Public Management and the Public Good: The Case of Oklahoma's 2002 Secondhand Tobacco Smoke Rules

Abstract

New Public Management and classical public administration theory posit that internal administrative practices based on market principles, including economy and efficiency, will increase the public good through more effective delivery of public services. However, classical public administration theory views bureaucrats as neutral functionaries in a top‐down hierarchy while New Public Management calls for empowered agency entrepreneurs implementing economy and efficiency measures. Research from 1987 to 2003 on Oklahoma secondhand tobacco smoke regulation indicates that real administrative progress in secondhand tobacco smoke restrictions that enhance public health did not occur until 2002 when an Oklahoma health commissioner's aggressive political campaign, initiated through rationalistic internal agency emergency rules, resulted in smoke‐free public and workplaces. This action—which resulted in more effective regulation of secondhand tobacco smoke—was not principally because of an internal New Public Management or classical public administration approach but mainly through a highly public outsider political and administrative process.