Jobs for the Boys

“With her keen sense of real-world politics and use of both the literature and her own interviews, Grindle provides a very valuable resource.”—J. A. Rhodes, Choice

“One of the book’s most original arguments is that there are drawbacks to professionalizing the bureaucracy. A stable, rule-bound administration may compromise flexibility for rulers, and even degrees of loyalty, both of which are arguably necessary for good governance. The book offers a counterargument to those scholars who, following Weber, believe that maximizing meritocracy is an unmitigated gift.”—Javier Corrales, Amherst College

“An outstanding book, highly original in its creation of a new interface between the historical-institutional literature on now-‘developed’ countries and the almost completely separate world of the development literature.”—Judith Tendler, Massachusetts Institute of Technology