A Critique of Administrative Reform Programs in Egypt Implications from Riggs’ Prismatic Model

Abstract

Egypt underwent many and continuous attempts to reform its administrative system since the fifties of the last century when it sought to adopt the recommendations mentioned in the American Expert Paul Sinker’s Report which embraced legislative and reorganizing tools to reform the bureaucratic system then (Kassem et al, 1996:18).  This paper is a trial to investigate how far Fred Riggs Model- that have been widely used to explain the development of communities- could be used to explain and evaluate the endeavors to reform the government and related public sector in the case of Egypt; i.e., calling attention to the importance of Riggs Model implications in the field of administrative reform. F. Riggs Model –known as the Prismatic Society Model- provides ideas and dimensions for classifying developed and developing communities. The study aims at utilizing these dimensions to judge the maturity of the administrative reforms endeavors that took place during two decades (1990-2010). The main finding of the study is that the reform programs adopted during this period were supposed to be promising; nonetheless, the lack of integration amongst them was the main reason behind the persistent failure witnessed in the Egyptian administrative system till now.

Keywords: Administrative Reform, F. Riggs Model, Reform Programs, Egypt.