Bureaucrats, Cattle, and Public Policy

Abstract

The formulation of a policy on land use offers a clear example of the relationship between a bureaucracy and policy formulation. In much of the Third World, and particularly in many African countries, national and local government employees are to all intents and purposes the dominant socioeconomic elite in the country. This would suggest that those who are formulating and implementing a new policy such as that on land use may have the most to gain from the policy which is under examination. Using data from the Southern African country of Botswana, this article examines the relationship between the socioeconomic status of the bureaucracy and the type of land tenure policy which is likely to result. Since the movement from communal to individual tenure of both grazing land and farm land is occurring throughout the African continent, the relationship between bureaucratic interests and public policy is of general interest beyond this specific case study.