In the Semi‐Shadow of the Global West: Moroccan zawāyā as Good Public Administration

• Published date: 01 July 2022
• Author: Salah Chafik,Wolfgang Drechsler
• Date: 01 July 2022
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13475

Research Article

In the Semi-Shadow of the Global West: Moroccan zawaˉyaˉ as Good Public Administration 747

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 82, Iss. 4, pp. 747–755. © 2022 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.13475.

Abstract: The 2020 international protests addressing structural racism and colonial legacies have also questioned

Western ascendancy on defining (good) governance. Non-Western traditional forms of governance surviving today,

despite not receiving much academic attention, pose an obvious alternative. This study analyses key indigenous

institutions in Morocco known as zawāyā, and in doing so, fills some of the lacunae on Islamic-African public

administration. Drawing from novel data collected via ethnographic fieldwork across three domains of public service

provision, the authors, apparently for the first time in such a context, present a public administration that is functional

in its operation, delivering on its goals, and on both counts markedly different from the global-Western mainstream.

Our results uncover a public administration that (1) coexists with a larger state, (2) delivers coproduced services, and

(3) merits recognition.

Evidence for Practice

• Decenters public administration models taken for granted by showing them to be global-Western, rather

than universal, allowing for greater contextuality in analysis and reform.

• For development administration, justifies looking for and, if needed, improving indigenous models and truly

listening to stakeholders.

• Displays how (very) alternative service providers can still work with, rather than against, the mainstream

framework.

In a world where Anglo-American public

administration (PA) reigns supreme (Pollitt2015),

the history of “traditional” public administration

in the corresponding mainstream literature only dates

back to the late 1800s United States (Bryson, Crosby,

and Bloomberg2014). We argue for a different view

of PA history, in this case beginning with Peters’

notion of “governing in the shadows,” which posits

that governance and PA are carried out not only by

the state, but also through alternatives such as the

market, experts, and more generally social actors

and institutions (Peters2019). The fact that these

alternatives can operate in the shadows of a (global-

Western) state has allowed for them to be carriers

of traditional public administration within their

own contexts (Drechsler2013; for Africa generally,

Lund2006).

However, these instances of non-Western PA have

been largely overlooked in Western academic

literature, although hopefully not for much longer.

The protests of 2020 began in resistance against

police brutality in the United States and then

broadened to the global North, first via the United

Kingdom, to oppose racial, ethnic, and even colonial

disenfranchisement and marginalization—meaning,

they started in Anglo-America (Dalton2020). The

likely result for PA (and many other fields) is a

decentering of the Western approach and, in tandem,

a consideration of previously neglected alternatives

(Althaus2020). This is especially significant in our

field, given that PA is a central form of power and

coercion in modern times (Weber1922).

In particular, the Western neglect of, and ignorance

about, Islamic governance institutions and their extant

and evolving systems that have been operational for

at least 800 years is problematic in many ways. At

the level of public discourse, including some of the

Muslim world, any non-state organization involved

with governance that can be classified as Islamic

would likely and, to state the obvious, falsely draw

links to contemporary terrorist organizations. But

administration emphasizes normalcy, and extremists

generally, as well as in this specific case, abhor

bureaucracy (Kadri2011). The eminent legacy of

maximally neutral, professional, realist, and highly

sophisticated people-centric PA in Islamic countries,

while a standard view for historians by now, is not a

mainstay of contemporary mainstream PA knowledge

Tallinn University of Technology (TalTech)

Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, University

College London

Davis Center, Harvard University

In the Semi-Shadow of the Global West: Moroccan zawāyā as

Good Public Administration

Wolfgang Drechsler is a Professor

of Governance at the Ragnar Nurkse

Department of Innovation and Governance

at TalTech, Honorary Professor of

University College London at the Institute

of Innovation and Public Purpose, and

Associate at Harvard University’s Davis

Center. His areas of interest include Non-

Western PA, Governance, and Economics,

especially Buddhist, Confucian, and

Islamic; Technology, Innovation & Public

Administration; and Public Management

Reform generally.

Email: wolfgang.drechsler@taltech.ee

Salah Chafik is a Junior Research Fellow

and doctoral candidate at the Ragnar

Nurkse Department of Innovation and

Governance at TalTech (Estonia). His

doctoral research is focused on empirical

and theoretical Islamic Governance and

Public Administration.

Email: schafi@taltech.ee

Salah Chafik

Tallinn University of Technology (TalTech)

Wolfgang Drechsler