Les services publics marocains face au changement by Une Equipe d'universitaires marocains etfrançaisReview by: Daniel J. SchroeterCanadian Journal of African Studies / Revue Canadienne des Études Africaines, Vol. 30, No. 2(1996), pp. 287-288Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of the Canadian Association of African StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/485172 .

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287 Book Reviews/Comptes rendus

bibliography scanned). For example, Carole Paradis, "Description phonologique du Guere" (MA, Universit6 de Qu6bec A Montr6al, 1982) was missed by both Lauer, Lar- kin, and Kagan as well as Curto and Gervais.

How does Curto and Gervais compare with Lauer, Larkin, and Kagan? Curto and Gervais report (6) increasing the Lauer, Larkin, and Kagan's number of Canadian titles for 1974-1987 by fifty-three percent, which indicates that Lauer, Larkin, and Kagan missed thirty-five percent (not fifty-three percent). Setting aside the unrealistic expec- tation of complete coverage for initial and final cover dates, I have revised my esti- mates of Lauer, Larkin, and Kagan's coverage of the years 1975-I986 to: - ninety-eight to ninety-nine percent of US dissertations (only ninety-five percent for 1986); - thirty- three percent (minimum) of US Master's; - eighty-four percent of Canadian disserta- tions (ninety-four percent for 1975-1984) listed in Curto and Gervais; - sixty-one per- cent (minimum) of Canadian Master's; - seventy-two percent of all North American dissertations and Master's theses about Africa.

Since almost all American dissertations appear in the University Microfilms Inter- national database, even if not listed in Dissertation Abstracts International, a combi- nation of scanning and a computer search got almost all (five titles have since come to my attention), except for 1986 which is too close to the cutoff date to be comprehen- sive. In contrast, most American Master's theses do not appear in any national list. A small number of institutional lists suggest that Master's theses form an estimated forty percent of the total number of American graduate theses (versus seventy-three percent of the Canadian total), and Lauer, Larkin, and Kagan missed most of them.

Overall, Curto and Gervais have provided a significant assessment of and guide to graduate research in Canada. A great deal of effort and care went into the compilation, which is perhaps why unfortunately no plans for updates have yet to be announced.

Joseph J. Lauer Michigan State University

Une Equipe d'universitaires marocains et franqais. Les services publics marocains face au changement. Toulouse: Presses de l'Institut D'Etudes Politiques de Toulouse, 1987. 220 pp.

This book is the result of two conferences, one held in Casablanca and the other in Toulouse, on the theme of changes in the public sector in Morocco since indepen- dence, and especially since the 197os. The central concern shared by all authors is the relationship between the public services and problems of development. The growth of the private sector, foreign investment, and debt are analyzed in the context of privati- zation and deregulation of the public sector. Each article is devoted to a separate domain of public service, offering a kind of recent history of legislative changes, a prog- nosis of the current situation, and, sometimes, suggestions for reform.

In the first article, Mohamed El Abdaimi looks at the evolution of fiscal legislation, analyzing the relationship between tax structure and economic development. He focuses on the question as to what extent Moroccan fiscal policy has been an instru- ment of development. He is critical of the fact that the Moroccan system is based pri- marily on indirect rather than on direct taxes, a fact which places the heaviest burden on the poor. In general, with the absence of a comprehensive tax reform, modifications

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288 CJAS / RCEA 30:2 I996

tend to be piecemeal; this places serious constraints on national savings. Mohamed Benhmidou examines the relationship between administrative institutions and social change, identifying the main problem as the gap between administration and society - the bureaucratized and centralized administrative structure on the one hand, and the rigid character of the decision-making process on the other. Effective reform would have to entail democratization. Abdelkebir Fikri discusses the weakening of parlia- mentary assemblies. The domination of technocracy, the preponderance of financial administration, and the monopolization of information by the state have weakened the power of the parliament.

Ahmed Bouachik examines the ambivalent relationship between public enterprise and the general interest, ideas found in Moroccan administrative law, but which remain undefined. Redouane Bojemaa writes on the transformation of the civil service which he sees as being closely linked to economic and social reality and the technolog- ical evolution of society. Public service has shifted from its original responsibility to maintain the order of certain services to management in planning, regulating, and con- trolling all activities. Here, a distinction is drawn between developed countries, where public service is considered a tool for maintaining an already established socioeco- nomic order, and developing countries, where it is an essential tool of the state to real- ize development objectives.

Francois-Paul Blanc and Albert Lourde discuss the Societes d'Economie Mixte (SEM), which were established during the Protectorate with the idea to promote pri- vate capital by associating it with public capital. Other sectors discussed are educa- tion, the judicial system, national defense, foreign affairs, and the administration of the environment. The last article by Bernard Saint-Girons does not refer specifically to Morocco, but analyzes more generally the question of the state and public enterprise. He indicates that newly independent states, for the most part, greatly enlarged the nationalized sector, but increasingly, this sector has opened up to private investors.

The book ends with a round table discussion, which took place in November 1986 to analyze some of the common themes found in the articles. It contains four topics of discussion: privatization and the public sector; the formation of personnel, public ser- vices and the protection of individual rights; and the evolution of public opinion regarding public services.

Although based on a common, well-defined theme, the absence of an editor who could offer some kind of synthesis limits the utility that this book has for non-special- ists. While some of the wider questions about development and the role of the public sector are implicit in most of the discussions contained in this book, there is a kind of parochialism in the approach of most of the studies, and few references are made to non-French or non-Moroccan literature related to Morocco or to the theory of develop- ment in a more general sense. For specialists on Morocco, however, the book offers some interesting information and insights on problems of development, and without directly challenging the Moroccan political system, seriously questions the liberal economic ideology of the government.

Daniel J. Schroeter University of California, Irvine

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