Emma Crewe at #Statecraft2026 on instilling a sense of public value in civil servants: it is not something that can be taught in class - what really makes the difference is professional community, networks and peer pressure.

Funke Adepoju at #Statecraft2026 Training is most effective when it is attached to live institutional responsibilities, not abstract learning. Learning must be connected to decisions that you actually have to take.

Crewe at #Statecraft2026 - quotes George Herbert Meade and argues that public sector leadership is about using #imagination to expand the sense of community, particularly in bureaucracies where things can get quite stuck.

Crewe at #Statecraft2026 the relational and negotiated character of civil service leadership means that leaders need to be good researchers - not only in the academic sense but in the ability to find out what is actually going on. Pragmatic leadership in complex context requires #imagination.

Emma Crewe at @soasuni.bsky.social , addressing #statecraft2026 about leadership from an anthropological point of view. Training contributes only 10% of the practical judgement civil servants need. And leadership is a relational practice, so training needs to contest orthodoxies

Day 2 at #Statecraft2026. Funke Adepoju, Director-General, Administrative Staff College of Nigeria talks about the challenges of creating an effective civil service in the postcolonial world. The critical thing is not merely adherance to policy but the abilty to exercise practical judgement.

Ivor Chipkin argues that inter-elite competition can play a crucial role in interrupting #statecapture. But an elite bargain is essential to a sustained pushback against it. #Statecraft2026 Reforming institutions to close the loopholes that allowed state capture is also essential.

Daniel Kaufmann ex @brookings.edu at #statecraft2026 argues that while the USA is not yet completely captured it is on a steady trajectory to broad based #statecapture. Central here is not only the subversion of institutions but the capture of narratives and of the international system.

Dušan Pavlović at #Statecraft2026: #Serbia is another example of a place where #statecapture is driven, not by firms but by politicians intent on extracting public resources not only for private gain but also to serve political projects and political machines.

Ivor Chipkin at #Statecraft2026: what is the difference between #corruption and #statecapture? State capture is an elite project. In other words, state capture is self-righteous: it tries to redefine its subversion as legitimate.

Margot Conrad at #Statecraft2026: shifting criteria for the appointment of senior civil servants in the USA are emphasing narrow compliance with the rule of law and commitment to the aims of the administration, which means that officials feel less and less safe to speak up when things go wrong.

Margot Conrad of the @volckeralliance.bsky.social on the current assault on the #administrative state at the #Statecraft2026 conference: not only it there a sharp increase in political appointees, but also much more churn and turnover, with serious consequences for continuity.

Brian Levy at #Statecraft2026 - the lessons of international experiences of statecraft and governance are NOT 'best practices' - government is a radically context bound activity.

Chipkin at #Statecraft2026 - if democracy is to survive, we need to go beyond the anti-administrative utopianism of both the left and the right. We have to appreciate the recognition of #Weber of bureaucracy as an institution that is at the same time problematic *and* absolutely essential.

Chipkin at #Statecraft2026 - the antipathy to #bureaucracy and the failure to constitute an administrative state is not the outcome of incompetence - it has deep links to a long tradition of right-wing and left-wing #utopian analyses of modern alienation.

Chipkin highlights the continued prevalence of Marx's critique of #bureaucracy and his argument that it cannot represent the general interest. While few quote Marx today this analysis still circulates today - including in critiques of the #DeepState by Trump and right-wing populists #Statecraft2026

Ivor Chipkin argues that much of the crisis of statecraft in South Africa over the last 20 years, including #statecapture, lies in the failure to recognise that administration not a discretionary but a constitutive sphere of the state. #Statecraft2026

#Statecraft2026 Chipkin quotes Woodrow Wilson: Administration lies beyond the proper sphere of politics.

(This is not to say that it is not political; it obviously is. But neither can it be collapsed into politics. Instead it is a relatively autonomous sphere of political deliberation).

Ivor Chipkin inaugurating #Statecraft2026 at #GIBS. Solving the problems of democratic government requires practical judgement. But for practical judgement to be possible, analysis is needed. The challenges of democratic governance need an accurate diagnosis of the causes of problems.

Exciting to be at the Statecraft 2026 Conference hosted by the New South Institute today: we will be exploring the challenges facing democratic institutions in the post-colonial & post-socialist worlds. #Statecraft2026

nsi.org.za/statecraft/