Dimension |
Traditional Public Administration |
New Public Management |
Emerging Approach to Public Administration (e.g., Denhardt and Denhardt’s [2011] New Public Service) |
Broad Environmental and Intellectual Context |
Material and ideological conditions |
Industrialization, urbanization, rise of modern corporation, specialization, faith in science, belief in progress, concern over major market failures, experience with the Great Depression and World War II, high trust in government |
Concern with government failures, distrust of big government, belief in the efficacy and efficiency of markets and rationality and devolution |
Concern with market, government, nonprofi t and civic failures; concern with so-called wicked problems; deepening inequality; hollowed or thinned state; “downsized” citizenship; networked and collaborative governance; advanced information and communication technologies |
Primary theoretical and epistemological foundations |
Political theory, scientific management, naive social science, pragmatism |
Economic theory, sophisticated positivist social science |
Democratic theory, public and nonprofi t management theory, plus diverse approaches to knowing |
Prevailing view of rationality and model of human behavior |
Synoptic rationality, “administrative man” |
Technical and economic rationality, “economic man,” self-interested decision makers |
Formal rationality, multiple tests of rationality (political, administrative, economic, legal, ethical), belief in public spiritedness beyond narrow self-interest, “reasonable person” open to infl uence through dialogue and deliberation |
The Public Sphere or Realm |
Definition of the common good, public value, the public interest |
Determined by elected officials or technical experts |
Determined by elected officials or by aggregating individual preferences supported by evidence of consumer choice |
What is public is seen as going far beyond government, although government has a special role as a guarantor of public values; common good determined by broadly inclusive dialogue and deliberation informed by evidence and democratic and constitutional values |
Role of politics |
Elect governors, who determine policy objectives |
Elect governors, who determine policy objectives; empowered managers; administrative politics around the use of specific tools |
“Public work,” including determining policy objectives via dialogue and deliberation; democracy as “a way of life” |
Role of citizenship |
Voter, client, constituent |
Customer |
Citizens seen as problem-solvers and co-creators actively engaged in creating what is valued by the public and is good for the public |
Government and Public Administration |
Role of government agencies |
Rowing, seen as designing and implementing policies and programs in response to politically defi ned objectives |
Steering, seen as determining objectives and catalyzing service delivery through tool choice and reliance if possible on markets, businesses, and nonprofit organizations |
Government acts as convener, catalyst, collaborator; sometimes steering, sometimes, rowing, sometimes partnering, sometimes staying out of the way |
Key objectives |
Politically provided goals; implementation managed by public servants; monitoring done through bureaucratic and elected officials’ oversight |
Politically provided goals; managers manage inputs and outputs in a way that ensures economy and responsiveness to consumers |
Create public value in such a way that what the public most cares about is addressed effectively and what is good for the public is put in place |
Key values |
Efficiency |
Efficiency and effectiveness |
Efficiency, effectiveness, and the full range of democratic and constitutional values |
Mechanisms for achieving policy objectives |
Administer programs through centralized, hierarchically organized public agencies or self-regulating professions |
Create mechanisms and incentive structures to achieve policy objectives especially through use of markets |
Selection from a menu of alternative delivery mechanisms based on pragmatic criteria; this often means helping build cross-sector collaborations and engaging citizens to achieve agreed objectives |
Role of public manager |
Ensures that rules and appropriate procedures are followed; responsive to elected officials, constituents, and clients; limited discretion allowed to administrative officials |
Helps define and meet agreed upon performance objectives; responsive to elected officials and customers; wide discretion allowed |
Plays an active role in helping create and guide networks of deliberation and delivery and help maintain and enhance the overall effectiveness, accountability, and capacity of the system; responsive to elected officials, citizens, and an array of other stakeholders; discretion is needed but is constrained by law, democratic and constitutional values, and a broad approach to accountability |
Approach to accountability |
Hierarchical, in which administrators are accountable to democratically elected officials |
Market driven, in which aggregated self-interests result in outcomes desired by broad groups of citizens seen as customers |
Multifaceted, as public servants must attend to law, community values, political norms, professional standards, and citizen interests |
Contribution to the democratic process |
Delivers politically determined objectives and accountability; competition between elected leaders provides overarching accountability; public sector has a monopoly on public service ethos |
Delivers politically determined objectives; managers determine the means; skepticism regarding public service ethos; favors customer service |
Delivers dialogue and catalyzes and responds to active citizenship in pursuit of what the public values and what is good for the public; no one sector has a monopoly on public service ethos; maintaining relationships based on shared public values is essential |