The state of the world's bureaucracies

Abstract

Ranking countries is a popular exercise. Recently, we have seen attempts to internationally compare the performance of countries' public administrations. The number of available indicators and studies is increasing, yet their use has remained limited in the public administration research community. In this article, we critically analyse four of these studies and indicators. Evidence from the World Bank Governance Indicators, the European Central Bank's public sector efficiency study, the Global Competitiveness Report and the World Competitiveness Yearbook is used to assess data quality and conceptual validity. Generally, it is hard to determine what these indicators actually measure, and often they only give a partial and biased view of the public administration's role and functioning. Furthermore, several datasets are plagued by quality problems.

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