ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to explore the relationship between administrative reform and economic development. It attempts to ascertain whether administrative reform designed to advance economic development can promote both efficiency and ethics within the state bureaucracy. Douglas Yates has noticed the conflicts between two sets of values in public administration. They are respectively represented by the model of pluralist democracy and the model of administrative efficiency. The promotion of administrative efficiency alone, however, does not necessarily lead to inadequate administrative ethics. There are several other factors which have contributed to the spreading of unethical bureaucratic behavior. Post-Mao China has witnessed a new cultural environment of "money fetishism," ideological confusion and vacuum, and growing informal organizations. Assisted by the lack of checks and balances, the new culture has made it very difficult to produce men of ethics in public administration. Administrative efficiency may sacrifice the values of pluralist democracy. However, administrative efficiency does not necessarily lead to or reinforce authoritarianism.
