Administration

Governments in many Western countries decided in the 1980s that traditional administration was no longer up to the task of modern government. They looked to the private sector to define a new management approach. Management introduces a new vocabulary, mindset, and culture to government bureaucracies. The purpose is to force the hand of bureaucrats to become more dynamic and better managers. A debate has raged in the political science and public administration literature on the merits of the new public management (NPM) in relation to traditional public administration for the past 25 years. A number of politicians in the 1980s decided that the machinery of government was in an urgent need of repair. The old ways were no longer up to the task, and they packaged a series of reform measures that in time would become known as NPM. Proponents of NPM deliberately set high standards with goals to “reinvent government,” “get government right,” and designate those that would “steer” government from those that would be doing the “rowing.”

The word management in NPM implies a decisiveness, a bias for action, and a dynamic mindset. Traditional public administration, meanwhile, conjures up images of rules, regulations, and lethargic decision-making processes. Presidents and prime ministers who came to power in the 1980s concluded that the problem was with bureaucracy, not political institutions. They accused bureaucracy of being bloated, expensive, unresponsive, a creation of routine deliberately resistant to change, and essentially incapable of dealing with new challenges.

It is one thing to diagnose the patient, but it is quite another to come up with the remedy. Initially, at least, political leaders were left to try this or that to see what would work with varying degrees of success. In time, a new approach, anchored in private sector management practices, began to take shape and a label was attached to it—NPM.

The goal was nothing short of introducing a new culture in government departments and agencies. The old culture was found wanting on many fronts. It attached too much importance to due process, prudence, probity, and centrally prescribed administrative rules and regulations. It also encouraged senior civil servants to focus on policy issues rather than on management. The old culture, associated with traditional public administration, was considered not only outdated but also [Page 23]counterproductive. Public administration became synonymous with the old culture.

NPM would introduce a new vocabulary, a new way of thinking, and a new culture. It would also give rise to a proliferation of management techniques to force government operations to become more efficient. The purpose was to force the hand of senior government officials to become better managers and to learn to make tough management decisions. Taken at face value, the political rhetoric that accompanied the arrival of NPM to government meant setting the civil service at its own throat.

The Canadian government published a report (see Table 1) designed to contrast the old culture (public administration) with the new culture (NPM).

NPM holds important advantages for politicians. In forcing the hand of senior civil servants to become better managers, politicians would gain the upper hand in shaping policy initiatives. The thinking was that civil servants had too much influence on policy at the expense of politicians. The message from politicians to senior civil servants could not be clearer under NPM—you worry about managing government operations better, and we will worry about setting policy priorities.

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