Civil servants navigating networks for development: From the perches of the World Bank and MENA countries

• Published date: 01 January 2024
• Author: Jozef Raadschelders
• Date: 01 January 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13780

Accepted: 14 November 2023

DOI: 10.1111/puar.13780

Civil servants navigating

networks for development:

From the perches of the

World Bank and MENA

countries

Who matters at the World Bank?

Bureaucracts, policy change, & public

sector governance. By Kim Moloney,

Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2020.

pp. 348. $100 (hardcover).

ISBN: 978-0-1928-5772-9

Civil servants and globalization:

Integrating MENA countries in a

globalized economy. By Tony Verheijen,

Katarína Stara ˇ

nov

a, Ibrahim Elghandour,

Anne Lucie Lefebvre, Bristol: Bristol

University Press. 2022. pp. 229. $139.95

(hardcover). ISBN: 978-1-5292-1574-8

Jozef Raadschelders

The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA

Email: raadschelders.1@osu.edu

Most people live in a world filled with organizations, and

many of them work as a professional in a formal organiza-

tion. Much organizational theory literature has focused on

these formal organizations. However, the idea has been

advanced that the so-called organizational environment is

much more organized than people and scholars acknowl-

edged so far, and this is captured in the concept of the

partial organization (Ahrne & Brunsson, 2022). Much of

what people as individuals and as professionals do is struc-

tured and coordinated in a complex and intricate network

of formal and partial organizations. In their role as profes-

sionals, people coordinate their activities with an eye on

the organization’s official objective(s). What is the role of

professionals in these organizations? Are they “…keenly

aware of how much more deeply beholden they are to the

organization than were their elders?”as William Whyte

asked 67 years ago ( Whyte, 1956, p. 4). In other words, do

professionals and their beliefs and preferences in formal

organizations (which is who Whyte wrote about profes-

sionals in organizations) have little to no influence upon

their organization’s policies? Whyte’s observation implies

that the organization is perceived as more important than

the individual members of its workforce. However, is that

the case? How important (or not) are the professionals,

and, in the case of the two books reviewed here, how

important are career civil servants within their organization

as well as in the political environment in which they can-

not but operate? (nota bene: references in the text are

page numbers to each of the books).

The only way these two questions can be answered is by

entering the organizational “black box”and interview peo-

ple. That is what Moloney and Verheijen et al. have done,

and the result is remarkable and important. Moloney’sstudy

is based on 43 interviews with staffers at the World Bank and

another 14 with actors from IMF, NOGs, and think tanks and

she was thus able to map 32 years (1980–2012) of policy

developmentattheWorldBank.Verheijenetal.conducted

43 interviews with upper-level civil servants in ministerial

departments in four MENA (Middle Eastern and North

African) countries (Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, and Tunisia;

some of these interviewees were political appointees), and

another 24 interviews with people working in non-

departmental agencies and commissions about the influence

of globalization on national civil service systems, especially

with attention for accountability and professionalization. The

authors combined the interviews with extensive document

study. Also, the authors have positioned their studies very

well in the existing literature and therefore clearly demon-

strated that they filled a gap in knowledge. They also have

done an excellent job at outlining their methodology. Both

books are qualitative studies, with interviews and document

analyses.

Moloney fills a gap in approach in the attempt to

have public administration (PA) literature on representa-

tive bureaucracy, stakeholder theory, and bureaucratic

politics inform the traditional International Organization’s

(IO) inclination to focus on policy and organizational change

in terms of a normative view of Weber’sideal-type.Molo-

ney’s discussion about how mistaken that interpretation of

Weber is, is—unfortunately—still necessary (pp. 19–21)

even though various scholars since the 1960s have ham-

mered on Weber’sideal-typeasayardstickandnotasa

desirable ideal (see Raadschelders & Fry, 2022,esp.foot-

notes 30 and 31). What Moloney offers to PA is the fact that

much research in civil service systems concerns the national

level (indeed, less the local and subnational levels), and

her study fits very well in an emerging literature on

international organization and administration (Stone &

Moloney, 2019). What is also very appealing about her book

190 PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION IN PRINT