BUREAUCRATIC VICIOUS CIRCLE AND ADMINISTRATIVE PERFORMANCE IN CAMEROON

Abstract

Many less developed countries are in crises situation, largely explained by bad administration. The issue is whether the implementation of bureaucratic model enhances or blocks development. As a participant observer, the Cameroonian public administration has some organizational problems which can be diagnosed using the bureaucratic model. While not neglecting the other authors, Max Weber, Michel Crozier and Robert K. Merton‟s ideas on bureaucracy are used in these discussions. According to Weber, bureaucracy is the administrative model, but Crozier holds that the bureaucratic phenomenon leads to a „vicious circle‟ of excessive impersonalization, over-centralization and rigid hierarchisation, which inevitably leads to informality. In Merton‟s words, bureaucracy is „ambivalent‟ with both blessings and curses. As such, the problems of the Cameroonian administration could be due to the application or negligence of bureaucratic principles. The techniques of administrative organization should be optimized, not merely and blindly maximized