First published in 1967, Field Administration provides a useful introduction to a much-neglected aspect of administration. Every government finds it necessary to decentralise its administration. But in Britain much more attention has been paid to devolution, i.e., to local government, than to deconcentration, i.e., to local and regional administrative organisation, or what Mr. Smith calls field administration. Neither aspect of decentralisation can be fully understood in isolation and one great merit of this volume is it study of interrelationships between the two. To illustrate the general principles involved, case studies are provided of three kinds of field administration: the functional (the Ministry of Agriculture in the U.K.), the integrated prefectoral system (Burma) and the unintegrated prefectoral system (Northern Nigeria). This book will be of interest to students of political science, government and administration.
