Michael Kirk (1996):
Land Tenure Development and Divestiture in Lao P.D.R.

4. Bureaucracy at Different Regional Levels

Bureaucrats situated at different regional levels within the state apparatus have differing interests in resource tenure development. Accordingly they also involve themselves differently in the transformation of the economic system. One could easily believe the cliché in Laos that the bureaucracy merely has an inflexible, reactionary and dampening effect on the reform process, that it only treads well-worn paths and is clinging to the power which has been handed down to it; the strategies and ways of dealing of the bureaucracy are much more complex.

The Ministry of Agriculture [FN 88] is symptomatic of the complicated structure at the national level. Some Departments give outsiders the impression that agricultural policy and support services can be continued with (business as usual) relatively untouched by changes brought about in 1986, that bureaucracy is merely securing and frantically defending its power and methods passed on to it. In contrast, there are Departments in which a new understanding of the access to resources is taking hold. They have influence over legislation and resource policy; personal reputation and power are secured in the Department primarily through co-operation with international donors and the inclusion of financially powerful projects.

Dynamic, skilled and innovative bureaucrats deliberately use the opening offered by the search process of the transformation and create specific coalitions with donors. In so doing, they test the limits allowed by the Party and State apparatus. Such coalitions are only successful in the long term if they are of mutual benefit. This is case if the donors are able to achieve their objectives, such as the participation of disadvantaged groups, environmental protection, the fight against poverty, as through strong Departments in the line ministries, and also if they are able to establish these objectives in the legislation. An exact analysis of the history of how Decree 169 came into being and the part played by the Department of Forestry could shed light on these mutual benefits. Lao administrators can thus increase their influence in the bureaucracy as well as aver the chances of promotion through proof of large project budgets. They can also do this through the setting of standards, such as for geographical information systems (GIS) used for demarcation, zoning and land use planning. [FN 89] Additionally, help from donors as well as international experts and researchers allows them all the better to push through or accelerate their own ideas of the necessary alterations in the legislation, by using seminars and consultancy presentations, etc. Examples of this would be the success of the inclusion of watersheds as a planning entity in the newly passed Water Law, or an objectification of the debate about customary rights.

These differing strategies for preserving the access to resources and power, or rather for securing this access, inevitably deepens the rift and problems of co-ordination between the Departments, even to the point of causing open disagreements, and can both delay and cripple reforms. Foreign investors can make use of this weakness, and play Departments and Ministries off against one another.

Bureaucrats at the provincial level have forfeited a part of their previous power and their ability to deal autonomously through the recentralisation since 1986 in that they increasingly have to redirect tax revenue (e.g. from the Land Tax) to the Central State, or in that they have to - as subordinate officials, bound by orders - implement the new resource legislation so that it is uniform and compulsory for all. Laos also carries on a policy of decentralization in so far as clear responsibilities for making decisions between District, Province and National levels have been established, for instance when allocating forest concessions. [FN 90] Since the Central State cannot deal with its control in all provinces equally intensively, there remain numerous openings at the provincial level. Here, dynamic, and to a certain degree daring top officials (e.g. in the Luang Prabang or Sayaburi Provinces) use a lack of implementation regulations (e.g. Decree 169) in order to be able to form their own drafts, to have influence on planning and also to make their work interesting for projects, so as to accumulate finance and influence. There are reports from the provinces that the province administration continues to follow the control and command system almost unhindered, and uses its gate keeper function when issuing forest concessions, and allocating of State land for agricultural enterprises (cattle breeding, poultry farms) so as to gain personal advantage.

The relationship between the Central State and the Provinces is tense in view of the power struggle for autonomy, or rather subordination within hierarchical administrative processes. The pressure of international donors to give more weight to participation, the subsidiarity principle and locally specific land use planning for resource management and strengthens the position of the Provinces.

The bureaucracy at the District level currently carries the main burden of implementing the resource legislation. Measured against the existing level of payment, the danger of getting people out of their depth and resignation is increasing above all through the unsatisfactory communication with the central level. Thus the danger of corruption is also growing. They fill the key roles in the demarcation between agricultural and forest land, between village forest, conservation and production areas, in the surveying of agricultural land, and in the allocation of certificates of possession. It also depends here, as in the Province administration, upon how quickly their work can be controlled in starting with land use planning and resource management in public and controlled by the villages. At the same time they must be motivated with incentives [FN 91] to help with reforms.