GLOBALIZATION ERA AND NPM IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

Note: 

This paper has been published this year. It can be cited as -

     Renu, Globalization Era and NPM in Public Administration, published in Globalisation & Public Administration: Pros and Cons, edited by M. C. Pawar and Pratibha Patil, Educational Publishers, Aurangabad, January, 2015, pp. 76-82. 

     (ISBN – 978-93-80876-72-6)

        GLOBALIZATION ERA AND NPM IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

Dr. Renu

Professor & Head

Dept. of Public Administration

Punjabi University

Patiala- (Punjab)

            Public Administration as a discipline as well as profession is undergoing some profound changes since globalization captured attention worldwide. As the donor agencies tried to impress upon the third world countries about the benefits of globalization, many felt that globalization is literally neither new to many of these countries nor to Public Administration. “The spread of all religions across the oceans” was example of globalization… “Knowledge about governance with all its theories and practices has spread across the boundaries and frontiers of nations from time immemorial. They have in turn influenced the shaping of structures of governments and their functioning. Today, no nation can claim to have a constitutional system which evolved exclusively from its native ethos without foreign influences.”¹

      Nevertheless, in the contemporary times, globalization has spread its influence as never-before and discussions about its positive and negative ramifications are ever increasing. The discipline of Public Administration has not remained impervious by this development. In fact, the context of Public Administration immensely exerted its influence on the discipline and it resulted in innovations and valuable reforms.  Truly, Public Administration has a multi-disciplinary character and it showed maturity and resilience in absorbing and assimilating the relevant from other disciplines. Thus, various trends and developments reenergized the discipline and the profession of Public administration from time to time and NPM or New Public Management is one of the latest. As quoted by Ramesh K. Arora, currently, if there is one ‘Paradigm’ in the discipline of Public Administration, it is perhaps ‘NPM’. It can be said that Public Administration liberally borrowed from Management, its “ more vibrant sister discipline”, in so far as its internal managerial dynamics are concerned while it operated in a wider external socio-cultural-Technology-economic and political environment. “It is universally accepted that most maxims, principles, guidelines and dictums of efficiency, economy and effectiveness have emanated from the writings of management thinkers and they have been adopted and adapted by the scholars of public administration.” (Arora, 2011). It can be exasperating to find that contrary to expectations, bureaucracy has seldom responded to the environmental challenges on its own, historically speaking. However, a redeeming quality of Public Administration is its openness to welcome solutions suggested to bureaucratic problems by scholars from other social sciences. NPM is a good example of this.

EMERGENCE OF NPM PERSPECTIVE²

            A global revolutionary wave, which introduced a series of methods and techniques in the governmental system, beginning in the early 1980s, acquired the label of New Public Management. The objective of such vast contemporary changes has been to reinvent public administration, to make the public service efficient, economical and effective through the use of management concepts and techniques. This exercise stirred a systematic thinking amongst the academicians and practitioners of public administration, on giving a serious insight into the ways the government needs to function in the globalization scenario. Bureaucracy, which was regarded as the key to administrative efficiency came under severe attack…The proponents of public choice approach hold the bureaucracy, being the core of public administration, responsible for the declining quality of public services as they are self-indulgent, seek greater security, power, prestige and income. The most sophisticated contemporary public choice model of bureaucracy is that presented by Patrick Dunleavy (1991) in what he refers to as ‘bureau-shaping model’, where senior bureaucrats get satisfaction by maximizing their status…

            In 1992, in USA, David Osborne and Ted Gaebler introduced the concept of entrepreneurial government in their work Reinventing Government, How the Entrepreneurial spirit is transforming the public sector which stimulated several debates and discussions. They made an elaborate case for transforming the bureaucratic government into an ‘entrepreneurial’ one. This model has been conceptualized in the following ten forms:

1)      Catalytic Government: providing not only services, but also catalyzing all sectors into action in the solution of problems.

2)      Community-oriented Government: empowering of citizens in service delivery.

3)      Competitive Government: promoting competition amongst various services providers.

4)      Mission-driven Government: being driven by missions and not rules and regulations.

5)      Result-oriented Government: measuring the performance of organizations on the basis of their outcomes than on inputs.

6)      Customer-driven Government: redefining clients as customers and offering them choice in service delivery.

7)      Enterprising Government: mobilizing efforts towards earning money instead of just spending.

8)      Anticipatory Government: being proactive in the sense of preventing problems before they emerge.

9)      Decentralized Government: resorting to decentralizing authority with a view to taking decision making close to the citizen.

10)  Market-oriented Government: relying on market mechanisms in the provision of services rather that bureaucratic mechanism.

ASPECTS OF NPM

Although the NPM model has many avtars like managerialism (Pollitt 1990), new public management (Hood 1991), market-based public administration (Lan and Rosenbloom 1992), and entrepreneurial government (as mentioned above), there are common basic premises. The OECD view on NPM involves the following aspects of administrative management:

·         Improving human resource including performance pay.

·         Participation of staff in the various stages of decision making, relaxing control and regulations, yet prescribing and ensuring the achievement of performance targets.

·         Using information technology to an optimum level in order to make MIS more effective and enrich policy and decisional systems.

·         Providing efficient services to clients and treating them as customers and even as members of the organization.

·         Prescribing user charges for services in order to make the customers as more integral part of the public Sector management.

·         Contracting out services as a part of the privatization plan.

·         De-regulation of monopolicies and deconcentration of economic power among various organizations.

These days literature on New Public Management is in abundance; however, there are certain concerns are common as given below³:

·         Focus on outputs, with greater stress on results rather than procedures.

·         Strengthening professional management.

·         Ensuring high standards measures of performance.

·         Greater emphasis on output controls.

·         Increasing de-centralization of business decisional power.

·         Greater accent in the public sector on adoption of private sector style of management practices, discipline and parsimony.

·         Ensuring accountability, progressive leadership and greater understating between political leadership and the public.

·         Added responsibility of managers for results.

·         Gradual decrease in the size of government.

 CRUCIAL ISSUES AND PROBLEMS WITH NPM

Administrative Culture with a feudal mindset in some developing countries⁴ Administrative culture in developing countries even in post globalization era is very different from the administrative culture prevailing in the developed countries. Administrative culture in many Third World countries is still embedded in feudal mindset or the colonial hangover in some cases. Bureaucracies in the developing countries with a colonial past like India have been steeped in secrecy, arrogance and scant respect for a common citizen. It is also one of the reasons why progressive legislation sometimes is not properly implemented in these countries. In addition, where the public sector was occupying the commanding heights of economy, the bureaucracy is not comfortable with the new changes being brought due to globalization and resisted them also. There are fears that market mechanisms may only reduce accountability of public programmes by emphasizing “internal machinery of the administration than with the latter’s relationship to its social and political envoronment.” Thus, the question of accountability of the administration assumes immense seriousness in this scenario.

Ethical Concerns: Ethics is a crucial area in the domain of Public Administration also.⁵ However, to attain or not to attain ethics is a moot point in globalised “heart of darkness”, to use Joseph Conrad’s phrase. Ever expanding trends of globalization-driven consumerism and craze for immediate fulfillment of needs lead to under-estimation of ethical values in public life. The dilemma and crisis of ethics in the administration gradually become so acute that holistic social development suffers.⁶ As NPM failed to address the crucial issue of ethics; there are also apprehensions about increased chances for the corrupt and dishonest with adoption of NPM. ‘In contractual matters, corruption may result from secret commissions to individual public officials giving contracts, political interference in the selection of contractors, collusion among tenders and acceptance of tenders for prices above the cost of public provision, and so on.’⁷

Revival of Taylorism: Some scholars like Pollitt find managerialism representing a revival of Frederick Taylor’s scientific management ideas which are contrary to the development of the organizational behavior (human relations approach). Pollitt argues that the managerial reform programme in the 1970s and 1980s “was dominated by the values of efficiency and economy, with effectiveness a poor third.”⁸  Unfortunately, the NPM approach is not much concerned about other highly prized values, as Terry remarks, “such as fairness, justice, representation, or participation are not on the radar screen. This is indeed troublesome.”⁹

Basis in Public Choice theory:   NPM’s basis in public choice theory has come under criticism also. In the real world, all individuals do not behave rationally and all bureaucrats do not maximize their own utility (that is, increasing their own power, prestige and security). It could be said that the assumption of individual rationality is too sweeping and ignores any selfless or public spirit behavior by public officials. The question about bureaucrats maximizing budgets to achieve their personal ends suffers from a marked lack of empirical test.¹⁰

Over-domination by the Multi-national Corporations (MNCs): NPM favors less government and more development of markets. But it can result in dangerous over-domination by foreign or multinational corporations in the developing countries as they themselves do not have much experience in the operation of markets. NPM will not provide lasting solution to the problem of their sluggish development because corruption is rife in every sphere of life; there is over-politicization of the system and fast communication, information flow and latest technology are yet to spread so far as the Third World countries are concerned.

Threat to Democratic Governance

The goals and concerns of Public Administration are much bigger than mere public management. “Minnowbrook-I and Blacksburg Manifesto have both raised this issue of democratic governance in public interest… Both public bureaucracy (and managerialism) and democratic polity are needed in a liberal-democratic society…central pursuits of Public Administration like achieving a democratic polity, improving the instruments of collective action and creating conditions for good citizenship and increasing societal learning are of no concern for the ‘public management’ advocates. A major flaw in the managerial perspective is its inordinate interest in organizational concerns and measures of organizational performance…a misplaced emphasis on “instrument” at the cost of “purpose”. Public Administration as ‘management’ misses altogether the overarching perspective of a democratic polity.” ¹¹                 

CONCLUSION

To conclude, globalization is a reality but at the same time, we must not ignore this reality that a vast portion of the world population lives in the Third World countries. If the developing countries blindly follow any system without taking into account the realities of local situation, they can end up becoming victims of globalization rather than be its beneficiaries. Because the powerful and mighty will have money and technology which can steer a world order in their favour. Proper research must go into the new systems before adopting them and also to determine to what extent and at what pace.

REFERENCES AND NOTES:

1)      Valsan, E. H. (2011). Globalization and Public Administration. In Ramesh K. Arora (Ed.) Recent Perspectives in Public Administration (p. 70). Jaipur: Aalekh Publishers.

2)      Medury, Uma. (2011). Reinventing Public Administration: The New Public Management Perspective. In Ramesh K. Arora (Ed.) Recent Perspectives in Public Administration (pp. 104-123). Jaipur: Aalekh Publishers.

3)       Arora, Ramesh K. (Ed.). (2011). Recent Perspectives in Public Administration. Jaipur: Aalekh Publishers. 21.

4)      Shahi, Shashi Pratap. (2014). Administrative Culture in a Developing Society in Post Globalisation Era: With Special Reference to Bihar. Retrieved on 25-12-2014 from http:www.ipsa.org/my-ipsa/events/montreal2014/paper/administrative –culture.

5)      Indian Institute of Public Administration, the institute of premier reputation, brought out a Special Issue of Indian Journal of Public Administration on Ethical Governance and Society, LIX (3), July-September 2013 to underline this issue.

6)      Bihari, Saket. (2013). Globalization, Ethics and Public Administration.  Indian Journal of Public Administration. LIX (3), 687-696.

7)      Sapru, R. K. (2014). Administrative Theories and Management Thought (3^rd ed.). Delhi: PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd. 574.

8)      Pollitt, Christopher. (1990). Managerialism and the Public Services: The Anglo-American Experience. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. 138.

9)      Terry, Larry D. (1998). Administrative leadership, neo-managerialism, and the public management movement. Public Administration Review. 58(3), 194-200.

10)  Lane, Jan-Erik. (Ed.). (1995). The Public Sector: Concepts, Models and Approaches (2^nd ed.). London: Sage. 64-65.

11)   Bhattacharya, Mohit. (2011). Changing Profile of Public Administration. In Ramesh K. Arora (Ed.) Recent Perspectives in Public Administration (pp. 66-67). Jaipur: Aalekh Publishers.