English - Support to Participatory Constitution Building in Nepal ...

The Remake of a Statedevoted to show that state agencies, supposed to be the custodian ofthe resources, are not compatible, for a number of reasons, to managecommon property resources such as forest effectively.4. Critical reflection on state agencies that govern statepropertyState property regimes are generally governed by the state agencies.Theoretically, these agencies are set up under the framework ofWeberian model of bureaucracy which are characterised by the routineformal procedures, formally specified roles and tasks; they are expectedto perform with a predictable environment in close direction, and areevaluated using ‘objective’ criteria. They have an authoritative claim torational and apolitical decision-making, with a close analogy to a realmachine as shown by the Weberian image of bureaucracy (Warwick1982; Moore 1992). The overriding notion of ‘standardisation’ and thereplicability of the machine insulate bureaucrats from the society. In theWeberian model, the officials are merely an instrument for the rationalachievement of the normative goals set by the prevailing political system.In the course of considering organisational goals, this model neglects thepersonal factors that shape the individual action of any bureaucrat withinthe organisation. Weber’s model lays emphasis more on maximum verticalcontrol from the hierarchical line-of-command with minimum horizontalintegration among other organisations and neglects the relationshipswith local communities. Although this is restricted in its applicabilityto the social and political times in which Weber lived (see for example,Jacob 1966; Stifel et al. 1977; Warwick 1982; Brett 1988; Moore 1992),it provides sufficient framework to analyse state agencies which governnatural resources such as forests, water and minerals. There are numberof inherent institutional constraints within bureaucracies that hinder stateagencies to govern the resources efficiently. Box 6.1 is an example of thestate forest agencies in many developing countries including Nepal. Theorganisational behaviours of such state forest agencies are not compatibleto govern the common property resources such as water and forests, onwhich the dependency of local and indigenous people for their livelihoodneeds is high.117