Analysis of the Design and Function of Tigray National Regional State Bureaucracy vis-à-vis Democratic Developmental State Requirements

Abstract

One  of  the  foundations  for  the  success  of  developmental  states  is  having  strong, autonomous,  and  merit  based  bureaucracy.  The  government  of  Ethiopia  has  also officially declared itself to pursue a Democratic  Developmental State  (DDS) model.  In this  research undertaking,  the  design  and  function  of  Tigray  national  regional  state bureaucracy  was  analyzed  taking  DDS  indicators.  To  deal  with  this,  a mixed  research methodology was employed, in which purposively selected key informants from a total of six rural and urban districts and four offices were approached for interviews and focus group discussions. In addition, selected civil servants were made to fill a questionnaire through simple random sampling. The empirical findings of this research reveal that the 
bureaucracy  was  influenced  and  its  autonomy  undermined  by  the  ruling  elite,  and  it became  unable  to  attract  qualified  man-power  due  to  civil  servant  unfriendly  political and administrative environment. There is also an excessive interference by the political leadership and fusion of party politics and government administrative issues. The guiding 
principle  of  developmental  state  regarding  the  relationship  between  politicians  and bureaucrats  is  “the  politicians  reign  while  the bureaucrats  rule”  but  the  reality  in  the study area is the politicians reign and at the same time rule. Similarly, though majority of the bureaucrats were recruited based on merit through examinations, the institutions they operate  are  not  autonomous.  Therefore professionalism  must  be  respected  and  the politics-bureaucracy interface should be also revisited