Recovering the Craft of Public Administration

Public sector reform has rarely dropped off the political agenda of Western governments, yet the old craft skills of traditional public administration remain of paramount importance. The pendulum has swung too far toward the new and the fashionable reforms associated with New Public Management and the New Public Governance. It needs to swing back toward bureaucracy and the traditional skills of bureaucrats as part of the repertoire of governing. This article discusses the skills of counseling, stewardship, practical wisdom, probity, judgment, diplomacy, and political nous. Although these skills are of wide relevance, the article focuses on their relevance in Australia, Britain, Canada, and New Zealand. It concludes that the next bout of reforms needs to recover the traditional craft skills. It is not a question of traditional skills versus the new skills of New Public Management or New Public Governance; it is a question of what works, of what skills fit in a particular context.     

“新公共管理运动”的困境与转型——新西兰公共部门改革的反思及参鉴

新西兰公共部门改革是"新公共管理运动"的先锋,作为"改革实验室"和"政策创新者",因其彻底性、持续性及成效性被誉为"改革的典范"。然而近年来,西方公共管理学界提出了若干质疑,甚至认为"新公共管理运动已经死亡"。本文在考察新西兰公共部门改革实践的基础上,对实践模式的局限性及时代转换的压力两方面的批判性反思进行了梳理和分析:其"公平"与"公共"价值已经失落?是"经济学帝国"的扩张?还是"新泰勒主义"的表现?亦或是随着改革主题的衰落,数字时代治理的来临。对这一改革的实践发掘和理论反思对于当前我国政府职能转换与行政改革具有重要的参鉴价值:首先,推进改革的政府需要具备必要的能力基础;公共部门改革的核心命题是转变理念,优化政府职能,提高政府的效率和效能;而改革能否顺利推进,取决于广大民众和政府之间的深入互动;此外,改革需要尊重地方政府的主动性,充分发挥其作用。     

Managing for Results in State Government: Evaluating a Decade of Reform

State governments in the United States have enthusiastically embraced the idea of managing for results. This appears to represent a victory for New Public Management policy ideas transferred from New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and Australia. The managing for results doctrine that emerged from these countries called for an increased focus on results but also increased managerial authority to achieve results. In return, it was claimed, governments would enjoy dramatic performance improvement and results-based accountability. This article assesses the implementation of public management reform in the United States and argues that the managing for results doctrine has been only partially adopted. State governments selected some of the New Public Management ideas but largely ignored others. In short, state governments emphasized strategic planning and performance measurement but were less successful in implementing reforms that would enhance managerial authority, undermining the logic that promised high performance improvements.     

Recovering,Restoring, and Renewing the Foundations of American Public Administration: The Contributions of Herbert J. Storing

Public administration continues to face an identity crisis that turns on the question of whether the animating principles of the discipline are to be discovered in the political foundations of a given regime, or whether they are to be found in more universal and transcendent principles of scientific management. Herbert J. Storing reframed the identity crisis as a problem arising from America’s constitutional system of governance. In doing so, he created an important role for public administration in democratic governance. This role took the form of “closet statesmanship” and, in practice, requires the exercise of prudential judgment that looks more like judicial decision making than scientific management. In summarizing Storing’s writings, the authors convincingly argue that he has much to teach us about the ongoing debate regarding the role of the bureaucracy within America’s 87,576 systems of government.     

Evaluating Administrative Modernization in German Local Governments: Success or Failure of the “New Steering Model”?

This article evaluates the results and impacts of administrative modernization in Germany after more than 10 years of New Public Management experience, concentrating on the most advanced level of public sector reform: local authorities. Drawing on a broad empirical basis, the authors pursue the following questions: Do “Weber‐ ian” administrative structures and processes continue to characterize the German public sector, or have the reforms left behind lasting traces of a managerial administration? Are local authorities performing better today, and if so, can this be attributed to the New Public Management modernization? The presented results show that no paradigm shift from the “Weberian” bureaucracy to New Public Management has occurred so far. Performance improvements notwithstanding, the new mix of steering instruments causes numerous unintended consequences, causing “Weberian” administration to reemerge.     

The Political Economy of Public Reform Adoption: Patterns in Twenty Indonesian Districts

ABSTRACT

New Public Management (NPM) reforms are often perceived as technical, with little attention to political and institutional factors. Comparing choices in 20 Indonesian districts, we explore which of four political economic factors influence uptake of NPM-based service delivery reforms. We find that democratic political competition laid the groundwork for political alliances, patterns of patronage, and party provision of benefits that condition reform choices. State-led policy entrepreneurship was evident from education agency technocrats. Public sector modernization may have increased orientation towards performance, with education reforms adopted by districts already achieving relatively good sectoral results. Health reforms were more common in districts providing greater opportunities for citizen participation. The complex interactions among the factors argue for working within these realities, rather than seeing them as impediments to be avoided in a drive for reforms. Education technocrats’ dominance, bolstered by central policy priorities, argues for more nuanced mechanisms for meeting national goals to avoid crowding out responsiveness to local citizens.     

What's New about the New Public Management? Administrative Change in the Human Services

Interpretations of the emergence of the New Public Management are split. The champions of the movement present it as a new administrative paradigm that departs sharply from past thinking and practice, whereas skeptics argue it has evolved incrementally from past administrative traditions. To assess these views, this article examines recent administrative innovations in the human services that broadly reflect the New Public Management. The findings suggest that these innovations have built incrementally on past reforms in the human services field, supporting the skeptics' claim that the New Public Management represents an evolution and renewal of historical trends in public administration.     

Equity and Political Economy in Thomas Hobbes

Thomas Hobbes is often viewed as a seminal figure in the development of the homo economicus philosophical anthropology central to the acquisitive, bourgeois morality of liberal modernity. The present study challenges this interpretation of Hobbes as an antecedent to free market ideology by arguing that his political economy presupposed a complex relation between contract, law, and social networks of credit informed by prudence and robust norms of equity. The normative claims of equity permeate Hobbes's holistic account of political economy and inform his vision of liberal statecraft that gave priority to prudential judgment against economic determinism, especially as Hobbes understood trade, taxation, allocation of resources, and the provision of social welfare. I will conclude by reflecting upon how Hobbes's political economy both reveals the internal diversity within the liberal intellectual tradition and can help us to better understand and critique contemporary liberal states and democratic theory.     

‘Post-NPM’ by force or fiat? A comparison of administrative reform trajectories in Brazil and Mexico1

‘New Public Management’ (NPM) ideas gained widespread acceptance all over the world in the 1980s and 1990s. In developing countries, notable examples of its influence include the Brazilian ‘Master Plan for Reforming Public Administration’, launched in 1995 by president Cardoso, and the Mexican ‘Federal Public Administration Modernisation Programme’ created in the same year by president Zedillo. Both reflected NPM doctrine and advanced changes for the organisation of the Executive. This article explores the evolution of these two countries' managerial reforms and the extent to which they eventually continued converging (or not) around similar principles, such as those often referred to as ‘Post-New Public Management’ (Post-NPM). By applying quantitative textual analysis of official documents and an analysis of self-reported institutional changes, the article concludes that despite their governing parties' strong political differences Mexico and Brazil did converge during the 2000s, improving controls from the centre, and prioritising the adoption of transparency and participation tools. The comparison of the trajectories of the administrative reforms of these countries between 1995 and 2016 contributes to international debates on policy convergence and Post-NPM reforms.     

瓦格纳定律之英国实证检验及其对中国公共财政建设的启示——新公共管理运动背景下的探索

新公共管理运动的兴起,从理论上看财政规模弱化不可避免。英国作为新公共管理运动的发源国之一,其行政管理改革充分贯穿和系统展现了新公共管理理念的精髓。以英国新公共管理运动以来(1979—2006)的财政数据为依据,对瓦格纳定律进行实证检验,具有显著的代表意义。根据英国财政数据的研究结果与新公共管理理念高度吻合,表明瓦格纳定律在英国的适应期已经结束。有理由认为,只要推行新公共管理运动,瓦格纳定律就难以得到支持。鉴于新公共管理运动的世界性,及其不断推进的必然性,应当重新审视瓦格纳定律的客观性。有鉴于此,中国应该顺应世界新公共管理运动的潮流,立足于中国现实和中国社会经济转型的发展趋势,本着服务型政府的内在要求,适时调整财政政策。     

RHETORIC AND REALITY IN THE REFORM OF JUVENILE JUSTICE POLICY

In the 1960s and 1970s dissatisfaction with the administration of juvenile justice led to a reform movement which advocated "diversion, deinstitutionalization," and the decriminalization of status offenses as strategies to reduce the harmfulness of official contacts. This paper argues not only that these reforms have not been successfully implemented, but also that the traditional system has been maintained and extended. Explanations for the failure of these reforms are offered and a new direction is suggested.     

The New Public Service: Serving Rather than Steering

The New Public Management has championed a vision of public managers as the entrepreneurs of a new, leaner, and increasingly privatized government, emulating not only the practices but also the values of business. Proponents of the New Public Management have developed their arguments largely through contrasts with the old public administration. In this comparison, the New Public Management will, of course, always win. We argue here that the better contrast is with what we call the "New Public Service," a movement built on work in democratic citizenship, community and civil society, and organizational humanism and discourse theory. We suggest seven principles of the New Public Service, most notably that the primary role of the public servant is to help citizens articulate and meet their shared interests rather than to attempt to control or steer society.     

The effects of new public management on the quality of public services

Have New Public Management (NPM) reforms in public organizations improved the quality, efficiency and effectiveness of the delivery of public policies? NPM reforms, understood as a style of organizing public services towards the efficiency and efficacy of outputs, have been controversial. They have been accused of importing practices and norms from the private sector that could collide with core public values, such as impartiality or equity. Yet, with few exceptions, we lack systematic empirical tests of the actual effects that NPM reforms have had on the delivery of public services. In this introductory article, we summarize a special issue devoted to cover this gap. And, overall, we find that neither the catastrophic nor the balsamic effects of NPM reforms are confirmed, but the success (or failure) depends on the administrative, political and policy context those reforms take place.     

The Whole-of-Government Approach to Public Sector Reform

In this article, the authors discuss "whole-of-government" initiatives as a reaction to the negative effects of New Public Management reforms such as structural devolution, "single-purpose organizations," and performance management but also as a reaction to a more insecure world. The authors examine what is meant by a "whole-of-government" approach and explore how this concept might be interpreted in analytical terms. The structural approach is contrasted with a cultural perspective and a myth-based perspective. Finally, results, experiences, and lessons from the whole-of-government movement are discussed.     

The New Public Management, Homeland Security, and the Politics of Civil Service Reform

This article examines the George W. Bush administration's efforts to apply New Public Management reforms to the Department of Homeland Security. The primary focus is the administration's attempt to implement the law. The managerial strategy that Department of Homeland Security and Office of Personnel Management executives used to carry out the law in the massive new department receives attention, with a special focus on the approach used in dealing with the federal courts. The article suggests five general lessons concerning civil service deregulation at the federal level. The case reaffirms the notion that successful administrative reform requires a keen appreciation for the politics that shape it.     

Public Financial Management Reforms: The Role of Ipsas in Latin‐America

During the last 30 years, many public administration reforms promoted by New Public Management have been undertaken. These reforms have spread to Latin‐American countries and include changes in governmental accounting systems, where the implementation of International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSASs) has been a stimulus for modernization. This article aims to clarify the situation of IPSASs implementation in the Latin‐American context as well as the stimuli for and effects of their implementation. The analysis shows that there is an emerging international trend to adopt IPSASs in Latin‐American countries although at the same time, there are evident obstacles to achieving reform goals. In Colombia, reforms are still underway, and the usefulness of IPSASs to improve decision‐making at an organisational level cannot be evaluated. Meanwhile, in Peru, the modernization is more rhetorical than real, and many efforts remain to be made for the effective implementation. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Homeland Security and the U.S. Public Management Policy Agenda

The U.S. has been described as an "uninteresting laggard" in comparative public management policy. The passage of the Homeland Security Act in 2002 demands a reevaluation of this label. The Act created the Department of Homeland Security, but also marked a dramatic shift toward greater public personnel flexibility, both for the new Department and the entire federal government. It is tempting to suggest that the Act is an effort to "catch up" with the New Public Management benchmark countries. However, such an argument is overly simplistic and misleading. This article argues that the Act represents a triumph of a preexisting management agenda that was successfully tied to the issue of security during a political window of opportunity. The management agenda of the Bush administration pursues many of the concerns of the Clinton era, but does so with a more top-down and centralized interpretation of flexibility, reflecting an executive-centered philosophy toward government and a willingness to tackle the dominant stakeholder in this area, public service unions.     

Lessons from the new public management in commonwealth nations

The New Public Management (NPM) is unlike any other public sector reform for the simple fact that it is practitioner-driven as well as a global movement. However, what works in one public sector circumstance may not work in another political, social, or economic setting. By surveying the Commonwealth countries I find that NPM reforms are taking place in all Commonwealth countries regardless of their various stages of economic and political development. This evidence confirms that the administrative reform of NPM measures is truly a global public sector reform movement.     

Intelligence and the management of national security: the post 9/11 evolution of an Australian National Security Community

Since 2001 expenditure on the security services has increased exponentially in Western democracies and particularly amongst the Five Eyes community of the UK, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. This has occurred in conjunction with the expansion of counter-terror laws. Yet somewhat problematically the phenomenon of Islamist inspired violence became more threatening to the internal security of western democracies in the first decade of the twenty-first century. This study examines the Western managerial approach to security using Australia as a case study. It argues that the growth of Australian security agencies since 2001 and their evolution into a National Security Community after 2008 has neglected basic maxims of political and constitutional prudence and eschews the modern state’s own contractual self -understanding of sovereignty and political obligation.     

Evolutions and Limits of New Public Management—Inspired Budgeting Practices in Italian Local Governments

In Italy, New Public Management (NPM)‐inspired reforms have been mostly legislation‐driven. For Italian Local Governments (LGs), one of the most significant reforms was the introduction, in 1995, of an “Executive Management Plan” (EMP). The EMP has been interpreted and applied by Italian LGs differently across space and over time. Some LGs have introduced it only formally. Others have interpreted it as a tool to define individual managers's spending authorizations. Only some have viewed it as a building block of a wider management control system. Over time, LGs have since been making continuous changes to their budgeting systems, without yet reaching a new steady state.