governance Reform and Accountability in Egypt ............... 83
Jennifer Bremer
The Evolution of Corruption and Optimal Level of
Corruption Reduction: Evidence from Cross-Country Studies ................. 103
Hamid E. Ali
Iraq’s Revolutionary Cul-de-Sacs ................................................................. 115
Samir Rihani
Iraq’s Pressing Need to Legally Binding Conceptual
and Procedural Models for Public Policy Making ....................................... 129
Kaa’ed Al-Hashimi
The Innovative Approach for Accounting and Accountability
of Government Revenues in Iraq ................................................................... 143
Talal A. Al-Kassar , Mahmoud Al-Wadi , and Alexander Dawoody
v
vi Contents
The Role of Organizational Culture and Management
Behavior in Organizational Innovation: A Case Study
of the Agricultural Extension Organization (AEO) in Iran ........................ 163
Ahmad Yaghoubi-Farani, Iraj Malek Mohammadi, and Reza Movahedi
Saudi Arabia and the Mirage of Decentralization ....................................... 173
Mohamad G. Alkadry
Decentralization in Lebanon .......................................................................... 189
Thomas W. Haase and Randa Antoun
The Third Wheel in Public Policy: An Overview of NGOs
in Lebanon ....................................................................................................... 215
Khaldoun AbouAssi
Solving Problems Informally: The Infl uence of Israel’s Political
Culture on the Public Policy Process ............................................................. 231
Nissim Cohen
The Management of Museums in Sharjah .................................................... 247
Daniel Simonet and Clément Vincent
Public Policy Making Process in the United Arab Emirates ...................... 263
Simon H. Okoth
Governance Challenges in Bangladesh ......................................................... 281
Mohammad Mohabbat Khan and Md. Shahriar Islam
Implementation of Policy to Control Industrial Pollution
in Bangladesh: Major Drawbacks ................................................................. 297
Md. Shahriar Islam
The Arab Spring of 2011: A Perspective ...................................................... 319
Alexander Dawoody
Restructuring the Hierarchy of Needs:
A Case for Sound Governance in the Middle East ....................................... 341
Alexander Dawoody
Introd uction
Nearly 3,500 years ago, the arts and science of administration was discovered by the
scribes of Mesopotamia. Administration then became a viable tool for the founda-
tion of the fi rst state in history, known as Akkad. Administration was also the main
responsible element for the creation of writing, an instrument that early
Mesopotamian scribes needed in order to record offerings to the temples.
Administration in the Middle East continued to fl ourish, giving birth and sustain-
ability to many powerful empires, such as the Persian, Assyrian, Babylonian,
Umayyad, and Abbasid empires. Because of such sophistication in administrative
affairs, universities, libraries, hospitals, cities, irrigation systems, and military
industries were created. Although governance was marred by socio-political con-
fl icts and often manipulated administration for the benefi ts of the ruling oligarchies
at the expense of vast sectors within the population (with the exception of periodical
manifestation of sound governance as refl ective of impulse by few extraordinary
rulers, such as Cyrus the Great, Darius, Hammurabi, Ommar bib Al-Khattab,
Muawiyah bin Abu Sufyan, Jaffar Al-Manur, Haron Al-Rasheed, and Al-Mamoon,
than a systemic development), the arts and science of administration was responsi-
ble for transforming the region into a center of important achievements in philoso-
phy, science, music, poetry, and arts for more than fi ve centuries.
Regrettably, however, and particularly after the sack of Baghdad by the Mongols
in 1258 and the destruction of most administrative systems of the Abbasid state, the
Middle East as a region sunk into an abyss that had never recovered from to date.
Subsequent foreign invasions, internal strive, and economic disparities further exac-
erbated the situation and contributed to the demise.
Governance in the Middle East today is experiencing a cocktail of authoritarian
to marginal democratic systems. Decades of manipulating governmental apparatus
in order to siphon public resources for the benefi ts of the ruling oligarchies and jus-
tifying prolonged family and tribal grip on power through various facades of dema-
gogy had created a system of dysfunction that exhibits corruption, infectiveness,
nepotism, lack of transparency, lack of accountability, censorship, and oppressive
vii
viii Introduction
police state. However, marginal reforms, either in response to popular demands or
uprisings or due to the foresight of some extra-ordinary leaders, are also emerging
in various parts of the region. Although the reform remains to be slow, anemic, and
minimal, it is nevertheless a step in the right direction that may contain the pregnant-
ing seeds for larger and more robust reforms that may yield the legal framework for
true progress toward sound governance.
W ithin this trajectory administration is trying to catch up by mimicking other
models in the world while losing originality, innovation, and effectiveness that is
particular to the region. Such incapacitation is disabling the effective role of admin-
istration and rendering it as a separate entity that is tightly connected to the dictation
of the political branch and its whims than becoming a true guardian for public affairs.
This book deals with various issues of governance in the Middle East that exhibit
some of these characteristics and addresses the endemic challenges residing with
public policy and administration in the Middle East. As a fi rst volume of such analy-
sis of issues of governance in the Middle East in a series by the Association for
Middle Eastern Public Policy and Administration (AMEPPA), the book tangles
complex issues through specifi c case studies and analysis, dividing the approach
into the examination of various issues in public affairs in three types of state blocks
based on size and complexity: larger states (represented by Turkey, Egypt, Sudan,
Iraq, Iran, and Saudi Arabia) and smaller states (represented by Lebanon, Israel,
United Arab Emirates, and Bangladesh).
It is worth noticing that the grouping of cases in such manner does not negate the
historic, political, social, cultural, and economic differences between the grouped
states. Perhaps at times there may be more commonality between a larger and a
smaller state in the Middle East than between the larger or smaller groups them-
selves. However, and for the sake of referencing we deemed grouping based on size
was more useful for identifi cation purposes than based on issues, especially when
issues of public policy and administration in the Middle East are so complex and
relative to the particularity of the individual state. In our next volume we perhaps can
approach grouping case analysis based on issues and give the reader another per-
spective of emerging issues of public policy and administration in the Middle East.
The fi rst chapter of this book is by Naim Kapucu. In this chapter, Naim addresses
the issue of civil society and democratic governance in Turkey. According to Naim,
there is debate regarding the defi nition of civil society and its development. However,
today civil society is perceived as one of the main actors in public policy and
decision- making processes. The chapter defi nes the concept of civil society and its
development in western societies. Further, the chapter presents a brief background
of civil society in Turkey and provides a spectrum of civil society organizations
from the country. The role of training and capacity building and the educational
capacity of educational institutions are also analyzed in this chapter with an empha-
sis on the infl uence of civil society on Turkish democratic governance.
T he second chapter also looks at Turkey and addresses the issue of democratic
governance reforms and their implications. In this chapter, Hüseyin Gül and Hakan
M. Kiriş look at Turkey, as a rapidly developing and changing country, has undergone
extensive administrative, political, and economic reforms since the late 1990s.
Introduction ix
These reforms have helped realign the powers, functions, and relations of the central
government and local administrations, the state, the market, and the civil society.
As a result of the recent reforms and a strong one-party government and political
stability since 2002, Turkey has achieved a steady and high economic development
and improved its governance system. Yet, there still seems to be some shortcomings
and problems, and thus a need for further institutional change and reforms in Turkey,
particularly in the areas of democratization, central–local government relations,
human rights and freedoms, the rule of law, political party, and election systems. The
fi rst goal of this chapter i s fi rst to present and discuss the recent wave of reforms in
Turkey and their contents and driving forces. For this purpose, a short review of the
administrative and political system in Turkey and its historical development is pre-
sented. The second goal is to assess and examine the contents of the reforms in the
areas of economic liberalization, decentralization, deregulation, governance, among
others. The fi nal goal is to make some comments about the transformation of the gov-
ernance system in Turkey and discuss its implications and future prospects. In this
respect, the chapter concludes that the future reform efforts should be focused on the
creation and implementation of real and functional participatory and democratic gov-
ernance processes and mechanisms at the national, regional, and local levels along with
the enhancement of the political system, democracy, and the rule of law in Turkey.
T he third chapter looks at Turkey from the dynamics of post-crisis reform in
public policy and examines it as a case of education policy. In this chapter, Mustafa
Kemal Bayırbağ aims to investigate how crises translate into major changes in pub-
lic policy, in the case of education policy in Turkey. He indicates that the post-crisis
interventions of governments tend to redistribute the fi scal burden on public purse
by employing a three-level preference set: economic policy priorities versus social
policy priorities; among the sectors belonging to the same policy family; and among
different levels/institutions of the same policy fi eld. The chapter, thus, attempts to
develop a categorization of post-crisis reform strategies departing from the fi ndings
of the empirical analysis.
The fourth chapter is by Jennifer Bremer as she discusses challenges to gover-
nance reform and accountability in Egypt. According to Jennifer, the Egyptian
Revolution of January 2011 has arguably changed the landscape for public gover-
nance and accountability in Egypt. It has not yet had a discernible impact on gover-
nance itself, however. Jennifer aims to examine Egypt’s governance challenges
post-Revolution. While the author herself question whether the term “revolution” is
appropriate to describe what has happened in Egypt, she follows the prevailing
usage in Egypt and applies the term to describe the events of early 2011 and the
transitional period that has followed. The discussion begins with a brief examina-
tion of the country’s public governance landscape, describing the structure of gov-
ernment, the historical legacy, and the political and institutional setting within
which governance reform must proceed. Following this overview, the chapter will
offer two brief case studies chosen for their importance to governance reform in
Egypt: decentralization to improve local governance and e-government to improve
accountability. The chapter concludes with a look forward, to the extent that future
directions can be glimpsed at all in the current uncertain environment.