In this article, Fred Riggs examines the concept of modernity (particularly in the context of industrialization, democratization, and nationalism), and how it has helped shape the administrative states we know today. Industrialization has vastly expanded both the tasks assigned to all contemporary governments and the resources (domestic and international) placed at their disposal. This has not only increased the need for efficient and humane public administration, but it has also magnified the necessity for bureaucratic power in order to ensure competent and impartial management of public affairs but, regrettably, it also enhances opportunities for corruption and mismanagement. The effect of democratization has been to replace monarchs with representative institutions capable of controlling and directing increasingly complex bureaucracies — while ensuring officials the autonomy and stable guidelines they need. When these institutions fail to function effectively, as they often do, public administration can collapse and in many cases, angered public officials, led by military officers, seize power and establish bureaucratic polities marked by corruption and even greater inefficiency. Nationalism has played a fundamental role in the creation of modern democracies. Unfortunately, however, in many countries, including the United States, strains generated by imperial conquests and mass migrations have now created a host of inter-ethnic tensions and pitifully weak states where traditional concepts of public administration based on assumed national unity are put to severe tests.
