The “Old” Public Management Versus the “New” Public Management: Where Does Public Administration Fit In?

Abstract

Larry Lynn's piece, Myth of Bureaucratic Paradigm, is provocative to say least. I come to this admission not because of overwhelming popularity of Lynn's work or my enduring affection for author or ... prestige [this] author confers on (Lynn, 145; see also Karl 1976), but because of intellectual merit essay demonstrates. I couldn't agree more with Lynn's overall premise and his conclusion that traditional bureaucratic paradigm of public administration has proven to be much more responsive to democratic values than has revisionists' new, customer-oriented managerialism. And, not to be overlooked, for an outsider, Lynn (152) provides a respectable and comprehensive review of intellectual heritage of field of public administration. That said, I fundamentally disagree with many of Lynn's assertions. In particular, I disagree with one of his central theses: that students of public administration have failed to adequately challenge New Public Management. I also take issue with another theme that runs, perhaps more obliquely, throughout Lynn's piece: methodological claims and interests of New Public Management as compared with those of old public management. Here, Lynn to suggest that, due to a tradition of being unduly careless, not only New Public Management but broader field of public administration itself seems to have let lapse [its] moral and intellectual (145, 155). Let me begin by parting company with Lynn's assertions that traditional public administration was unable to mount a sound, meaningful challenge to revisionist thought advanced by New Public Management. On contrary, a number of public administrationists virulently attacked New Public Management, particularly its reinventing government or National Performance Review (NPR) manifestations. For example, there were many attacks against NPR on grounds that it failed to account for realpolitik of government (see, for example, Carroll 1995; Frederickson 1996; Moe 1994; Rosenbloom 1993). In particular, many challenged theoretical and philosophical underpinnings of NPR, which, they argued, confute fundamental principles of democracy and constitutional rule. Central to their argument was that NPR's call for a shift from administrative bureaucracy to entrepreneurial organizations ignores very nature of democratic government and how it evolved in United States (Goodsell 1993). Moe (1994) points out that NPR fails to account for critical differences between government and private sectors, and, in particular, ignores constitutional premise that government is based on a rule of law and not market-driven mechanisms. He states that the government of United States is a government of laws passed by representatives of people assembled in Congress. It is constitutional responsibility of President and his duly appointed and approved to see that these laws, wise and unwise, are implemented (112). The subordinates would, in turn, be accountable to president, not customers of government agencies, for execution of laws of land. For Moe, bottom line is supremacy of an institutional presidency, where president relies on constitutional powers granted to executive office in governing country. This contrasts with what Nathan (1983) called administrative presidency, where president exerts control over bureaucracy by administrative fiat, and, as some have argued, by circumventing rules, regulations, law, and Congress's constitutional jurisdiction over bureaucracy. Similarly, Carroll (1995) sees political objective of NPR as changing balance of power, control, and authority over federal bureaucracy. A presumption of power would rest in executive branch, and Congress would have little or no role in executive administration. …