ABSTRACT

In contemporary Bangladesh, the need for change in its administrative-bureaucratic system in order to unreservedly serve citizens has long been perceived in social and political circles and demanded by concerned citizens and civil society organizations. Four decades and more is obviously an extended spell in a country’s political history for engendering meaningful changes, but regrettably political obligation has generally been lukewarm, substantive reform elusive and implementation perfunctory. Thus, the near-obsolete precepts of public administration and the orthodox character of the bureaucracy have remained virtually unaffected and the structural–functional–behavioral parameters of an antediluvian arrangement, regardless of some superficial alterations, persist. In many ways, the public administration system remains ossified by default and thereby highly bureaucratized, overly politicized and ethically amiss.