Creating an Enabling Environment for Field Bureaucrats

This paper deals with three issues, which are arguably some of the most important factors in determining the incentive structure of field bureaucrats. They are: a) the security of tenure of the officials serving in the field b) the problem of coordination between the officials of various departments working in the field, and c) the issue of the field bureaucrats being monitored by their bureaucratic superiors in the State or National capitals. I begin with a brief introduction of the issues to be discussed. I go on to the theoretical inspiration for the paper and follow this by a brief historical background of the Civil Service in India and the structure of the Civil Service that evolved as a result. Next, I describe how the security of tenure is an important variable in determining the performance of the field bureaucrats. I then describe the interaction between the District Magistrate and the Superintendent of Police, arguably the two most important field bureaucrats working in the Districts in India. Following this, I model this interaction as a two-person Prisoners' Dilemma game.