In the shadow of good governance: An ethnography of civil service reform in Africa

Acknowledgements
Glossary and abbreviations
Map of Malawi
1 Introduction: Unpacking Good Governance
	Civil servants as implementers and “target population”
	The “dysfunctional” African state
	Good governance as technology
	Field sites
	Studying up, follow the policy
	Basic information about the civil service
	Outline
2 Historical Background
	Banda’s rule and the “New Malawi”
	The results of two decades of structural adjustment
	The civil service – from localisation to good governance
3 Constructing Country Ownership
	Introduction
	The emergence of a concept
	Conditionality and country ownership
	The normativity of numbers
	The discovery of the “C word”
	Conclusions
4 The Implementation Process
	Deconstructing policy implementation
	Retrenchment of employees made redundant
	The introduction of new housing allowances
	Increasing fragmentation of the civil service
	Conclusions
5 Eroding Salaries and Doing Business
	The African entrepreneurial spirit
	The meaning of having a job in the civil service
	“How to make ends meet”
	Winners and losers of economic liberalisation
	Conclusions
6 “Distance Saves me”
	Introduction
	Kubwerera kumudzi
	Education and social stratification
	The importance of associations
	The nature of kinship duties
	Conclusions
7 The Democratisation of Appropriation
	Introduction
	“Bad politics”
	The office mores – a parallel social and moral order
	A “primoridial public sphere”or a patchwork of moralities?
	Conclusions
8 Conclusions: the State in Society
	The paradoxical policies of the World Bank and the IMF
	A note on theorising the postcolonial state
References
Index