would be the case in countries where there had been virtually no experience
of parliamentary and representative government before independence. In
territories where nothing had been done to prepare for democratic self-
government the distortion was even greater. Experience of parliamentary
government prior to independence varied enormously. Even where it was con-
siderable the bureaucracy still emerged with prestige, power and status,
monopolizing the knowledge and expertise required for running a govern-
ment and developing a society. Government was the main source of employ-
ment for professional people and the highly educated. Government absorbed
the supply of technical expertise. For example, long practice in the mobiliza-
tion and organization of people for political ends through the Congress move-
ment in India still did not produce a capacity to control a highly developed
administrative system in the years immediately following independence.
The bureaucratic–military oligarchy, with its distinctive set of practices,
codes, rules and standards, almost totally unaccountable to outsiders under
the imperial state, was recruited from the wealthier sections of society. In
Pakistan there was an imbalance in recruitment between the East and West
provinces, with much of the recruitment into the bureaucracy and military
coming from the West. The under-representation of people from the East was
a factor in the subsequent break-up of the country. The oligarchy was not
classless. It had its social attachments. But it could mediate between classes
more easily than legislative assemblies in which the representatives of war-
ring factions sit. Legislative assemblies are also likely, under universal suf-
frage, to contain representatives of property-less classes. They constitute a
threat to those who are economically privileged. A bureaucratic–military oli-
garchy is thus required that can mediate between the propertied classes and
subjugate other classes in the interest of the existing distribution of wealth.
Comparisons of Pakistan and Tanzania confirmed the overdeveloped
nature of the state in relation to civil society, particularly through its bureau-
cratic manifestations. Colonialism in Tanganyika had left a relatively highly
developed bureaucracy, although one that had not been extensively pene-
trated by Africans. Furthermore, it represented the power of the colonial
state over all the elements of civil society rather than any internal, domestic
interests. The colonial state had developed even fewer institutions for nego-
tiating with indigenous interests than in India. It was paternalistic rather
than mediatory. The state apparatus, particularly in its bureaucratic form,
was more overdeveloped in relation to civil society and the private sector
where capitalism either in agriculture or industry had hardly begun to
emerge. However, Africans were only recruited into positions of influence
in meaningful numbers on the eve of independence, when it was essential to
The State in the Third World 119