What Is New Public Administration and Its Policies

Public administration is both a field of activity and of study. It identifies itself with solving social problems and the institutions involved in the implementation of governmental policies. But there are a few crucial questions to be asked while discussing public administration.
 
How far has the existing form of administration been successful in dealing with the status quo in other words how much does public administration capture, connect and mitigate the problems of people?
 
These questions help in the evaluation of the success of public administration and at the same time form the underpinning of change and evolution of the discipline.
 
After the phase when the discipline was grappling with the identity crisis and was at its lowest ebb, it somehow succeeded in paving its way for growth. A strong development, the new public administration(NPA) was introduced in the 1960s-70s.

New public administration differed from the traditional public administration in the sense that the old public administration focused on strengthening institutions that solve the social problems whereas the NPA focuses on the problems and new ways to confront them.

 
NPA, unlike the traditional public administration, went beyond the values of efficiency, effectiveness, and economy.
 
Origin
 
New public administration emerged as a result of the Minnowbrook Conference held in 1968.

The resentment among the young people against the existing system of administration was not responding effectively to the back-breaking situation in the western countries, especially the US-led to the rise of NPA.
 
The backdrop in which new public administration made its way saw the Vietnam War(1955) which dented America’s image and evoked much anger in Americans. This phase was also accompanied by ethnic conflicts amongst civil groups, campus clashes, population increase, climate change, other environmental issues, and economic crises.
 
There were protests by minority groups, unemployed people, and youths and increasing cynicism towards public institutions. People were in dismay about how it dealt with discipline and efficiency.
 
The emergence of NPA is characterized by a few landmark conferences like, The Honey Report on Higher Education for Public Service, 1967 wherein problems in the discipline were identified as of concern over the status of a discipline, communication gap, and lack of effectiveness of the institutions.
 
Another was, The Philadelphia Conference on the Theory and Practice of Public Administration, 1967 had several goals like training of administrators, focus on administrative ethics, highlighting the need for mechanisms to be flexible, etc.
 
Basically, it analyzed the scope, objectives and methods of public administration. It was followed by the Minnowbrook Conference on Public Administration, 1968, and a few publications like Dwight Waldo’s on “Public Administration in a Time of Revolutions”, 1967, etc.
 
The Minnowbrook Conference, 1968
 
The Minnowbrook Conference is very significant as it laid the foundations of NPA. The factor responsible for this conference was primarily the disappointment towards the efficacy and speed of response by the administration and the government.
 
 This was accompanied by the criticism that public administration in the US had an obsession with efficiency and economic argument.
 
This efficiency and economic nature led to the shrinking of government institutions and responsibilities. Another significant factor was the communication and the generation gap between the practitioners and the scholars of the discipline.
 
The Minnowbrook Conference ushered in important themes, also referred to as four goals of new public administration. These goals relate to relevance, values, social equity, and change.

Relevance: Scholars pointed out that the traditional form was not adequately responding to the problems of contemporary times and was only concerned with economy and efficiency.  Hence, a new system, relevant to the present times should be devised.
 
Values: value-neutral stance was advocated by traditional public administration and management-oriented administration but new public administration asserted the public administration should openly champion the cause of marginalized and disadvantaged groups in society.
 
Social-equity: As a justification of policy positions, social-equity was added to the understanding of public administration. It suggested that public administration should use its discretionary power in administration and policy formulations to reduce socio-economic disparities and create opportunities for all social groups.
 
Change: Public administrators have to play a proactive role in transforming the social rubric. It attacked the status quo and explicitly forbade the enslavement of permanent institutions as they become the source of domination.
 
Features of New Public Administration
 
The new public administration is characterized by client-focus essentially meaning that citizens are not merely the passive recipients of goods & services, instead of active customers whose interests have to be looked after.
 
NPA primarily focuses on social equity, representation, and collaborative government apart from focusing on efficiency and economy.
 
Its focus on networked and collaborative government signifies that government is not the sole protector of public values but a guarantor. It believes that in maintaining the public service ethos no one has a monopoly.
 
The elected officials along with the public managers have charge of it. The accountability depends on multiple actors and is non-hierarchical.
 
Responsiveness is important as it demands the system to be flexible so that it can respond to the changing socio-political and economic spheres.
 
Although NPA was appreciated to enrich the discipline by offering a broader perspective by linking it to society and advocating democratic humanism, community awareness, and activism it was criticized for being highly anti-positivist and anti-bureaucratic.
 

Minnowbrook conference II, 1988

This was the second edition of the Minnowbrook Conference which was held exactly 20 years after the first conference in September 1988. This conference was “ to compare and contrast the changing epochs of public administration”.

More privatization, voluntary involvement, and social-capacity building were seen. Since the 1980s New political management also rose, features of Minnowbrook II are in sync with that of NPM.

Democratization, decentralization, citizen participation, restructuring of the state-owned sector, emphasis on private management, flexibility in the organization sector are a few features discussed by Minnowbrook II which are similar to NPM.

Minnowbrook II continued with a few aspects of the previous conference like leadership, government role in strengthening the society but also discussed rebuilding the discipline, functions of government, etc. There was constrained hopefulness.

Minnowbrook III, 2008

Minnowbrook Conference III was held in September 2008 after 20 years of the second Minnowbrook. The focus evidently shifted from democratic to technocratic and positivist ideas. It also discussed the role of the international public sector and developing a network of scholars and training them.

Basically, it focused on how public administration will address the issues like terrorism, climate change, wars, etc. which have affected humans in contemporary times.

After 2018, Minnowbrook at 50 and the outbreak of covid-19 there is an increasing role that public administration has to play. The main concerns are how to modernize public services, protect the integrity, advance the nation’s overall health, ensure environmental sustainability and manage technological changes.

With the weakening trust of people in governments and administrators, it has become even more difficult. Moreover, threats to democracy and the rise of authoritarian governments have posed additional challenges.

Thus, predicting the future of public administration and the extent of responding to the ground realities becomes difficult. The loopholes in NPA have resulted in NPM and good governance becoming important notions to more effectively deal with the public.

Written By - Disha Jain