Structure

Development Planning 
and Administration 
High Level of Differentiation
Administrative systems in developed nations are highly differentiated and 
functionally specific. This status has emerged out of long evolution of the 
politico- administrative systems where each new governance institution has 
emerged in response to the need for performing specific functions. Most of the 
governments in developed nations have experienced the phases of “stable 
growth” and have been conscious in assigning newer responsibilities to the 
existing institutions or in creating new structures for undertaking emergent 
functions. The result is highly specialised system of administration that engages 
itself in regulating various segments of development like agriculture, industry, 
commerce, education, etc. 
High Degree of Professionalisation
Structural differentiation and functional specificity have led to a high degree of 
internal specialisation of bureaucracy. This has become possible primarily on 
account of a visible stress on recruitment on the basis of merit and specialised 
educational background of the entrants into the civil service. In France, Japan, 
the United States of America and most other developed countries, it is the 
technocrat who has been recruited to hold important administrative posts and 
conduct the affairs of organisations involved in development administration. It is 
only in Great Britain that the legacy of the generalist administrator continues to 
dominate. Although since the late 1960s, as a result of the implementation of 
Fulton Committee recommendations, there has been an increasing amount of 
specialisation in the structure of bureaucracy in Britain. 
As Heady observes, bureaucracy in developed countries exhibits to a marked 
degree “a sense of professionalisation, both in the sense of identification with the 
public service as a profession and in the sense of belonging to a narrow field of 
professional or technical specialisation within the service such as law, nuclear 
engineering, or social works” (Ibid).