Abstract
‘Classical’ public administration theories, principles and paradigms continually fascinate scholars given their relevance to government practices especially in Africa. As used here, ‘public administration’ (in lower case) denotes government activities whereas ‘Public Administration’, often associated with Woodrow Wilson’s renowned 1887 essay, refers to the subject matter. However, New Public Management (NPM) dominated Public Administration from the 1970s-1990s when it was replaced by ‘Governance’. This article examines Public Administration theory, practice and related theories and how the centuries-old discipline developed from their introduction, interpretation and application in the public sector during each era. It will conclude that these developments have had mixed consequences for Africa, on which the article focuses, owing largely to the effect of colonialism on the continent’s public administration. Using the selected examples of African countries’ experiences, this article relies on a qualitative and literature analysis of the issues discussed. Africa, like other ‘Third World’ or developing regions, is largely perceived as a consumer of the mostly western-dominated or inclined Public Administration, New Public Management and governance models which it inherited primarily through colonialism. Key words: Public administration theory, new public management, governance, Africa.
Highlights
The field of public administration has experienced a continuous shift from one theory to the other well over 100 years (1880s-2014)
Unlike Manning (2001:298) who argues that ‘NPM has in practice not been applied extensively outside its native OECD/Commonwealth habitat’; a body of literature suggests that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank among other international financial institutions (IFIs) ‘took advantage of the need for loan and debt relief of many of the Sub-Saharan African countries to increase the pace and the magnitude of New Public Management style reforms in the 1980s and 1990s’ (Uwizeyimana, 2008:3435, citing Common, 2001:440-448; Baird, 2004:3; Björkman, 2003:2)
The aim of this article was to demonstrate that the movement from one theory of public administration to the other over the past 134 years (1880s-2014) is a result, not of faulty theories, but of the way those theories were applied in the public sector during each era
Summary
The field of public administration has experienced a continuous shift from one theory to the other well over 100 years (1880s-2014). Unlike Manning (2001:298) who argues that ‘NPM has in practice not been applied extensively outside its native OECD/Commonwealth habitat’; a body of literature suggests that the IMF and World Bank among other international financial institutions (IFIs) ‘took advantage of the need for loan and debt relief of many of the Sub-Saharan African countries to increase the pace and the magnitude of New Public Management style reforms in the 1980s and 1990s’ (Uwizeyimana, 2008:3435, citing Common, 2001:440-448; Baird, 2004:3; Björkman, 2003:2). Like its predecessors, especially the NPM, the focus of governance, as originally envisaged by the International Monetary Fund (IMF)/World Bank (WB) was to grow the economy and this was to be achieved through the application of private business principles in government services To some extent, this meant the neglect by the WB and IMF of largely social and political issues (Uwizeyimana, 2014:1), which have not been analysed comprehensively here as they are beyond the scope of this article. Rwanda’s development successes (Clover et al, 2013:1)
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