The last two decades have witnessed a revolution calling for reforms within the public sector in the third world and the developed countries. This has mostly been attributed to a number of factors within public administration.
These factors include; poor quality and unnecessary services, poor management, lack of motivation, failure to provide the necessary resources appropriate to particular tasks and disregard of the potential market/private sector.
Recent research conducted by the Organization for Economic co-operation and development observed that new management practices that concern market-type mechanisms associated with the private sector are being used in order to enhance change in managing public services in various nations. Such practices constitute the new public management (Reinert, 1999).
The attempts of NPM to renovate the public sector through the use of managerial reforms that stress on improved productivity with regards to significance, quality of service offered to the public and efficiency does not fit satisfactorily into the approach of public administration.
However the approach has some benefits, and is thus worth exploring. This paper aims at assessing the benefits and problems associated with New Public Management to public administration in relation to two policies, gaining insights from the third world and developed countries.
New Public Management
NPM refers to the application of market and business values as well as management practices found within the private sector into the public domain, in accordance with a neo-liberal insight of state and economy. The approach is seen to draw its practices from the private sector.
NPM was initiated in the1980s and its concepts have their roots from Anglo-America and have been powerfully endorsed by some of the international monetary organizations such as the International Monetary Fund as well as the World Bank. It started being executed in the early 1990s.
New Public Management is embraced in the neo-classical economic imperialism within the social sciences, which have a trend of handling most issues in neo-classical economic practices.
The approach is characterized by several features. These features include; delegating authority and ensuring flexibility, enhancing management in human resources, creating competition and choice, ascertaining receptive services, performance control and accountability, intensifying steering functions at the center, making use of information technology and developing the quality of regulation.
These features are based on some collective principles. The execution systems can be assessed as transactions that lay more emphasis on agreed contracts, information asymmetries, moral hazards and conformity monitoring challenges (Doornbos, 2004).
New Public Management reforms draw a lot of contribution from various sectors, ranging from economics, political science, technological and organizational approaches.
The economic crisis that called for the establishment of NPM also obliged for reforms which called for efficiency in delivering the public services. However, in most third world countries the reforms within public administration are mostly influenced by external pressures and are enhanced within the context of structural adjustment programs.
Significance of New Public Management
The main objective of NPM was to apply business values of effectiveness in the administration of state affairs. NPM is characterized by terms such as, eradication of vocational civil service, flat hierarchies, project management, de-politization, total quality management, orientation of customers, and contracting-out.
The key component of new public management entails the attempt to establish or reproduce performance motivation and disciplines found in the market environment in the public service. This is usually done with the supposition that these practices are favorable with regards to efficiency in divulging public sector activities to the pressures within the market for the purpose of the general public.
Moreover, the trend proposes that the government can gain from the private sector in spite of the differences in contexts. As a matter of fact, several administrative functions and the delivery of public services have been subjected to this approach. Even though several scholars have generally agreed on what constitutes NPM, they have often differed on their effectiveness, normative and positive contributions (Drechsler, 2004).
NPM mainly involves decentralizing management in the public sector. Since the 1990s, there has been an increased adoption of NPM policies worldwide. Such policies include, downsizing, management decentralization within public services, contacting out, user charges as well as performance contacting.
Downsizing as well as user fees have been widely used particularly in Africa and are closely linked to structural adjustment programs. As a matter of fact some independent agencies in the public sector have been introduced in some nations. For instance, we have independent hospitals in Sri Lanka and Ghana.
On the other hand, contacting out and performance contacting have become common policy options in several crises states. Contacting out is usually used as a tool of reform in the state- owned enterprises, where they offer the managers some form of operational autonomy, while still upholding accountability in the performance of the enterprises through a structure of sanctions and rewards.
Moreover, it is progressively being implemented in the delivery of public services such as waste management, maintenance of roads and secondary health services such as cookery and cleaning. In countries such as Bolivia, India and Ghana, performance contract is used in several sectors such as transport, agriculture, utilities and telecommunications.
Even though the adoption of the NPM practices have been to an extent beneficial in several instances such as cost savings and maintaining of roads, there have been several limitations in applying some NPM practices in several nations. Such limitations may be encountered in situations such as developing, monitoring and reporting systems, complex governance and managing a network of contracts (Kaboolian, 1998).
As a matter of fact, NPM is discounted for the notion of laying greater emphasis to the role of managers, a concept which can be applied in the control of public organizations. This is also the case in Taylors Scientific Management which stresses on the role of managers in studying, planning and controlling of work in an organization for effective productivity.
This notwithstanding, in some of the countries that apply NPM, the managers are given the mandate to manage by loosening restrictions on their prudence while in other nations, the managers are made to manage by compelling them to compete within the market.
Moreover, NPM is also concerned with disaggregation and defining of public agency units as well as their roles and functions. In fact, in some nations such as the UK, executive agencies have been removed from some departments and ministries with the aim of enhancing an explicit distinction in policy formulation and policy execution.
Another example can be found in New Zealand where the government, departments as well as crown agencies have been delineated with regards to participants in service delivery, the various tasks of ministries for results and departmental executives for productivity.
Moreover, both the profitable as well as the non- profitable functions such as delivery and consultative, advisory, provider, funder and purchaser functions have also been defined so as to fit into procurement and performance accords and oblige the private and public contestants to tender for government contracts which may even embrace those that offer policy guidance.
However, the implementation of NPM has had several challenges. Its tools are said to be too broad to be applied in governance, a system which is quite susceptible to its political and cultural setting and is hence expected to appear in a variety of institutional forms in diverse national environments. For this reason, the applicability and effectiveness of NPM concepts are likely to differ in different jurisdictions and nations.
Consequences of New Public Management
Even though NPM called for reforms within the public sector, one may not help to notice the significant difference between the private and public sectors. In reality, a state is primarily symbolized by its domination of authority, force and coercion as well as its orientation towards the well being of the public. On the other hand, the business realm primarily lays more emphasis on profit maximization.
However, NPM disregards the disparity between the public and private interests by tending to gather its yields from the public.
For this reason, application of business practices within the public domain is likely to complicate the very basic requirements of any given nation, predominantly of a democracy with a legal responsibility of regularity, intelligibility and appropriate features which are more important as compared to the speed and low costs stressed by NPM.
As a matter of fact, the speed and low-cost distinctiveness of NPM is directly linked to the main purpose of NPM, efficiency, which has been described narrowly in NPM, increasing the obscurity behind the approach. In actual sense, efficiency is an insight which is highly influenced by environment and suitability. It is absolutely hard to realize the required effects with minimum resources.
In the same way, a nation cannot achieve the required outcomes attributed to NPM efficiency which has scarcely been defined. This misconstruction of the insight of efficiency together with the de-politization that comes with it are distinctive indicators of bureaucracy as well as technocracy , features which NPM proposes to combat, while in the real sense promoting them.
Consequently, several nations are presently going through an essential adjustment of emphasis in the public administration domain and practice, from efficiency to effectiveness. In other words, the adjustment entails a shift from getting things done cheaply to essentially realizing one’s objectives.
As a matter of fact, there is no pragmatic proof that the NPM reforms have contributed to increased productivity or improved public welfare. The constant efforts and experiences of public management reforms that have taken a number of years in Western Europe alongside other nations indicate comparative failure but not accomplishment. NPM has failed to deliver the slogan pledges.
Flat hierarchies are a matter of suitability and highly depend in their appropriateness exclusively on the right environment. Handling the general public as mere customers removes their participatory privileges and obligations which does more harm to the state.
In addition, eradicating professional civil service is likely to terminate administrative capacity which may lead to de-democratization, leading to the resurgence of imperial bureaucrat camouflaged as entrepreneurial bureaucrat which employs same power but reduced accountability.
Moreover, it has become evident that the process of contracting-out which is supported by NPM is extremely costly and more often than not, it has been found to flout on the principle of competence within a nation, and on the primary values of impartiality.
Besides, the concept of Total Quality Management is not essentially an idea of NPM. This is because the concept can also be applied anywhere else. Total Quality Management has often been viewed as a constituent of an effective public administration.
In general, the economics- based challenges of NPM were to a certain extent expected. This was partly because NPM was not based on authentic economics where the pseudo markets were formed within administrative organizations with the aim of achieving market behavior. Nevertheless, such behavior can predominantly grow in authentic markets but not in pseudo-market.
This is a view that can be supported by any market theorist. For instance, in the case of product monopolies, there lacks a liberal consumer choice as in the case of an administrative body which has a contract with another predetermined administrative body, with regards to a service or a product that no one else is allowed to deliver, then, there can neither be a free market nor its benefits (Fry, 1989).
In the same light, all human beings act differently and cannot be the same everywhere. Similarly, economic performance goes hand in hand with culture.
Nonetheless, NPM reforms represent suppositions that disregard the differences found in both the private and public realm. The approach views these presuppositions as is the most excellent and certainly the only suitable mode.
The Role of the State
Fortunately, the state is not debilitated, as implied in NPM ideologies, and is perhaps more visible now than it was a decade or two ago. In the light of public administration perspective, it is no doubt that globalization has been a major challenge to the structures of the state.
However, this does not make them archaic, but rather, it makes them more indispensable than ever before, as a particular structure or institution must form and make the setting created by globalization inhabitable. As a matter of fact, since 1989, the world has experienced an incredible resilience of the state.
In recent years, several states have been formed, a good example being the splitting of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, as well as of Czechoslovakia in Europe. For this reason, we have mostly witnessed the re-emergence of the nation state as well as statehood (Mazamanian & Sabatier, 1983).
Moreover, even though there has been some intricate discussions about the legality of the ‘stateness’ of EU, we can comfortably endorse it as a state if we apply the functional definition of public administration. The EU is a continental state which is structured and functions alongside Continental lines. For this reason, despite having some constitutional crisis, the EU is a state structure.
Furthermore, the state stands at a better position to address the issues that challenge it. Such issues include ways of communication and organization. Most significantly, the current development and economic concerns which entail modernization, sustainability, technological expertise and development, promotes the role of the state in economic growth.
The Schumpeterian, innovation-based context can hardly be successful exclusive of a proficient state institution. In the case of Carlota Perez’ approach of Techno-Economic Paradigm Shifts, then we are now getting towards the synergy period of the Information and Communication Technology course which calls for a predominantly dynamic state with powerful administrative capability.
As a matter of fact, it is such concepts that constitute the primary development program of the EU Lisbon Strategy, which emphasizes on innovation as the foundation of EU as well as national development, and therefore completely necessitates a proficient state. The significance of these agenda cannot be dismissed regardless of the existing EU crisis or the challenges associated with the implementation of the Lisbon Strategy.
In reality, one may even argue that given that the uncertainties of the upshots of globalization were the primarily source of this crisis, an approach that deals with these causes is of great importance. For this reason, it is evident that the Neo-Liberal ‘policy reforms’ have failed to deliver their principal promise of economic development as the third world nations seemed to develop better under the so called poor policies of the 1970s.
Rhetoric and Fashion
For the reasons stipulated above, New Public Management has been taken as a an obsession which entails an authentic ideology, or founded on one, which is the neo-liberal belief, whose ideologies are weakened perceptions of veracity, reified by those who adopt them as they are not capable of handling the intricacy of the latter. This notwithstanding, we cannot underrate the influence of fashion.
Reform within the Public sector has lately been in fashion and cannot be ignored by all self-respecting governments. In this case, the greatest problem lies on the manner in which the fashion is instituted in public policy.
The establishment is mainly achieved through the diffusion of policy which is created from the actions of international officials in conferences that mainly involve policy entrepreneurs, academicians, as well as public administrators. Sadly, the enthusiasm for administrative reform in these officials is mainly driven by their personal gains.
As a matter of fact, the main reason why global experts have strongly advocated for New Public Management is that they are usually hired for fissionability reasons as well as their ability to recommend change. Moreover, it is very convenient for politicians to resort to experts as it lessens their pressure to establish the most appropriate decisions and it also facilitates the execution of unÂpopular practices.
For instance, concealed under the concept of efficiency, New Public Management purposely hands over the process of making decisions to the purportedly professional bureaucrat, and thus getting rid of political control, which is aimed at enhancing political accountability (Manning, 2005). This makes the politicians seem to be hiding themselves behind the blanket of managerial decision making.
While this may be very convenient for them, it scarcely contributes to the democratic aspect of decision making. Majority of politicians opt to pursue fashion as it is, according to them, the most secure and most spectacular means of continued existence in the political world.
The more the politician is weak, the more insecure he is and thus the more likely he is to adopt this approach. These politicians use professional advice but hardly depend on it.
Ironically, these features symbolize the genuine rewards of management reform to the politicians. For instance, they are seen to be accomplishing some responsibilities, and thus are likely to gain some form of status and may even end up making a career out of the modernizing and reforming procedures.
Rhetoric refers to what suits the demand, which does not necessarily mean that one has performed any action. The use of rhetoric in NPM may lead to the downfall of the state, which may cause delivery issues, weakening the public confidence.
Marxism and Modernity
According to Max Weber, the NPM system was a very dehumanizing organizational structure. To him, the most proficient form of public administration consisted of a set of offices in which the selected civil servants worked under the principles of chain of command, employment exclusively on merit, division of labor, career development as well as legality.
His key term was increased rationality, which according to him, would enhance momentum, cost-effectiveness, range, as well as predictability, which were most needed in a highly developed industrial world.
Even though the world has already surpassed that stage, and is currently a network society, these are not archaic criteria, but in actual sense are remarkably close to a good number of the current extensive standards of public administration reform programs globally.
These reforms comprise the central principles of the European Administrative Space which include dependability, efficiency, predictability, honesty, intelligibility, responsibility, and efficacy. Undoubtedly, these principles seem to be conscientious and closer to public administration reforms as compared to the slogans of New Public Management (Pollitt & Geert, 2004).
On the critique of traditional bureaucracy, it is essential to note that the public field, politics and administration are embedded in every nation and are likely to continue regardless of modernization which is a culturally based concept. Thus, the subject of bureaucracy is not about to go away.
For this reason, the solution to poor public administration does not lie in the abolition of public administration, but in ensuring effective public administration, that facilitates development within the society, economy as well as the state. As a matter of fact, historically, it is evident that, the competence of a government is directly related to national development.
The ability to generate and allocate wealth in the majority of the most powerful nations cannot be elucidated without recognizing the fundamental functions of public organizations. This also applies to the third world countries.
The Merit principle by Marx Weber considerably boosts the prediction of economic development. This can be supported by the recent evolution of the states in Central and Eastern Europe, while ranking their economic and social accomplishment. The findings in this analysis were very similar to those of the Marx Weber concept (Evans & Rauch, 1999).
On the subject of information and communication technology, even though the information and communication technology is a very fashionable field of study, we cannot say that the Marx Weber concept is completely obsolete as it recommends for the application of the written form.
This is because the written form does not turn out to be less authentic when it assumes the form of an e-mail instead of a physical ledger or letter. Moreover, division of labor, the chain of command, control and information flow, are not as easy as with information and communication technology. The subject of hierarchy may raise some eyebrows but the concept of division of labor calls for a hierarchical system of organization.
The Neo-Marxist Approach
On the other hand, there are several genuine challenges which are associated with bureaucracy. For instance, the Marxist approach entails some very self-centered administrations which tend to deter economic growth. In addition, it entails common legalistic supremacy of public administration.
However, the Neo- Marxist approach has indeed taken care of these challenges to represent a post-post-New Public Management, which is a synergetic structure of public administration.
The approach seeks to move from an inner course inclined to bureaucratic rules towards an external orientation which is dedicated to meeting the society’s requirements and desires. The key means of realizing this does not lie in the application of market mechanisms but rather, on the establishment of a qualified tradition of service as well as eminence.
On the other hand, the approach entails the process of supplementation of the function of representative egalitarianism through direct representation of the society and various consultation strategies.
Moreover, it stresses on realization of goals as compared to pursuing the right course of action during the management of government resources.
On the other hand, the approach involves professionalization of the public service in a way that the bureaucrat does not only become a specialist within the law which is pertinent to his/her field of specialty, but also become a proficient manager who is capable of meeting the needs of his/her society.
Good Governance
Governance is a neutral concept that stresses on directing activities in a given political system giving more emphasis to the relations of state with regards to the citizens, business and the society.
However, the term good governance is not at all neutral but a normative impression that represents a powerful quality judgment which stresses on the reduction of expenditure within the state and is required to produce business standards, principles as well as interests. The concept of good governance came as a result of the negative experiences that international finance institutions had in the third world countries.
This was mostly because these institutions had very little or no effect on the third world countries. Several principles underlining the concept of good governance are similar to those of the NPM. These concepts include transparency, efficiency, participation, responsibility, and market economy, state of law, democracy, and justice.
Even though most of these principles are undoubtedly good, most of them are dependent on context. For this reason, some scholars in the third world countries viewed the concept of good governance as a form of neo-colonialist imperialism or as a component of unconstructive globalization.
This was also because good governance calls for the establishment of institutions and structures prior to economic development within the developing nations, while the developed nations created these structures after economic development.
As a matter of fact, we cannot have good governance as well as non-governmental involvement without first establishing a properly functioning government which means that we should not weaken the state capacity which beats the logic of New Public Management (Peters & Piere, 1998).
In conclusion, it is clear that the adoption of NPM reforms has cost many nations dearly. The reform agenda that signified the adoption of New Public Management was marked by de-regulation, privatization, devolution, and ultimate termination and neglect of administrative functions of government.
The end result involved an unsteady and disorganized government which is vulnerable to several challenges which it still takes responsibility to its citizens and whose integrity has been diluted by ideological reduction that went along with reform. Even though there are some similarities between a government and a business, a government cannot be run like a business as the two sectors are quite different.
Application of the theory of NPM has also been severely challenged by several issues such as politics and the role of civil servants. Moreover, the approach is likely to make the government act like a business even where not applicable. For instance, it is not possible to apply competitiveness in the Internal Revenue System. Similarly, the regulatory agencies can never be controlled by the customers.
Furthermore, most countries which have adopted the approach of NPM go through economical a crisis which necessitates the need for efficiency in order to cut down the cost of delivering the public services.
For this reason, the solution to successful public administration reform, which is imperative for economic development and excellent governance, should entail reinforcing the administrative faculty and proficiency of a receptive and accountable state.
In other words, the most favorable solution for public administration lies in the adoption of authentic post-post-NPM approach which is based on the Marx Weber concept but detailed with the lessons gained from New Public Management and that which stresses on the significance of the citizens in administrative decision making. The Neo-Marxist approach is the most appropriate remedy for public administration.
This is mostly because it emphasizes on an explicit local authenticity, and with the ultimate objective of providing a good life in a good state.
The approach replaces the concept of ‘less government is better’ with the phrase ‘a better government is better (Lynn, 1998). For these reasons, New Public Management could not be a solution for all the problems encountered in the public sector, but a guarded selection of some of the elements could be very beneficial.
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