Bureau Bashing and Public Service Motivation: A Case for the Civil Service of Bangladesh

Abstract

This paper explains the negative impacts of bureau-bashing on the Public Service Motivation (PSM) of civil servants. It differentiates between policy bashing and rhetoric bashing and argues that while policy bashing may be constructive in nature, rhetoric bashing often de‐motivates bureaucrats in terms of their rational, normative and affective motives (Perry and Wise, 1990 Perry, J.L. and Wise, L.R. 1990. The motivational bases of public service. Public Administration Review, 50(3): 367–373. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar] Perry, 1996 Perry, J.L. 1996. Measuring public service motivation: An assessment of construct reliability and validity. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 6(1): 5–22. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) In Bangladesh context, in critiquing public service, the previous attempts aimed to analyze the structural problems and recent attacks are directed towards the bureaucrats themselves. However, there are few empirical studies to measure the performance of bureaucrats by analyzing the initiatives they take and the problems they face in carrying out their responsibilities. Based on Perry & Wise's (1990 Perry, J.L. and Wise, L.R. 1990. The motivational bases of public service. Public Administration Review, 50(3): 367–373. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) PSM model, we argue that in Bangladesh, bureau bashing is mostly rhetoric and thus it might have created a negative impact on PSM amongst bureaucrats, contributing to the poor state of governance.