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How “Place” Shapes the Public Servant: Papua New Guinea’s Public Administration Within the Contexts of “Big Man” and “Wantok” Systems

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Abstract

Reform agendas that include bureaucratic and market characteristics have shaped the form and characteristics of public servants. These experiences are mostly relevant to Western developed countries, and the experience outside these nations, however, has been quite different. Reforms in developing countries have had quite different trajectories and impacted on public servants in unique ways. Through the examination of the trajectory of reform in Papua New Guinea (PNG), this chapter demonstrates how “place” shapes notions of the public servant, where place refers to the political and cultural context. In PNG’s case, modern forms of public administration have been layered over its traditional institutions and culture: big man and wantok systems. Exploring the example of PNG demonstrates how place shapes the public servant through its administrative and sociocultural contexts providing some insight into this relationship.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of New South Wales Canberra, Canberra, ACT, Australia

    Lhawang Ugyel

Authors
  1. Lhawang Ugyel
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Correspondence to Lhawang Ugyel .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia

    Helen Sullivan

  2. Public Service Research Group, University of New South Wales (UNSW), Canberra, ACT, Australia

    Helen Dickinson

  3. Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia

    Hayley Henderson

Section Editor information

  1. The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

    Janine O'Flynn

  2. Australia and New Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG), Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

    Janine O'Flynn

  3. Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University, Carlton, Australia

    Avery Poole

  4. The Australia and New Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG), Carlton, Australia

    Avery Poole

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Ugyel, L. (2021). How “Place” Shapes the Public Servant: Papua New Guinea’s Public Administration Within the Contexts of “Big Man” and “Wantok” Systems. In: Sullivan, H., Dickinson, H., Henderson, H. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of the Public Servant. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29980-4_86

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