Public Administration in the 21st Century: A Global South Perspective 9781138056213, 9780367140090, 9780367140106

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Table of Contents
Preface
Acknowledgements
1. The changing world of the21st century: Building new administrative capacities
The rise of the South
A case study
At the crossroads
Lessons from the South
Challenges for domestic governance
Developmental states: divergent approaches
Concluding observations
Notes
References
2. The discipline of public administration today
The classical model
The N.W.S. model
Other developments
Concept of public value
New public service
Post-N.P.M. global initiatives
Teaching public administration
The ongoing concerns
Defining the public service ethos
Concluding observations
Notes
3. The public and its policies
Why study public policy?
Classic policy types
Politics and policy
Towards optimal decision-making
Concluding observations
Note
References
4. Democracy, the state and the citizen
The good governance agenda
What should governments do?
Democracy in the developing world: a case study of India
Indian democratic experiment: theoretical inputs
Understanding the Indian model of governance
Democracy and inequality
The African experience
Concluding observations
Note
References
5. Good governance to governing development today: Comparative research studies
Decolonization and its aftermath
Comparative research studies: an emerging sub-discipline
Bureaucracy as an instrument of development
The policy perspective
Public bureaucracies in developing countries
Problems of research in comparative administration
Best practices from the South: an Indian example
Concept of good governance
Democracy, development and good governance
“Development administration”, “good governance” and “governing development”
Reinventing government, new public management and post-modernism
Concluding observations
References
6. Public administration in the 21st century: Dilemmas and challenges
Government and business
Ethics in governance
Human well-being and human security
Perspectives on security
New institutions and mechanisms for South–South cooperation
B.R.I.C.S.: South–South cooperation
The rise of the South: some pointers
Models of governance
Cost of governance today: the Indian case
Criteria of successful administration
References
7. Summing up
Towards a Neo-Weberian state
Index

Citation preview

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION IN THE 21ST CENTURY

Public administration has experienced a fundamental rethinking of its basic objectives, concepts and theories during the 21st century. This book examines transformations happening in global societies, the economy and in politics, to trace the trajectory of public administration as an academic discipline as well as being a focus of social science research. It presents a reassessment of governance in heterogeneous developing countries that goes beyond the traditional Weberian bureaucratic model, toward new models of organization and management, informed by their legal, constitutional, economic and political needs, aspirations and ground realities. This is especially important in relation to the marginalized sections of society that primarily rely on citizen entitlements through public service delivery systems. The author looks at widening the range and scope of public administrative agencies with the gradual cooperation of multiple actors, such as the civil society, people at large and even the private sector, in a partnering role. The author revisits the discipline to tackle intellectual dilemmas that current governance theories and practices are confronting, or will have to confront in future administrative situations. There will be key discussions on mandates and challenges for the state regarding the rising South; this book will be indispensable to scholars and researchers of politics, especially governance and public policy, sociology and development studies. It will also be of interest to bureaucrats, NGOs and government officials. Rumki Basu is Professor of Public Administration and former Head of the Department of Political Science at Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, India. She was also Director of Sarojini Naidu Centre for Women’s Studies, Jamia Millia Islamia. She has published 12 books and 40 journal articles on issues of public policy and governance, international organization and the political economy of development in India. She has presented papers at the World Congress of Political Science in Berlin (1994), Seoul (1997), Santiago (2009), Madrid (2012) and Poznan (2016), in addition to participating in international workshops. She has received the Indian Council of Social Science Research Teacher Fellowship Award and the Bharat Jyoti Award (2013) from the India International Friendship Society. Basu’s prominent works include Economic Liberalization and Poverty Alleviation: Social Sector Expenditures and Centre–State Relations (2000); Public Administration: Concepts and Theories (2007); Globalization and the Changing Role of the State (edited, 2008); Governance and Human Capital: The 21st Century Agenda (co-edited, 2011); Democracy and Good Governance: Reinventing the Public Service Delivery System in India (coedited, 2014); Public Administration in India: Mandates, Performance and Future Perspectives (2015) and Governance in South Asia (co-edited, 2016).

This page intentionally left blank

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION IN THE 21ST CENTURY A Global South Perspective

Rumki Basu

First published 2019 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business © 2019 Rumki Basu The right of Rumki Basu to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record has been requested for this book ISBN: 978-1-138-05621-3 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-367-14009-0 (pbk) ISBN: 978-0-367-14010-6 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by Swales & Willis Ltd, Exeter, Devon, UK

To Sankar, in celebration of our forty-year-old friendship

This page intentionally left blank

CONTENTS

Preface Acknowledgements 1

The changing world of the 21st century: building new administrative capacities

viii xii

1

2

The discipline of public administration today

14

3

The public and its policies

30

4

Democracy, the state and the citizen

52

5

Good governance to governing development today: comparative research studies

65

Public administration in the 21st century: dilemmas and challenges

82

6 7

Summing up

Index

100 107

PREFACE

The transition from an era of “government” to “governance” has brought public administration to the forefront of seminal changes in the operational context of developed and developing countries in the 21st century. Public administration, as an academic discipline, is changing rapidly due to the impact of globalization, the changing ideologies of government and the resultant changes in public agendas and discourses across the globe. Since World War II, the role and function of governments had witnessed an unprecedented increase, in both developed and developing societies; this being largely due to the fact that “development” was considered a state (public sector) activity. Since the 1980s, the world has seen a reverse swing; with the term globalization being created for the paradigmatic shift of emphasis towards a market driven, private sector led development model, with a basic philosophy to roll back the “administrative” state by reducing the size of the government and by streamlining public expenditure. Changes in public administration in the 20th century was, in large part, a reflection of the changing nature, function and ideology of governments in different parts of the globe. Practicing traditional public administration came under persistent attack from neoliberal economists: the “public choice” school who have spearheaded philosophical arguments for reducing the size and spending of the public sector. In this book, it will be argued that today’s agenda for public administration, as reflected by the New Public Management (N.P.M.) paradigm, may have to be reversed or substantially revised in accordance with the needs, aspirations, ground realities and field practices of developing countries, who want the state to remain proactive and interventionist on behalf of the marginalized, whilst delivering “development” promises, implementing public policies and transferring citizen entitlements through effective public service delivery systems. This is the unfinished agenda

Preface

ix

of public administration in the South, which has to be brought to fruition in the 21st century. The rise of the South is one of the concurring narratives (parallel to the grand narrative of globalization) which will dominate world politics and economies in the 21st century. The importance of China and India in this context should be clearly understood; as the 21st century is often referred to as the “Asian Century”. Today, China and India are strong economic powers, both having withstood the global economic recession since 2008. Together they account for one-third of the world population. In the 20th century, global politics was viewed from a Northcentric perspective. New developments in the discipline and practice of public administration will be influenced by the rise of the South in the 21st century. Waves of democratization have swept the globe, transforming state-citizen relations and the way administration functions in the South. Globalization induced changes in the “what” and “how” of public administration, triggering administrative reforms which have swept through the public sector over the last two decades in several countries. N.P.M. introduced the rationale of debureaucratization and fiscal prudence in public expenditure. The logic behind it was accepted by ex-socialist states and the developing world, presuming that “wasteful and incompetent” bureaucracies had led to the failure of the “socialist” experiment and “development administration” in the Third World in the first place. However, N.P.M. reforms could only help the South marginally, and not in any fundamental way. The developed “South” introduced development through proactive state intervention in key sectors of the economy, human development and state sponsored innovations in indigenous technology—an ideal model for others to follow. “Developmental” states are unlikely to wither away anywhere in the South, as the concept of “good governance” has been universally accepted. Although, development is not a rigid concept. Governing development is an ongoing endeavour in any country. Both developed and developing countries need to administer development models, plans and strategies so as to successfully deliver public goods and services to the people. When implementing all of these, the “state-market divide” will have to be clearly demarcated by political mandates in all countries. What does it mean to be an effective public administrator in the 21st century? Public governance is the art of managing collective goals of society through joint endeavours in the public sphere: government bureaucracies, private sector administrations and voluntary sector bodies, involved in the development of the “commons”, have to work together to provide essential public services to citizens. If public administrators have to work in evolving democratic societies, in direct competition with the private sector and under changing ideological regimes, they need to radically rethink how they should govern in the modern age. New modes and procedures have to be learnt; there will be less paperwork, but digitalized records have to be stored because people (armed with Right to

x

Preface

Information laws) will interfere or intrude whenever they want to “know” more. Previously, the “public” were never really a part of the policy making, implementation or evaluation process, due to bureaucratic “immunity” and laws of secrecy. Times have changed, their work will be more open to scrutiny and social audit. This is a healthy change in the context of Third World bureaucracies, who were notoriously non-transparent, unanswerable and non-accountable, in their work or in their behaviour towards the public. Aspiring public administrators must understand that they have to co-govern, not only with other stakeholders, whether they are private sector employees in a privatepublic partnered project or the beneficiary public target group in a welfare administration program. There are numerous textbooks which look at public administration; this book invites the reader to explore the tasks and mandates of public governance in the 21st century, whilst keeping in mind the mandates in the developing world. Public bureaucracies do not need to shrink in size, because from a “development administration” to a “governing milieu”, through a consensually agreed Minimum Agenda of Good Governance, public administration will have to be at a commanding level. This book makes a strong argument for revisiting, rethinking, reinventing and eventually refounding, public administration from a South-centric perspective. It is my belief that the principal dilemmas and challenges of public administration lie in developing countries–where the philosophy of “doing much more with much less” (N.P.M.) cannot be rationalized. Governing development will require additional investments (public and private), and the public will require more accountability and more openness with the diversification of bureaucratic mandates. Governments cannot be run like business; the privatization of public services does not necessarily serve the “public interest”. Not all civil servants are “corrupt” or “incompetent”; bureaucratic failures have a much deeper structural meaning in the context of developing countries. Drawing on my own experiences in India (the world’s largest democracy), I have carefully selected the major themes of this book, all the while keeping in mind the Asian, African or Latin American reader who will empathize with the effort it takes towards achieving democratization and bringing in a new bureaucratic culture of “legality, rationality, citizen centricity, public accountability and responsiveness” in administration. Readers in the developed world, who have acquired a basic understanding of the major themes and issues, are more likely to delve deeper into the dilemmas and challenges involved, and thus become more engaged in informed debates about the developing world. This is not a conventional textbook about public administration, but an introductory reading which begins, and seeks, to answer the following questions: •

Is there a need to re-evaluate the role and mandates of government and public administration in the context of the emerging contradictions of globalization and the rise of the South?

Preface

• •

xi

How, and for whom, does public administration work in heterogeneous developing societies? What are the new mandates and challenges in the 21st century, especially in the context of the developing world?

At the advent of the 20th century, emphasis was placed on industrial productivity, organizational efficiency and strong control mechanisms for the strengthening of the structural and procedural components of public administration. In the 21st century, focus has shifted toward human development and broadening people’s choices: these choices can be infinite and can change over time. We now live in a “knowledge” economy where “information” can, and will, change societies. E-governance is an invaluable tool of transparent, accountable citizen centric administration. The “public” are now truly at the centre of “public administration” like never before. Public administration has historically reflected the changing socioeconomic and political concerns of contemporaneous times and its impact on the functions of government. At present, it faces contradictory ideological and functional pressures which are pulling it towards an expansionist agenda (the agenda from the South) and a reductionist agenda (North-centric agenda). The onus rests on the public administration of every state to re-establish its raison d’être in accordance with particular legal, constitutional, economic and political needs of every nation, from time to time.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Whilst writing this book I have greatly benefited from the works of eminent scholars of public administration. I owe a deep sense of gratitude to all of them. I have acknowledged my intellectual sources and references at the end of each chapter, not only to acknowledge my indebtedness but to also facilitate further reading. Regarding facts and data, as far as possible, official documents which are easily available in the public domain have been relied upon. Finally, I must confess to have borrowed from my earlier publications (books, book chapters and journal articles): there are quite a few to be listed here. Special efforts have been made to make this book student-friendly and easy to comprehend. I am grateful to Aakash Chakrabarty and Rimina Mohapatra at Routledge (India) for their encouragement, assistance and patience in getting this book published, despite my delays and difficulties in meeting deadlines. I would like to express my gratitude to my daughter Devanjali and my husband Sankar Basu, for their encouragement and valuable support at all times. I apologize for all errors inadvertently made.

1 THE CHANGING WORLD OF THE 21ST CENTURY Building new administrative capacities

As a scholar of public administration, I think it is time to re-evaluate the functions of government in diverse political settings from a public administration perspective in the rapidly globalizing and changing world of the 21st century. There are 193 sovereign nations who are members of the United Nations, two-thirds of them belong to the developing world, while the rest are either underdeveloped or are part of the developed world.1 What does it mean to be a public administrator in this global age? There are a few mandatory functions every public administrator will have to perform irrespective of the ideology of the political regime, e.g., collection of taxes, maintenance of law and order, provision of public goods and utilities, such as roads and public safety, banking and currency, water and power. These functions are known as system maintenance functions. The rest are referred to as contextspecific because they vary from government to government across the ideological spectrum. Theories of public administration offer clues to the diversified and changing tasks of public administrators. Public administrators help shape and implement public policies framed by different governments in different state locales. What is the environment in which policies are being made in today’s world? There are images of the emergent new world order in popular discourse, which have, for example, announced the arrival of a borderless world, the rise of the South, networked national governance and the emergence of an Asian century. Such images have been created by the seminal shifts and deep transformations that have occurred in global politics since the closing decades of the last century—the end of the Cold war, advancement of globalization and the slow but persistent rise of the Global South (developing countries) in world affairs. Recurring regional conflicts, unexpected alignments among states, cross-border migrations and changing power equations, have surfaced at such a pace that fresh thinking

2

The changing world of the 21st century

regarding the impact of state and non-state actors in relation to political administrative regimes have become an absolute imperative. Turbulence in the Middle East, the short lived “Arab Spring” and its “democratizing” effect on the entire region, the rise of new terror axes in different parts of the world, the “national interest” compulsions of the U.S.A., Russia and other smaller regional powers to intervene in troubled waters, have led to serious global ramifications. The gross violation of human rights in Syria and Iraq have triggered unprecedented situations in intrastate conflicts and interstate wars. Middle East wars between 2014– 17 have left more people displaced and homeless than any period of 20th century history.2 Even after World War II the “refugee” crisis did not assume such serious proportions. These global events did have serious repercussions for the domestic politics and governance capacities of states hit by civil war or interstate conflicts. Laws and constitutions work during “normal” periods of civil governance; in conflict-hit states these norms do not work and citizen rights are never fully protected. For citizens living in conflict zones or during times of civil war (as millions of people did and still do), violations, curtailment or suspension of rights is the norm for both citizens and immigrant populations. The U.N.’s International Migration Report (2017) estimates that there were 258 million migrants in 2017. Between 1990 and 2017, the immigrant population has increased by over 100 million. We now live in a truly “globalized” world where more and more people are leaving their country of birth for places which have better opportunities and a greater chance of access to higher standards of living. Contrary to popular belief, that the West hosts the largest immigrant (legal or illegal) population, it is developing countries that bear the burden of immigrants worldwide. Although the U.S. is still home to the greatest number of immigrants in the world, in 2017, India was the largest source of immigrant populations. In the 21st century, every state will have to absorb and provide for both citizens and noncitizens in equal measure, stretching their governance capacities to the limit. Throughout the greater part of the 20th century, states and public institutions did not deliver the same package of citizen entitlements, which is universally recognized today as a Minimum Agenda of good governance: protection of social, economic and political rights that are required for human beings to flourish and develop their capabilities. In the 21st century, can we expect less violence and conflict to lead to a greater protection of human rights for all citizens through the agencies of the state and instruments of public governance?3 Let’s hope we can. Although, looking at the world today, it is perhaps not difficult to guess that inequality will continue to remain the most intractable public policy challenge in all states, even in the 21st century. Today, global politics tilts towards multipolarity, the gradual lessening of violence, “regionalization” of world politics with state and non-state actors, both of which influence internal policies of states. Religious fundamentalism raises its ugly head every now and then, terrorism continues, and although “democratization” is the current buzzword, it will take decades before the world becomes fully democratic. Across the world, experts lament that democracy is

The changing world of the 21st century

3

eroding, backsliding, withering or buckling under authoritarian pressures. If the 21st century is to be dominated by China and India, there are a number of good reasons why this may happen. China and India remain the world’s two most populous countries, home to one third of mankind. The recent upsurge in the growth rates of these two countries, apparently bucking the trend during the financial crisis that spread from the U.S.A. in 2007 to most of the developed and developing world, attracted the attention of scholars to the developmental trajectories of Asia’s two largest powers. Both are currently undergoing capitalist transformations from socialist/mixed economy models of growth. China is a “hard” state, retaining its strong authoritarian one party regime with above average policy outcomes in most sectors; whereas India’s democratic state previously under-performed in most developmental sectors, but over the last two decades it has begun to do much better. China has many firsts: it is the world’s most populated nuclear state with the world’s largest armed personnel and police force. China holds a remarkable record of growth: it is the only country which grew at a rate of 10% for 30 years, enabling the largest number of people to exit poverty (500 million) between the years 2002–12. It has the second largest economy, with the highest foreign exchange reserves, and is the second highest remittance receiving country in the world. Furthermore, it has one of the highest savings and investment rates in the world. It is also number one in the production of gold and interestingly, despite its professed ideological stance (socialistic), houses the highest number of billionaires in any city (Beijing) in the world (Bagchi and D’Costa 2012).

The rise of the South The ascendance of the South, which began in the latter half of the 20th century, has been unprecedented in its pace and outcomes. Never before, in recorded history, have the living standards of the average masses changed so rapidly in such a compressed time span. In England, where the Industrial Revolution started, it took 150 years to double its per capita output, while in the United States, which industrialized much later, needed about half a century. Both countries had a population under 10 million when they began to industrialize. In contrast, the current economic resurgence in China and India started with about a billion people in each country. Doubling their output per capita in less than two decades is an economic phenomenon that has made a developmental impact, no less radical than the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century! Most developing countries have raised their living standards in the last quarter century, but some have done particularly well—in what can be called the “rise of the South”.4 Some of the largest countries have taken impressive strides, notably China, Brazil, India, Indonesia and South Africa. But there have also been seminal changes in smaller economies, such as Bangladesh, Chile, Ghana, Mauritius and Tunisia. By 2050, China, Brazil and India cumulatively, are expected to

4

The changing world of the 21st century

account for 40% of world output in purchasing power parity terms (U.N.D.P. 2013). Over the last two decades, countries from several regions of the world have been converging towards higher levels of human development, as is evident from the U.N.D.P. Annual Human Development Index (H.D.I.); a composite measure of indicators involving three dimensions: life expectancy, educational attainment and command over the resources needed for a decent living. All groups and regions around the globe have made notable improvements in relation to H.D.I. components, with greater progress in countries which are ranked low and medium in the H.D.I. range. On this basis, it can be surmised that the world is becoming a better place to live for most people around the globe. However, national averages often conceal large disparities in living conditions. Disturbing inequalities remain within, and between, countries of the North and the South; removing these inequalities will remain the single most difficult challenge of public governance in the 21st century. Let’s not forget that for centuries inequality has remained the single most important destabilizing force in society. The 20th century has witnessed numerous “egalitarian” revolutions, transitions and changes across several parts of the world. Most of these revolutions, whether they be socialist, feminist, environmentalist or other kinds of revolutions, furthered the cause, not only of individual rights and liberties, but highlighted issues, such as sustainable development, equity and gender justice. Also, waves of democratization swept across the globe from time to time; all of these have acted as great “levelers” and catalysts of progress and equality in the 20th century. However, they also necessitated the rise of “administrative” or “developmentalist” states, to ensure economic development, gender justice, human development and environmental protection. Politics willed and administration executed, that seemed to be the pattern of development everywhere. Even today the developed world leads the way, because their public management systems provide a sufficient and efficient infrastructure of public goods and services to citizens (invisibly, impeccably and imperceptibly), maintaining roads, communication, public safety and sanitation, primary education and health care, recreational facilities, banks and currency; with a public service ethos that makes them very different from private service operators who serve “clients” in the market with an underlying motive to be profitable. Southern countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America, through individual or cumulative efforts, are raising world economic growth, helping each other in their development efforts, reducing poverty, increasing national income and persistently trying to promote socioeconomic development by raising living standards in their own countries. Nonetheless, they still retain the largest percentage of the world’s poor. These countries, in the process of trial and error, have often demonstrated how indigenously designed policies or “home adopted” global technologies with a sharp focus on growth and human development, can bring about the desired turn around in the economy. Each experience is unique and needs to be studied.

The changing world of the 21st century

5

A case study Take Mauritius, a tiny island state on the southern tip of Africa. It has taken giant strides in economic growth, due to the strength of its institutions (Subramaniam 2001). It stands as a role model, not only for Africa but for the rest of the world, for what could be achieved without the classic prerequisites of power: substantive land or mineral resources, population or nuclear capacity. The total land area of the country is 2040 km. The people are multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multilingual. Its Human Development Index is the highest in Africa. Since independence from Britain in 1968, Mauritius has developed from a low income, agriculture-based economy to a middle income diversified economy, based on tourism, textiles, sugar and financial services. Mauritius ranks highly in terms of economic competitiveness; a congenial investment climate, delivering “good governance” with impeccable democratic credentials. Its economic performance is nothing short of a miracle, having a gross Domestic Product per capita over U.S.$16,820, one of the highest in Africa. A well thought out strategy of nation building and development laid the foundations for sustainable growth in Mauritius. Its model of democracy relies on multi-culturalism, redistributive economic policies and strong autonomous institutions, which are critical when it comes to a country’s growth and stability. Democracy promoted incremental and changeable strategies for public policy formation and implementation. Education and health services were fully subsidized to encourage employment and inclusive growth. Mauritius is one of Africa’s least corrupt countries. High levels of public investment in selected competitive sectors of the economy yielded rich dividends, which could be further invested for human development.

At the crossroads For many observers, the world today stands at the proverbial cross roads: a resurgent South—most notably countries such as China and India, where there is steady progress in human development, growth appears to remain sustainable, prospects for poverty reduction are encouraging—and a North in crisis—where recurring cut backs on “welfare” expenditure and the absence of steady or spectacular economic growth poses severe hardship to millions of marginalized, unemployed, poor and growing immigrant populations, as social welfare states increasingly give way to Right-wing political ones. There are also common concerns shared by the North and the South: growing intrastate inequalities, slow pace of recovery from recessionary trends, reduced rate of poverty reduction, as well as serious threats to the environment. The world is becoming more connected; during the early years of the 21st century, the expansion of international trade led to a turnaround in global production, which, by 2015, accounted for nearly 60% of global output. Between 1980–2010, developing countries expanded their share of world merchandise

6

The changing world of the 21st century

trade from 25% to 47%: South–South trade increased from less than 8% of world trade to more than 26% (U.N.D.P. 2013). Paradoxically, despite being hit the hardest by the Recession, the U.S. remains the largest economy in the world, in monetary terms, and will remain so for some time. If the U.S.A.’s recovery gets delayed and Europe is unable to extricate itself from the doldrums it finds itself in, there will be a large spillover effect on the economies of the developing world. Transnational challenges, such as moderating the effects of climate change or averting communicable diseases, require a certain degree of global cooperation. While the rise of the South is reshaping global power equations in more than one way, painstakingly achieved gains in human development will be more difficult to protect if the North–South dialogue fails and difficult decisions are postponed, as witnessed in global environmental negotiations after 2000.

Lessons from the South The developmental trajectories of Brazil, China and India, as well as less recognized success stories such as Bangladesh, Malaysia and Chile, are reshaping ideas of how to attain steady economic growth with steady human development. However, some remarkable lessons are also learnt from the diverse and variegated development journeys of many Third World “developmental” states (not necessarily democratic) that have not been imitative of any one model. Their nation building efforts are dedicated to human development, openness to trade, technological innovation, besides concerns of equity and sustainability incorporated in people centric policies and strategies. Common traits include promoting economic growth by incentivizing certain sectors, training and using competent bureaucracies, promoting institutions which plan and implement policies amidst all the odds. The “legitimacy” of these states is mainly dependent on their record in development; e.g. China, South Korea, Singapore, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. On the other hand, over a number of decades, democratic countries like India, Bangladesh, Brazil, South Africa, Chile and Mauritius, have considered pro-poor patterns of growth as electoral investments. Developmental transformations need to alter the structure of production and their capacity to create jobs, and the expansion of opportunities for large sections of people. Democracies have to be majoritarian and people friendly. They need pragmatic political leadership wedded to long term development, but have short term gains for the electorate as well. In “soft” democracies, where the demands of various sectors need to be balanced, public investments have to be made in both growth and human development. Since the 1950s, older welfare states, like the Scandinavian democracies, have derived their legitimacy from their welfare policies, state promotion of industry, institution building and technological research. These advanced welfare states guaranteed basic public goods and services—food, education, health and human security to all of its citizens. In different ways, China and Russia are demonstrating that authoritarianism may “deliver” a better outcome than democracy. Both countries espouse a model

The changing world of the 21st century

7

of state capitalism in which the strengths of the market are balanced against a strong state, which attempts to reduce the inequities associated with unbridled capitalism. Authoritarian states are usually in a better position, than democratic states, to take “hard” decisions. Suggesting that global politics may not entirely reap the democratic peace dividend, due to the continued coexistence of democratic and authoritarian states, even in the 21st century. The unexpected turmoil in several Middle Eastern countries and their declining petroleum economies after the short lived “Arab Spring” (signified by prodemocracy movements), is a reminder that the educated young put a high premium on meaningful employment and on their right to expect “democracy” from their respective governments. A considerable amount of turmoil in Tunisia, Egypt and Syria, was introduced by the urban, educated, Internet-using young, who were disillusioned by the lack of civil and political rights within their countries. Not all developing countries are participating fully in the rise of the South. The pace of change is slower, for instance, in the majority of the 50 least developed countries in the world, especially those that are landlocked or distant from world markets. Although, many of them have begun to benefit from SouthSouth trade, investment, finance and technology transfer. The developmental take-off of these least developed countries is a significant challenge for the world community, as much of it involves moderating the uneven effects of development in many other developing countries. By 2025, the annual consumption in “emerging” markets is estimated to rise to $30 trillion. By then the South will account for three-fifths of the 1 billion households earning more than $20,000 a year (U.N.D.P. 2013). Despite such expansion, significant pockets of deprivation, which undermine the sustainability of progress, will still exist, creating a fertile ground for tension and conflict. There is more intrastate conflict today (e.g. in Africa and Latin America) than inter-state conflict, which in itself poses huge challenges for domestic governance.

Challenges for domestic governance Regarding dividends from “good governance”, the track record of African countries (with few exceptions) has been disappointing. Most African countries have faced poverty, inequality, poor infrastructure, capital flight, unemployment, civil war, famine, crime, ethnic conflict and authoritarian political regimes in the last century. Ill-informed public policies, mismanagement and misuse of scarce resources, reluctance to enable human or capital environment for development, corruption and lack of public accountability, have all been due to poor governance by ruling elites (Sharma 2007). Exceptions to this include Botswana and Mauritius. One million children in Africa, including Ethiopia, do not have steady access to food, largely because of El Nino. The weather phenomenon has helped trigger droughts in many parts of the world, leaving millions hungry in Africa alone. Recent media attention in Latin America has focused on the recurring economic crises in several countries. Public anger erupts from time to time, people take to the

8

The changing world of the 21st century

streets and political violence escalates, claiming thousands of lives. Opposition groups exert pressure on the government through street violence. Faltering economies, a shortage of the most basic consumer products, high inflation, high levels of corruption and unemployment, have fuelled riots, lawlessness and crime. Even Brazil, one of the better governed states, has faced corruption scandals, economic slowdown and high crime rates in recent years. Reforms meant to put Brazil’s economy on track by reducing public expenditure have become very unpopular (Bremmer 2018). It is well documented today, through data based research that inequality is socially divisive and can have a negative impact on the general wellbeing of society. There is sufficient comparative data on the effects of all forms of inequality in different societies, which show how corrosive its effects have been. New evidence proves that inequality provides the clinching explanation of why, despite remarkable economic prosperity, some societies remain least integrated socially; e.g. the U.S.A. has one of the highest homicide rates, the highest number of teenage pregnancies and the highest rate of imprisonment, something which is often attributed to the existence of the greatest intra-state income differences. In contrast, countries like Japan, Sweden and Norway, have smaller income disparities and do better in regards to all human development parameters. Violence is more common in more unequal states, not only because inequality increases status competition, but also because people deprived of the markers of status (incomes, jobs, houses, cars etc.) are more inclined to crime and violence. During the next few decades, “green” politics will become dominated by “inequality” issues. The greatest threat to reducing carbon emissions is consumerism, which has been greatly driven by status competition, again intensified in significantly unequal societies. Narrowed income differences make us less vulnerable to these pressures, therefore, greater equality is crucial to achieving environmental sustainability. Despite being vilified as developing markets that guzzle carbon emitting energy, China, India and Brazil together, consume a fraction (50%) of what is used by advanced economies. In societies where income differences have been narrowed, statistics show that community life is stronger and more people feel they can trust one another. There is also less violence, including lower homicide rates, higher life expectancy, lower crime rates and children are better educated. Reducing inequality through conscious public policy interventions will require ideological commitment from the state and their executing agencies (Wilkinson 2016). A proactive democratic state develops policies for both public and private sectors—based on a long-term vision, shared norms and values, rules that build trust between the trinity: state, the citizen and the private institutions, while promoting societal unity, cohesion and sustainable transformation.

Developmental states: divergent approaches Developing countries rarely follow a uniform trajectory. Many of these ex-colonies have faced multiple challenges, adopted varying policies to deal with market

The changing world of the 21st century

9

regulation, export promotion, industrial development and human development. In this post globalized era, public policies need to promote entrepreneurship while providing safety nets to protect the poor from the negative effects of unbridled promarket policies. Governments can nurture domestic industries (public value based) that would not otherwise emerge because of free market competition. This has enabled several countries of the South to turn loss making industries into early drivers of export success, as their economies became more open under the leadership of strong authoritarian regimes, e.g. South Korea and Singapore. Developmental states have experimented with different approaches. However, some features stand out: for instance, expansion of basic social services, like health, education with anti-poverty programmes and rapid expansion of employment opportunities, are critical features of growth that have promoted human development and created less unequal societies. For the first time in 150 years, the combined output of the developing world’s three leading economies—Brazil, China and India—is about to equal the combined G.D.P. of the long-standing industrial powers of the North— Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States. This represents a dramatic rebalancing of global economic power. In 1950, Brazil, China and India together, accounted for only 10% of the world economy, while the six traditional economic leaders of the North accounted for roughly half. According to successive World Bank Development Reports, by 2050 Brazil, China and India, will together account for 40% of global output, surpassing the projected combined production of today’s Group of Eight (Go8) bloc of economies (the major industrialized countries). Today, the South as a whole produces about half of the world’s economic output, which is up by about a third since 1990. The combined G.D.P. of the eight major developing countries alone—Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, South Africa and Turkey—now equals the G.D.P. of the United States, which is still the world’s biggest national economy. As recent as 2005, the combined economic weight of those eight countries was barely half of that of the United States (U.N.D.P. 2013). Other development challenges also exist. An estimated 1.57 billion (mainly in the South) live in multidimensional poverty; a measure of both the number and the intensity of overlapping human deprivations in health, education and standards of living in the world today. Between 1990– 2010, the South’s share of the global middle class population expanded from 26% to 58%. By 2030, more than 80% of the world’s middle class is projected to be residing in the South and will account for 70% of total consumption expenditure.5 The 1994 U.N.D.P. Human Development Report argued that the concept of security must shift from the idea of a militaristic safeguarding of state borders to a reduction of insecurity in people’s daily lives (or human insecurity) (U.N.D.P. 1994). In every society, human security is undermined by a variety of threats, including hunger, disease, crime, unemployment, human rights violations and environmental challenges. Let’s look at what we understand as economic

10

The changing world of the 21st century

insecurity. In the countries of the North, there are millions of young, unemployed in these recessionary times, while in the South, millions of farmers have been unable to earn a decent livelihood from low priced stagnant agriculture. Closely related is insecurity in food and nutrition. Many developing countries households face high food prices, and as a result cannot afford two square meals a day. Another major cause of impoverishment in many countries, rich and poor, is unequal access to affordable health care. Disease and hospitalization are one of the most important common causes of destitution. Meagre incomes are lost when heavy medical expenses are incurred by a household. Therefore, perspectives regarding security need to shift from an old and exaggerated emphasis on military strength to a well-rounded, citizen-centric view. In this context, it is pertinent to state that global military expenditure exceeded $1.4 trillion in 2015, more than the combined G.D.P. of the 50 poorest countries in the world, and 20 times more than the total money given annually as aid to eliminate poverty through multilateral aid.

Concluding observations The 21st century is witnessing a seminal shift in global power relations and equations driven by the newly emerging new powers of the developing world. China has become the world’s second largest economy, lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty through its planned economy and socialist policies. India has also made slow but steady progress in poverty reduction, as well as growth and human development through democratic political regimes.6 Brazil is raising its living standards and levels of human development through innovative antipoverty programmes that are emulated worldwide. However, its growth trajectory has been erratic and less consistent in recent times. Russia, once a superpower, is now a B.R.I.C.S.7 country, undergoing painful transitions in an effort to dismantle its huge public sector and move towards the globalization, liberalization and privatization of its economy. All ex-socialist countries of Eastern Europe are similarly experiencing painful transitions to embrace globalization. Bureaucracies have had to adjust from ruling from a commanding height to sharing power with the private sector and competition from global markets. However, what is noticeable is that, in differing degrees, developing countries have built institutional and human capacities in the last three decades. The South has finally arrived (Zakaria 2009) a fact that needs to be celebrated in world politics. Indonesia, Thailand, South Africa, Malaysia, Mauritius, Bangladesh, Rwanda, Ghana and other developing countries, are becoming leading actors on the world stage. The 2013 U.N.D.P. Human Development Report identifies more than 40 developing countries that have done better than expected regarding human development in recent decades, with their progress accelerating markedly over the last 10 years. Each country of the “successful” South has its own unique history and as a result has chosen its own distinct development path for nation building and socio-economic

The changing world of the 21st century

11

progress. Nonetheless, they share important characteristics and face many of the same challenges of public governance. They are also becoming more interconnected and interdependent. People throughout the developing world are increasingly becoming visible, vocal and rights conscious, demanding to be heard, as they share ideas through new communication networks and seek greater accountability from domestic governments and public administrators. Taking on a wider, more global perspective, the developing world does encounter challenges when arriving at “consensus” decisions with the developed world. However, these are some of the common issues they fight for as a bloc in global fora: • • • • •

Advancing the objective of a fair, balanced and development oriented multilateral trading system for all, for both developed and developing country members of the W.T.O. To contribute to the construction of a new global architecture to bring their collective voices together on global issues and to forge new areas of cooperation. Promotion of peace, security and development in a multipolar, and increasingly interdependent world. The importance of adhering to the principle of common, but differentiated responsibility, as well as the notion of national policy space. All nations should increasingly act not only as national sovereign entities but also as intermediaries to balance national, regional and global concerns.

The belief that public administration and governance can make a difference has been amply recorded in several examples in this chapter. True research lies in looking at the long term and steady trends of the last hundred years. If the world has become a more liveable and egalitarian place, where standards of living of the common man have been consistently rising, then credit goes to research in science and technology and its diffusion in modern societies, both of which have been due to active “state interventions” in society and the economy. People are “climbing out” of extreme poverty (every day 1,37,000 people lifted out of poverty in the past 25 years), fewer children are dying and life expectancy and literacy rates are going up. Through targeted public health interventions huge progress has been made against many erstwhile fatal diseases. Women who bore the brunt of violence, the burden of household work and child rearing, are now increasingly entering the workforce and empowering themselves with the rights they had previously been denied. The Global Gender Gap Report measures performance on conditions necessary for women’s empowerment through four indices—education, health, economic and political participation. Iceland, Finland, Norway, Sweden and Denmark, have closed 80% of the gender gap. The U.N.D.P. Human Development Index, over the past few years, have recorded the human development of 188 states. Norway is ranked no. 1 in the list, U.S.A. is 13th and India is ranked 130 in the Index. All three are democracies, the U.S.A. is the world’s richest economy and the latter is the world’s

12

The changing world of the 21st century

largest democracy. A country’s global power rating can never be insulated from its domestic policies and performance; a nation’s true strength lies in the degree to which it can legitimize its citizens’ claims and entitlements. The nations that can successfully do this fine act of balancing are, and will be, the nations to watch out for in the future. In this post globalized era, citizens need to assess the gains of the past century, and begin setting goals for this century. Setting Millennium Development Goals and Sustainable Development Goals is one such exercise. More importantly, any nation from any part of the world, developed or developing, can be a norm setter or a developmental role model for others to follow. No model can remain iconic forever. Science, technology, sound public policy and good governance, can work wonders for those who are deprived. China and India’s record in poverty reduction and human development through redistributive public policies, are worthy of emulation. Liberty, equality and justice were goals worth striving for in the last century—they are no less relevant now in the 21st century. It is also becoming clearer that if the Sustainable Development Goals (S.D.G.’s) are to be met by 20308—it will be largely due to the efforts of the South to build new administrative capacities which can take us to a much fairer, freer and more egalitarian world than ever before. States can only translate promises of “good governance” through effective, efficient and committed public governance systems. Therefore, building “age and country” appropriate administrative skills and capacities is of paramount importance for all states (developed or developing) in the 21st century.

Notes 1 F.W. Riggs, well known scholar of comparative public administration, developed a typology to analyze the administrative systems of different and diverse countries in his model of fused (underdeveloped), prismatic (developing) and diffracted (developed) societies. Riggs gave the distinguishing features of each: Fused Particularism Ascriptive value Functionally diffuse

Prismatic Selectivism Attainment Polyfunctionalism

Diffracted Universalism Achievement Functional specificity

This author has followed the Riggsian scheme in her definitions of the terms “underdeveloped”, “developing” and “developed” countries. 2 65.6 million people count among the displaced in 2018, the highest in 7 decades: half of them are children. From Syria and Afghanistan, to more recently, DR Congo and Myanmar, civil wars and inter-state violence have swelled the numbers of refugee populations worldwide (2016 data, U.N.H.C.R., Source: Times of India, January 18, 2018). 3 The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (30 articles) was adopted on December 10, 1948 by the General Assembly as a common standard of achievement in the promotion and protection of human rights. The Declaration includes individual civil and political rights as well as economic, social and cultural rights. The Declaration accepts the principle that states can build human rights only for the “just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society”.

The changing world of the 21st century

13

4 The term “Global South” refers broadly to the regions of Asia, Africa, Latin America and Oceania. They refer to ex-colonies, outside Europe and North America, mostly economically undeveloped low-income countries, often politically marginalized, ideologically “mixed” and clubbed together as the Third World. 5 Middle Class—By Human Development Report calculations based on Brookings Institution (2012) data, the middle class includes people earning or spending $10–100 a day in 2005 purchasing power parity terms. 6 In October 2016 the World Bank reported that 767 million people live in extreme poverty: earning less than $1.90 a day. In India, the number of poor fell by 218 million from 2004 to 2013. In China, it fell by more than 320 million from 2002 to 2012. The average person in extreme poverty lives on $1.33 per day. It would take just $0.57 per day ($159 billion a year) or less than 0.2% of global G.D.P. to end extreme poverty. 7 The term “B.R.I.C.S.” was coined in 2001 in a report by Goldman Sachs, the investment bank, to highlight the growing economic might of four large countries on the world stage—Brazil, Russia, India and China. South Africa has now been added to this list. In addition to highlighting a shift in the power balances of the new global order, with most of the growth in world production coming from developing and emerging economies, the main intention of this group of countries is to checkmate the U.S. hegemony in world affairs. I.B.S.A. (India, Brazil and South Africa) is another platform of major developing countries. 8 Sustainable Development Goals (S.D.G.s) were initiated by the United Nations in 2015 to address key development challenges including climate change, economic inequality, sustainable consumption, peace and justice. The seventeen goals, to be achieved by 2030, are comprehensive and focus on the five P’s—people, planet, prosperity, peace and partnership.

References Bagchi, A.K. and A.P. D’Costa. 2012. Transformation and Development: The Political Economy of Transition in India and China, Oxford, Oxford University Press. Bremmer, I. 2018. Stormy Days for Many Latin American Nations 15th July, New Delhi, Hindustan Times. Sharma, C. 2007. “Towards Good Governance in Africa: Critical Dimensions and the Experience of Botswana” in R.B. Jain (ed.) Governing Development across Cultures, Verlag, Barbara Budrich Publishers. Subramaniam, A. 2001. Mauritius: A Case Study. Finance and Development, 38: 4. U.N.D.P. 1994. United Nations Human Development Report, New Delhi, Oxford University Press. U.N.D.P. 2013. Human Development Report, New Delhi, Academic Foundation. Wilkinson, R. 2016. The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger. Participation, 40(1): 9–11. Zakaria, F. 2009. The Post American World, New York, W.W. Norton & Co.

2 THE DISCIPLINE OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION TODAY

As a public vocation or practice, public administration has co-existed with every political regime in every state, as the executing arm of the government for the fulfilment of its political objectives. The foundational concerns of public administration, since the beginning of its journey as an academic discipline in 18871, have revolved around the study of: (a) structures of government and public sector organizations; (b) formation and implementation processes of public policies; (c) behavioural patterns of bureaucracy; (d) the ecology of public organizations and (e) state-citizen interactions. Public administration refers to agencies publicly funded by the state. Public policies are the articulation of agendas that emerge from consensual or majoritarian social values through democratic and state-citizen relations, with citizen entitlements spelt out differently in different political regimes through laws and constitutions. Public administration, since its inauguration as a discipline with Woodrow Wilson’s famous essay “The Study of Public Administration” in 1887 (a call for Politics-Administration dichotomy), has been primarily concerned with making public administration an agency of public interest and a core instrument of public service delivery. Recently, this mandate has significantly changed under the influence of considerable transformations in the internal and external “contexts” of public administration. Over the last decade, a number of factors have combined to bring about seminal changes in the traditional role of public administration as the pivotal public policy formulator of a state. The “sovereign” role of national governments in influencing domestic, economic and social systems, has come under severe pressure due to the rising citizen and group expectations, as well as unavoidable pressures from the international capital markets and the influence of supranational organizations such as the World Trade Organisation (W.T.O.). Today, policy making and its execution are no longer the exclusive preserve of the “government”, as was the case in the past; this element is shared between the

Discipline of public administration today

15

government, the private sector and civil society actors. The conventional idea of “government”, as the central controller and regulator of society has given way to the idea of “governance”—which denotes societal problem solving through a collective endeavour of the state, the private sector and civil society. This further implies that public sector responsibilities may be outsourced to other agencies (private or voluntary) to further the collective goals of society. In recent decades, political regimes across the ideological spectrum, irrespective of “developed” or “developing” status, have been subject to continuous restructuring, rethinking and reform. The primary concern has been to reduce and simplify the “processes” and rule-orientation of traditional bureaucratic organizations, making them more oriented towards policy outcomes and customer needs. The central focus of the reform movements has been to increase governmental capacity to cope with citizens’ demands and the recent changes in domestic mandates brought in by “globalization”. Guy Peters (2001), veteran commentator of public sector reforms, has pointed out that changes in the environment of governmental policy making has led to two kinds of responses; First: there is constant pressure to move away from conventional hierarchical, command and control instruments of government towards the instruments of “New Governance”. This new style of governing reflects continuing moves towards involving the private sector more directly in governing; characterizing this as “civic engagement”, “partnership”, “stakeholder democracy” and a host of other names. The general pattern has been to decentralize, develop and bring the public sector closer to the “public”. Second: the other change, as Peters observes, is diametrically opposed to this “new governance”. Governments have been shifting control downward to lower levels within public organizations, in addition to stakeholders and autonomous public organizations in order to enhance democracy, as well as to leverage private resources for delivering public services.2

The classical model 20th century transformations in public administration coupled with contemporary ones have come about, in part, through changing political ideologies and concomitant changes in administrative practice (Peters 2002). The discipline of public administration, which started with the famous Wilsonian (1887) essay on the Politics-Administration Dichotomy, has undergone seminal changes in its hundred-year plus history. The Wilsonian dichotomy, which laid down the operational parameters of the classical model of public administration, is based on these implicit assumptions: • •

Government, a political body stationed at the top of the politico-administrative pyramid, exercising relative autonomy from the economy and society, is mainly engaged in formulating public policies and getting them implemented. Governmental accountability should be reflected by the bureaucracy’s answerability to their political masters and those masters to the public,

16

•

Discipline of public administration today

through their representatives in the legislature. This is the foundational system of administrative and political accountability of a democratic state. The civil service system, based on the Weberian working principle of “uniformity and neutrality”, necessitated a depoliticized public administration operating within the political context of changing democratic regimes.

This traditional concept of public administration has recently undergone a radical change, due to domestic and global pressures. In this post globalized era, there are ever increasing demands for what has been called “engaged governance”, with citizens and pressure groups demanding more representation and participation in the public policy and governance processes. From the outside, there is pressure on states to integrate and expose their economies and societies to the influence of global capital markets and the demands of supranational organizations to open their markets to globalized trade processes.3 New Public Management (N.P.M.) originates from the theories of public choice and writings in the 1990s and beyond. N.P.M. highlights a shift in value in public service delivery, pioneering a drive towards privatization, market orientation and managerialism in government. In the U.S.A., the need for “reinventing government” started with a book by Osborne and Gaebler (1992). N.P.M. stands for the transfer of business principles and management techniques from the private to the public sector, based on a neo-liberal understanding of the state and the economy. During the last decade of the 20th century, international bodies like the World Bank, in their efforts to espouse models of development, brought in new ideas to reform public management. Of these policy enunciations, the “good governance” framework widened the scope of administrative reforms to include certain objectives, such as accountability, transparency and administrative ethics (The World Bank 1994). “Governance” has been characterized as a collaborative effort of the public, private and voluntary sectors, to solve the problems of the community with their respective inputs in public policy making and implementation. Governments are no longer viewed as autonomous or authoritative, but are instead made functional through “networks” (Goldsmith and Eggers 2004). The focus of New Public Management centres on: • • • •

Restructuring government operations along market lines, with a focus on efficiency, effectiveness and outcomes. Reversing government’s proliferation in terms of size, function and cost; streamlining government structures and rationalizing public expenditures. Distinguishing policy formulation from implementation, the former is essentially a government task; implementation can be outsourced to non-government agencies. Emphasizing performance evaluation, monitoring product quality and service delivery.

Discipline of public administration today

•

17

Stressing effective service provision and value for money for the citizen/ customer.

Conventional public administration has significant differences with New Public Management. Old public management relied upon traditional rule bound hierarchized bureaucracy to deliver; activities were divided, standardized and centrally controlled. N.P.M. puts emphasis on jobs with a mission mode, improved efficiency and simplification of procedures for enhanced quality of performance and service delivery. Additionally, New Public Management determines that decision-making authority must be delegated to the executing teams, which implies decentralization. On the other hand, traditional management primarily orientes towards centralization to strengthen top management, which was authorized with the final role of coordination and accountability in the organization. Furthermore, traditional management orientation in public administration was meant to improve public services to serve the citizens. N.P.M. emphasizes efficiency and improved public service delivery for customer satisfaction. The old public administration believed in the co-existence of both public and private sectors in the political economy; whereas New Public Management favours outsourcing/privatization of service delivery, in an attempt to restrict the direct provision of services by the bureaucracy. N.P.M. is a strategy which encompasses a series of techniques that are aimed at government reforms. In contrast to routine functions and activities, it emphasizes working towards a mission mode style, with the efficiency of processes relying on debureaucratization and the delegation of authority as tools. Customer orientation and satisfaction are the focus of N.P.M.; it is a paradigm shift that views the government primarily as a provider of public goods and services, instead of a mere implementer of government rules and regulations. However, there was a lot of criticism regarding the reforms initiated by N.P.M. It was feared that the anti-state ideology it pursues could lead to a decline in basic state capacity to deliver public goods and services, creating a host of inequities. The reigning themes are “efficiency” and “effectiveness”, but the issues of social equity, justice, accountability and political participation, are equally important and must be taken into consideration by any political system. New Public Management is said to place value on autonomy, personal vision, secrecy and risk taking, all of which are opposed to the old administrative values of democratic accountability, openness and political stewardship (Bellone and Goerl 1992). Studies indicate that privatization advocated by the New Public Management in developing countries, do not always produce the desired results. N.P.M. cannot be a solution for all public sector maladies. In many developing countries, certain activities have been entrusted to the public sector due to ideological reasons, as well as based upon a lack of trust in the private sector. Intense and radical privatization cannot occur without being accompanied by appropriate

18

Discipline of public administration today

conditions like the existence of a level playing field in the economy. Public sector enterprises, if they are loss making entities, do not attract private buyers, plus, there is stiff resistance by the labour unions. Developing countries, which are grappling with unemployment, economic inequalities and are missing developed capital markets through which funds can be mobilized, often report uneven gains with privatization initiatives. The marketization process of the public sector in developing countries can lead to several associated problems. In developing countries, weak governments have little bargaining power during their dealings with the resourceful, organized and highly competent service providers from the private sector, as well as influential international agencies and multinational corporations. Public service consumers in developing countries are often in an unenviable position, as they have to consume sub-standard public services provided by the government because they are unable to afford qualitatively better, but more expensive, goods and services from the open market. Privatization always favours citizens with more purchasing power, whether they are in a developed or developing country.

The N.W.S. model In numerous countries there have been attempts to retain some of the features of N.P.M. alongside the old features of traditional bureaucratic organizations. As a result, a composite concept of the neo-Weberian State (N.W.S.) to amalgamate the positive elements of N.P.M. whilst retaining the basic Weberian foundations of public administration has evolved. The concept of N.W.S. is state-centred, whilst at the same time incorporating citizens’ needs, civic engagement, external orientation and consultation with stakeholders. In the context of effective public sector reform, two groups of countries serve as alternate models: (a) the Anglo-American N.P.M. “marketizers” and (b) the continental European “modernizers”. The reform model of this latter group, i.e. the continental group, is what Pollitt and Bouckaert call the Neo-Weberian State. According to C. Pollitt and G. Bouckaert, the following principles characterize the Neo-Weberian perspective: a) b) c) d) e) f)

Centrality of the State Continuation of a Weberian Public Service Representative Democracy Citizen Centric Administration Performance Orientation Civil Servants as Management Professionals

The N.W.S. model is a combination of the instrumental rationality of Weberian bureaucracy, in terms of the achievement of legal and economic gains, with the N.P.M. principles of public accountability and “outcomes orientation” to achieve new efficiencies.

Discipline of public administration today

19

Other developments The N.W.S. model is not the only response to post-N.P.M. developments. There are now other valuable additions available in the rich repertoire of public administration studies, the idea of “Digital Governance”, “Public Value”, “New Public Service” and “Engaged Governance”, being the most important. With these wide-ranging, innovative models focussing on public management, it can be surmised that, in recent decades, public administrative studies have been tirelessly attempting to break new ground and usher in a new public administration in the 21st century. Today, public administrators face challenges from both global and domestic terrains. Rapid industrialization and urbanization, pose difficult challenges too. Indeed, many of the world’s leading cities are confronting untenable surges in urban density and unplanned expansion, which existing infrastructure and civic resources are not prepared for. Rising levels of carbon based industrial pollution, associated with aggressive industrialization, have led to the frequency and intensity of climate change related natural disasters, leaving millions injured, displaced or homeless. When faced with hurricane Katrina in the summer of 2005, the U.S. government, at all levels (central, state and local), collapsed; making it one of the most bungled responses and one of the biggest administrative failures in American history. Public sector agencies, across diverse regions of the world, have been trying to respond to these new challenges with enhanced bureaucratic capacity. Consequently, today’s public administrator is compelled to adopt flexible strategies and mixed administrative techniques to cope with ever changing social and economic circumstances. The reforms required could range from working with market like efficiency, learning to collaborate in private-public partnerships or face more performance accountability from citizens. Citizen’s access to unlimited sources of information makes the bureaucrat’s “client” an informed and, therefore, demanding citizen in today’s “knowledge” economy. Without a doubt, the world is gradually moving towards democratization, whose success depends upon the success of politico-administrative regimes, to not only make good citizen centric public policies but to also implement them. Normally, good implementation can lead to electoral successes and, as a result, sound strategies in democracies. The key to rethinking public administration’s future centres on increasing administrative capacity and skills so as to face new challenges that this century will present. Understanding administrative coordination includes the capacity to catalyse the public, private and voluntary sectors, as well as the federal, state and local governments, for the successful execution of developmental goals of the state. Today, administrative effectiveness must incorporate new approaches which make large and complex bureaucratic organizations more responsive to citizen needs, and incorporate the need for linking outlays with outcomes. Administrative accountability must build upon the notion of making public administration accountable to micro and macro goals, citizens as tax payers and

20

Discipline of public administration today

to democratic political regimes. The role of the state in these “public” arrangements has become a fundamental question. Should it be monopolistic, regulatory or merely user/client oriented? This links us to another key question: whether efficiency and effectiveness of service delivery is the most suitable criteria to judge the quality of public bodies, or whether the goals of “inclusion”, “engagement” and “equity” are equally important to judge effectiveness of public governance?

Concept of public value Thirty years of experimentation with the N.P.M. paradigm in practice has exposed its contradictions and fallacies, especially in the developing world. During the 1990s there was growing interest in what can be termed as a “Public Value” approach, which was an innovative concept based on the work of Mark Moore. Moore’s work signals a shift away from the market versus state debates in public service provisioning (Moore 1995); he asserts that public services have inherent social values which may not be adequately addressed by the economic calculus of markets. Moore proposes that the task of a public sector manager is to create “public value”; this indicates a distinct shift from the current N.P.M. focus on results and efficient outcomes to reach the governmental goals of creating public goods and services for citizen satisfaction. Just like private sector managers must come up with innovative ways to meet the changeable demands of the market, public managers must also find ways to accommodate the changing needs of the citizens and their elected representatives. Moore’s concept is derivative of the old Wilsonian idea where elected representatives of a state are responsible for making public policies and setting out the administrative agenda public servants are meant to execute. Thus, if public managers wanted to consult physicians to learn what constitutes desirable values of health policy, or discuss with educators what constitutes quality education they are welcome to do so. However, some critics say that what constitutes “public value” in a given sector would always be subjective, open to contestation and there would be problems measuring what is “valuable”. Moore is convincing when he observes that the value of governmental agencies lies not in the satisfaction of the clients they serve at the end of their operations, but in the satisfaction that citizens, political and judicial overseers believe in during the overall fairness of the organization’s operations. Moore’s greatest input lies in contributing something seminal to our evolving notions of how best to create “public value”: • • • •

Evolve professional standards based on public interest. Learn new techniques of programme evaluation and cost–benefit analysis. Informing politicians about what is both feasible and worth emulating. Customer focus, an important way of improving the quality and effectiveness of government services.

Discipline of public administration today

21

Moore declares that it is “politics” that authoritatively defines what is “publicly valuable”. This is where the Public Value paradigm differs from the N.P.M. paradigm, due to an emphasis on collective preferences, which distinguishes it from the liberal individualist focus of N.P.M. Moore’s contribution to public administration has been applauded as an innovative approach; although critics point out that it seeks to cut at the very root of the old classical model of public administration. Public managers, in Moore’s approach, are seen as explorers who, with others, seek to discover, define and produce “public value”. During the process they become important agents by helping to discover and define what would be valuable to sort out in society. If traditional views of public administration discouraged bureaucrats from questioning the rationale of particular public policies and prevented them from taking any responsibility for defining them, then an alternative idea about how public managers should think and act needs to be constructed. This is what Moore attempts in his book, by working out a concept of how public managers could become an asset to society by searching out and exploiting opportunities to create “public value”. Rhodes and Wanna (2007), among many others, have expressed concern at the way Moore has sought to carve out an autonomous space for the public manager flouting the known canons of the parliamentary system of government: It misdiagnoses the function of management in the modern public sector and invents roles for public servants for which they are not appointed, are ill-suited, inadequately prepared and, more importantly, are not protected if things go wrong. It asks public managers to supplant politicians, to become directly engaged in the political process and become the new Platonic guardians and arbiters of the public interest. In Westminster systems ultimately the politicians remain responsible and accountable for whatever outcomes are attempted, we cannot take the (party) politics out of public management in Westminster systems—and we should not try.

New public service Robert and Janet Denhardt (2007) suggest a new role for governments during the “governance process”. A government’s central role in establishing the overall legal and political rules in society and the broad principles of governance applicable to all is conceded. Secondly, governments, in their view, will protect economic interests that play out amongst the different relationships in multiple sectors and policy networks. Most importantly, governments have to guarantee the maintenance of basic democratic processes and uphold public interest. During the interplay of multiple functioning networks in a society, governments have to assure the observance of the basic principles of democracy and social equity. The maintenance of basic legal and political rules, according to Denhardt and Denhardt, is reminiscent of traditional public administration. Its sanctity and continuance needs to be accepted. Regarding economic and market considerations,

22

Discipline of public administration today

the contemporary view of political life assigns a “steering” role to governments— acting as a catalyst to unleash the forces of the market, therefore creating mechanisms and incentive structures to achieve policy objectives through private and non-profit agencies. In terms of accountability, governments have to offer a choice to the “customers” and respond to their individual preferences. There are countless names given to this brand of administrative theory, but it is now widely known as the “New Public Management”. The third emerging role of governments which focuses on the democratic and social criteria of “public interest” takes centre stage. Public interest is considered to be the by-product of a dialogue on mutual or overlapping interests. A government’s role is visualized in terms of “brokering interests among citizens and other groups so as to create shared values”. In this third approach, public servants must adhere to the law, community values, political norms, professional standards and citizen interests. Denhardt and Denhardt call this brand of administrative theory “The New Public Service”. Robert and Janet Denhardt have postulated seven principles, underpinning the New Public Service philosophy as: • • • • • • •

Serve rather than steer. The public interest is the aim not the by-product. Think strategically and democratically. Serve citizens, not customers. Accountability is multiple and layered. Value people, not just productivity. Value citizenship and public service above entrepreneurship.

Clearly, the model presented by Denhardt and Denhardt is essentially a normative one. Most of the principles are addressed to the “public servant” who is being exhorted to go beyond traditional values of public management and imbibe the canons of a new citizen centric “democratic” administration; placing the concepts of efficiency and productivity in the larger context of democracy, community and public interest. It proposes to think strategically and act democratically by serving people not as customers, but as citizens. Besides, this model believes in the importance of a public service ethos, and public servants being dedicated to the public good. Evidently, the New Public Service philosophy seeks to counter the contemporary obsession with the tenets of the New Public Management. It attempts to not only counter the contemporary managerialist trend in public management thinking, but also offers an important and viable alternative to the traditional and the now dominant managerialist models.

Post-N.P.M. global initiatives Post N.P.M. reforms are neither drastically different from the traditional forms, nor do they intend to transform the existing models. These reforms are measures

Discipline of public administration today

23

of increased state control with network-like coordination, with a continuation of traditional hierarchical controls. The N.P.M. reforms were dominant in the 1980s in the U.K., Australia and New Zealand, all which have taken a lead in implementing post-N.P.M. measures. The Whole of Government (W.o.G.) initiative in the U.K. led to the strengthening of the Centre’s role, the establishment of strategic units and reviews being conducted. The phrase “Whole of Government”, denotes the aspiration to achieve horizontal and vertical coordination in order to eradicate situations in which different policies undermine one another, make better use of scarce resources, create synergies by bringing together different stakeholders in a particular policy area and offer citizens seamless, rather than fragmented, access to services (Pollitt 1993). There have been horizontal integration trends as well. In Australia and New Zealand, New Cabinet Committees, Inter-Ministerial/Inter-Agency Collaborative Units, Inter-Governmental Councils etc. were established. A principal agency approach was introduced to get government units to work together for better outcomes. To ensure a smooth implementation of W.o.G. activities and facilitate collaboration, in Australia, the Cabinet, an implementation unit, was established in 2003. In the U.S.A., the creation of the Department of Homeland Security was a step towards merging agencies to form a larger unit. In Canada, horizontal management activities have been undertaken to handle policy issues such as poverty and climate change. In New Zealand, there has been a renewed focus on value-based management and ethical standards. A comparative study of service delivery organizations in the U.K., New Zealand, Australia and the Netherlands, concludes that bureaucratic models are being superseded by network governance to cater to the W.o.G. approach (Considine and Lewis 2003). This renewed focus on fostering values such as ethics, integrity, accountability, loyalty and probity in organizations, is another significant step. In various countries, ethical guidelines and their implementation in public service is being emphasized. The resurgence of public value management is heading in the right direction. Post-N.P.M. aims to: • • • • • • •

Foster cooperation, coordination and integration between the public sector, market economy and civil society. Establish links across the boundaries and administrative levels to achieve shared goals. Coordinate policy making and service delivery. Ensure cohesiveness of policy making in the governance system, giving due space to the voice of all stakeholders. Bring in re-regulation and foster re-collaboration, vertically and horizontally, across organizational and hierarchical boundaries. Strengthen the state and its capacity to handle administrative overload, e.g. in the context of developing countries. Enhance public service delivery towards becoming more effective and responsive.

24

Discipline of public administration today

Concurrently, the Weberian principles have shown unusual resilience: the elements of predictability, accountability and legality are more in demand than ever. From the developed world to the developing, from old democracies to new-democracies, from ex-socialist states to mixed economies, everywhere we look we find a variant of the Weberian model at work, showing that it has truly stood the test of time. While N.P.M.’s universal applicability is doubtful, in countries with administrative and democratic deficits, it is believed that the Weberian model will work much better when fostering and executing administrative reform. While conflicting ideologies of public governance continue to emerge under globalization, protagonists of reform ascertain that the imperatives of democratic administration should never be subordinated to the uncertainties of managementoriented administration. Therefore, a revival of interest in “administrative responsiveness” in a globalizing society which is witnessing intra-and inter-sectoral collaboration, with competing ethical obligations in the arena of governance, needs to be mentioned. Lawrence O’Toole (1997) has responded to these new challenges by suggesting a set of six variants of bureaucratic responsiveness: dictated, abstained, purposive, entrepreneurial, collaborative and negotiated. O’Toole argues that for the discipline to be relevant, writers and researchers of public administration need to consider each of these variants and how they overlap with each other to mould administrative thought and behaviour, particularly in the “collaborative” and “networking” context. His arguments have laid the foundations for the revival of the concept of “responsiveness and accountability” as central concerns in public administration. The conventional ideas of “responsiveness” and “accountability” have come under recent pressure, due to two important developments: (i) the dominance of N.P.M. postulating a degree of “autonomy” for the public manager and (ii) the crying need for “social” accountability beyond conventional in-house accountability concerns. In fact, all contemporary changes in governance, efficiency, outcomes and customer orientation—have critical implications for public accountability and democracy. It is believed that the “democracy concern” of public governance has its roots in the primacy of politics and public interest within an overarching democratic framework. Instead of being answerable for social welfare, citizens’ rights, poverty eradication, impartiality, fairness, representation and justice, public governance is increasingly being called upon to be accountable for accelerating economic growth rates, boosting efficiency and productivity, encouraging competition, maximizing profit and enhancing cost effectiveness of public administration. Thus, under the N.P.M. mode of governance, the standards of public accountability have become instrumental in nature, especially in terms of an overemphasis on procedural economic criteria (e.g. efficiency and productivity), rather than substantive public concerns (e.g. equality and representation).

Teaching public administration Despite efforts by N.P.M. to push the discipline of public administration towards management and business studies, from government to governance

Discipline of public administration today

25

studies, the centrality of the role of the state to uphold values such as freedom, equality, justice and public interest, has never been denied (Basu 2016). The need to equip students with vocational relevance and job-oriented skills cannot be questioned either. However, public administration is not like a professional course—medicine, engineering or accountancy; in these courses there are specific vocational skills and theoretical knowledge that is translated into programmes of study. It is essential that public administrators acquire knowledge that is inter-disciplinary and generalist in nature, not task-specific. It is also imperative for public administrators to know about politics, constitutions and the law, in order to become good professionals. Therefore, a social science basis is needed in the educational curriculum of public administration. Courses should encourage critical reasoning and analytical abilities (much like other social science subjects), without undergoing vocational training. Imparting task-based specific skills is an essential element of post entry training in the public sector. The dilemma faced by the discipline of public administration, since its earliest phase, has been to develop a body of “universal” theory which should be relevant to the work of public administrators, whose mandate is constantly evolving with the changing role of the state. Disappointed by the discipline’s perceived inability to provide “scientific” theory based upon predictable solutions to problems in the public sector, the discipline has often turned its attention to other “applied” subjects, such as Management or Business Studies, for inspiration and solutions. Public administration teaching must incorporate changing administrative profiles in the globalizing era and incorporate them into their syllabi. To fully understand public governance, a study of the inter-connectedness of the public and private sectors, federal, state and local governments must be included. To understand administrative accountability, the course must build upon the notion of mapping the new relationships among elected officials, and those multiple agencies that implement the programmes formulated by the government. Administrative responsiveness must build upon incorporating new approaches to make large and complex public organizations more responsive to citizens and their needs. Those teaching the subject should emphasize the need to predict new problems and evolving solutions for present and future societal and community issues that require administrative interventions for furtherance of the public interest.

The ongoing concerns With changes in the role of governments, especially in the context of the rapidly changing developing world, public administration is currently engaged in understanding the new South and their pressing new needs, as well as the old modified concerns of the North. Here are some of the ongoing concerns of the developed West and developing societies:

26

Discipline of public administration today

a) Understanding the inadequacy of the Weberian model of legal-rational bureaucracy alone to meet the citizen needs of the 21st century in all organizational contexts. b) Seeking to assess the relative importance of the market and the state (in exclusion or in unison) as providers of public goods and services. c) Stressing democracy, underlining participation and empowerment of people at the grassroots. Public policy implementation can never be successful without public involvement at every stage. d) Organizational pluralism has opened up the concept of governance through non-bureaucratic agencies, rather than the formal government. Performance partnership and networked governance are different examples of this idea. e) Revived interest in the study of ethics in governance—underlining the need to spell out what values public governance upholds—public interest, equity, fairness and justice, are just a few examples.

Defining the public service ethos The role of the public servant (Basu 2016) has been defined and redefined by changing schools of thought in public administration. The public servant operates within a particular framework premised by representative democracy, rule of law and public accountability, although it allows considerable discretionary powers vis-à-vis the citizen. In the state-citizen relationship, it is the public servant who has to deliver goods and services to the people. These conditions are part of the requisite public service ethos, which are not found in the private sector. For private sector employees, the requirement is technical competence, domain efficiency and effectiveness, in terms of acquisition of profit as the ultimate goal when conducting business. The idea of the public service ethos has been challenged from two main quarters—the champions of Public Choice theory and the New Public Management paradigm. Public choice theory (Niskanen 1971) asserts that state officials will seek to maximize their own interest and position, rather than serve the larger public interest. Public choice theory has become the leitmotif for many who seek to reduce the role of state monopolies and offer the public a wider choice of service providers. According to this theory, competition is the best way to ensure public service quality and standards. The other challenge to the idea of the public service ethos is N.P.M. Besides a shared distrust of the conventional civil servant, N.P.M. calls upon civil servants to run the government like a private business, in order to achieve efficiency and cost-effectiveness. Both public choice and public management schools of thought have sought to re-model the public sector ethos working model based on the private sector ethos. It was left to Moore and the Denhardt’s to resurrect the idea of the “public” and spell out a distinct constitutional role for the public servant, based on a distinct public service ethos. They clearly asserted that it is the task of public administrators to foster shared citizen interests and create public values based upon a shared sense of community.

Discipline of public administration today

27

Concluding observations The 21st century will be marked by continuity and change. The dialectics of globalization, the diversified needs of the poor and non-poor, and growing governance deficits in countries with weak administrative capacities, is a reality and a challenge. Public administration is struggling to find a meaningful role in society, brought in by both internal and external forces, and to do so with a rationale based on the Wilsonian narrative of politics-administration dichotomy alone will be extremely difficult. Contrary to the Wilsonian dictum, administration cannot be separated from politics: it is the critical essence of politics. The mandate of politics has been defined as the expansion and galvanization of state capacities to engage and interact collaboratively with other institutions to address society’s contemporary problems. Administrators will have to learn to work with the political regime and citizens, without assuming that their problems are solvable with “theories”. Modern public administration should be viewed as the modernday reflection of Aristotle or Marx’s praxis—the interactive relationship of theory and practice. Professionalism should be seen as part of critical engagement during practical problem-solving with the community. This problem-solving can be a tripartite collaboration—involving the public, private or voluntary sectors. “Democracy” and “good governance” are currently recognized as intrinsically desirable and stand-alone “ends” of politics and administration. Substantivist democracy and state capacity need to be strengthened to ensure adequate economic growth and human development within the structural constraints posed by different political systems. Contemporary focus mostly looks at democratic institutions, and not so much at understanding “administrative” capacity, the absence of which often undermines the legitimacy of political regimes (Basu 2016). 21st-century public governance will be drastically different from previous eras. Technology, particularly information and communication technology, has influenced public administration practices in its internal work processes and by empowering citizens with knowledge to demand entitlements from the state, thereby arming them with the potential to remove trust deficits between the state and the citizen. E-governance4 has the ability to transform government’s relations with citizens, domestic and world markets, and other non-state and global institutions. Its beneficial effects are now being widely acknowledged in terms of reduced corruption, increased transparency, greater speed of transaction and cost reductions in public works. Closely related to corruption and transparency is the issue of “ethical” governance. Currently, there is a worldwide move to restore a measure of trust and integrity in public institutions, so as to safeguard democracy and promote better governance. Due to excessive “management” concerns about efficiency, cost cutting and quick profits, alarming ethical deficits have occurred in contemporary governance, in both the developed and developing world. “Data” science has helped us with knowledge about losses and gains in administrative delivery everywhere, and comparative data is even more useful in policy formulation and evaluation. “Internationalization” of policy agendas in the post

28

Discipline of public administration today

globalized era is not necessarily a bad idea either. The Sustainable Development Goals (S.D.G.s) set by the U.N. for 20305, is a landmark “good governance” agenda for all governments and their people, because it has been consensually adopted by all members of the United Nations in 2015. In fact, the adoption of the Millennium Development Goals (M.D.G.s) at the dawn of the 21st century seemed a harbinger of good times for our planet. S.D.G.s are impossible to achieve without a close governance cooperation between the developed and the developing world. Minnowbrook III6 moves beyond old concerns and instead focuses on the newer concerns of public administration in the future: contradictions and inequities of globalization, problems of coordination in “collaborative” governance, the need to protect the right to privacy of the citizen in an increasingly intrusive digitalized governance era, persistence of social deprivations and class inequities, along with several other issues that will require the strengthening of both political and administrative capacities, to be readily equipped to handle the new challenges of the future.

Notes 1 Historically speaking, Woodrow Wilson, the founding father of the discipline of public administration in his seminal essay, “The Study of Administration” published in 1887, called for a politics-administration dichotomy, stressing the need for the development of an “eminently practical science of administration”. This essay was a pioneering attempt in delineating administration (government in action) as a field for analytical study and a symbolic beginning of public administration as a subject of enquiry. 2 This chapter is an expanded and revised version of the article by Rumki Basu (2016) “The Discipline of Public Administration Today: New Perspectives”, Indian Journal of Public Administration, vol. 62, no. 1, January–March, 1–8. 3 The traditional model has been challenged by two main groups of critics. First, there are those who emphasize the importance of “network governance” in explaining how diffusely the system works. The second group emphasizes the role of the state, the boundaries between the state and non-state institutions, the relationship between the state and the wider society to show how administration has become more complex and the processes involved more permeable. Yet, the old model of public administration has not been declared obsolete. Other models can be seen to supplement, rather than supplant it. 4 E-government refers to the use, by government agencies, of various forms of information technologies, such as Wide Area Networks, the Internet and Mobile Computing. These technologies can lead to better service delivery, improved interactions between government and non-government sectors, citizen empowerment through access to information and more efficient government outcomes and service performance. 5 Sustainable Development Goals (S.D.G.s) were initiated by the United Nations in 2015 to address key development challenges including climate change, economic inequality, sustainable consumption, peace and justice. The seventeen goals, to be achieved by 2030, are comprehensive and focus on the five P’s—people, planet, prosperity, peace and partnership. 6 These points have been argued in Eran Vigoda. “Rethinking the Identity of Public Administration: Disciplinary Reflections and Thoughts on Managerial Reconstruction”, Public Administration and Management: An Interactive Journal, 8(i) 2003. Also, see in this context, the special issue of Public Administration Review vol 70 December 2010 edited by Rosemary O. Leary, David M. Van Slyke and Soonhee Kim, “The Future

Discipline of public administration today

29

of Public Administration around the World: The Minnowbrook Perspective”, Georgetown University Press, 2011. The first Minnowbrook conference was held in 1968, the second in 1988 and the third in 2008. The Minnowbrook Conferences, held every twenty years, have been of considerable historical importance in the discipline of public administration. At each conference, bold attempts were made to assess the state of the discipline and to suggest seminal directions to move forward for the growth of the discipline.

References Basu, R. 2016. The Discipline of Public Administration Today: New Perspectives. Indian Journal of Public Administration, 62(1), January–March: 1–8. Bellone, C.J. and G.F. Goerl. 1992. Reconciling Entrepreneurship and Democracy. Public Administration Review, 52(2), March/April: 130–34. Considine, M. and J. Lewis. 2003. Bureaucracy Network or Enterprise? Comparing Models of Governance in Australia, Britain, Netherlands and New Zealand. Public Administration Review, 63(2): 131–40. Denhardt, R. and J. Denhardt. 2007. New Public Service, New York, M.E. Sharpe. Goldsmith, S. and W.D. Eggers. 2004. Governing by Network: The New Shape of the Public Sector, Washington, DC, Brookings Institution Press. Moore, M.H. 1995. Creating Public Value: Strategic Management in Government, Cambridge, MA, London, Harvard University Press. Niskanen, W.A. 1971. Bureaucracy and Representative Government, Chicago, IL, Aldine Alterton. O’Toole, L.J. 1997. Treating Networks Seriously: Practical and Research-Based Agendas in Public Administration. Public Administration Review, 57(i): 45–52. Osborne, D. and T. Gaebler. 1992. Reinventing Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit Is Transforming the Public Sector, New Delhi, Prentice Hall. Peters, B.G. 2002. The Changing Nature of Public Administration: From Easy Answers to Hard Questions. Asian Journal of Public Administration, 24(2), December: 10–20. Pollitt, C. 1993. Managerialism and the Public Services: Cuts or Cultural Change in the 1990s, Oxford, Basil Blackwell. Rhodes, R.A.W. and J. Wanna. 2007. The Limits to Public Value, or Rescuing Responsible Government from the Platonic Guardians. The Australian Journal of Public Administration, 66(4): 406–21. Wilson, W. 1887. The Study of Administration. Political Science Quarterly, 2, June: 197–222. The World Bank. 1994. Governance and Development, Washington, DC, The World Bank.

3 THE PUBLIC AND ITS POLICIES

Public policy can be broadly defined as an officially enacted and ready-toimplement course of action by a government to achieve specific objectives or goals of a ruling political regime in a state. Policies can be ad-hoc, micro, sectoral or macro, and may constitute part of a government’s professed ideology or a response to an unanticipated situation. These policies are developed by governmental actors and agencies, although non-governmental bodies may also exert direct or indirect influence during the policy making process. The special characteristics of public policies, as differentiated from other policies, emanate from the fact that they are formulated by, what David Easton has termed the, “authorities” in a political system, namely executives, legislators, judges, administrators, councillors and those in government as part of the ruling regime.1 Public policy has certain conceptual implications. First of all, purposeful or result-oriented action rather than random public action, is the hallmark of public policy. In modern states public policies are not spontaneous or happen suddenly. Secondly, public policy refers to the action or decisional pattern of public administrators on a particular issue over a period of time, rather than their separate, discrete decisions on that matter from time to time. Policies are what governments actually do, rather than what they intend or proclaim to do. Furthermore, a public policy may either involve some form of government action regarding any issue or problem; or it may involve a decision by the government bureaucracy not to take action on a matter in which governmental action is called for. Lastly, public policy, is based upon law and is authoritative; it has a legal sanction behind it which is potentially coercive in nature and is binding by all citizens. These are the main differences between public policy and policies of private bodies or institutions which are not backed by public laws or sanctions.

The public and its policies

31

Why study public policy? Most countries in the world today (especially the developing), are struggling to develop their economies, as well as increase the capacity of their political systems to achieve the major objectives of institution building, economic growth and human development. Studying public policy enables us to understand this process a bit more. Public policy is an important mechanism for helping a nation move from the past to the future. Public policy is not created in a vacuum, it is conditioned by the past. Policy studies look at the past, present and future dimensions of existing policies in a state in a given period. A review of the past, coupled with the needs of the present and the future are all taken into account when formulating public policy. Political scientists’ early research scarcely revealed an interest in governmental outcomes and their impact on society. However, the focus has never really been on the policies themselves but rather the political processes and institutions of government. These studies did not explore the linkages between important institutional designs and the content of public policy. Currently, the focus of Political Science has shifted to public policy, to the description, analysis and explanation, of the causes and consequences of government activity on targeted groups/beneficiaries within a state. The reasons for studying public policy or engaging in policy analysis may be both academic and political. A study of the policy formulation processes may help us to gain greater knowledge and understanding of the complexities of the interacting social, economic and political processes and their societal impacts. Policies can be viewed as either a dependent or an independent variable, with attention being placed on the political and “ecological” factors that help determine the content of the policy. For example, how does the distribution of power amongst various targeted beneficiary groups and policy formulating actors affect the policy outcome in a particular sector, or how do levels of economic growth help shape the contours and content of specific policies? If public policy is viewed as an independent variable, the focus shifts to the impact of the policy on the socio-economic and political systems. Then questions begin to surface, including what effect does redistributive policies have on social welfare outcomes, or how are major environmental concerns going to be taken care of through environmental policies? The outcomes of both of these types of policies are certainly not easy to measure, except over a period of time. Moreover, factual knowledge about the policy making process and its outcomes are a prerequisite for recommending how to deal with societal problems normatively. Many Political Scientists believe that the study of public policy should be directed towards ensuring that governments adopt appropriate policies, so as to attain certain desirable social goals. These Political Scientists reject the notion that policy analysts should strive to be value free, contending that policy studies should not, and cannot, remain politically neutral or silent on vital contemporary social, economic or political problems. They want to improve the

32

The public and its policies

quality of public policy in a way which seems desirable, notwithstanding the fact that substantial disagreement may exist in any society when it comes to what constitutes “desirable” or “appropriate” goals of policy.

Classic policy types The development of policy typologies began with Theodore Lowi (1964) laying out his scheme of classic policy types. Lowi divided policies into three basic categories: distributive, redistributive and regulatory. Later on, Ripley and Franklin (1991) streamlined these typologies by dividing regulatory policy into two categories: protective regulatory and competitive regulatory. There are different categories of policies that are adopted by governments, from time to time, to intervene in socio-economic systems. Such policies may be categorized on the basis of their method of control. Government control in the form of policy can be used through patronage, regulation and redistribution. Thus, public policies fall into three broad categories: (a) patronage policies, (b) regulatory policies and (c) redistributive policies. The first category—patronage policy—takes the form of subsidies, contracts and licenses. Of these, “subsidy” is the most common instrument. For instance, when government wants to promote an activity for social welfare, e.g. the government wants private transport operators to ply their passenger buses on a route which is initially thought to be a losing concern. The government may issue a license at a cheaper rate, or may even forego certain taxes to start with, to encourage the private operators to start the passenger bus service in a lossmaking route initially. Real estate businesses can be encouraged by not initially levying municipal property tax. Subsidies can be given to the education sector or the health sector, to promote universal education or universal health care in developing countries. The second category—regulatory policy—is generally seen as the most important policy tool used by governments to “regulate” business or the market. For instance, by taxing alcoholic drinks, governments may try to reduce alcohol consumption. Similarly, by imposing “effluent tax”, governments may, in effect, raise the price of products which come from a polluting company; as a result, the company may lose part of their share in the market because of the price increase of their products. In this way, effluent tax may encourage the company to behave and be vigilant about pollution. The price rise of petroleum products discourages the purchase of motor vehicles, which are also considered to be polluting the environment. The study of regulatory policy making has been dominated by two approaches: •

First of all, regulatory agencies are entrusted with vast discretion and are the major force in regulatory policy. The agency characteristics that affect policy outputs are professional values, policy expertise, bureaucratic entrepreneurs and agency structure.

The public and its policies

•

33

Secondly, regulatory agencies are dominated by their environment: interest groups, legislative committees, economic forces and technological change, are among the determinants of policy.

A more balanced view is that regulatory policy is a product of both regulatory bureaucracies and environmental forces. Following Ripley and Franklin, the two subcategories of regulatory policy may be defined as the following. i) Competitive Regulatory Policy refers to policies that are meant to limit the provision of goods and services to one, or a few, designated service providers selected from a large number of competing potential agencies. Ripley and Franklin look at the allocation of radio and television frequencies and the awarding of cable television rights to many providers in this connection. In India, for example, Air India used to be the only “Indian” official airline, now, the aviation sector has competing service providers, given licenses by the government, who provide the same service. ii) Protective Regulatory Policy is designed to protect the public at large from the negative effects of private activity, such as air pollution and unhealthy product consumption like alcoholic drinks etc. iii) The third category—redistributive policy—refers to the purposeful macro-management of the economy as a whole. Usually, redistributive policies take the form of fiscal (tax) and monetary (money supply) policies. A common policy instrument is to reduce the income tax burden of the poor and the lower middle class, and raise the tax burden of the rich and the corporate sector. Monetary policies involve the regulation of the economy by changing the rate of growth of money supply at any point or by manipulating interest rates (like banking loans for housing, car purchase etc.).

Politics and policy Perhaps it needs to be stated that policy can never be totally apolitical and emerge from a non-contested domain. Some theoreticians of policy “sciences”, would like to believe that fact and value can be separated, meaning that policy can be made neutral and apolitical. However, it cannot be under emphasized that “politics” is the essence of public policy and much of our discussion in these pages will demonstrate this. Political context is moulded by the interests of particular regimes who emerge through a political process, inevitably compelled to spell out a political agenda. There are competing groups in society, based on their differing interests with regard to the allocation of resources, competing for policy attention and who exert power and authority over the policy making process. These influences affect each stage of the process, from agenda setting, to the identification of alternatives, assessment of the options and finally, choosing the most favourable one for legislation.

34

The public and its policies

Policies are often set out as being objective, neutral, value-free and termed in legal or scientific language, emphasizing its rationality. This way, the political nature of the policy is hidden by the use of technical language, which is supposed to symbolize rationality and objectivity. But the technical is always, in some way, “political”. Bureaucrats are not simply neutral executors of policy; they have their own personal and political agendas to negotiate. Bureaucratic politics, such as battles within ministries for control over policy arenas, are a prime example. Where do we draw the boundary between political and techno-administrative issues? For instance, governments claim that environmental policy is bound to be “scientific” based upon the advice of environmentalists, or on the environment preservation needs of society. Repeatedly framing the issue in this way obscures more political and power-laden controversial issues, such as those of access, control and equity over natural resources. Environmentalists have often clashed with developmentalists, and both have political lobbies to support their claims. Policy makers often make important policy decisions prior to soliciting expert advice, then seek to obtain a “scientific” endorsement for those decisions. Recommendations which were perceived as being based upon objective science were sometimes found to be tempered by subjective political preferences. Therefore, even a supposedly sound science-driven policy may conceal an underlying political agenda. Policy making and implementation are tasks which requires the political leadership to politically persuade the target group to comply. Policy makers must carry people with them, especially if their decisions and choices of legislation are to have the full force of public approval. This is a reality, not only in liberal democracies, but in most authoritarian systems there are powerful limits to “authoritative” commands. Policies constitute a body of plans and proposals, not necessarily a tightly integrated body of systematic knowledge, more art and craft than genuine “science” (Wildavsky 1974; Goodsell 1992). Lerner and Lasswell’s pioneering book The Policy Sciences (1951) endorses the same view. Policy studies are distinguished from other social science disciplines by its “applied” orientation; it is organized around questions of what “politics” should do, rather than just questions of ideal designs for institution building. Political theory suggests normative bases for our political institutions as the embodiments, or instruments, of our collective values, but policy studies focus less on institutional structures and more on outcomes. Policy studies reflect a bias towards acts, outputs and outcomes—a concern with consequences—that contrasts with the formal-institutional normativism of the rest of political studies. A feature of democratic theory asserts that adjustment between parties, bureaucracies and institutional actors can produce socially optimal results (Lindblom 1959). What actually occurs during policy making is that administrators, while selecting policies, do not outline a wide range of possibilities, only a few incremental steps, which appear to be feasible on the basis of their experience. Lindblom states that what is selected, to be acted upon, is not essentially the most “optimal” choice, but is a policy, which has been selected as the most suitable compromise that may satisfy the

The public and its policies

35

targeted groups or expected beneficiaries. This is truly reflective of the policy making process in democratic states, which chiefly operates by means of “incrementalism”, and rarely by radical legislation or transformative changes. Early policy scientists clearly stated as much, recalling Lasswell’s definition of “politics” in terms of “who gets what, when, how?” The more consultative polities of Scandinavia and continental Europe have always favoured more consensual modes of policy making, compared to the majoritarian polities of the Anglo-American world (Lijphart 1999). The policy development and implementation process proceeds according to procedures of “sounding out” stakeholders, rather than majorities pressing things to a vote prematurely (Olson 1971). Sites of decision-making can be diverse. Policies can be handed down from superior to subordinates, down the chain of command, but also from the centre to the sub-national units in a state. More democratic options emerge if one looks at governing as a multi-layered bottom-up process (Tilly 1999). The locus of decision making can be the national legislature, the legislatures of the federated regions, down to local government legislatures. Still, many of the most encouraging examples of new deliberative processes working to democratize the existing centralized political regimes (e.g. those of the former socialist countries of East Europe) call for constitutional decentralization as the answer. There have always been limits to centralized authoritative commands. “Governance” theory suggests that governing is less about ruling through hierarchical authority structures, and more a matter of negotiating through a decentralized series of “governing networks” (Heclo 1978; Rhodes 1997; Castels 2000). Some actors are more powerful than others, but even those actors at the central nodes of networks are not always in a position to command and control. Broad cooperation from numerous autonomous actors is required in order for any policy to finally get through enactment. In fact, during contemporary times, the incapacity of central government to exercise effective control over what happens on the ground through command and control within a hierarchy, has also led to the increasing outsourcing of public services, public-private partnerships and an arm’s length government (Smith and Lipsky 1993). The image evoked here is one of “steering, not rowing” (Kaufmann, Majone and Ostrom 1985; Bovens 1990). The idea here being that by separating themselves from the responsibility of front-line service delivery, the policy delivering units of government will be in a better position to focus on strategic policy choice (Osborne and Gaebler 1993). By stipulating “performance standards” in the terms of the contract and monitoring compliance, public services are supposedly better delivered by private agencies.

The stages models and alternate frameworks To reiterate, let’s look at the already existing models of policy formation and unearth the major new ideas that have enriched the field of policy studies and have extensively modified the policy process discussion.

36

The public and its policies

Policy making has been conventionally explained as a series of stages in which proposed policies are compared systematically and sequentially against the backdrop of ideas and values, with progress being made rationally towards a political objective (Lerner and Lasswell 1951). As one of the pioneers of the policy studies approach, Lasswell argued for an improvement in the rationality of the process by achieving a better integration of authentic information and responsible judgement. This conceptualization has dominated both theory and practice since the emergence of policy studies as a separate academic discipline. This model believes that policy making proceeds as a sequence of distinct stages, every policy has a clear beginning, middle and end, values are treated as exogenous and rationality comes from using these political values as a basis for choosing the solution that best fits these values. The second framework that deserves special mention is the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) of Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith (1993), first evolved, in part, as an attempt to overcome the shortcomings of the stages model. In their initial version of the ACF, Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith emphasized the need to take a long-term view of policy change and to treat policy sub-systems or domains as the main unit of analysis. These policy sub-systems are regarded as coalitions of various “stakeholders”, such as policy researchers, advocates, lobbyists, representatives of targeted beneficiary groups and so on, advocating their own conception of policy problems, explanations of causes and preferred solutions. The ACF has inspired, among others, three major theoretical lines of inquiry. • • •

First of all, a theoretical emphasis on coalitions, where questions focus on why coalitions form, their structure and their stability over time; secondly, the need for policy oriented research for application to real life situations; and thirdly, a need to understand the role and behaviour of coalitions in policy change. This model emphasizes the wide range of players involved in policy making and the influence of external factors and systemic shocks.

The third model is the discursive approach, which highlights the socially constructed nature of knowledge and advocates a more inclusive and democratic approach to policy making. It clearly states the importance of the political role of the policy analyst and stresses the need to be aware of one’s values and to employ them consciously in the policy process. Fischer (2003) presents a comprehensive critique of what he describes as the rational, technocratic and empiricist notion of policy making. He sets out an alternative route in post empiricist principles of constructivism, discursive analysis and participatory deliberative practices. The policy analyst should not facilitate and bolster bureaucratic governance, but should provide access and an explanation of data to all parties, so as to empower the public to understand technical data and promote serious public discourse on policy issues.

The public and its policies

37

So far, considerable academic efforts have been made to develop a mature and practically usable policy science. The current state of policy studies is characterized by an increasing variety of tools; these range from financial controlling approaches such as bench marking, performance comparison, best practices and output-oriented performance indicator systems for public services, to new forms of participatory inquiry and design, such as citizen surveys, citizen reports and other feedback techniques from user groups. The rationale behind new frameworks of enquiry in this discipline is not to dismiss “rationalism” as an impossibility in policy making, but to understand the realities of the policy making process and the complexities involved in the creation of policies in diverse political regimes across the world in the 21st century, and to truly bring “public” inputs into the public policy making process.

The policy cycle: processes Four different levels in the policy process may be distinguished: (i) Agendasetting; (ii) Decision-making; (iii) Implementation; and (iv) Evaluation.

Policy agenda setting Policy making cannot be understood separately from the environment in which it takes place. Demands for policy actions are generated in the environment and transmitted to the political system; at the same time, the environment places limits and constraints upon what can be done by policymakers. Factors in the environment include geographical characteristics such as natural resources, climate and topography; demographic variables like population, size, age and sex ratio distribution and spatial location; political culture; social structure and the economic system. Also, other nations become an inherent part of the environment for foreign and defence policy. Here, the discussion will focus on two of these factors of agenda setting, which political scientists have bestowed great importance, namely, political culture and socioeconomic variables. In every country policy formulation is achieved in diverse ways and conditioned by a variety of factors. Political culture refers to the widely held values, beliefs and attitudes, concerning governmental policies and actions, along with some of the implications and significance of this culture for policy formulation. Differences in public policy and policy making in various countries can be explained, at least partly, in terms of the variations in their political culture. Social welfare programmes are older and more widely covered in Western European (especially the Nordic) countries, than in the United States, because there has been a greater public demand, and approval, of such programmes in those countries. Furthermore, government ownership of businesses and industry is more prevalent in Britain than in the U.S.A., where public opinion is more in its favour. A political culture which is oriented more towards the past than to the

38

The public and its policies

future may sanctify age-old traditions, customs and social mores, such as India rather than the United States, a country whose culture may be considered more future oriented, adaptable and innovative. Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba have differentiated between “parochial”, “subject” and “participant” political cultures. In a parochial political culture, citizens have little awareness of, or orientation towards, either the political system as a whole or the citizen as a political participant. It is suggested that some tribal societies and underdeveloped countries in Africa are illustrative of parochial political cultures. In a subject political culture, like many developing democratic countries such as India, the citizen may be politically aware, nonetheless, they are unaware of their own potential to influence public policy. The citizen may be aware of governmental authority, may have political views, but is essentially a passive onlooker. While in the participant political culture, such as the United States, citizens have a high level of political awareness and information, having explicit orientations towards the political system as a whole and a notion of meaningful citizen participation in politics. Included in this orientation is an understanding of how individuals and groups can influence the decisionmaking process in politics and public policy. The implications of these differences in political culture for agenda setting seem readily apparent in the context of developed and developing countries, even today. Citizen participation during policy formation in a parochial political culture is going to be essentially non-existent, with the government being of little concern to most citizens. In a subject political culture the individual may believe that they can do little to influence public policy, which can lead to a passive acceptance of governmental action that may be rather authoritarian in style. In these types of cultures, transformative public policies usually come about through popular unrest or movements, where violence is often restored too. In the participant political culture, individuals may organize themselves into pressure groups or lobbies, to influence government action to address their grievances or mobilize for new policies. Both government and public policy are perceived as controllable by citizens. Moreover, one can assume that additional demands will be made on the government in a participant political culture than in the other two types of cultures, where demands usually remain dormant for some time before they come out in the open. Therefore, a study of political culture is important because values, beliefs and attitudes, inform, guide and constrain the action of both decision-makers and citizens. The term “socioeconomic conditions” is used here in the broadest sense (geographical characteristics and demographic variables being inclusive in “economic resources”) because it is often impossible to separate social and economic factors as they impinge on, or influence, political activity. Public policies can be seen as emanating from conflicts between different groups (private and public) who often have opposing interests and attitudes. In modern societies, the major sources of conflict are economic activity, inequality

The public and its policies

39

and distributive justice issues. There are certainly clashes of interest between big and small businesses, employers and employees, wholesalers and retailers, consumers and sellers, farmers and landlords, workers and industrialists and so on. Groups that are underprivileged, dissatisfied, marginalized or threatened adversely by economic change, very often seek governmental intervention to improve their economic status. Consequently, in many capitalist countries where people had an issue with organized labour and were dissatisfied with wages, have often sought minimum wage legislation from the government. Modernization and industrialization disrupts the equilibrium of many groups in society: feudal landed classes lose their importance, new classes emerge, like the middle class, a bigger business class is created and industrial workers want a voice in governmental decisions. While the poor want free public goods, jobs and subsidies. Therefore, all social groups want public policies in their favour. It is a well-recognized fact that a society’s level of economic development will impose limits on what the government can do when providing public goods and services to the community. The scarcity of economic resources will, of course, be more limiting for many developing countries than affluent ones. The biggest challenge for governments in developing countries, especially in democracies, is to keep electorates happy through public policies that will procure them electoral or political dividends. The ways in which socioeconomic conditions influence or constrain public policies have been subjected to considerable analysis. Economic development shapes both political agendas and policy outcomes. Differences in the policy choices of states with different political systems largely turn out to be a product of differing socioeconomic levels, rather than a direct product of political variables. Levels of urbanization, industrialization and human development, appear to be more influential in shaping policy agendas than purely political variables, such as voter participation, inter-party rivalry, political party strength and legislative appointment. Since democratic governments are representative governments, it is often said that citizens are, therefore, indirectly represented in all policy making. In an abstract sense, this is true, but concretely, this aphorism means very little. Citizen contribution to agenda setting, even in democratic countries, is negligible. The vast majority of people do not exercise their franchise or engage in party politics; neither do they join pressure groups, or display any active interest in public affairs. Even while voting, voters are hardly influenced by policy considerations. However, despite such political attitudes of a vast majority of citizens, some still participate directly in decision-making. In some of the American states (like California) and certain countries (like Switzerland), citizens can, and still, vote directly in relation to legislation or Constitutional amendments, which are submitted to the voters for approval. Elections are the major instruments in democratic countries to gauge public opinion or popular wishes. As Charles Lindblom summarizes: “The most conspicuous difference between authoritarianism and democratic regimes is that democracies choose their top policy makers in

40

The public and its policies

genuine elections”. Some political scientists speculate that voting in genuine elections may be an important method of citizen influence on policy, not so much because it actually permits citizens to choose their officials and, to some degree, set the agendas of policy making, but because the existence of genuine elections puts a stamp of approval on citizen participation. Therefore, indirectly, elections enforce upon proximate policy makers a rule that citizens’ wishes count when it comes to policy making. However, it is a truism that no government, however dictatorial, can afford to go against the desires, wishes, customs or traditions of the people. Even dictators undertake many popular measures, so as to minimize unrest or discontent against the regime. One-party systems, like the Soviet Union or China, also seem concerned about meeting many citizen demands, even as they exclude citizens from more direct participation in agenda setting for policy formation.

Public decision making Herbert Simon’s (one of the earliest theorists of decision-making) point of departure was his emphasis on correct decisions, as well as the right way of doing things. Efficient decision making is not the ruthless pursuit of mechanical efficiency by any means, but the choice of alternatives which produce the best results for the given application of resources. The ideal of perfect rationality was unattainable, whereby all objectives would be defined and arranged according to priority; all possible alternative strategies listed together with their consequences and a comparative evaluation taken of the strategies and their consequences, so the maximum results would be forthcoming for the resources employed. In practice, however, a comprehensive range of information was unobtainable, man was not an exclusively rational being; meaning both the objectives and consequences of public policy were not susceptible to quantitative measurement or approximate evaluations. Therefore, in practice, we never really have all the information we need in order to “optimize”; at best, we “satisfice”, set some standard of what is “good enough” and content ourselves with reaching that standard (Simon 1955). Policy making can be innovative, especially when it deliberately engages in brainstorming and consultation with all stakeholders, rather than just rummaging around to see what “solutions looking for problems” are lying at the bottom of the existing “garbage can” of the policy universe (March 1972). Although, however seminal they may be, policy makers will inevitably fail the “comprehensively rational” model to some greater or lesser degree, because of their unsurprisingly limited knowledge of all the possible means by which goals might be pursued through policies and their likely or unlikely impacts. The story of policies is also a story about change. Policies change for all sorts of reasons. The problems change; the environments change; technologies improve; alliances falter; key staff change; office interests and the needs of the clientele change, necessitating modification, change or removal of policies.

The public and its policies

41

Due to the rapid spread of democratization across the world, there is another side to the story: policies can sometimes change because the targeted beneficiaries want them to change. Also, change can happen with political activity. There is a mass mobilization of groups pressing for reform—workers pressing for legislation on hours and wages, racial or religious minorities pressing for civil rights, women pressing for gender equity, are just a few examples (Cain, Dalton and Scarrow 2003). Public decision-makers are likely to make mistakes or be susceptible to bias. They make mistakes when collecting, interpreting, analysing and using information, they may also make mistakes during their understanding and prediction of the expected outcomes of alternative options. However, these sub-optimal policy decisions affect society at large, or specific target groups, which means they come under public scrutiny. Public decision-making entails inbuilt accountability because policies are publicly funded and in turn affect the citizens who pay those taxes. Given the voluminous number of public decisions taken in every political system, it is obvious that examples of flawed decisions are easy to find, thus creating a negative image of public bureaucracies. Public decisions are made by individuals or agencies, therefore, there will always be human error in any human activity and public policy making is no exception. However difficult it may be to achieve perfect rationality, policy studies focus has always been to strive to achieve optimal outcomes, despite knowing numerous factors may inhibit the process. In the late 1950s, Herbert Simon argued that an inherent aspect of decision making is the notion that decision making cannot be based on full information, that the “rationality” guiding it is necessarily bounded and that decision makers are more often “satisfiers” than “optimizers”. Limited comprehensive knowledge curtails the ability, time and resources available to decision makers, meaning they are thus constrained in their attempts to make completely rational decisions. Simon ascertained that instead of seeking to be “comprehensively” informed, decision makers have to find a way out by comparing—sequentially—a limited number of alternatives, basing their judgements on a limited number of criteria and opting for an alternative they judge to be satisficing in that it meets a certain threshold. Decision makers do not need to search for more optimal solutions once a satisficing solution has been found (Simon 1955). In the 1950s, Charles Lindblom continued this line of thinking by arguing that decisions are embedded within previous decisions, existing practices as well as cultural and political institutional settings. In Lindblom’s view, these boundary conditions create decisions which mostly conform to the status quo and minimally deviate from previous policies. Hence, decisions tend to reconfirm existing arrangements or result in incremental change. Incrementalism—gradual change dominates the public sector and revolutionary decisions that result in transformative changes are rare. According to Lindblom, incrementalism is a smart solution since it allows: flexibility—changes that result from decisions which are so small that they can be reversed; learning—if there is any change in the outcome, one knows that the incremental change caused it, since it was the only thing that was

42

The public and its policies

changed; and reduced risk and resistance—since the changes are so small, their impact will be small, so there will be few objections to them. In the 1970s, Cohen, March and Olsen (1972) argued that the institutional setting of policy making is more influential for the kind of decision made, rather than the rational balancing of the estimated effects of decisions. Their analysis is more radical than those of Simon and Lindblom; in their perspective, expertise and information do not influence decision making; at least, much less than expected. According to them, the research and information gathering, which precedes the decision making, is mostly symbolic and is only conducted to indicate that policy making is based on information, which enables decisionmaking processes to be viewed positively by experts and the public. Since decision makers know that optimizing decisional inputs and outcomes are unattainable, the only alternative is to act as if decisions have been made rationally. According to Cohen, March and Olsen, people in the public sector make the decisions they do because they think it is appropriate to make those decisions, not because of a rational balancing of the effects of such decisions. In their view, the logic of appropriateness dominates public decision making. In the late 1980s, March and Olsen specified this kind of decision making in their classic volume Rediscovering institutions. They argued that decisions in organizations often emerge randomly as a consequence of anarchical processes, best described using the metaphor of the garbage can—in which problems, solutions, opportunities and actors, flow independently and randomly until they accidentally merge, which results in completely unpredicted decisions. Predominantly, decisions are based on obligations and responsibility, instead of being deliberate choices with knowledge of the consequences: this is what March and Olsen mean by the logic of appropriateness as distinguished from the logic of consequentiality. March and Olsen expand upon this even further, by stating that not only decisions but also perceptions, interpretations and preferences are shaped by institutions, resulting in a situation where individuals often only see what they are expected to see, and like what they are expected to like. Kingdon (1995) developed the most well-known application: the multiple-streams model—using the same idea of independent flows of problems, solutions and actors, which accidentally merge and create a window of opportunity for decision makers—as a theory on how public policies come about. March and Olsen’s approach, which emphasized organizational anarchy in decision making, has been criticized for not paying enough attention to the role of power, leadership authority, control, delegation and incentive systems, within organizations that try to achieve as much congruence and coherence as possible. The extent to which decision makers are inclined to search for information, means they fully use the information available to them and strive for optimal decisions which might also be dependent on characteristics of the decision-making process. What are the rules and regulations that prescribe the decision-making process? Is the decision-making process transparent and accountable? In public administration it is

The public and its policies

43

understood that when decision-making procedures are more strictly regulated, transparent and accountable, stakeholder decision makers will be more inclined to gather information and make sound analyses based on that information. As a result, they will be more careful in their decisions, because they are obliged to do so by law, and fear the consequences of being publicly accused of having made flawed decisions. Many scholars suggest that the causes of suboptimal public decisions can be found in societal structures and the role of governmental intervention in the economy. Two opposing perspectives are the Marxist and the neo-liberal views. From a Marxist perspective, the class structure of societies with a rich, economic and politically elite class on the one hand, and a resource-poor, working class on the other, results in an unequal distribution of power and conflict of interest; this in turn, results in decisions that are only profitable for the former sector of society and are disadvantageous to the latter. Public policies always involve conflicts of interests and those in powerful positions, make or encourage decisions that only serve their own class interests. Such theories conclude that public decisions mostly serve the interests of the economically higher classes. A rather different explanation for suboptimal decisions in public policy making, is that they are “public” and, therefore, by definition a heterogeneous mass who cannot handle rational and optimal decisions, a viewpoint which is often raised by neo-liberals and proponents of a limited government. A government’s reluctance to regulate, steer and dominate the economy, is better for economic development. According to this view, one should always be suspicious of any attempt, by governments, to propose new laws and regulations which limit people, industry and commerce, because this is detrimental rather than advantageous for society as a whole. Modern interpretations of this theory conclude that government should limit itself to protecting private property and maintaining security, but should not steer or regulate business or wages, as this would distort the socio-economic development of the country. An additional contextual factor, is the governmental level at which the decision is being made. The location of the decision-making power (national, regional or local), plays a role in determining the possibilities for public participation and customized decisions, the availability of knowledge and expertise to analyse this information, individuals skills, who are involved in the process and the extent to which one can learn from past experiences. When decision making is centralized, the possibilities for public participation decreases, so do the possibilities for user friendly decisions. On the other hand, the capacity, knowledge and skills of the central agency are often greater than they are locally, especially in cases of high uncertainty and when the origin of such dynamics is outside the local level. A final contextual factor, is that participants are often representatives of interest groups, societal organizations, NGOs or governmental agencies. Such “group” interests can frustrate decision-making processes, as they interfere with the flexibility needed to arrive at optimal decisions; instead, they can result in polarization. Also, institutional loyalties frustrate the outcomes of the decision-making processes, because instrumental rationality might dominate the decision-making process and

44

The public and its policies

other types of rationality, or, as mentioned in the previous section, become subordinate to instrumental rationality. Therefore, we may conclude this section by saying that decision-making processes are complex, in which individual biases and errors, institutional boundaries and complex societal contexts—especially in relation to conflicting interests and structural power disparities, blend together and block a comprehensive rational analysis of information, thus inhibiting the capacity to make optimal public decisions (de Vries 2016).

Policy implementation Implementation is the basic task of bureaucracies everywhere in the world; it is the total process of executing a public policy, executive order or enacted statute. A law is usually passed in a skeleton form; the power of “delegated” legislation ensures that the civil service is the prime agency of public service delivery and the chief mediator between the state (deliverer) and the citizen (beneficiary). In the policy cycle, “implementation” is the exclusive task of the bureaucracy, which refers to the totality of appropriate programme directives and structures that provide public goods and services to the citizens at federal, state or local levels of governance. A law is passed, but it is during the process of implementation where the changes and “distortions” (intended or unintended) take place. The policy implementer is the ultimate interpreter of a law or statute, and rarely is implementation “perfect”, especially in the context of developing countries where the gaps between a policy and its implementation have always been sub-optimal. The first major book of policy analysis which focussed on “implementation” was Jeffrey Pressman and Aaron Wildavsky’s 1973 study of federal programs in the city of Oakland, California. The original title “Implementation: How Great Expectations in Washington are dashed in Oakland”, in itself tells a story. Pressman and Wildavsky, in their land mark book, pointed to the close nexus between “politics” and implementation; how the interaction between setting goals and carrying them out, makes the process of execution, fundamentally “political”. The activities that go on under this banner, shape who gets “what”, “when” and “how” from the government. Policy implementation, like policy formulation, involves multiple actors who try to exert power over programme outcomes. Implementation involves administrators, interest groups and others who mobilize power, through forming coalitions and planning strategies to ensure that they also benefit (besides the legitimate target groups) from the implementation process. This is how, very often, in developing countries, the “politics of scarcity” leads to the derailment of a law which may be partially implemented with modifications or not implemented at all. Several policy reviews of federal flagship programmes in the 29 states of India, highlight bewildering variations in the process of implementation which have been reported, inevitably resulting in diverse outcomes. 100% implementation of government policies has never been reported at any level of public

The public and its policies

45

governance in India. However, suggestions that most administrators have deliberately “distorted” the law is a fact that has not been substantiated by the “outcomes” of the research either. Therefore, one has to understand that the entire process of policy implementation is inherently “political”, with “suboptimal” outcomes as an inevitable result. Therefore, in order to promote the equal treatment of clients/beneficiaries, organizations need to develop standard operating procedures which minimize discretion and greatly facilitate decision making into a routine application of rules. Successful implementation requires “feasible” directives built into organizational structures which, translated into implementation language, would mean the simplification of routine procedures and minimal use of discretion in “strategic” cases.

Policy evaluation Public policy analysis is concerned with the consequences of governmental decisions on the targeted public. Major government decisions, in all sectors of public concern, involve some cost to the nation. Apart from taxpayers’ money, almost all governmental policies affect certain citizens, either directly or indirectly. Thus, citizens have every right to know why particular decisions were taken, how they were arrived at and what would be their likely consequences. These questions are now being raised by policy analysts. Since government’s long term policies and plans will greatly determine the future shape of society, there is now a great need for strengthening the scientific knowledge of policy making. To help solve the critical problems of society, Yehezkel Dror (1968) advocates the development of a “policy science”. Policy science can . . . be partly described as the discipline that searches for policy knowledge, that seeks general policy issue knowledge and policy making knowledge, and integrates them into a distinct study. Policy issue knowledge is knowledge which relates to a sectoral or specific policy, whereas policy making knowledge concerns itself with the entire spectrum of policymaking activity—how it operates and how it can be improved. Dror advocates an optimal approach to policy making and policy analysis. He pleads for the adoption of the best policy by a judicious evaluation of goals, values, alternatives, costs and benefits, based upon the maximum use of all available information and scientific technology. He even recommends extra-rational aids to facilitate effective policy analysis. Intuition, value preferences, extraordinary leadership and acute reality perceptions, may also be used in policy making and policy analysis. Currently, policy analysis is emerging as a sub-discipline, focusing on the following areas: a) There is a need for a comprehension of policies rather than a recommendation. Emphasis is on understanding the policies and not necessarily proposing new ones. b) Efforts to find causal links on policy matters. The causes and consequences of public policies are now being subjected to scientific enquiry.

46

The public and its policies

c)

There is a need for the creation of a body of policy science knowledge. Specific policy issue studies are being utilized, so as to arrive at broader generalizations.

The evaluation of public policy is an attempt to assess the content and effects of policies on those for whom it is intended. Policy evaluation often occurs during the policy process, not at its termination stage. Evaluational activity may restart the policy process (problem formulation onwards) in order to continue, modify or terminate existing policy. Generally, there are three recognized methods of policy evaluation, they are: a) Policy impact evaluation: During an assessment of overall programme impact and effectiveness, emphasis is on determining the extent to which programmes are successful in achieving basic objectives and on the comparative evaluation of programmes. b) Policy strategy evaluation: This evaluation is an assessment of the relative effectiveness of programme strategies and variables. Emphasis is on determining which strategies, methods and procedures are most productive or effective. c) Policy project appraisal: This process is an assessment of individual projects through site visits and other activities, with emphasis on managerial and operational efficiency. While discussing policy evaluation, one must first understand the basic difference between policy output and policy outcomes. Policy output refers to the quantifiable actions of the government which can be measured in concrete terms, for instance the construction of government offices, schools, public parks, highways, payment of welfare benefits, operation of hospitals and prisons. These activities can be measured in concrete terms, but figures reveal very little about the policy outcomes or the qualitative impact of public policies on the lives of people. Knowing how much is spent on pupils in a school system, on a per capita basis, reveals nothing in relation to the effect schooling has on the cognitive, and other abilities, of students, let alone the social consequences of education. Broadly, policy evaluation requires knowledge regarding what is to be accomplished within a given policy (policy objectives), how to do it (strategy) and what, if anything, has been accomplished towards the attainment of the objectives (impact or outcomes). The most useful method of policy evaluation for policy makers and administrators is the systematic evaluation, as it helps determine the cause and effect of relationships, and rigorously measure the impact of policy. It is, of course, often impossible to measure quantitatively the impact of public policies, especially social policies, with any real precision. There are certain barriers that create problems for policy evaluation.

Uncertainty over policy goals When policy goals are unclear or diffused, policy evaluation becomes a difficult task. This situation is often a product of the policy adoption process. Since

The public and its policies

47

support from a majority coalition is often needed to secure the adoption of a policy, it is usually necessary to appeal to as wide a spectrum of persons and interests (often conflicting) as possible. Officials in different positions in the policy system, such as legislators and administrators or national and state officials, may define goals differently and act accordingly.

Difficulty in determination of causality Systematic evaluation requires that changes in real life conditions must be demonstrably caused by policy actions. But the mere fact that action A is taken and condition B develops, does not necessarily mean that a cause-and-effect relationship exists; for example, the relationship between crime prevention measures and the occurrence of crime is not a simple cause-and-effect relationship. The determination of causality between actions, especially in complex social and economic matters, is a difficult task.

Diffused policy impacts Policy actions could potentially affect a wide spectrum of people, both in the target and non-target categories, and have various intended or unintended consequences. A welfare programme might not only affect the poor but also others, such as taxpayers, bureaucrats and lower income groups. The effect this has on those groups may well be symbolic or material, tangible or intangible.

Difficulties in data-acquisition A shortage of accurate and relevant facts, and statistics, may hinder the work of a policy evaluator. Thus, mathematical models might predict the effect of a tax cut on economic activity, but obtaining suitable data to indicate its actual impact on the economy is much more difficult. Whilst official resistance to provide all types of relevant data could also prove to be a hindrance. Policy evaluation entails commenting on the merits and demerits of a policy, that is to say, value judgements have to be made. Agency and programme officials, bureaucrats and others, are going to be concerned with the possible political consequences of evaluation. If the results do not come out in their favour, or show them in a bad light, this could put their careers in jeopardy. Consequently, government officials may discourage evaluation studies, refuse access to data, show incomplete records, or create various hurdles in the researcher’s process of policy evaluation. Within government, policy evaluation is carried out in a variety of ways and by a variety of actors. Sometimes it is a systematic activity, at other times it is rather haphazard or sporadic. In some instances policy evaluation has become institutionalized, in others it is informal and unstructured. A few official policy evaluation agencies include the legislatures and their committees, the audit office, commissions of enquiry and departmental evaluation reports.

48

The public and its policies

Besides, there is a considerable amount of policy evaluation carried out outside the government. The communications media, university scholars, private research institutions, pressure groups and public interest organizations, prepare evaluations of policies that have an effect on public officials, to some extent. These evaluations also provide the larger public with information, publicizes policy action or inaction, advocates the enactment or withdrawal of policies, and often voices the demands of the weaker or underprivileged sections of the public.

The legislative process One of the functions of legislatures in democratic countries, is the evaluation of administration and the execution of laws or policies. Policy evaluation is implemented through a number of techniques: (a) questions and debates, (b) various motions in parliaments, for instance, call attention or no-confidence, (c) committee hearings and investigations and (d) the budgetary process. In the course of these activities, legislators reach conclusions regarding the efficiency, effectiveness and impact of particular programmes and policies. These feedback processes can have serious consequences for the policy process.

The audit process The auditor’s office, as in India and the U.S.A., has broad statutory authority to audit the operation and finance activities of government agencies, evaluate their programmes and report their findings to parliament. In India, two parliament committees, the Public Accounts Committee and Estimates Committee, have been specifically empowered to help with effective parliamentary control of the governmental expenditure. The main purpose of these committees is to see whether the budgetary appropriations have been economically utilized by the government for the approved purposes within the framework of the grants. Secondly, they undertake a detailed examination of the annual budget estimates of the government, so as to suggest possible economies during the implementation of plans and programmes.

Administrative agencies Every government department prepares their internal evaluation reports, which provides them with an opportunity to appraise the implementation of the programmes and projects undertaken by the department; for example, the Budget Division of the Finance Ministry in India, has the power to overview all ministries and departments while framing the budget estimates for every department. Similarly, every department, while sending its own demand for grants to the Finance Ministry, evaluates its annual plans, programs and performance.

The public and its policies

49

Towards optimal decision-making Public administration scholars have begun researching how to approximate the ideal of rational decision making—and optimal outcomes—in spite of the inhibiting factors mentioned in this chapter. Consultations can be accomplished by broadening the decision-making process, in order to encourage decision makers to seek out the opinions of a multitude of stakeholders and debate alternatives through public participation, so as to avoid inherent bias in the societal context and by changing the format of decision-making processes, by making them more transparent. This section provides a brief overview of the rationale behind these proposals. At an institutional level, information generating institutions can be established, such as think tanks and planning agencies, decision-management units within governmental agencies, political-professional advisory committees and university researchers. One could institutionalize regular evaluations to provide the necessary information that decision makers are unable to collect themselves, analyse that information and translate it into building blocks for decision-making. The phenomenon of think tanks has evolved rapidly since the 1950s, with think tanks now having proliferated globally. There are over 1,800 think tanks in the U.S.A. alone. There are over 400 in China, over 250 in the U.K. and India, with over 150 in France and Germany. In 2013, South Africa had 88 think tanks, while small countries like Iceland, Gabon, Laos and the Seychelles have multiple think tanks (de Vries 2016). These numbers are a good indicator of the widespread attempts to rationalize public decision-making. An alternative approach to improving public decision-making, is by opening up the process and making it more transparent. In an e-government era, the transparency of information is becoming more of an issue. For instance, governments are increasingly able to use information and communication technology (ICT), and as a result, face an increased demand for an open government. There is a growing consensus that governments need to provide timely, reliable and accessible information to all relevant stakeholders, about economic, social and political data, about its decisions and actions, and that they make laws and regulations which ensures that stakeholders have access to that information in order to empower them. An open government improves risk management, economic performance and bureaucratic efficiency in governments. In addition, data is important as it exercises one’s democratic rights. Citizens are better informed about, and engaged in, government. Studies have shown huge variations within regions. For example, in Africa, there is a huge difference between the Open Government with Kenya having relatively high scores, whilst Mali, Nigeria and Zambia have relatively low scores. The Middle East, Israel and Bahrain vary dramatically from Yemen. In the Americas, differences between the U.S.A. and Canada are considered to be on the high side, while Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru and Jamaica are on the low side. In Europe, there are differences in the scores for an Open Government between the U.K. and Sweden, as well as Greece, Turkey and Hungary.

50

The public and its policies

Today, an e-government relates to the vast range of government roles and activities, shaped by, and making use of, Information Technology. This involves a number of issues: such technologies require new skills and the capacity development of public officials; it changes government operations and administrative processes; it impacts international relations between governments, as governments can influence one another’s citizens without having to use the previously formal channels; it also changes the relationship between citizens, as virtual communities are created, no longer limited by geographical or organizational distances and beyond previous obstructive institutional frameworks.

Concluding observations Governments are expected to become Open Governments, sharing information and cooperating internally with their citizens, to increase the transparency and accountability of government functions vis-à-vis civil society and improve and increase citizens’ participation in public policy making, implementation and evaluation: enabled by widespread “Access to information” laws in both developed and developing countries. Technological solutions seem to lead us away from the basic concept that the broad aim of policy making is to enhance the quality of public policies, so that they benefit the targeted public. The four solutions to suboptimal decisionmaking—capacity building, building institutions for decision support, increasing transparency and broadening the decision-making process—attempt to approximate optimal decision-making, or at least try to understand how rational decision-making is possible despite the limitations. One of the key themes of public administration, is whether we should strive to maximize rationality to achieve optimal decision-making outcomes, however difficult the process, or whether we should be more pragmatic and adopt decisions that are feasible and satisfactory for the stakeholders—even though they might be sub-optimal choices. Some scholars still attempt innovative ways of improving rational decision-making, while others believe that using such tools are merely symbolic—primarily there to create an image of rationality for public consumption as the decisions have already been made and are primarily determined by political factors and changes in the social, economic or political climate of decision-making. Although no conclusions can be reached on an issue like this, it would be good to believe in the institutional analysis pioneered by Elinor Ostrom et al. (2010); that with certain institutional infrastructure and inputs, it is possible to reach an agreement and simultaneously achieve optimal outcomes, despite the deficiencies in individual or collective public policy decisions.

Note 1 Some sections of this chapter are revised and adapted from my chapter on “Public Policy” in the book Public Administration: Concepts and Theories (New Delhi: Sterling Publishers, 2017).

The public and its policies

51

References Bovens, M.A.P. 1990. The Social Steering of Complex Organizations. British Journal of Political Science, 20: 91–117. Cain, B., R. Dalton and S. Scarrow eds. 2003. Democracy Transformed? Expanding Political Opportunities in Advanced Industrial Democracies, New York, Oxford University Press. Castels, M. 2000. Materials for an Exploratory Network of the Network Society. British Journal of Sociology, 51(10): 5–24. Cohen, M.D., J.G. March and J.P. Olsen. 1972. A Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice. Administrative Science Quarterly, 17(1), March: 1–25. de Vries, M.S. 2016. Understanding Public Administration, New York, Palgrave Macmillan. Dror, Y. 1968. Public Policy Reexamined, San Francisco, CA, Chandler. Fischer, F. 2003. Reframing Public Policy: Discursive Politics and Deliberative Practices, New York, Oxford University Press. Goodsell, C.T. 1992. The Public Administrator as Artisan. Public Administration Review, 52: 246–53. Heclo, H. 1978. “Issue Networks and the Executive Establishment” in A. King (ed.) The New American Political System, Washington, DC, American Enterprise Institute, 82–124. Kaufman, F.G., G. Majone and V. Ostrom eds. 1985. Guidance, Control and Evaluation in the Public Sector, Berlin, Wide Grnyter. Kingdon, J.W. 1995. Agendas, Alternatives and Public Policies, New York, Longman. Lerner, D. and H.D. Lasswell, eds. 1951. The Policy Sciences, Stanford, CA, Stanford University Press. Lijphart, A. 1999. Pattern of Democracy, New Haven, Yale University Press. Lindblom, C.E. 1959. The Science of Muddling Through. Public Administration Review, 19: 79–88. Lowi Theodore, J. 1964. American Business, Public Policy Case Studies and Political Theory. World Politics, 16, July: 677–715. March, J.G. 1972. Model Bias in Social Action. Review of Educational Research, 42: 413–29. Olson, M. 1971. The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press. Osborne, D. and T. Gaebler. 1993. Reinventing Government, New York, Plume/Penguin. Ostrom, E. et al. 2010. Working Together: Collective Action, the Commons and Multiple Methods in Practice, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press. Rhodes, R.A.W. 1997. Understanding Governance: Policy Networks, Governance and Accountability, Buckingham, UK, Open University Press. Ripley, R. and G. Franklin. 1991. Congress, Bureaucracy and Public Policy, Pacific Grove, CA, Brooks Cole. Sabatier, P.A. and H.C. Jenkins-Smith, eds. 1993. Policy Change and Learning: An Advocacy Coalition Approach, Boulder, CO, Westview. Simon, H.A. 1955. A Behavioural Theory of Rational Choice. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 69: 99–118. Smith, S.R. and M. Lipsky. 1993. Non Profits for Hire: The Welfare State in an Age of Contracting, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press. Tilly, C. 1999. Power – Top Down and Bottom Up. Journal of Political Philosophy, 7: 330–52. Wildavsky, A. 1974. The Private Government of Public Money, London, Macmillan.

4 DEMOCRACY, THE STATE AND THE CITIZEN

Over the last three decades, if we look at the major discourses of democracy, specifically in the context of the Third World, one would not fail to notice the distinction being made between a “procedural” notion of democracy and a “substantivist” one—wherein the presence of democracy is assessed by the content of its citizen rights (civil and political) and the functioning of its constitutional institutions, as well as citizen entitlements in terms of economic rights and access to public goods and services. These two notions of democracy, (especially in the context of state-citizen relations), seem an appropriate analytic framework to discuss democracy, development and issues of public governance, particularly in the context of developing countries.1 A “procedural democracy” has been defined as a politico-administrative system that holds regular elections through a system of universal adult franchise and empowers citizens through a regime of civil and political rights. The political machinery of the state, and the structure and function of its public institutions operate within a constitutional legal framework. Whereas a “substantivist democracy” moves beyond the procedural to translate popular and legitimate public demands into legislation and then ultimately into effectively implemented policies to enhance public goods and citizen welfare through public governance. Today, public governance is broadly defined as community problem solving through the trio of state, market and civil society; it is both universal and country-specific in its agenda and public impacts. Changes in public administration reflect changing government philosophies in action in every country. Public administration is always articulated in accordance with its ideological and ecological contexts in every state, although attempts to evolve “universal” theories of its nature, scope and work processes have proliferated, in its one hundred year plus history, as a discipline.

Democracy, the state and the citizen

53

The need for democracies to continually justify themselves in economic terms is no longer required in stable democracies, but is inevitable in the context of a developing country. Political democracies require particular economic and societal prerequisites for success. Even with the procedures and practices of democracy put in place, economic failures can derail democracy. Globalization espouses a roll back of the state, especially in developmental sectors. A regulatory state would only show a bias in favour of the status quo by cutting back public investments in the social sectors. Narrowing social disparities to enable economic levelling and bringing in more beneficiaries of development within its fold, is a continuing requirement of electoral democracies everywhere. Wherever the state tried to roll back its welfare benefits or cut down its subsidies for the poor, the state faced election reversals, mainly in developing democracies.

The good governance agenda The agenda of “good governance” was first introduced by the World Bank in 1989 in a document on Sub-Saharan Africa, to elicit more accountability from Third World countries for money spent. The World Bank (then and now), endorses the role of governments in (a) the creation and enforcement of rules to make markets work, and (b) a key role by providing safety nets through a package of public goods like food, education, health and housing to the poor. In order to provide these public goods, the state needs to raise revenues and it is these revenues that require accountability, transparency, clarity about rules and adequate information—the prerequisites of sound development management. This clearly spells out a regulatory role for the bureaucracy within a democratic capitalist regime, presided over by a minimalist state. Central to these arguments is a plea for withdrawal from redistributive commitments, which are seen as fiscally imprudent and economically unsustainable. A shift from a procedural view of development (growth = G.D.P.) to a substantivist thrust came about due to the impact of the Annual U.N.D.P. Human Development Reports. First published in 1990, these reports initiated an exercise of a global ranking of states in human development, which were defined by a composite index measuring the standard of education, health and purchasing power of citizens in a state. This created a foundational change in the way development was to be looked at in the 21st century. In the post-globalized era, the biggest exercise in convergence in the current paradigms of democracy, development and good governance, can be seen in the explanation of the Millennium Development goals (which became an acceptable New World Order project) for all governments by 2015. Never before, in the history of the post-Second World War era, have 189 countries met at a summit (2000 U.N. General Assembly) to legitimize goals of good governance at a given point of time. Later in 2015, these goals, and many more, were pushed forward as a Minimum Agenda of good governance to be implemented by all signatory States (all members of the United Nations) by 2030. These goals are now known as Sustainable Development Goals.

54

Democracy, the state and the citizen

Before we discuss the specificities of good governance, there are a few other points to be shared. Good governance was and will always, remain contextual and country specific in its content, since goals are set by political regimes: good governance is also good politics. It can never be a value free or apolitical project. Implementation of policies and their outcomes, will always be the result of a politico-administrative partnership. Democracy and development both require prerequisites for a “take off”, both are subject to political agendas of different political regimes. If the discourse on democracy has moved from procedural to substantivist, so has the discourse on development after the 1990s. The parameters of good governance may be politically decided, but ideally the definition of good governance in any society must be based on the outcome of a political consensus, which can only emerge from a milieu of democratic politics.

What should governments do? It is now widely recognized that poverty eradication is not only a development goal, but also a major human rights challenge of the 21st century. A minimum standard of living, adequate nutrition, healthcare, education and employment, are not just development goals, they are also proposed policy goals, for all right minded governments all over the globe by human rights activists. The success of development needs to be judged by its impact on the public and how it improves their standard of living in terms of public goods and utilities provided to the people. If we want a reformed public governance system these new questions have to be reinterpreted in practice through changing mandates of the state in the 21st century, in the developed and developing world. The questions are: • • • • •

How do we manage public service delivery in a manner whereby the declared public policy can be delivered to the target group in the way it was intended to be? (The policy implementation question). How do we ensure organizational and individual service performance standards? (The standard setting question). How do we hold public managers accountable for public mandates? (The audit and accountability question). How do we reward staff for optimal productivity in public agencies? (The incentivisation question). How do we ensure long run organizational sustainability? (The change and innovation question).

Democracy in the developing world: a case study of India Demand for democratization was not a mandate of the anti-imperialist struggle for national independence in India before 1947. As the nationalist struggle progressed it widened its social base, as greater numbers of people

Democracy, the state and the citizen

55

came within its fold. There was absolute unanimity amongst the constitution-makers about democracy as a type of political regime for independent India. Democracy symbolized self-rule for Indians, who had acquired freedom from colonial rule. Democracy, as it is often said, was “imposed” by a constitution in India, which still happens to be the longest written constitution in the world. Even operationalizing procedural democracy isn’t easy in a poor, unequal, classdivided, developing society, with low levels of human development. It took more than seven decades of political practice to institutionalize the procedural features (rule of law, free and fair elections, vibrant press, civil and political rights and dynamic judiciary) and move towards a substantivist model. Nongovernmental agencies, women’s groups, grassroots movements questioning the existing paradigms of development, the increasing importance of public litigation cases and judicial intervention in the political economy, became ever increasing indications of the growing influence of civil society in the public policy process in India. Literature focussing on the issue of ungovernability of India began with Morris-Jones (1989) and continued with Atul Kohli (1991). It is a fear of constitutional breakdown based on the general rise of a “million mutinies”, increasing use of violence, criminalization of politics and a rising trend towards de-institutionalization, scant respect for the rule of law coupled with recurring subnational movements for greater autonomy. India’s governance problems originate from the process of institutionalization itself, after independence, which took years to achieve in every Third World country. Despite all of these smaller narratives, Indian democracy survived and is more vibrant today than it ever was before—with an alert press, a sensitive judiciary, grassroots movements and an increasing number of citizen groups building up a strong “culture of dissent” within an essentially feudal hierarchical society. When India was able to sustain democracy in extremely vulnerable conditions (low growth rates till the 1990s, social cleavages, weak fledgling institutions), this signified hope, that with a changed economic and social environment, Indian democracy would be able to survive in the future. Lloyd and Susanne Rudolph see the Indian state (1987) as a polymorphous creature of manifold forms and orientation. It is a liberal state, a capitalist state and also a socialist state, depending on whose pressure it yields from time to time. However, it is now widely accepted that there is a certain amount of autonomy that the Indian state does exercise, despite the multiple (class caste/region) pressures to which it is constantly subjected. The foundation of this autonomy is the democratic political process, where the public policy agenda will ultimately be geared to the greatest good of the greatest number (an electoral investment), however, that may be interpreted at a particular point in time by political players. India is a heterogeneous society, which has led to major social segments developing their own politics—as demonstrated by the development of political activity and grassroots movements focusing on the specific demands of women,

56

Democracy, the state and the citizen

lower castes, tribals and minorities in India. In such a scenario there is a need to refocus on ways to reconnect the state and the citizen by reinventing democratic capacity to serve citizen needs. In fact, compulsions of electoral politics should force political parties to broaden their appeal rather than base themselves on constricting religious, regional, caste or ideological grounds. In a pluralist and diverse society like India, especially in a democratic context, the basis of one kind of politics (e.g. communal) gets modified or controlled by other strong contending (e.g. regional/class/ caste-based) issues. No community, caste/class is a monolith in India, they have regional variations. In a heterogeneous society, power sharing is the only way to sustain a democracy.

Indian democratic experiment: theoretical inputs It would be interesting to note if the Indian democratic experience can provide any theoretical inputs to the changing paradigm of political democracy in the 21st century. Firstly, India is the only example of a post-colonial country where democratic political institutions were superimposed by the Constitution, which have survived, despite the absence of some essential prerequisites: mass literacy, economic levelling or a full-fledged capitalist economic transformation. Democracy in India did not come about as a response to an absolutist state or as the realization of an individualist conception of society, and not even as the result of a Pan-Indian movement. Yet, the Constitution, adopted by Independent India after a long nationalist struggle for political independence and sovereignty, created a democratic republic and pledged to secure justice, liberty, equality and fraternity to all citizens. A liberal democracy was constructed by the political elite in accordance with its understanding of the modern, liberal, political and democratic experience of the West. India has the largest electorate in the world today, having survived a demand overload, demographic explosion and varied forms of dissent among an extremely diverse and heterogeneous population, making the Indian democratic experiment truly unparalleled in 20th century history. The Indian economy has survived ideological swings from socialism (1950–1990), to capitalist transformations and resultant adjustments that had to be made with the market (after 1990) and multiple classes and social groups that constitute India today. Public policies have been implemented at times, or derailed at other times, due to sheer bureaucratic inefficiency or pressure of class interests. It is true that democratic politics has essentially been “accommodative”, e.g. the radical agenda of socialism adopted as a policy of state by the Industrial Policy Resolution of 1956, was formally abandoned in 1991 in favour of Structural Adjustment and market policies. It would perhaps be useful to remember that democracy implies a slow political movement towards desirable social goals, not radical or swift revolutionary changes. In the current debate about democracy and markets, it is important to remember that democracy, by its very nature, is inclusionary and markets are exclusionary. Democracies are elected by majorities of people who

Democracy, the state and the citizen

57

are poor in developing countries; compelling political regimes to implement redistributive/welfare policies. The state has to mediate to bring the ideals of economic and political democracy, by trying to reach a compromise between the economic directions which the market sets on the basis of purchasing power, and the priorities which a democratic system sets on the basis of the perceived needs of the electorate. However, the 21st century will have to see ample economic growth before economic democracy and entitlements can be ensured for the less advantaged. The uniqueness of the Indian democratic experiment, has involved learning to live with one another and sharing power despite gross inequalities, developmental disparities and regional imbalances, all of which pose grave threats to national integration. Politics is about power and the forces which influence its distribution and use; it is essentially about the transformative capacity of governance. Today, the most important public debate in Indian democracy is the paradox of differentiated citizen entitlements that exist in a country that makes a constitutional promise of equality and social justice to all. Even though there is no serious challenge to democracy as a “regime type” in India, what needs to be outlined is a feasible model of the transformative capacity of democratic public power in a developing country of continental size and population, such as India. This also highlights the limits and possibilities of a noncoercive model of development, like India. In terms of citizen entitlements, the question often asked is: has India done as much as any democracy could have done with the human skill, knowledge and resource constraints that it did have? An evaluation of India’s development is not essentially about growth aggregates, it is about its distribution to citizens in terms of a package of public goods and services. Contrary to popular belief, allocations of development in India have not been meagre at all, although its implementation may have another story to tell. Herein, the question of accountability arises: why is it that accountability for public resources sanctioned and actually spent for that purpose is so rarely debated in the public domain? It is well known that between allocation and implementation much goes wrong. It would be interesting to surmise what would have been the state of development in India if allocated public resources were properly targeted and spent (exactly the way it was intended to be), through legislators and bureaucrats, down from the village to the district, state and right up to the centre! Public accountability of public resources spent is the most serious issue in all democracies, which are usually “soft” states. This is in contrast to the coercive model of policy implementation followed in China in a comparable period. In all “outcome” parameters of public policy, China has a better record. In developing countries, like India, the people’s representatives are doubly accountable: both for providing good governance in routine status quo-oriented administration, in addition to optimizing economic and human development. This can be achieved through better planning, allocation, targeting and accountability of public expenditures at all levels of governance. Paucity of resources could be a major

58

Democracy, the state and the citizen

hindrance to its success in developing countries, but the accountability of money spent is no less important. In recent years, improving accountability mechanisms has been one of the biggest targets of administrative reform. Data generation by nongovernmental agencies have greatly helped in rating governance; e.g. The Public Affairs Centre in India prepares an annual Public Affairs Index, which rates governance through citizen surveys in the 29 sub-national (federal) units of India through these parameters—education, health, social security, welfare of women and children, gender equality, law and order, environment, transparency and accountability, infrastructure facilities and deliverance of justice. This index is highly rated for its “authentic” governance ratings, and has greatly increased public awareness about the parameters of good governance. The 29 states of India are now competing with each other, not only for public and market resources for development, but also in terms of their “performance” measured by actual “policy outcomes”. Political competition is always good for democracies because it is the only way to make governments aware that good governance is a good electoral investment.

Understanding the Indian model of governance The greatest tragedy of the Indian state has been that, despite its vibrant democracy, trained civil service and other potential strengths, it’s under performance has been its greatest bane. The quality of governance offered by Indian democracy is still mediocre and “soft”. Democracy has succeeded despite a low-income economy, widespread poverty, illiteracy and ethnic diversity. Indian democracy has protected its elite without fully excluding the weaker groups (Kohli 1991). Judged by developing country standards, India’s greatest asset has been that it has been ruled by civilian elected governments throughout its post-independent history (since 1947), with a competent civil service which has always underperformed and has never been answerable to the public directly. Unlocking India’s potential and enabling it to take its rightful position in the global stage will require, above all, a strong visionary political leadership and a world class civil service to manage a country of such continental proportions in the 21st century. Public management systems are run by politico-administrative regimes, with every developed state, today, resting on the strong and able shoulders of a good and efficient civil service which delivers public goods and services efficiently to the people. Due to the following, India’s public governance will face huge challenges in the 21st century: •

•

If India does not respond adequately to climate change, clean up its rivers and revive its forests, millions of its citizens will be at risk. India, like all other developing countries, is still groping for an ideal environment development trade off. Human development is the second challenge. India is one of the fastest growing economies in the world, with a human development ranking (130 out of 188 countries) which is poorer than some of its South Asian neighbours, and even sub-Saharan Africa.

Democracy, the state and the citizen

•

•

59

The third vital challenge is infrastructure, which is woefully inadequate for a country like India. India’s public transport, waste management, power and communication systems are sub-standard, erratic and poor, in comparison to other developing countries. The “soft” state status is its biggest liability. India has one of the largest administrative systems with one of the poorest public service delivery records in the world. Yet their salaries constitute 30% of India’s G.D.P.

There is a need to rebuild a relationship of faith and trust between the state and the citizen. Given India’s practice of democracy over the last seventy years, this can best be realized through institutionalized statutory citizen entitlements, enabling a demand for reasoned answers from the bureaucracy. India’s performance with respect to the Millennium Development Goals (M.D. G.s)—eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equality and empowering women, reducing child mortality, improving maternal health, combating H.I.V./A.I.D.s, malaria and other diseases, ensuring environmental sustainability and developing a global partnership for development (goals to be reached by 2015), has only been half achieved. Currently, there has been development in both economic growth and human development. Globally, India is the fastest growing economy in the world today, nonetheless, its ranking in human development is 130 out of 188 nations. Developed countries’ experience today, shows that higher growth is an essential pre-condition to better equity. With higher growth rates over the last decade, for the first time in India’s political history, public power may be able to match public outcomes in human development. Two prominent economists have recently approached the problem of India’s continuing struggle with growth from different angles. Jagdish Bhagwati and Arvind Panagariya (2014) argued that reforms have driven economic growth in India and has reduced poverty; it can provide a data rich economic story from which we might address the central development challenge facing the world: which strategy will lift the greatest number of people out of extreme poverty? The authors assert that China, India and East Asia’s experiences, demonstrate how growth is stimulated and sustained within the policy framework that exploits the opportunities provided by integration into the world economy and relies on a sophisticated use of market incentives in guiding production and investment. When China reduced the number of people in poverty by 220 million between 1978 and 2004, it was hailed as the greatest poverty reduction in history. India has just reduced its number of poor from 407 million to 269 million, a fall of 138 million in the seven years between 2004–05 and 2011–12. This is faster than China’s poverty reduction rate at a comparable stage of development. This is no small achievement for a democracy, therefore, Bhagwati and Panagariya are optimistic about India’s slower but surer growth prospects. However, in their latest book (2013), Amartya Sen and Jean Dreze lament the underachievement in health and education, revealed by India’s social indicators,

60

Democracy, the state and the citizen

in spite of years of rapid economic growth. Sen and Dreze argue that only a market-oriented state can ensure an inclusive democracy by adopting a rightsbased approach to development, where the state reaches out directly to its citizens by guaranteeing a minimum basket of public goods to all. For all of the real and impressive strength of India’s private initiatives since 1991 in augmenting India’s growth, given the scale at which India’s problems have to be tackled and that solutions must deliver a certain uniformity or universalism of outcome, private action can’t be a substitute for government action. During India’s hour of need, it needs to rediscover the necessity of the state and renegotiate the relationship between the state, markets and society. India is the world’s largest democracy, we need to make it the most inclusive one too. Evidence indicates that India has only 1.6 government personnel for every 100 residents (including personnel in the union state and local governments, besides Public Sector Undertakings), compared to the much higher figures of 3.3 in South Africa, 3.9 in Mexico, 5.9 in Brazil, 7.2 in Germany, 10.1 in the U.K. and 10.6 government personnel for every 100 residents in Canada (Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability (India) Report 2014).

Democracy and inequality From the early 1970s to the first decade of this century, the number of electoral democracies increased from about 35 to more than 110. Within the international community, democracy and good governance are widely advocated as intrinsically desirable and important public goals. The challenge for democracies is not to simply strengthen electoral accountability so vote-seeking politicians have an incentive to pay attention to citizen’s needs. It is important to endow the public governance systems with the capacity, technical skills and resources needed so that elected leaders can deliver things that most citizens want: food and nutrition, education, basic health care and sustainable livelihoods. Today’s current growth rates mean that public power and resources can match effective and efficient public service delivery systems and citizen entitlements. Therefore, it is imperative to look at the good governance practices initiated by different states in the developing world in different sectors—infrastructure, education, health, urban civic services etc., with visible or measureable impacts on the lives of citizens. It has been more than 70 years since the creation of the Indian democratic Republic, therefore, it should cease to call itself a nation in “transition”. The first fifty years witnessed democratic movements for the representation of people’s diversities in parliament, the government and all major decision making bodies. That battle is not yet over, but India has now moved beyond procedural democracy towards implementing a more substantivist vision of democracy. It has moved beyond the context of representativeness, to looking at the core of citizen entitlements, i.e. how can a citizen be truly empowered in a democracy? Unequal citizen access to basic public goods and services is a bane of developing democracies. It is now well understood that building state capacity to deliver citizen needs and

Democracy, the state and the citizen

61

aspirations, is the primary task of good governance in any democratic state. Citizens who live in democratic states are asking for more rights and increased state capacity to implement those rights. The fact that good governance is a prerequisite for a good substantivist democracy is completely acknowledged in democratic theory and practice.

The African experience In Africa, like elsewhere, democracy was understood to mean a political system where, through regular elections, people could vote and be voted to public office, choose between different political parties to put a political regime to power and also change it. To quote Pippa Norris (2016), elections are a barometer of how well a democracy is functioning. It is clear from democratic practice that following an election, the political party that wins the majority of seats in the legislature form the government, while the winning candidates of the non-ruling party(ies) sit on the “opposition” benches in the legislature. Majoritarian rule is the acceptable norm for democratic governance, but the “opposition” is also legitimized. Inclusiveness and the effective representation of all players in government after an election are also important values for legitimacy, rather than just the sheer winning by majority (Nyongo 2016). “Dissent” through the legitimization of opposition parties, with freedom of speech and expression, is another acceptable norm. Dissent through violence and non-acceptance of the electoral process is the point of departure. Nelson Mandela, although convinced ahead of the elections in 1994 that the African National Congress (ANC) would get an overwhelming majority, cautioned against the dangers of this “majority” for the survival and sustainability of democracy in South Africa. According to Mandela, it was vital that the ANC gain no more than 67% of the votes in that election, in order to respect and protect minority rights. The existence of an elected minority as an “opposition” in the legislature guarantees that “other” voices are being heard. Even by the standards of qualifying for a free and fair election, in the 2015/16 elections in Africa, this dictum only applied to Mauritius and Nigeria. In 2016 the outcome saw a slight improvement; of the nine countries which went to the polls, Benin and Cape Verde were certified to have had free and fair elections by international observers. The electoral processes in all of the other countries were marred by malpractices and bias of one sort or the other: stuffed ballot boxes, intimidation of voters, state instigated violence, intimidation of the media and disputed electoral outcomes, forced on the electorate by a repressive state apparatus determined to keep the incumbent regime in power. What appears as an “acceptance” of the results in most cases, may simply be helpless acquiescence of the voters. The euphoria with which “democratic” elections were received in Africa in the last decade of the 20th century, seem to have received a beating due to the derailment of electoral procedures in many countries. Should we give up on elections as part of the democratization process in Africa? Nyongo asserts that

62

Democracy, the state and the citizen

those who consistently refuse to accept the outcome of these undemocratic and illegitimate elections are perhaps the true friends of democracy. But they will only remain relevant to the struggle if they offer a new model for electoral democracy that will be more representative, inclusive and acceptable to the people; creating a political environment for the qualitative transformation of the lives of millions of Africans who truly want to believe in democracy, like citizens anywhere else in the world. The struggle for democracy as a historical process with many twists, turns and reversals, is a process that is happening in the South Asian region as well. All of the countries in this region are now democracies, and are perhaps reaping the benefits of the “democratic peace” dividend. Interstate wars rarely happen. Autocracies, where elections are mainly held to legitimize the ruling regimes on their own terms while undermining the very tenets of democracy, is a phase of democratic institutionalization which is happening in both South Asia and Africa. In militarized states, army rulers very often hold “democratic” elections to “legitimize” their continued stay in office. All of these “aberrations” will continue in the 21st century, but one is hopeful that the transition from a “procedural” to a “substantivist democracy” will also happen in the course of this century. In Uganda, Burundi and Congo, there are democrats bravely leading resistance movements against democratic reversals in their countries. Such political leaders understand that democracy is worth fighting for: free and fair elections, democratic freedoms, political and social inclusiveness, constitutional government, statutory codification of human rights and a well-managed market economy promoting social justice, are universally agreed goals, which all states should try to achieve in the near future.

Concluding observations A democratic regime derives legitimacy from the process by which it comes to power (procedures) prior to what it does while in power (content). It is elected into office by citizens, freely and fairly, under the principle of universal adult suffrage. Electoral democracy grants all political contestants an equal chance of winning the election. However, this does not mean that the losing parties lose their right to participate in, and contribute to, the process of governing after the election. Democratic ruling regimes only get re-elected when they have delivered on the promises on which they were elected, including service to those who did not vote them into power. One of the electoral promises is, what has largely been referred to as, development, this includes, among other things, raising the standards of living of the people through economic growth, employment opportunities and provision of a large amount of human security for citizens. As Pippa Norris, in a recent article quoted in The Mail and Guardian Africa, observes, we may have to revisit and perhaps revise the thesis (Lipset 1959) which

Democracy, the state and the citizen

63

argued that democracies, and by extension, electoral integrity, flourish best in industrialized and post-industrial societies with widespread literacy and education, an affluent professional middle class and a pluralistic range of civic associations serving as a buffer between citizens and the state. Analysis of election data from Africa, by Norris’s Electoral Integrity project at Harvard University, shows that African countries, which cannot empirically be regarded as “industrial”, have had convincing “democratic ratings” over the last two decades, notwithstanding their different levels of economic development measured in terms of per capita G.D.P. in purchasing power parity. All of these African countries are different in terms of economic development, with Mauritius perhaps the most economically developed followed by South Africa, Cape Verde, Namibia, Botswana and finally Lesotho, in that order. In every election held since 1994 (South Africa’s liberation from apartheid), most countries have passed the test of holding free and fair elections with minimal malpractices and substantial integrity. Interestingly, research studies illustrate factors they have in common: democracy was never practiced as “majoritarianism”, nor have they criminalized opposition politics. No matter what happens, the world is finally witnessing the African “revolution of rising aspirations”—primarily for a democratic transition to take place in their countries, which they believe (like anywhere else) is the harbinger of “good governance” in all societies. Arendt Lijphart (2004) has argued that legitimate democratic governance in divided societies, such as those found in Africa, should have three elements: a parliamentary system of government, inclusive representation in the legislature and inclusive participation in government, where the interests of minorities (such as women), are adequately taken care of. Lijphart’s earlier theory of consociational democracy was an approach to democracy that ruled out genuine ideological competition by political parties offering different alternatives to building democratic societies. His argument is that a democratic regime is truly perceived as “unfair” when, after any competitive election, large sections of society feel “excluded” from the economic, social and political life of a polity in which they are assumed to be members. Democracy, is generally accepted as the best mode of governance since people legitimately accept the notion that power is being exercised in the interest of the general will and not simply the will of the majority. To craft such a government in divided societies, practices such as power-sharing, proportional representation and minority representation, are useful instruments for legitimizing democratic governance. The trajectory of democracy in the 21st century is witnessing its fair share of ups and downs in all parts of the globe. Authoritarian countries, led by China and Russia, have become more assertive, while Iraq, Libya, Syria (Middle East), some Eastern European countries like Hungary and Poland and some countries of Africa, have moved towards authoritarianism. In hindsight, 20th century politics seemed to be defined by ideology based on economic issues, e.g. Left politics was dominated by welfare and redistributive policies. Right politics espoused a reduction of government and the promotion of the private sector. In the 21st century, there has been a resurgence of “identity politics” represented by race, ethnicity and religion.

64

Democracy, the state and the citizen

Globalization and the subsequent increase in international migration has led to “localization”, with its growing manifestation of “identity politics” in both democracies and non-democracies (developed or developing). Newly marginalized groups have come to believe that change threatens their identities (religious, ethnic, sexual), which are not receiving adequate recognition in national policies. Unless liberal democracies are able to acquire universal understandings of “human dignity”, 21st century democracies will not be able to progress into a desirable brand of secular performance politics (Fukuyama 2018).

Note 1 Some of the arguments presented here on the linkages between democracy, development and good governance in theory and practice have been adapted from my monograph on “Democracy, Development and Good Governance in India”, subsequently published as UGC SAP DRS Occasional Paper Series, no. 2, 2012.

References Bhagwati, J. and A. Panagariya. 2014. Why Growth Matters, U.S. Public Affairs, U.S.A., Perseus Book Group. Fukuyama, F. 2018. The New Tribalism and the Crisis of Democracy. Foreign Affairs, September/ October, 97: 5. Kohli, A. 1991. Democracy and Discontent: India’s Growing Crisis of Governability, New York, Cambridge University Press. Lijphart, A. 2004. Constitutional Design for Divided Societies. Journal of Democracy, 15(2): 96–109. Lipset, S.M. 1959. Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy. American Political Science Review, 53(1): 69–105. Morris-Jones, W.H. 1989. The Government and Politics of India, London, Hutchinson & Co. Norris, P. 2016. Are Poor Societies Stuck with Their Dictators and Failed Elections? theconversation.com, April 11. https://theconversation.com/are-poor-societies-stuckwith-dictators-57145. Nyongo, P.A. 2016. When Elections Fail Twice or More, Can ‘Losers’ Accept the Victors as Legitimate? Participation, 40(1): 18–20. Rudolph, L. and S. Rudolph. 1987. In Pursuit of Lakshmi The Political Economy of the Indian State, Chicago, IL, University of Chicago Press. Sen, A. and J. Dreze. 2013. An Uncertain Glory, India and Its Contradictions, London, Penguin.

5 GOOD GOVERNANCE TO GOVERNING DEVELOPMENT TODAY Comparative research studies

The 21st-century emphasis on comparative studies in public administration has rightly expanded the domain of administrative analysis beyond the earlier culture specific confines of “modernization” (as Westernization) and western democracies being defined as the “end of history” (Fukuyama 1991). With such cultural and political preferences, the underlying theoretical framework for comparison was certainly not free from bias. The 21st-century upsurge in comparative studies has been termed a “revolution” by serving the purpose of restructuring theoretical constructs in a more “scientific” way. Traditional literature of “comparative government” focused on constitutions, foreign policies, political parties, pressure groups or institutions, in their formal, structural, functional aspects. Recent studies have critiqued traditional literature on the ground that: (i) it was culture-bound, i.e. the Western institutions remained the “ideal” framework wittingly or unwittingly; and (ii) it was non-comparative in character because, despite the study of several nations and governments within the same cultural framework, cross-cultural and crosstemporal analysis and explanations were rare. Recent studies of comparative public administration regained a respectable status in the academic field, due to their attempts to evolve more neutral criteria for analysing the societies of underdeveloped and developing countries. For instance, the Riggsian framework of analysis was pioneering, to a great extent, and is even popular today, in comparative public administrative research. Presently, there are 193 countries in the United Nations family of nations. Globalization has not subsumed localization— both trends run parallel in developing countries. Hence, in the post globalized era, micro and macro studies can focus on these issues in intra or inter South comparative studies of administrative structures, behaviour or policy. Besides, every administration has “stand alone” features. Administration in India is structured in a Weberian pattern, but the ecology of caste and community

66

Good governance to governing development

influence “rational” bureaucratic outcomes. However, “best practices” abound, and need to be experimented, in different locales. Ex-socialist countries are undergoing a transformation which is a challenge to their bureaucracies. How the public management systems are “behaving”, after adopting private sector techniques, is a trend that can be studied currently. There are two factors that make comparative studies significant and relevant in the 21st century. First of all, generalizations relating to administrative structure and behaviour in different emerging nations can help formulate theoretical constructs, which can provide a “scientific basis” to the study of public administration, is an old rationale which still holds true. Secondly, the study of comparative public administration contributes to a greater understanding of the “stand alone” characteristics of administrative systems functioning in different nations. Comparative studies also help explain the factors responsible for cross-national and cross-cultural similarities, as well as differences between the administrative systems of different states. There are no “pure” models anywhere. Different “hybrids” exist. Uncovering their successes or failures, is the responsibility of comparative public administrative studies. The third important function of comparative public administration relates to its relevance to real world administrative practices. Through a study of comparative public administration, administrators, policy makers and academics can examine the reasons behind the success or failure of particular administrative structures and patterns in different environmental settings. It is interesting to find out through comparative analysis, which important environmental factors help in the promotion of administrative effectiveness and which administrative structures are considered dysfunctional in what type of environmental setting. Lastly, by learning about various administrative practices, nations are able to choose which practices they want to adopt based upon what they feel is appropriate in their ecological settings. The importance of comparative public administration lies in its academic utility, in terms of improving the knowledge of other administrative systems so that appropriate reforms and changes can be brought about in the developed or developing world. Comparative administrative studies can be conducted at three analytical levels: macro, middle-range and micro. Macro studies focus on comparisons of whole administrative systems in their entire ecological contexts. For instance, a macro study would involve a comparison of two dissimilar administrative systems, like China and U.S.A. or two similar ones like India and U.S.A. (democracies). It will comprise a detailed structural-functional analysis of the important parts of the administrative systems of two nations. Generally, the relationship between an administrative system and its external environment are highlighted in macro level studies. Middle-range studies might focus on certain, important parts of an administrative system that are sufficiently large in size and scope for functioning. For instance, a comparison of local government in two dissimilar countries will form part of a middle-range study. Micro studies relate to a comparison of an individual organization with its counterparts in other settings. A micro study might relate to an analysis of a small

Good governance to governing development

67

part of an administrative system, such as the recruitment or training system in two administrative organizations (e.g. one private and one public). Micro studies are easier to undertake, with a large number of such studies having been conducted by scholars of public administration. In the contemporary world, comparative studies of all three types of research coexist (Basu 2017).

Decolonization and its aftermath By the end of the 20th century, a large number of nations emerged from colonial rule as independent sovereign states. There are now 193 member states in the United Nations, two thirds of them are ex-colonies. During the cold war period, while the big powers were busy playing their games for hegemony, the entire developing world was busy planning “modernization” and “development”, the two biggest challenges for newly independent countries. Public administration was a critical factor in achieving these objectives. Within the realm of public administration, bureaucracy has emerged as the most important instrument to carve policies and deliver public goods. Even today, the role of bureaucracy has not become redundant, despite the worldwide impact of New Public Management, which advocates a reduction in the role of the state and public bureaucracies in governance, including the developing world. The global movement which had the most impact in the 20th century was the “decolonization” movement: witnessing the emergence of independent states in Asia, Africa and Latin America from colonial rule. There was a vast difference in the location, resources, history, culture, political systems and developmental patterns of these countries, yet they were all deemed as “developing”. Most of these new self-governing states were caught up in the process of transition, facing social upheavals, backwardness and administrative chaos. A vast majority of comparative administration scholars agreed that the two major objectives of all developmental states were nation building and socio economic progress. The enormity of the development problems and the urgency of their solution had thrust upon the bureaucracies of the states (not their fledging private sectors) the principal burden of accomplishing developmental goals. Despite severe handicaps, like shortage of capital, skilled manpower and lack of a developmental infrastructure, Third World governments were confronted with rising expectations from the people they had to administer. People expected economic miracles from the government in a short time span. Besides demanding basic utilities, like electricity, water supply, drainage, roads and power, the government had to also create jobs and cater to welfare demands, like the establishment of schools, hospitals, housing and industrial enterprises. The importance of administration is almost universally recognized. The private sector may be induced to fall in line with general public policy, but the majority of development work would fall on the public sector. Hence, a high degree of administrative efficiency is vital for nation building and the successful implementation of development plans, a fact which is universally acknowledged and reflected in the

68

Good governance to governing development

emergence of a new approach to administration in developing countries (known as “development administration” in the post-Second World War era). During the last fifty years, many Third World countries have experienced a societal transformation and profound changes in their socio-economic and political domains. Bureaucracies have had to work with citizens to be able to tackle their complex developmental problems. In some cases bureaucracy has proved a pillar of strength during the process of governance; in others it proved to be an obstacle, due to its innate resistance to change and incapacity to meet a host of demands. However, in these countries most developmental policies have eventually been converted into action through public administration at all levels: formulation, implementation and evaluation.

Comparative research studies: an emerging sub-discipline Interest in the study and research of developing countries dates back to the early 1960s, when scholars began to look into common problems in the Third World (a term made popular by scholars to denote the conglomeration of developing countries’, which emerged after the end of colonialism), because they had certain characteristics which were different from either the capitalist (First World) or socialist (Second World) bloc of countries in which the world seemed to be divided into at that time. During the Cold War, in the backdrop, developing countries became the subject of considerable research by American and West European scholars. Later, as these countries problems multiplied, Soviet, East European and Afro-Asian scholars also began to take an interest in these studies. Initially the concentration of such studies was based upon ideology, politics, economies and social systems, but later studies began to focus more on policy perspective and public administration as an instrument of development. Three important Third World research perspectives that developed subsequently were: (a) empirical studies on economic development and administration of individual countries, (b) dependency theories regarding underdevelopment and economic stagnation and (c) theories and empirical studies on comparative and development administration (Subramaniam 1990). Developing countries could differ sharply in terms of ethnicity and religion, demography and geography, political regime and ideology, economic development and international policies, but there were certain similarities in the structure, function and behavioural patterns of the bureaucracies, which made them amenable to comparison and research in public administration. Research of the 1960s was more focused on the emerging problems in the movement of Western administrative institutions and processes to underdeveloped countries. Bureaucracies were often modelled on the Weberian pattern, but the outcomes were far from optimal or rational, indicating the true importance of the environment in which the bureaucracy functioned. Attention, therefore, had to be focused on the “ecology” of administration of developing countries: the

Good governance to governing development

69

economic underdevelopment, low levels of industrialization, dependence on agriculture, centralization of political authority, ethnic disintegration and the demand overload, which makes the administrator’s job difficult to manage. However, none of the studies attempted to correlate each of these variables, either in a comparative framework or with respect to the case studies of individual countries, with a view to establishing a co-relationship between bureaucracy, development and governance. In fact, the word “governance” had not even gained prominence in the literature of comparative studies till the 1980s, or in the first two decades of the 21st century. Subramaniam (ibid) opines: All of these studies focus on the trio of the state, the political and the intellectual elite, and an urge toward development. Bureaucracy as a group and public administration as an institution and process receive minimal attention. This may be partly because the state is treated as inclusive of the bureaucracy or because the bureaucracy is regarded as merely one of the instruments of development along with other factors. (Subramaniam 1990)

Bureaucracy as an instrument of development More than six decades have passed since the process of decolonization began and changed the world map, setting the stage for the emergence of the socalled Third World countries on the world podium. While the pattern of political change and leadership has differed in each of these states, political sovereignty has been established in most, though some of these political regimes often lack effectiveness and internal legitimacy. In these societies, the image of the state has varied from being one of a strong centralized figure, modernizing new nations, to a weak state that is virtually helpless, caught amidst destabilizing forces. However, in all of these countries: Asia, Africa and Latin America, despite economic and social upheavals, administrative capacities and resources have grown, while developmental infrastructures have begun to even out gradually. In some societies, the demands on the state, by different pressure groups, have grown to such an extent that the state is said to have become incapable of governing, despite all of the resources and tools that it may be able to command. The incapacity of most Third World bureaucracies to respond to the demands of the public, have been deemed the one single factor responsible for the stereotypical image of the “deviant and dysfunctional bureaucrat” in practice, in contradistinction to the theory of bureaucratic “rationality” espoused by Max Weber in the 19th century. A common feature that has dominated political discourse in Third World countries, has been the ideology of “development”, incorporating a concept of socio-economic progress (measured by concrete and quantifiable human welfare goals) without specifying the exact form of the machinery, for either

70

Good governance to governing development

politics or administrative action, to fulfil its targets. However, with the advent of the “administrative state” in the 20th century, bureaucracy, as an instrument of state action, seems to have become the principal vehicle for the accomplishment of development goals in all developing countries. Concerns have been expressed about bureaucracies possibly straying from their instrumental role to become the primary power-wielders in societies. The “political” role of bureaucracy has become one of the subjects of social science discourse in the developing world. The legacy of colonialism permeating the newly independent state bureaucracies of all ex-colonies in the 20th century, has been regarded with negative connotations. In addition, Third World states have found themselves deficient in skilled, technically competent and specialist manpower, necessary for their development purposes, resulting in low administrative capacities (Jain 1989). Despite conflicting views about the role of bureaucracy in modern societies, there is a general consensus among scholars that it is indispensable; acting as the basic instrument, not merely of development, but ultimately of good governance, as defined and discussed later in this chapter.

The policy perspective In the 1980s and 1990s, studies and research of bureaucracy in developing countries began to be greatly influenced by the policy perspective. They have all attempted to study the growing and critical role of public bureaucracies in the process of nation building, socio-economic development, policy formulation, implementation and evaluation. Several studies have touched on a variety of issues concerning the structures of bureaucracy and their interaction with the political and administrative processes in the developing societies of Asia, Africa and Latin America. Whilst in some countries, bureaucracy emerged as a source of strength to the political system; in others, bureaucracies (both civil and military) had a more overt political role. However, in general, bureaucracies have been criticized for their tendency towards routinization, their lack of innovation and irresponsiveness to legitimate public opinion and policy implementation. Such criticism aside, scholars have hardly focused on the environmental pressures faced by the bureaucracies that make them dysfunctional or unresponsive. Today, perhaps in hind sight, we can say that the success of public policies in 21st-century developing societies, lies not only in a rational or new breed of public service, but, to a large extent, on the complex interplay of a number of ecological (political and cultural) factors, which must be considered when attempting to make bureaucracy less dysfunctional, or a more effective institution of development. The focus has now shifted to policy studies instead of bureaucracy studies as the primary instruments of development. Emphasis is now on the importance of improving public policy making as a major approach, to meet the development challenge and as the only way of minimizing the widening gap between industrialized and developing countries.

Good governance to governing development

71

At the beginning of the 1990s, in an apparent effort to complement and offload some functions of the state and government agencies, alternative institutions, such as private and nongovernmental organizations, were encouraged to participate, and take initiatives, during the process of development program formulation, implementation and evaluation. This redefinition, and rethinking, of state–society relationships brought some questions to the surface, such as what role bureaucracy can play in the formulation and implementation of public policy. Has its erstwhile dominant post-colonial status, as the principal agent of rapid socio-economic development, become redundant and unnecessary? Can the state be restricted to its traditional regulatory role in the context of globalizing economies and politics? Despite these questions being raised again and again—and more so in the context of globalization, it is impossible to deny the fact that a major contribution to the policy process still comes through public bureaucracies. Thus, whatever may be the future developments in the 21st century (whether the state outsources its functions or reinvents its role), bureaucracies have not become completely irrelevant or dispensable. This is more so in developing countries, which are still struggling to find viable and responsive replacements after opening up various sectors of the economy to the private sector. There is an urgent need to redefine, and revisit, the role of bureaucracies in developing societies. The last word on their so-called “inefficiency” or “ineffectiveness” as a tool of development has not yet been said. As “communism”, as a practicing political ideology, begins to decline, a trend towards “democratization”, as an alternative model of development is being attempted, not only in the previous Third World but also in the former East European ex-socialist countries of the Second World. In all of these countries, politics and administration are crucial concepts for the study and interpretation of state–society relationships, the nature of public policies, the way policies are formulated and the strategy of their implementation. During the post-liberalization phase, concern has begun to grow regarding the consequences of the increasing levels of corruption in the administration of developing countries. Solutions have been suggested to “clean” administration and bureaucracy, to make it more transparent, representative and responsive, to ensure “good governance” in countries which need it most.

Public bureaucracies in developing countries The outcomes of research, some general features that characterize the functioning of public bureaucracies in the developing countries, can now be part of the theory, the ecology and workings of administrative systems of the non-developed world. The 20th century witnessed the rise of the administrative state everywhere, especially in diverse political regimes. Developing countries sought to improve their performance, as well as that of their public sector, by expanding the structure and diversifying the functions of their public bureaucracies. Contrary to

72

Good governance to governing development

their intentions, this rapid and immense diversification, instead of creating optimal bureaucratic outcomes, led to a demand overload and bureaucratic in-effectiveness and deficit. Public sectors were too busy managing gigantic infrastructure projects such as steel, roads, basic consumer and tourism related industries, to pay adequate attention to health or education. Therefore, performance in human development related sectors remained inadequate. Function overload or overstaffing can lead to an increase in regulations, rules and legal frameworks, but not necessarily more effective controls. Authority is not essentially proportionate with the responsibility of a public administrator; higher authorities do not always possess the power of control, like authoritarian rulers. In the developing world, the public sector is usually more fragmented by multiple layers of authority. Decentralization can have long term beneficial effects, but there is increasing evidence to suggest that, in the short run, it is weakening the capacity of the state to deliver public services efficiently. Lastly, despite ample opportunities to learn from past experiences, public organizations, overburdened with repetitious tasks and problems, tend to repeat the same mistakes (Chaudhry, Reid and Malik 1994).

Problems of research in comparative administration The body of knowledge that emerges from empirical research is period specific and not sustainable over a long period, due to frequent changes in data, especially in transitional societies. This is not always conducive to comparative studies development of theory. However, despite these limitations, comparative research has significance during practice. It enables researchers to develop a set of hypotheses when testing some of the universal aspects of administrative phenomena, in particular environmental settings, as well as other cross-national perspectives. A considerable amount of this type of work, will lead to comparative studies of bureaucratic behaviour and public policy making, implementation and evaluation. In the context of a developing country such as India—and I believe in the context of most developing societies—the findings, regarding the impact of traditional social values and social structures, such as family, tribe, caste or class on bureaucratic group dynamics, would be an important dimension when trying to understand the persisting realities of administrative operations in developing societies. However, even today, knowledge relating to administrative realities in developing societies (close to 150) has largely remained sporadic and limited. For one thing, the elements of reverse prejudice and “ethnocentrism”, that generally crept in such research, have tended to make these findings parochial, localized and with limited application. Scholars, in many developing countries, face the problem of a lack in authentic data and material for research and analysis—and more so across national frontiers. The time and costs involved in residing and researching in unfamiliar terrain may be a deterrent. Moreover, some governments may not allow foreign researchers’ access to confidential, official data. Some variables are simply not capable of being quantified. General, or cross-national, variables are applicable for comparable institutions in different countries, but the unique character of some administrative

Good governance to governing development

73

policies or institutions cannot be hypothesized using general models of comparison. Problems may arise from the interrelationships amongst the norms, structures and behaviour of administrative systems. Models and theories must take into account all of these factors. Furthermore, any serious comparative research must consider the study of societies as a whole, which ideally requires an interdisciplinary approach when studying administrative phenomena. In many developing countries, the study of public administration through an interdisciplinary approach is still in its early stages. Models are difficult to build, and researchers have found the comparative method of research more difficult than the empirical or behavioural approach—techniques that have, to some extent, been perfected (Jain 1989, 2005, 2007).

Best practices from the South: an Indian example The most important practical utility of comparative policy research is the opportunity to learn from the best practices and then apply them in national policy practices. The Indian public healthcare system is a good example of what others (especially countries of the South) can learn from (innovations in medical education, patents and practices), and what India should learn from other developing countries. Health inequalities in the global South emerge when there is insufficient public health financing and public health infrastructural facilities. A lack of adequate public provisioning can result in healthcare being under provided, socially, with large sections of the poor being denied access to adequate healthcare. In developing countries equities are also based on location, class, gender and socio-economic status. In general, the status of public health in India is much worse than other B.R.I. C.S. countries, despite the fact that India have comparable levels of G.D.P. and per capita income. India accounts for 21% of the global burden of disease, and is also home to some of the greatest maternal, new born and child deaths in the world. Public health expenditure in India is just above 1% of G.D.P. Other low income countries spend 1.45% G.D.P. on health. With just $16 per capita public expenditure on health, India ranks amongst the lowest in its own region and South East Asia. Not surprisingly, India’s life expectancy is lower than Bangladesh, Bhutan and North Korea. India also has one of the lowest ratios of public to private health expenditure amongst the B.R.I.C.S. countries. While healthcare spending in the U.S. and U.K. are 15% and 8.5% of their overall expenditure respectively, the corresponding value for B.R.I.C.S. countries hovers around 5%. Despite the apparent inequities regarding access to healthcare, it is well known that Indian doctors and the private healthcare infrastructure are amongst the best in the world. Some of India’s world class corporate hospitals provide healthcare at almost one third of the cost, compared to Europe and America. Therefore, India is a great beneficiary of “medical tourism”, whereby people from several countries in the South come to India to get medical treatment. State of the art medical treatments and surgeries (at least cost), combined with world class doctors and surgeons have made India an important medical destination in the developing world.

74

Good governance to governing development

In public healthcare too, India has taken significant strides. India has been declared free from polio and smallpox, and has systematically reduced the number of cases of tuberculosis, malaria and meningitis. India has a good record regarding new innovations and drug patents; e.g. MenAfriVac is a vaccine that was created in India and has brought meningitis numbers substantially down in Africa. Indians are better nourished today than they were at the time of independence (1947), and they live about twice as long, on average. From a historical perspective, India has gone through its own “great escape”, as Deaton (2013) aptly describes the unprecedented improvement of living standards that happened around the world in the second half of the 20th century. While there are indications that the health gap between India and its neighbours has narrowed in recent years, India has still got a long way to go in achieving Bangladesh’s immunization rates or Nepal’s levels of sanitation coverage. However, India’s biggest challenge revolves around putting a functioning system of universal healthcare (U.H.C.) in place, sometime in the 21st century, whose basic principle remains that quality healthcare should be guaranteed “to all members of the community irrespective of their ability to pay”. U.H.C. is now well accepted in Europe, but not as a policy principle in the U.S.A. A growing number of developing countries (including Brazil, China, Mexico and Thailand) have made giant strides towards U.H.C. in the 21st century. In fact, outside SubSaharan Africa, nearly half of the world population lives in a country where the healthcare system is based on the U.H.C. principle. In India, debates on the healthcare system have begun. While there is some degree of consensus that the current moribund public system cannot serve the health needs of its citizens in the 21st century, there are still major divergences regarding the solutions offered. One school of thought would like India to continue with the rapidly growing trend of privatizing current public health institutions; others have argued that there is a case for strengthening existing public health infrastructure, coverage and services for the average citizen by raising public healthcare funding to 5% of G.D.P., which is now recognized as the minimum required for low and middle income countries (Mcintyre, Mehens and Rottingen 2017). Interestingly, the latest National Health Policy (2017) in India is based upon a mixture of these two approaches. First of all, strategic purchasing of curative health services from both the public and private sectors can enable India to achieve its goal of universal healthcare. Secondly, there is a harmony of purpose between public and private healthcare delivery systems, which allow the private sector to be used for achieving public health goals. India hopes to achieve its S.D.G. Health Goals by 2030 by pursuing this mixed approach outlined in its National Public Health Policy. We wait for the outcome.

Concept of good governance After experimenting with different models of bureaucratization to achieve political goals, today, most developing countries are in the process of devising strategies to meet the challenges of “good governance”, a concept that has become popular as a

Good governance to governing development

75

result of the impact of globalization, liberalization and the New Public Management (N.P.M.) paradigm, since the early 1990s. In addition, the World Bank’s sustained pressure on governments to introduce governance reforms in their politico-administrative systems so as to fully benefit from the World Bank’s new developmental initiatives, triggered political and economic changes in these societies. The term “governance”, in its earlier interpretation, was used to describe the procedures of decision-making and the process by which policies are implemented. However, it has now become a broad concept, defined as the exercise of governmental power through formal and informal (private or voluntary sectors) institutions for policy making and implementation in public interest. In an evolutionary process, the sub-discipline of “development administration” transcended to a broader framework of “governance”, and then, from the 1990s, to the philosophy and actions inherent in the concept of “good governance”. The concept of good governance seems to have first appeared in a 1989 World Bank report on Africa, which defines the features of good governance to include “an efficient public service; an independent judicial system and legal framework to enforce contracts; an independent audit of public funds, respect for the law and human rights at all levels of government; a pluralistic political structure; and a free press”. The World Bank reconfirmed this approach in its 1992 statement in Governance and Development, which treats good governance as “synonymous with sound development management” (the World Bank 1992). However, critical views regarding the relationship between democracy, development and governance, have not necessarily converged. While some people are emphatic about democracy, others stress the importance of administration or administrative development for achieving the goals of development administration. Whilst others consider the democratic condition neither a necessary or desirable component of development. However, despite these differences, good governance has generally been thought of as consisting of three main components, or levels, ranging from the most to the least inclusive: systemic, political and administrative (Leftwich 1993). From a systemic point of view, “governance” includes both internal and external political and economic power, as well as the interrelationship between the two, to indicate the rules by which the productive and distributive life of a society is governed. From a political point of view, good governance implies a state which enjoys both legitimacy and authority, derived from a democratic mandate. This usually involves a pluralist polity with representative government, and a commitment to protect human rights. According to the narrow perspective of administration, good governance means an efficient, open, accountable and audited public service, with the bureaucratic competence to design and implement appropriate public policies and an independent judicial system to uphold the law (ibid). However, since the advent of globalization in the 1980s, the above characteristics of good governance have undergone further modifications. Good governance now means a democratic capitalist regime, with minimal intervention in the market and the economy. This is also the part of the “desirable” governance

76

Good governance to governing development

paradigm of the New World Order. Translated into administrative terms, it not only means a diminished role for the state, but also a continuous process of debureaucratization and a co-existence of the private and public sectors, with an ever increasing role for the non-state voluntary sector during society’s development processes (Jain 2005). Civil society is required to act as a watchdog in the activation and preservation of “good governance” in all societies.

Democracy, development and good governance There is a considerable body of literature in the context of developing countries, looking at whether democracy should precede development or a certain measure of development is required for the success of democracy. There has been much debate amongst scholars and policy makers in many parts of Asia, Africa and Latin America, stating that the imposition of democracy in under-developed and socially backward societies may actually impede development in its early stages, when democratic procedures may hamper quick decision making. The hassle of cutting through red tape is one of the reasons why effective state intervention in most sectors of the economy is needed for rapid development. Since the early stages of development require capital accumulation for infrastructure and investment, democratic systems are unlikely to generate the resources required, as it is difficult for them to adopt strict financial disciplines. However, other critics argue that democracy and development are compatible and complementary to one another. If there was a trade-off between development and democracy, they claim, that a slightly lower rate of growth is an acceptable price to pay for a democratic polity, civil liberties and a good human rights record (Leftwich 1993). Clearly, the empirical literature does not endorse either view, nor does it suggest a necessary relationship between democracy and development, or regime type and economic outcomes. The 20th century is a testimony to the, now empirically proved, fact that both democratic and non-democratic regimes have been able to generate high levels of economic growth and development. Not one example of sustained growth in the developing world has occurred under laissez faire economies, whether democratic or not. From Brazil to China, Botswana to Malaysia, the state has played an active role in influencing economic behaviour, often intervening in the economy and the market, using various instruments of control. As a result, it is not the type of regime, but the kind of state (e.g. hard state versus soft state) and its associated politics that have been decisive in influencing developmental performance. This brings us back to the key role of politics, not simply governance, but as a central determinant of development. Sometimes, democratic politics has been viewed as a struggle between politics and bureaucracy, which may not always be the case. Developing countries have usually provided a receptive environment for the development of bureaucratic power, because trained and capable administrative structures had been bequeathed, by the colonial powers, to the newly independent countries, in most cases. The states growing involvement in the direct management of the economy, the absence of alternative centres of expertise, the colonial legacy of bureaucratic

Good governance to governing development

77

dominance and the frequent fusion of party and state in single-party systems in most developing countries, gave rise to concerns about the capacity of political institutions to control bureaucracies, remain autonomous and fulfil the requirements of political democracy and governance. There was a serious dilemma during the 1960s and 1970s, regarding whether public bureaucracy has any inherent advantage, looking at its high cost of maintenance and the political vigilance required to control it. This realization led to a concomitant search for debureaucratization and alternatives to the administrative state (Asmerom and Jain 1993). This dilemma seems to have been resolved in the late 1980s, in favour of accepting bureaucracy as an important tool of governance, but not as the predominant force in the good governance process. The World Bank’s current model no longer equates “good governance” with “sound development management”, as denoted in its governance index developed by Kaufmann and his colleagues (Kaufmann, Kraay and Mastruzzi 2003). According to Kaufmann et.al, there are six essential dimensions when measuring the governance index of any country: (a) voice and accountability, (b) political stability, (c) government effectiveness, (d) regulatory quality, (e) rule of law and (f) control of corruption. This index has achieved worldwide acclaim, and Kaufmann and his colleagues have usefully operationalized this notion of governance in a comparative analysis, covering a number of countries.

“Development administration”, “good governance” and “governing development” Many scholars, across the world, support the view that a new concept of “sustainable development” is becoming a new paradigm in the global study and practice of public administration. This, by various definitions, refers to the efforts undertaken to achieve environmental sustainability by governments, people and institutions, in most countries. A holistic approach to sustainable development requires both developed and developing nations to be responsible for maintaining a balance when it comes to the environmental survival and human development of their citizens. There is a growing understanding that development administration is not exclusively related to developing nations. Instead, development is a universal phenomenon, and all countries, including advanced ones, are engaged in “governing development” in some way or the other (Farazmand 2001). Countless things have changed in the last two decades, but elements of continuity remain. Public administration will remain a challenge when aiming for a better society and world, just as it was in the past. Rosenbloom and Kravchuk (2002) state, to improve public administration is to improve civilization. While there are numerous challenges to governance in developing countries, there have been several success stories of sustainable progress made towards good governance. In their governance survey project, Hyden, Court and Mease (2004), examine bureaucratic effectiveness in 16 developing countries by using six indicators: participation, fairness, decency, accountability, transparency and

78

Good governance to governing development

efficiency. These indicators provide a comparative framework when assessing the performance of governments across the world. The researchers’ analysed the governance performance, based on these criteria, of several countries between 1995 and 2000. Six countries scored highly: India, Chile, Jordan, Malaysia, Tanzania and Thailand. Apart from India and Chile, which have been practicing democracies for a long time, the other countries have more recently shifted towards democratic systems of governance. The major components of governance reforms clearly evident in this group of countries are: organization and function reform, personnel and management reform, capacity-building, local government and regional administration reform, as well as systematization of public recruitment rules and procedures. Additionally, the inculcation of the values of effective leadership, standard setting, productivity, innovativeness, integrity, discipline, accountability and professionalism in the public service, highlight the significant similarities. This includes administrative improvements, measures adopted for developing publicprivate partnerships, total quality management and ethics in public management. The concept of “good governance”, not only incorporates some of these concerns but provides a valuable message: public administration still remains a critical factor in governing the development of all nations in the 21st century. The global concern for good governance will revolutionize the prevalent hierarchical, bureaucratic governmental structures, not only in developing countries, but also in the developed world. The movement of policy makers across the globe, to operationalize reforms seems to be a step in the right direction. However, the “content” of good governance may be culture and country specific. In fact, the need to be “inclusive” and context specific, indicates the changing contours of the sub-discipline of comparative public administration, and reflects its growing importance in collecting data for the best governance practices in every part of the world, so as to create better theories. Having analysed the status of public administration and having identified trends of its growth in a Status Report, Vidhu Soni (2003) argues that in the 21st century, the culture of public administration will be more complex; emphasizing performance and personal responsibility, operationalized through a more diverse and flexible civil service. Public governance will have to face various pressures when it comes to the growth of democratic and human rights consciousness. The inherent tensions between globalization and localization, the blurring of public-private divides and increasing global pressures on domestic public policy, will ignite significant operational innovations now, and in the future.

Reinventing government, new public management and post-modernism Some scholars have regarded the movement to “reinvent” government as an example of postmodern politics. These scholars argue that the work and study of public policy formulation and implementation occurs in a context so fundamentally different from

Good governance to governing development

79

the past, that we have crossed over from one era (modernity) to another (postmodernity). The transgression from modernity to postmodernity, is associated with the movement from an industrial to a post-industrial society; from an economy based primarily on the production of material goods to one being based primarily on information technologies, services and consumption. What does this have to do with the reinvention movement in public administration? Charles J. Fox identifies three issues: downsizing vs. employee morale, performance measurement and customer service inherent in the reinventing movement. Fox points out the unsynthesized inconsistencies surrounding these main building blocks of reinvention (Fox 1996). Due to the “reinvention” movement, many countries have recently attempted to limit the role of the state, downsized bureaucracy, reduced public expenditure, contracted out governmental work to private entrepreneurs and, in the process, designed a new paradigm of public administration (New Public Management). What influence, if any, these measures have had on the morale and effectiveness of public servants needs to be studied in a comparative perspective. New Public Management has had a huge impact on public-sector management and the consumers of public services. N.P.M. focuses on the efficiency and effectiveness of employees, service standards, replacement of hierarchical structures with decentralized management, cost-effective policy outcomes, new personnel management to provide more flexible deployment of staff, new mechanisms and incentives to improve performance (such as performance contracting) and greater accountability and transparency of public agencies (Shand 1998). N.P.M. activists have vocally maintained that the impacts have generally been positive. The need for an active relationship between citizens and administrators is currently being addressed through a variety of responses. A number of authors have supported the initiative to redefine public administration so that it can better comprehend and deal with a responsive and collaborative citizenry. Two books: Fox and Miller’s Postmodern Public Administration (1995) and David Farmer’s The Language of Public Administration (1995), are sympathetic to the postmodern perspective, and both, in different ways, advocate a citizen-oriented public administration. While Fox and Miller call for a public administration grounded in dialogue, Farmer’s idea entails an “anti-administrator” approach, whose primary point of reference is the other, with the client or citizen being served (McSwite 1997).

Concluding observations As already noted, the strength of the sub-field lies in its continuing and growing concern for the welfare and progress of almost two-thirds of United Nations members. The journey from severe governance deficits to “good

80

Good governance to governing development

governance”, has been challenging, traumatic and, at times, transformative for developing nations. It has had its ups and downs, in terms of political and administrative decay and development. These have arisen in different dimensions and varied forms in various developing countries. The concept of good governance is also undergoing seminal changes, in line with the changing times. Citizens are demanding to know why basic economic rights, public goods and services, that have been the continuing responsibility of the state, have still not been put in place. Why does poverty, hunger, education and health deprivations still occur in large parts of the world? In the 21st century, citizens have a right to ask for more—the concept of “human security” covers all of these dimensions. Could the changing concept of good governance respond to these challenges? The answer to some of these questions will depend on the extent to which the state functionaries are able to enhance their bureaucratic and administrative “capacities” in every situation. Whether in a developed or developing country, “governing development” is the new challenge of our times. 193 countries of the United Nations have pledged to operationalize the collectively framed Sustainable Development Goals by 2030—S.D.G.s have rightly begun to acquire the status of a Minimum Agenda of Good Governance. Based on what has been discussed before, we can conclude that understanding and interpreting the concept of “good governance” and reaching a consensus on its precise meaning, is a complex phenomenon and a complicated task—not only in developing societies, but in advanced countries as well. Unless a consolidated effort is made to use different approaches and methods of data collection and analysis, contextual interpretations, case studies of significant administrative and policy processes, using comparative techniques which will help to understand the long-term impact of the phenomena of “bad and good governance”, viable and authentic comparative administrative studies will not be available in the public domain. As students of public administration, we must codify the results of representative, cooperative and collective research, to enable us to comprehend emerging administrative “peculiarities” more perceptively in different ecological settings. This may act as a catalyst in our quest for a theoretical framework, and an acceptable paradigm for the study of public administration in developing societies. This, in turn, may enable us to theorize not only the concepts of “development administration” and “good governance”, but eventually lead us to an overarching general theory of “public administration”, which has so far eluded scholars all over the world.

References Asmerom, H.K. and R.B. Jain, eds. 1993. Politics, Administration and Public Policy in Developing Countries: Examples from Africa, Asia and Latin America, Amsterdam, VU University Press. Basu, R. 2017. Public Administration Concepts and Theories, New Delhi, Sterling.

Good governance to governing development

81

Chaudhry, S.A., G.J. Reid and W.H. Malik, eds. 1994. Civil Service Reform in Latin America and the Caribbean, The World Bank Technical paper No. 258. Washington, DC, The World Bank, 22–5. Deaton, A. 2013. The Great Escape: Health, Wealth and the Origins of Inequality, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press. Farazmand, A. 2001. “Comparative and Development Public Administration: Past, Present, and Future” in A. Farazmand (ed.) Handbook of Comparative and Development Public Administration, New York, Marcel Dekker. Fox, C.J. 1996. Reinventing Government as Postmodern Symbolic Politics. Public Administration Review, 56(3) (May–June): 256–62. Fukuyama, F. 1991. The End of History and the Last Man, London, Hamish Hamilton. Hyden, G., J. Court and K. Mease. 2004. Making Sense of Governance; Empirical Evidence from 16 Developing Countries, Boulder, CO, Lynne Rienner. Jain, R.B., ed 1989. Bureaucratic Politics in the Third World, New Delhi, Gitanjali. Jain, R.B., ed 2005. Globalization and Good Governance; Pressures for Constructive Reforms, New Delhi, Deep and Deep. Jain, R.B., ed. 2007. Governing Development across Cultures, Germany, Barbara Budrich Publishers. Kaufmann, D., A. Kraay and M. Mastruzzi. 2003. Governance Matters III: Governance Indicators for 1996–2002. http://info.Worldbank.org/governance/kkz2002/sc_chart.asp (accessed April 26, 2004, and November 2, 2005). Leftwich, A. 1993. Governance, Democracy and Development in the Third World. Third World Quarterly, 14(3): 605–24. Mcintyre, D., F. Mehens and J.A. Rottingen. 2017. What Level of Domestic Government Health Expenditure Should We Aspire to for Universal Health Expenditure Should We Aspire to for Universal Health Coverage? Health Economics, Policy and Law, 12: 125–37. McSwite, O.C. 1997. Legitimacy in Public Administration: A Discourse Analysis, Thousand Oaks, CA, Sage Publications. Rosenbloom, D.H. and R.S. Kravchuk. 2002. Public Administration: Understanding, Management, Politics, and Law in the Public Sector, New York, McGraw Hill. Shand, D. 1998. New Public Management: Challenges and Issues in an International Perspective. Indian Journal of Public Administration, 44(3) July–September: 714–21. Soni, V. 2003. Public Administration and Governance in Developing Countries in the Last Quarter Century: A Status Report. Paper prepared for IPSA Political Science Development 2000 project. Subramaniam, V. 1990. “Introduction” in V. Subramaniam (ed.) Public Administration in the Third World: An International Handbook, Westport, CT, Greenwood Press, 1–13. The World Bank. 1992. Sub-Saharan Africa: From Crisis to Sustainable Growth, Washington, DC, The World Bank.

6 PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION IN THE 21ST CENTURY Dilemmas and challenges

At its core, public administration refers to the wide range of mandates and functions that are carried out by public officials and agencies involved in public governance. Governance collectively constitutes laws, rules and administrative practices that are formulated by political regimes to provide public goods and entitlements to the citizens of a state. Public administration includes work processes, routine patterns of behaviour and discretionary decisions that public bureaucrats at all levels—from the highest to the lowest—exercise on a daily basis. Public policies are made by political regimes, involving authoritative actions; implementation, however, is undertaken by public officials in a series of decisions—sometimes following precedents, at other times exercising discretion. Public bureaucracies work in areas related to planning, budgeting, law enforcement and social services, ranging from education and healthcare to environmental protection. The interaction and sharing of power and authority among public authorities and agencies involved in the governing process is highly complex. In most administrative systems authority is divided between higher and lower units; for instance, the American national government shares governing responsibility and authority with fifty state governments and numerous other units operating at county, municipal and district levels. Britain possesses a relatively centralized system in which the central government delegates specific functions and mandates to various “sub-national” units. Local administration in Britain is dispersed over 300 districts, which are overseen by mayors and district councils, covering public transport and housing to public health and education, these agencies provide basic services. In every state, politics and administration are intertwined. Each level of governance derives its powers from the constitution, or from acts of Parliament. In India, the power of all three levels of government—national, state and local— are constitutionally derived, which also defines the functions (sectors of work)

Public administration in the 21st century

83

given to each level. India’s bureaucracy is subsequent to China’s, but only in size. The public governance sector, at a national level, constitutes approximately 800 politicians (The Council of Ministers and the members of Parliament), 6000 in the 29 states, in addition to the 19 million employees (approx.) of Central and State governments. There are nearly 3 million representatives elected to govern at local level. About 1.87% of Indians govern 1.3 billion people.

Government and business Since the 1990s, under the world-wide influence of New Public Management and right wing political demands for cutbacks in public expenditure, public agencies were forced to take on reduced mandates and tasks, in the face of diminishing public funds and resources. Since then, public agencies, at all levels, are being forced to “offload”: do more with less. The trend for “leaner and trimmer” forms of government has compelled policy makers and public sector managers across national, sub-national and local units, to shift their emphasis from procedure-based expansionary practices to cost effective efficient outcomes. Since the last decades of the 20th century, public administrators have been confronted with the notion of changing the way they do things, in order to meet quantitatively measured targets and performance-based benchmarks. We are witnessing, everywhere, an ongoing tension between the democratic values of “equity and equality”, and the market values of “profit and efficiency”. It is important to repeat an axiom—the state and the market are essential for a well-functioning society. However, applying the business logic of efficiency and profitability to the public sector overlooks a simple fact: the purpose and function of each of these two sectors are distinct and should be kept so. The public sector exists so as to provide “public goods”, or those services society as a whole pays for and from which no one can be excluded from. This includes utilities such as, public roads and transport, schools, hospitals and bridges. On the other hand, the private sector, provides goods and services that are privately sold to consumers at the market place. Both sectors provide goods and services to the public; private goods are purchased by the public as consumers, the public goods are given away free (or at subsidized rates), as part of the tax payers’ entitlement from the state. When questioning the appropriateness of applying business rationales to the public sector, many economists have argued that many privately sold and consumed items may be highly expensive in the market but they provide little “public value” in contributing to a well-functioning society. On the other hand, necessities such as defence, public safety, universal education and healthcare, often provide enormous social value. These goods are given as “entitlements” to all citizens, equally to the tax-paying public, as well as the non-tax paying public. The non-excludability and universalistic elements of public goods are two qualities that distinguish them from private goods, which can never be given away, free of cost, except for charitable purposes by private individuals. The notion of the “modern state” and its well established means and methods of

84

Public administration in the 21st century

providing public services, are presently being redefined. New forms of public– private “collaborative” partnerships are being created, while governance is becoming increasingly networked. As a result of this, public officials must be groomed with new skill sets if they are to lead their agencies through evershifting challenges—both domestic and global. As a dynamic discipline, public administration is gradually changing and adapting, in response to the ever-changing practices of the real world of governance. The catalytic agents of change are the information and communication revolution, globalization, movements for democratization and the advent of the knowledge economy. Some of the contemporaneous changes that have led to these new ways of “governing” are (a) the advent of New Public Management, (b) the co-optation of multiple actors, like the private sector and civil society into the policy making, implementing and evaluation processes and (c) opening up public administration to more ethical and accountability concerns. Over the past half century or more, the discourse on the role of the state in the economic sphere has substantially changed from an omnipotent state in the 50s, 60s and 70s, to a minimalist state in the 1980s, to a new understanding today, of the importance of both the state and the market. We have come a long way and so has the state of the discipline. The entire discourse has revolved around what the state should do and how it should “perform” its mandates. This in turn has led to paradigm shifts in theory—from public administration to New Public Management, to the current, popular concept of governance. What is needed is a rationale for an effective, efficient, responsive, transparent and accountable public service wedded to the public interest. Today, there is a fair consensus among public administration observers about the core capabilities that government agencies would have to develop in order to be successful in the present era. Besides emphasizing public–private partnerships and co-governance with citizens to develop capabilities of responsive governance, public organizations should become increasingly interconnected and transparent. Emphasizing a system-oriented leadership over a traditional task-focused management; public sector leaders have to learn to articulate a new vision for their agencies. Citizen-oriented service should always remain the highest public sector priority. In a globalized era, government efforts should be focussed on client satisfaction, both internal and external. Public administrators should be encouraged to work in partnership with the citizens they serve, so as to identify civic problems and devise focused innovative remedies to solve these problems. Citizen surveys have become important feedback tools—the ratings should be taken seriously, as bureaucracies are able to understand and empathize with the majority of stakeholders, clients, consumers and user groups. For instance, citizen surveys carried out by the Public Affairs Centre on various aspects of urban governance in India, have vastly helped improve the appalling state of civic services in Bangalore, one of the fastest growing cites of India. Surveys in other countries have also revealed that citizens, in general, expect to see significant improvements in the way public services are administered in

Public administration in the 21st century

85

today’s gradually democratizing world. Besides demanding greater personalized services, citizen demands for increased “transparency” and “accountability” in governance have been growing steadily. The culture of growing expectations from political leaders and bureaucracies is itself a “growing” phenomenon. Today, the educated young, in all countries of the developing world, are internet users and followers, impatient and extremely demanding of rights, entitlements and services from the government, as taxpayers. When it comes to the private sector they demand accountability for products and services bought from the market; e.g. India has the largest 25–45 age group population in the world. They are an informed citizenry, with skill sets ready for jobs, both in the private and public sector. Poverty alleviation, subsidized social sector services and employment generation, are regarded the government’s business. If the private sector doesn’t deliver, they will be disappointed; if the public sector doesn’t deliver, they are angry. In developing and under developed countries, the state citizen relationship is still one of complete dependence of the latter on the former. The public sector has delivered in India, in terms of food security, agricultural and industrial production, infrastructure like roads, bridges, power and communication networks, schools, colleges and hospitals. Public investments on development has increased manifold times since India gained independence; yet nothing is ever “enough” for the world’s largest youth population. The “million mutinies” that unfold every day in the world’s largest democracy in some corner of India, is not because the Indian government and public bureaucracies are amongst the most corrupt, ineffective and inefficient in the world. It is because administrative capacities are still not readily equipped to meet the demand overload and the revolution of rising expectations. Also, resources are not really the crux of the problem, administrative deficits are the problem. In the Indian context, bureaucracy is understaffed and under motivated to handle the work load and the stress. Under the guise of creating “leaner and more efficient” forms of government, Right wing political movements in parts of Europe and America have been waging repeated assaults on the public sector. Still, as we have seen, in a number of welfare states (e.g. the Nordic countries) in the developed world, questions related to the changing role of the public bureaucracies tend to be less controversial, or at least much less partisan, than in others. Despite relentless N.P.M. attacks on the “big government”, the role of the public sector has not significantly diminished in any part of the world. Indeed, recent data confirms that public sector spending continues to steadily increase. In the U.S., for example, public expenditure now accounts for 42% of G.D.P., compared to only 28% in 1960. While there was a slight decrease from 2009 to 2014, the years immediately following the global financial crisis, the overall trend indicates that government spending will continue to grow. Also, it is important to note, government revenues in the U.S. (the world’s richest economy) have declined. This, in turn, has placed unprecedented strain on public agencies and administrators. Challenges relating to global immigration, climate change, public health hazards, inter-state

86

Public administration in the 21st century

regional conflicts thrive. The burden on public administrators can only be expected to increase with a more interconnected globalized world; e.g. the Spillover effects of the refugee crisis in Europe, due to the Middle East wars from 2014–17, is an example of a “crisis” that can come to any state from across the borders. The world’s population is now estimated at over seven billion and continues to grow. Increases in life expectancy rates, changes to family structure and growing levels of unemployment, have compelled policy makers, everywhere in the world, to respond with a host of new public services and additional levels of welfare support for its citizens. Therefore, winding up essential public services and programmes, as is the case in many European countries, can have disturbing consequences. The social safety net provided through pensions, public healthcare services, public education and social insurance, cannot be retracted without disturbing the legitimacy of democratic governments in Europe. The demand for welfare states have, in fact, been revived in many parts of the developed world, like never before. There is no question that the future will usher in new challenges for the nation-state and its public administrative structures. Some argue that these challenges are placing public servants in difficult positions. Others, however, claim that they are creating historic opportunities for public administrators to create meaningful and positive change. If administrative change is being largely triggered in competition with the private sector, then administrative reforms should not be intimidating to citizens. Competition can bring welcome changes to public bureaucracies. Previously, administrative reforms were designed in accordance with each nation’s unique social structure, institutional configurations and different political regimes. However, in recent years, we have witnessed rapid global, economic and social changes, that are challenging traditional administrative norms and practices to follow universal, ethical norms and practices. The acceptance of S.D.G.s as a set of implementable development goals by 2030, has been a great affirmation of what should be the standard of good governance, in any part of the world. Instead of blaming the public sector for everything that goes wrong and punishing civil servants by discontinuing or downsizing the pension system, it is time to be proud of what the public sector has accomplished in terms of public order and safety, health care, education and equity, and handling these problems in very difficult conditions, like those of developing countries soon after independence. Public administration has pursued these accomplishments in spite of conditions, where rational decision making was extremely difficult. It is easy to criticize the public sector without even trying to comprehend the complexities involved in trying to resolve collective problems through collective action. Besides, public administration is constantly under public scrutiny as it undertakes collective action. Administrations make public policies and try to ground them in laws and regulations. Citizens might depict these laws, rules and regulations as administrative burdens, but they are, in fact, primarily established in order to

Public administration in the 21st century

87

prevent bureaucratic nepotism, abuse of power or arbitrariness in decision making.

Ethics in governance Civil service conduct rules, in most countries, require politicians and government officials to uphold four virtues in the public interest: accountability, legality, integrity and responsiveness (Makridimitris 2002). Accountability, is a fundamental principle of representative democracies. In recent years, the accountability of elected representatives and the public has been increased through the implementation of reforms, bringing about greater transparency and a more “open” government. This includes freedom of information laws, together with improving the “scrutiny” functions of public servants. Legality demands that those who hold public office must respect and obey the laws passed by elected legislatures, as well as the ethical principles that underpin these laws. The most notable among these is that of equity: the need to treat like cases alike and unlike cases differently (Lucas 1967). This depends on the acknowledgement of the validity of the laws passed by Parliament, as well as public servants’ acceptance of their obligations to respect and obey the laws imposed on them. Police officers must not use undue force while controlling public demonstrations. Citizens must pay the taxes they owe and tax collectors must enforce the laws and regulations concerned firmly and fairly, without favouritism or any other type of discrimination. Recently, there have been major lapses by both citizens and officials in observing the requirements of legality; for instance, the police have very often used violence to curb public demonstrators or rioters, who may have indulged in street violence as a mode of protest. In anti-state demonstrations, maintaining civil order and collecting taxes are regulatory functions of the state, as much as it is the duty of the citizen to pay taxes and not indulge in criminal activities or street violence. Humanizing and sensitizing the police is a major demand of citizens in all states, whether they are authoritarian or democratic. The third virtue, integrity, is often undervalued by public choice theorists’ fundamental assumption that men, including civil servants and politicians, can only be selfish rational maximizers who cannot, and will not, act altruistically in the public service (Niskanen 1973; Downs 1977). These virtues were subsumed in the Weberian model of bureaucracy and practiced by most states who accepted the model in practice, but, unfortunately, they have been severely weakened since 1979, due to political leaders who believed that encouraging enterprise and attracting business talents to public services was more important than sustaining these virtues. Integrity must be restored by the re-imposition of strict limits on what public servants can and cannot do in office; “corruption” has to be defined and redefined in the age of globalization and at every age. The restoration of integrity requires the renewed inculcation of “ethics” in the training of public

88

Public administration in the 21st century

servants, which has been largely neglected because of the extensive transfer of much of this training to management and business schools. Makridimitris’s final virtue, responsiveness, is not to be equated with “market ethics”, although it has resulted in a weakening of the concept of citizenship, as a result of undue stress being placed on the need for efficient provisioning of “customer services” by civil servants. The public are not merely customers seeking to “purchase” services; they are also citizens with rights and duties. This under valuing of citizenship was particularly apparent in the development of the “Citizen’s Charter” in the 1990s (Chandler 1996), which almost equated the meaning of the word “citizen”, with “customer” and “consumer”, in order to promote market processes and remedies. This was at the expense of the citizen’s rights and duties, to participate in making decisions about the terms on which public services are provided, as well as controlling the behaviour and activities of the public servants who provide them, bypassing the collective responsibility of citizens to participate in the processes of public policy formation and implementation. Lastly, the means and modes of holding the government and its officials accountable, especially those that are available to citizens must be maintained, and if possible enhanced. The public must be informed about all modes of citizen grievance redressal mechanisms available, in the event that they suffer damage or injustice at the hands of public servants. Today, there are numerous means available to seek redress, including the courts, administrative tribunals and ombudsmen, as well as access to elected representatives. The major issues to be addressed are recruitment, corruption and secrecy (Chapman 1988). The execution of administrative reforms should essentially bring about the restoration of a due regard for “public interest” and the ideals of public service, but this also requires leaders in government to set an example. While the benefits gained from having more entrepreneurial and effective public officials through the adoption of private sector attitudes is not to be denied, the requirement to maintain a distinctive public service ethos must be equally recognized, especially in public life. How will the administrative ethics of the 21st century be different from those of the 20th century? The answer can be found in the increasing convergence of ethical concerns at a cross-national level. Globalization of the economic order is likely to pave the way for the globalization of governance issues. With nations converging for goals, philosophy and strategies of governance; ethical concerns are likely to transcend international boundaries. Currently, e-governance, citizens’ charters, grievance redressal systems, Right to Information laws and Public Service Delivery legislations are making a positive difference. They reflect the classical concerns of public administration, including efficiency, responsibility, accountability and integrity, along with the crucial values of equity, justice, openness, compassion, responsiveness, human rights and human dignity. Hopefully, we shall witness the blossoming of a “new citizenship”, committed to the sustenance of administrative morality. To nurture such a positive notion of

Public administration in the 21st century

89

citizenship, public administrative institutions will have to act as facilitators and educators. Maintaining ethical standards in public services will be the biggest challenge for administrative systems in the future.

Human well-being and human security A balanced perspective on life, is the ability to look beyond the short term events to the long term trends, and then take a realistic judgement on human life across generations. Mobility today is much better than it was, with improved public safety, people now have the option to exit extreme poverty and hunger. With improvements in public health and sanitation, life expectancy has increased and fewer infant deaths occur. The average man on the street has a chance to live a better life than ever before. Changes to upward, economic mobility are improving with every generation. With the passage of the war torn 20th century behind us, big wars are much less frequent, although small scale violence still occurs. Socially sanctioned violence—torture, humiliation, lynching, capital punishment—once common, is now rare and is deemed as repulsive and condemnable as human rights violations. Crime rates have even dropped, in both the developed and the developing world. Deaths from terror, or other kinds of mass violence, is sporadic. Despite the occasional insecurity in everybody’s lives, it cannot be denied that the quality of our lives is far better than those of previous generations. Higher living standards, once accessible only by the elite, is rising with every generation. Our children are eating more nutritional food, with vaccinations having saved their lives. The quality and access to basic, public goods has improved over the last few decades, with governments, the private and the voluntary sectors, also joining forces to give the public greater access. Through successful interventions by the state, we have made significant progress with deaths from “curable” diseases like diarrhoea, malaria and other vector-borne diseases. In 1900, life expectancy in the U.S. was 41 years—now, it is over 71, globally. Anyone can see that, generationally, a considerable amount of progress has been made in human development over the years. Education, once the prerogative of the elite, is now within the reach of the masses. Most adults in the developing world may still be illiterate, but the young can now read and write, which means that they can make informed decisions and participate more fully in the economy and the politics of a nation. Women, who bore the brunt of “home making”, are slowly realizing their full potential by entering the work force. In education, health, family choices, asset ownership, work and leadership, women are determined to keep up the progress. Gender gaps are gradually being reduced by policy interventions across the world. Nordic countries like Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden and Iceland, have bridged 80% of the gap already. We are more empathetic and compassionate to

90

Public administration in the 21st century

the minorities and the marginalized, giving them constitutional, legal and welfare protection like never before. Science, human intervention and public governance, have changed human lives. First there was electricity, then there was the discovery of digital connectivity and then the discovery of the smart phone. Science, human ingenuity, public policy and collective leadership, are doing their best to make the world a better place. However, science and technology is a double edged sword, medicine has its side effects, the climate can get out of control and an accidental nuclear war can destroy the planet. But let’s not forget that events like Hiroshima and Nagasaki never happened again, not even a Third World War by accident!

Perspectives on security The 1994 Human Development Report argued that the concept of security must change from a coercive safeguarding of state borders to the lessening of insecurity in people’s daily lives (or human insecurity). In every society, human security is undermined by a variety of threats, including hunger, disease, crime, unemployment, human rights violations and environmental challenges. Today, human security remains a universal quest for freedom from want, fear, ignorance, poverty, disease and unemployment. Perspectives on security have now decisively shifted from an over emphasis on defence preparedness, to a people-centric view. Since the end of the Cold War, there has been no overall increase in military expenditure as a proportion of G.D.P., partly because of the changing threats to national security. While interstate conflicts appear to have been declining since the early 1990s; the number of intrastate conflicts has increased since the mid-20th century. At present, the majority of security threats do not come from other countries, but from insurgencies, terrorism and civil wars. Conflicts in the post-Cold War era have claimed millions of lives, 95% of them civilians. For example, in South Asia, all nine countries have experienced internal conflicts during the last two decades, with the resulting deaths having outnumbered those deaths which arose from interstate conflicts in the region. Since 2001, most conflicts have occurred in underdeveloped regions than anywhere else in the world. In 2010, military spending for the 104 countries whose data was available, was more than $1.4 trillion, or 2.6% of world G.D.P. Most of the expenditure came from countries with low levels of human development. Between 1990 and 2010, military spending tripled in medium H.D.I. countries, while nearly doubling in low H.D.I. countries and increasing by 22% in very high H.D.I. countries. Nonetheless, while the total military expenditure grew in these three H.D.I. groups, it grew at a much slower rate than G.D.P. growth. These totals hide considerable diversity: Europe and Central Asia saw a decrease of 69% in military spending between 1990 and 2010, while South Asia, East Asia, the Pacific and the Arab states witnessed a rise in military spending (U.N.D.P. 2013).

Public administration in the 21st century

91

Globally, around 20 territorially small countries of the South have tiny, or non-existent, armed forces. Many of them rely on “aligned” powers for national security. India is a large country of the South, and has shown that while policing has to be used for curbing violence in the short term, redistributive policies and building an equitable and inclusive architecture of development are better strategies to help prevent and contain internal unrest in the long term.

New institutions and mechanisms for South–South cooperation The rise of the South is fraught with opportunities for development dialogues, partnerships and new approaches to development policy, both globally and in certain regions. Rising foreign exchange reserves affected the leading economies of the South, which could be used effectively for development financing in developing countries, or in those countries that need it the most. New mechanisms for aid, trade and technology exchange within regions of the developing world, can continue with the existing arrangements. Today, the mantle of development lies with the countries of the South. These countries must initiate leadership roles in the global policy dialogue; categorize the most urgent global development needs and then frame viable strategies to meet these challenges in the future. Ambitious targets have been called for raising the Human Development Index (H.D.I.) value across all regions by 2050, through a series of government initiatives. The leading consensus building exercise was the signing of the S.D.G.s in 2015, whereby the developed and the developing world agreed to meet certain targets concerning poverty alleviation, education, healthcare, removal of gender gaps and environmental protection, all of which was supposed to create sustainable development and raise human development levels in all countries by 2030. The largest projected increase in H.D.I. in this scenario was to be in Sub-Saharan Africa (65%) and South Asia (47%). Currently, the average public investment in SubSaharan Africa and South Asia is around 7.7% of G.D.P.

B.R.I.C.S.: South–South cooperation B.R.I.C.S., a diverse group of nations with varying power and growth trajectories, claims to have the potential to transform global governance structures. China, which constitutes two-thirds of the economic power of B.R.I.C.S., has major difficulties with India, the group’s second largest economy. Russia remains entangled with the United States about many global flashpoints, while Brazil and South Africa are preoccupied with their own regional and domestic problems. No doubt the rapid rise in intra-B.R.I.C.S. trade from $29 billion in 2000 to $319 billion in 2010 (when South Africa joined) and then to $744 billion, illustrates B.R.I.C.S.’ expanding partnerships. China’s foreign trade during 2000–2017, rose from $47 billion to $4.1 trillion, which is much higher when compared to the rise in intra-B.R.I.C.S. trade.

92

Public administration in the 21st century

Regarding its contribution to creating alternative global governance structures, even as the New Development Bank and its regional centre in Johannesburg have emerged as efficient institutions and the currency reserve pool has evolved as expected, the B.R.I.C.S. Credit Rating Agency remains mired in undesirable debates. A more credible argument to underline B.R.I.C.S.’ potency, would be to highlight the multi-pronged innovative strategies in strengthening B.R.I.C.S.’ constituencies at home and credibility worldwide. This will be the source of B.R.I.C.S.’ enduring success by emerging as a force to be reckoned with, in trying to overtake the G7 grouping of industrialized countries by 2035. For B.R.I.C.S., the governance challenge will be to operationalize socially responsible investment, define suitable benchmarks and make funds easier to access for investments, with a high human development impact within the developing group of countries.

The rise of the South: some pointers The rise of the South has, to some extent, surpassed the expectations of the North. It was assumed that developing countries would steadily rise, grow and develop in the 21st century, but industrialized countries would always remain ahead. The fact is that the rise of the South is slow, average growth and human development rates and rankings are substantially lower in many countries of the South than they are in the North. However, with rising growth rates and the levels of human development improving, the countries of the South are now asserting their might on the global stage, with the financial resources and political weightage (individually and collectively) to make their voices heard and be counted in international fora. The situation came into sharper focus after 2008, following the banking crisis and subsequent economic shocks in the U.S., and later in Europe, that pushed some of the richer countries into recession and threatened the survival of the Dollar and the Euro: two of the strongest currencies in the world. Now, the countries of the North are looking to those of the South to keep the global economies trade and markets vibrant and constantly progressing. In reality, each group of countries needs the other more than ever before. The North needs the South to market their goods and services, especially as a number of their own economies and societies are weakened by huge cuts in public investments; while the South needs the North for patents and innovative technologies. The rise of the South demonstrates that ideological hegemonies have ceased to exist and that the North no longer has patented monopolistic models of development. Every “successful” model becomes a role model for others. Developing countries are looking to their peers in the South for appropriate development models. This is a huge shift in terms of perceptions. Rather than seeing fixed ideological options, they can examine what has worked, under what circumstances, and choose the most workable and appropriate model. There are programmes and policies

Public administration in the 21st century

93

that have worked in improving human development in the emerging economies of the South; from investments in public health and education to conditional cash transfer programmes. Such examples can inspire similar policies in other countries, with the specific national conditions, institutions and needs being taken into consideration. Good practices, indigenous solutions and technologies from the South, may be more viable, and indeed workable, in the ecology of developing countries, rather than fixed and closed models from the North. Countries of the South have therefore been using their own ideas and intuition to create a new momentum for human development. However, in a complex global political, economic and social environment, this dynamism may not necessarily yield immediate sustainable outcomes. Inequality and rising expectations may still lead to conflict, civil war and strife. There are serious concerns that over-exploitation of global resources combined with the effects of climate change, could wreck the earth for future generations. The North went through its own trajectories of development with subsequent contradictions, which are there for everyone to see. The South will also have to face the challenges and contradictions of their own indigenous, or transplanted growth and development models. Management of these, pose serious problems for public governance in developing economies. What is needed is to ensure that economic growth and human development proceeds in a way that is both productive and sustainable. This includes measures aimed at enhancing equity, enabling participation, confronting environmental pressures and managing demographic change through difficult times of transition. South–South cooperation and technology transfer, possess incredible potential for the future development of underdeveloped countries. Technology transfers from the North involve costly adaptation costs, due to differences in the ecological milieu; but technological transfers within the South are unlikely to need serious adjustment and absorption time and costs. Growing markets in developing countries provide companies in the South with an opportunity to mass market innovative and affordable versions of their best practices and standard products: for example, note the presence of Chinese, Japanese and South Korean electronic products from Third World markets everywhere. The developing countries of the South (e.g. India) have chosen their own distinct development pathways, which have subsequently changed according to the needs of the time. Yet, they share important characteristics, including visionary and missionary leadership, engagement with the world economy on their terms and innovative social policies addressing domestic human development needs. They face similar problems, from social inequities to environmental hazards. They have developed their own autonomous policies for their own national interests, without the constraints of enforced conditionality or imposed “external models”. The South’s progress is propelled by inter-connections with the North and increasing ones with the South. In fact, economic exchanges are expanding faster “horizontally”—on a South-South axis—than on the traditional North-South

94

Public administration in the 21st century

one. Citizens are sharing ideas about living standards through new communication channels, and are seeking greater accountability from governments and international institutions alike. The South, as a whole, is driving global economic growth and development for the first time since the second half of the 20th century, a trend that continues today.

Models of governance Changing governmental practices have led public administration to constantly reinvent its nature and scope. Woodrow Wilson, in his seminal article “The study of public administration” (1887), heralded a new era by pioneering the study of public administration as an academic discipline. While delineating the boundaries of the discipline, Wilson pioneered the concept of “politics-administration dichotomy”, a clarion call to separate politics from administration. Establishing collective ends of society was the duty of political institutions, while administration was the state’s instrument for carrying out these objectives. The classical model of public administration, advocated by writers such as Woodrow Wilson, Henri Fayol, Frederick Taylor, Max Weber and others, only gave way to other models towards the middle of the 20th century. The traditional model professed political neutrality as a behavioural imperative of hierarchical bureaucracies, which called for the routinization of office work according to codified rules and opted for efficiency (as opposed to responsiveness) as the primary criterion for evaluating the work of public agencies, which were looked upon as “closed” organizational systems. The first major challenge to this model came from the New Public Management (N.P.M.) paradigm, which began to unfold during the last two decades of the 20th century; presenting itself as an alternative to the classical model. According to N.P.M. theorists, the government should only be the monopoly service provider in areas which cannot be privatized or contracted out, and all other services should be provided to citizens by private or voluntary agencies regulated by the government. This enables greater competition amongst delivery systems, meaning citizens can be guaranteed a greater choice. New Public Management (N.P.M.) suggests that public managers “steer, rather than row”, and are given greater freedom to improve efficiency and productivity, providing that they remain responsive and accountable to public needs and demands. The rise of N.P.M. to pre-eminence, coincides with changes in society and the economy, a shift from “government” to “governance”, from coordinated, hierarchical structures and processes, to a network-based process of market exchange and negotiation. N.P.M. is, therefore, a paradigmatic change in public administration: primarily, the traditional rule oriented emphasis now includes performance indicators; secondly, the “client” replaces the “citizen”; and lastly, there is a clear shift from “rationality” in administration to efficient management, with outcome effectiveness being imperative.

Public administration in the 21st century

95

Public administration as “governance”, articulates the necessity of the trio: state, market and civil society. Discontent with government performance combined with recent technological advances in communication, has mandated reforms in public administration to radically improve public sector effectiveness. Drawing on the “public choice” perspective, public administration views government from the standpoint of the markets and customer-choices, dominated by self-interest. Central to this phenomenon, commonly defined as “reinventing government”, is the empowerment of individual citizens, who are supposed to make their own private choices in a competitive market, thereby heralding the breakdown of the bureaucratic service provider monopoly. In contrast to the two mainstream models discussed so far, both of which are rooted in the idea of “rational choice”, an alternative model of public administration has been advocated by Janet V. Denhardt and Robert B. Denhardt in their book The New Public Service (2007). First of all, Denhardt and Denhardt trace the intellectual heritage of the new public service and then outline the main tenets of the normative model. Among these tenets the following are significant: •

•

•

•

Seek the public interest: public interest is the result of a dialogue about shared values, rather than the aggregation of individual self-interests. Therefore, public servants do not merely respond to the demands of “customers”, but rather focus on building relationships of trust and collaboration among citizens. Value citizenship over entrepreneurship: public interest is more progressive when public servants and citizens are committed to making a meaningful contribution to society, rather than allowing entrepreneurial managers to act as if public money was their own. Recognize that accountability is not simple: public servants should be aware of much more than just the market; they should also attend to statutory and constitutional law, community values, political norms, professional standards and citizen interests. Serve rather than steer: it is increasingly important for public servants to use shared and value-based leadership when helping citizens articulate and meet their shared interests, rather than attempting to control or steer society in a new direction. Value people, not just productivity.

Consequently, the Denhardtian paradigm presents an alternative framework that gives full priority to democracy, citizenship and service in the public interest. They forcefully argue that governments shouldn’t be run like a business but should be run like a democracy. Public interest and democratic citizenship should be the hallmark of an accountable government. In governments where the sense of service and community expands, public employees acquire better self-estimation and a sense of dignity. In fact, it makes them become reconnected with the citizens. When public servants invite citizens to participate in the governance

96

Public administration in the 21st century

process, there will be a new culture of “co-governance” emerging, with administrators and citizens working together for the common good of society.

Cost of governance today: the Indian case India has one of the largest government sectors in the world today. The cost of governance of India, for the roughly 800 politicians at the national level, 6000 in the 29 states and the 18.7 million employees of the central and state governments cost the country about 1800 crore a day. This excludes the 3 million representatives at local government level. About 1.87% of Indians govern 1000 million people. This comes to about U.S.$138 billion, or nearly 30% of India’s G.D.P. The Public Affairs Centre, Bangalore, surveyed 37,000 Indian households in 24 states, focusing on the Five Basic Services which the Indian government has invested thousands of crores into, including drinking water, health and sanitation, education and child care, the public distribution system and road transport. Their findings are listed below: • • • • •

Only 13% of users are satisfied with the public health system. Less than 10% are content with the public distribution system. Barely 16% are satisfied with the teachers in government schools. Just 5% are satisfied with public sanitation in public places. Only 20% are satisfied with the public transport system. (Samuel Paul et al. 2006)

Criteria of successful administration Governments today, and in the future, will undergo enormous social and economic transformations, profoundly affecting the work of public administration and agencies. Innovative ways of steering society will require us to consider new standards when assessing administrative performance, not only including the traditional legal and political standards, but also the market and economic criteria, as well as the democratic and social criteria associated with the proposed New Public Service of the Denhardtian paradigm. At the moment, public administration relates to the whole of society and to the changed political economy after the advent of globalization. Thus, assuming its overwhelming importance, the pertinent question should now be: in today’s rapidly changing world, what is the criterion for successful administration? The norms of an administrative system are both old and new. Traditional norms such as efficacy, economy and public interest, are well established measures of judging the success of any administrative system. Whilst, continuing socioeconomic progress, maintenance of good delivery systems, economic regulation and striving for equity and justice, can also be added as universal values relevant to all political systems that want to promote people centric or citizen friendly administrations.

Public administration in the 21st century

97

Public administration, especially in developing societies, will have to face a host of challenges and pressures that will put its adaptability and performance capacity to the test. If man is to survive in the face of nuclear threats, overpopulation, environmental pollution, rapidly changing technology, coupled with increasing societal turbulence, public administration will have to learn to decentralize, democratize and humanize, in addition to reinventing itself. The crux of the Denhardtian paradigm is to get the “public” back to centre stage in the activity and discipline of public administration. The paradigm reminds us that administration must go beyond technical efficiency, economy and “good governance” goals; the challenge is to recognize the centrality (in terms of end recipients, goal setting and decision making) of the citizen or the “public” in public administration. Citizens should be actively associated with policy formation, and it is in their interest that any democracy should espouse a minimum rights (as entitlements) package for its citizens. By equalizing opportunities and substantive empowerment, citizens have the potential to become equal stakeholders in the democratic project. Despite existing globalizing ground realities, in terms of the withdrawal of the state, and ardent advocacy of the market model of governance by neo-liberals in India and elsewhere, I firmly believe that the Denhardtian paradigm, which emphasises co-governance (state-citizen partnership), is best suited to handle the needs of the post-globalized world. Currently, many civil society activists have called for a war against corruption, poverty, disease and deprivation. “Good governance” has almost become a buzzword for the entire world, in both developed and developing countries. Some elements of good governance are universally recognized, whilst some have only been accepted in certain countries. Those which have been accepted universally, include public accountability and transparency in administration, rule of law, participative governance, predictability in decision making, citizen-centric administration and respect for human rights. Let’s look at some of the core principles of good governance: • • • • •

Rule of law requires that there are constraints on governmental power; those who govern and those who are governed are bound by the same laws. Accountability at each level of the administrative hierarchy. Minimization of unfettered discretionary powers to the bureaucracy. “Putting the citizen first”, as a mandatory principle of administration. Government to be built on a strong ethical foundation.

The World Justice Project’s Rule of law Index 2017–18, which studied 113 countries regarding 44 indicators, found that the rule of law scores fell (in just a year) in a third of the countries surveyed, with fundamental rights being hit the hardest, along with more governments exercising indiscriminate power. Whilst, 64 countries “constraints on government power” decreased,

98

Public administration in the 21st century

which measures the extent to which those who govern are bound by the law and the robustness of democratic institutions. The top three ranked nations (Rule of Law Index 2017) are: Denmark, Norway and Finland, with the three lowest ranked countries being: Afghanistan, Cambodia and Venezuela. India, despite a 70 year track record of having maintained its democracy (perhaps the only Third World country to have done so), ranks 62 in the list. It is not surprising that Denmark, Norway and Finland have excellent rankings in the Human Development Index and in the Gender Inequality index (they have closed almost 80% of the gender gap) as well. All three countries are democratic welfare states of the developed world (World Justice Project Index 2017). It is often said that in the 21st-century China is troubled with a democratic deficit, while India struggles with a governance deficit! To assume that globalization in India will imply “outsourcing” most of the functions of bureaucracy to private agencies is wishful thinking. In fact, an emphasis on increased public expenditures on social sectors such as food security, education, health care and rural development, will mean a substantial expansion of the mandates of bureaucracy. Bureaucracy cannot really be curtailed in the years to come. It remains a pivotal institution in the implementation of public policies. It has not yet adjusted to the new paradigm of governance and continues to slowly reform in the developing world. However, one can look at the issue of reform with a little more optimism now. The single most important catalyst of administrative reform, globally, has been the liberalization of economies, unbundling of government monopolies and the opening up of the public sector to competition in the market. Right to Information Laws, e-governance, computerization of government records, Citizen Charters, Service Guarantee Acts and increasing judicial activism, will change the face of governments in the years to come. It is encouraging to see that states are competing with each other to increase their rates of growth, bringing out Human Development Reports and publicizing their initiatives on good governance. Clearly, it is imperative that an index of good governance should be compiled, which will enable interstate comparisons on the performance of different states. Good governance means good politics everywhere. The Global Index of Good Governance should include the rate of growth of state domestic product, the rate of reduction in poverty, implementation of important social sector schemes, health attainment indicators, school dropout rates, communal violence, human rights violations and the openness of governmental decision making. If this seems like an Index which is Third World centric, then you are mistaken. Balancing economic growth with human development is the biggest challenge of public governance everywhere. Recognition of this Global Good Governance Index (for interstate comparison) should act as a precursor to “good governance” being recognised as a fundamental right of every citizen in the world.

Public administration in the 21st century

99

References Chandler, J.A. 1996. The Citizen’s Charter, Aldershot, UK, Dartmouth Press. Chapman, R.A. 1988. Ethics in the Civil Service, London, Routledge. Downs, A. 1977. An Economic Theory of Democracy, New York, Harper and Row. Lucas, J.R. 1967. The Principles of Politics, Oxford, Clarendon Press. Makridimitris, A. 2002. Dealing with ethical dilemmas in public administration: the ALIR imperatives of ethical reasoning. International Review of Administrative Sciences, 68(2): 251–66. Niskanen, W. 1973. Bureaucracy: Servant or Master? London, Institute of Economic Affairs. Paul, S. et al. 2006. Who benefits from India’s Public Services, New Delhi, Academic Foundation. U.N.D.P. 2013. Human Development Report, New Delhi, Academic Foundation.

7 SUMMING UP

The provision of public goods is, in a classic sense, the raison d’être of the government, and is one of the key themes of public administration. Through collectively binding decisions, governments produce public goods to which all citizens are expected to contribute too, as tax payers, and from which all citizens are beneficiaries (without exclusion). The inherent dilemma is the wavering support for the public sector to provide these goods and services over time. Until the 1970s there was a strong belief, especially in developed countries, that by expanding the welfare state, the government was essentially guaranteeing the good life, from a citizen’s birth to their death. The provision of governmental public services would enable those individuals with few opportunities (the under privileged and the marginalized) to enjoy the same level of access to a good life, as the privileged. During the 1980s it was believed that public goods had to be transformed into semi-public goods that required individual contributions, or preferably, into private goods that removed them completely from the public sector. Privatization emerged in health care, public transport and sanitation, maintenance of the “commons”, recreational facilities, education and traditional police tasks, such as traffic control. The anti-public sector political agendas of the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and the U.S. President Ronald Reagan during the 1980s, the budget deficits that many governments faced, the publication of Reinventing Government by David Osborne and Ted Gaebler in 1992 and journal articles by Christopher Hood in 1991 and 1995, served as catalysts for the worldwide acceptance of the principles of, what came to be known as, New Public Management (N.P.M.). Robert Denhardt and Janet Denhardt summarized the American version of N.P.M. in ten principles: government should be a catalyst (steering rather than rowing); community owned (empowering rather than serving); competitive by injecting competition into service delivery; mission driven instead of rule driven;

Summing up

101

results oriented; customer driven; enterprising; anticipatory; decentralized and market oriented. Action undertaken by any actor, other than central government, was preferred in the provision of public services. Other actors included customers, civilians, businesses or local governments. The American version of N.P.M. especially criticized the idea, emphasising that such a thing as public services needed to exist and that they needed to be provided by the public sector. The European version of N.P.M. was less radical. Christopher Hood argued for an improvement of public service delivery by introducing performance quantification, an emphasis on output and controls, the introduction and disaggregation of competition in the public sector and emulating private sector management styles. According to this European viewpoint, public service delivery needed to improve its management and act more like a business. The European version of N.P.M. was intended to solve inefficiencies in the provision of public goods. While the success of these reforms varied, both in terms of improving governmental service delivery and involving private partners in service delivery, N.P.M. ideas continued to dominate public sector reforms in the late 1990s and early 21st century. However, N.P.M. practices gradually began to be criticized for viewing individuals only as customers and not as citizens; for suggesting solutions that did not create efficiency or that took care of individual interests and instead neglected the public interest, and ignored the ethical, public norms and values that resulted in inherent corruption in privatized services and agencies. The question of how to overcome the problems that N.P.M. sought to remedy without returning to a monopolising provision of public goods by the public sector, is the new research question for 21st-century scholars questioning alternative service delivery mechanisms. While some services were better managed by the private sector and some in the public sector, the most important issue was the ever increasing number of actors involved, citizens, non-profit organizations, international organizations, charities and so on, in the arena of service delivery. There are multiple combinations of actors and these combinations depend on the context and the policy area, therefore, the issues relating to financing, implementation, coordination and control, are crucial variables in the success or failure of administrative policies and programmes. The search for effective and efficient alternative modes of service delivery continues to be one of the key concerns in public administration, ranging from full privatization to public–private partnerships, contracting out, co-production, transforming collective goods into semi-collective goods, and so on. Furthermore, the role of the government in these arrangements has become a crucial question. Should it be monopolistic, facilitating, regulating, steering, rowing or serving the citizens/clients/customers/user groups? Recently the debate was broadened, by bringing to the forefront the efficiency and effectiveness of service delivery as the most important criteria when judging the quality of public services, or whether there are even more important criteria such as inclusion, citizenship and equity. With such prominence placed on “value-governance”, the public sector, together with empowered citizens, are expected to not only create public value but to also identify normative values and unifying elements crucial for public governance.

102

Summing up

The countries of the North (developed countries) are now stable state bureaucracies which follow certain standard “rational” patterns that cater to legality, objectivity, value neutrality and universalism, during their dealings with clients. Developing countries of the South are still adjusting their bureaucracies to the changing norms and standards, due to changes being triggered by rapid socioeconomic transformations. The least developed countries are still looking for models of workable politico-administrative relationships which will deliver “development” to their backward societies, economies and polities. Their transition to the “developing” category will be an occasion to celebrate. International events of great convergence are happening in the 21st century. The Millennium Development Goals and the Sustainable Development Goals are such exercises. None of these goals will meet their deadlines without North– South or even South–South Cooperation. Good governance holds the key to all of these big societal transformations in the 21st century. The state–citizen relationship, in terms of what the citizen can expect (rights and public goods) from the state, has to be clearly defined and the task of good public governance is to see, among other things, that the state’s promises to citizens are honoured. I believe that today’s agenda for public administration, as reflected by the New Public Management paradigm, may have to be reversed or substantially revised by the needs, aspirations, ground realities and field practices of developing countries, who want the state to remain proactive and interventionist on behalf of the poor and marginalized, and deliver “development” promises by implementing public policies and transferring citizen entitlements through effective public service delivery systems. This is the unfinished agenda of public administration in the South which has to be brought to fruition in the 21st century. Democratization has swept across the globe, transforming state–citizen relations and the way administration works in the South. Globalization induced changes in the “what” and “how” of public administration, triggering administrative reforms which swept through the public sector in the last two decades, in several countries. N.P.M. reiterated the rationale of debureaucratization and fiscal prudence in public expenditure. The logic was accepted by ex-socialist states and the developing world, presuming that “wasteful and incompetent” bureaucracies had led to the failure of “socialism” and “development administration” in the first place. Unfortunately, N.P.M. reforms do not help the South. The developed “South” instigated development through proactive state intervention in key sectors of the economy, human development and state sponsored innovations in indigenous technology—a model for others to follow. “Developmental” states are not likely to wither away anywhere in the South. The concept of “good governance” has been universally accepted. Development is not a rigid concept. “Governing” development is an ongoing endeavour in all countries. Both developed and developing countries, need to administer their development models, plans and strategies, to deliver public goods and services to the people. In consideration, the “state-market divide” will have to be clearly demarcated by political mandates in all countries.

Summing up

103

If public administrators have to work in evolving democratic societies, in competition with the private sector and changing ideological regimes, they need to radically rethink how they should be governing in the modern age. New models and procedures have to be learnt, there will be less paperwork but digitalized records have to be stored because people (armed with Right to Information laws) will interfere or intrude whenever they want to “know” more. The “public” were never truly a part of policy making, implementation or evaluation, due to bureaucratic “immunity” and laws of secrecy. But times have changed, meaning their work will be more open to scrutiny and social audit. This can be seen as a healthy change in the context of Third World bureaucracies, who were notoriously nontransparent, non-answerable and non-accountable, in their work or in their behaviour towards the public. Aspiring public administrators must understand that they have to co-govern and not only with other stakeholders, whether they be private sector employees in a private public partnered project or the beneficiary public target group in a welfare administration program. Public bureaucracies do not need to reduce in size; from “development administration” to “governing development”, through a consensually agreed Minimum Agenda of Good Governance, public administration will have to remain at a commanding height. There is a need to revisit, rethink, reinvent and eventually refound public administration from a South-centric perspective. I strongly believe that the biggest dilemmas and challenges to public administration lie in developing countries—where the philosophy of “doing much more with much less” (N.P.M.) cannot be rationalized. Governing development will require more investment (public and private), and the public will require more accountability and more openness with the diversification of bureaucratic mandates. Governments cannot be run like a business; the privatization of public services do not necessarily serve the “public interest”. Not all civil servants are “corrupt” or “incompetent”; bureaucratic failures have much deeper, structural reasons in the context of the developing countries. The following questions need to be asked: • • •

Is there a need to revisit the role and mandates of government and public administration in the context of globalization and the rise of the South? How, and for whom, does public administration work in heterogeneous developing societies? What are the new mandates and challenges in the 21st century, especially in the context of the developing world?

Towards a Neo-Weberian state Some government and public administration mandates are common in all countries, while others are context specific: the least developed, the developing and the developed, have to structure their public governance systems in accordance with the dictates of what is politically decided as their “public interest”, at a

104

Summing up

given point of time. There are no static or universal models of politico-administrative systems to be followed at all times. The rising South will dominate the political discourse globally, due to their collective command over world outputs and markets in the 21st century. These best practices are, in their own way, “unique” but there are commonalities in their approach to growth and human development which can be emulated within the South. The state, the market and the citizen; there is a need to revisit this trio and their respective roles in the context of “collaborative” governance structures in the post-globalized societies of the 21st century. Although there is no unilinear movement towards democracy, it is emerging as the preferred mode of governance in most states. The transition process from some form of “authoritarianism” to some form of “democracy” may not be easy, in any state. Democracies in the South will have to strengthen their administrative capabilities if they are to deliver “development”. “Governing development” will be a challenge for both the North and the South in the coming decades. North–South and intra South collaborations will need political and administrative innovations. Institutionalizing change through good governance in the South is a huge challenge. Public policy making and implementation should be increasingly digitalized as all states will inevitably move towards a “knowledge economy”. Public policy making will be a trade-off between individual and collective welfare and a compromise between different consumption lobbies, which will drive public governance, in every country around the world, towards “success” or “failure”. The biggest challenge for 21st-century governance is still the concept of inequality and the practices of inequity in both the North and the South. For the rising South this will always be a recurring challenge of public policy—to balance growth with equity. It is this connection where I have often cited India and China as prime examples: two Asian powers who constitute one third of mankind. India was the first non-Western underdeveloped country in the world to commit itself to a democratic way of governance with constitutionally embedded procedural features of democracy-periodic elections, subordination of the military to the civilian government, independence of the judiciary, protection of minority rights and freedom of speech. After seventy years, India’s practices towards a substantivist notion of democracy can only be called a “success” if its public governance system can deliver on all of the S.D.G. targets by 2030. Let us briefly examine the growth vs equity discourse in the Indian context. India is one of the fastest growing economies in the world today (8% averaging growth annually), which enabled India to move 270 million out of poverty in the decade since 2005–6, with the poverty rate in the country having nearly halved during the same period according to the U.N.D.P. Global Multi-Dimensional Poverty Index (2018). On the one hand, as per the International Labour Organisation’s India Wage Report (2018), legislators, senior government servants and corporate sector managers had seen their real wages go up by 98% on average; professionals saw a 90% jump in their salaries

Summing up

105

during the period 1993–94 to 2011–12. Across occupational categories, the average rise in real daily wages was 93%. The lowest skilled occupation in India receives a salary that is nearly 60% of the average earnings, while medium skilled jobs receive wages varying from 0.7 to 1.8 times the average earnings. High skilled occupations receive wages which are 1.9 to 4.3 times higher than average earnings. However, the average daily wages of women is only 69%–75% of men’s daily wages. The figures above have been cited, not merely to describe income differences in India but to highlight the fact that they exist amidst gross inequities, where at least a quarter of the population lack the basic requirements of dignified living—food, shelter, clothing, sanitation, healthcare and education. On a comparative note, it can be suggested that China’s economic inequality is no less than India’s, but poorer Chinese do not necessarily lack the basic essentials of life in the same way that poor Indians do. Erosion of state power is a world phenomenon plaguing all governance systems today. In developed countries, control and coordination of different stakeholders in policy implementation (state, private and voluntary) is one of the major challenges of “collaborative” or “networked” governance. In the developing world, bureaucracies can do little to stop the rising global empires of social media, global finance and technology; these empires strengthen and reinforce each other eroding “national” power. The writ of the state is eroding, even in matters like job creation and citizens’ rights. At present, most formal jobs come from the private sector into a new form called “gig economy”. These jobs are not only uncounted, they are unaccountable in every developing country. Governments are clueless about their numbers and employment conditions, therefore, governments are unable to coordinate and control their working conditions, as they are made up of workers from the unorganized sector of their own countries. The state’s erosion of power can be slowed down if that power is again rededicated to serving the “public interest”. In fact, technology is a double edged sword—it can be used to undermine or enhance its role and authority in serving the citizen. It’s entirely feasible, and desirable, in developing countries to build a national online “good governance index” that tracks annual improvements; for instance, people can obtain important government certificates, services in government schools and hospitals, or track the status of roads, water and power supply— with people’s feedback and complaints. Deadlines for the completion of public projects should be put online, along with the phone numbers of the agencies who are responsible for meeting those deadlines. Why shouldn’t a deadline be mandated in all states, for instance, in trial cases in courts for the speedy disposal of justice? Simplification of laws, e-governance and public service guarantee acts (e.g. in India) have been a good starting point. In least developed countries, state power is the only authority for nation building and development, therefore, rededicating the state authority for the public good, comprehensively, urgently and transparently, is an urgent reform. Thankfully the obsession with N.P.M. has now abated. Bureaucracy

106

Summing up

is an indispensable element of state power and cannot be run like a business, anywhere in the world—North or South. To my mind, new ideas for models of state, such as that of the Neo-Weberian state, can be re-evaluated in the context of the developing world: to re-affirm the crucial role of governments as the main facilitator of solutions to new problems. The two irreducible features of the NeoWeberian state model should be: the embeddedness of the Rule of Law in governance and a public service ethos suited to the New Age. The Neo-Weberian state needs to consult and co-govern with citizens, focus on outcomes rather than procedure and modernize and professionalize its cadre. There cannot be any replacement of public bureaucracies’ service delivery mechanisms, which can only supplement its efforts. Bureaucracy should remain a central actor in public administration in the 21st century in both the North and the South. At the beginning of the 20th century, greater emphasis was on industrial productivity, operational efficiency and strong control mechanisms, for the strengthening of the structural and procedural components of public administration. In the 21st century, the focus has shifted towards human development and broadening citizen’s choices. These choices can be infinite and can change over time. We now live in a “knowledge” economy where “information” will change societies. E-governance is a great tool of transparent and accountable citizen centric administration. Historically, public administration has reflected the changing socio-economic and political concerns of contemporaneous times, and its impact on government functions. At present, it faces contradictory ideological and functional pressures which are alternately pulling it towards an expansionist agenda (the agenda from the South) and a reductionist one (North-centric agenda). In the 21st century onus rests on the public administration of every state to refound its raison d’être according to the particular constitutional, societal economic and political needs of every nation.

INDEX

accountability 15–16, 19–20, 22, 24, 41, 57–8, 85, 87, 88, 95, 97 administrative agencies 48 administrative responsiveness 24 Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) 36 Africa 61–2 African National Congress (ANC) 61 agenda setting 37–40 Almond, G. 38 anti-poverty programmes 9 Arab Spring 2, 7 audit process 48 authoritarianism 3, 6–7, 34, 39–40, 63, 104 Bhagwati, J. 59 Bouckaert, G. 18 bureaucracy: in developing countries 71–2; as instrument of development 69–70; role of 67, 68, 71 business, government and 83–7 causality 47 China, economy of 3 citizen participation 39–40 citizen surveys 84–5 co-governance 96, 97 Cohen, M.D. 42 comparative research studies: challenges for 72–3; as emerging sub-discipline 68–9; overview of 65–7 competitive regulatory policies 32–3 consociational democracy 63 Court, J. 77

data acquisition 47–8, 72–3 Deaton, A. 74 decentralization 17, 72 decision making 37, 40–4 decolonization 67 democracy: consociational 63; developing countries and 76–7; erosion of 2–3; in India 54–60; inequality and 60–1; procedural versus substantivist 52–3, 60; transition to 104 Denhardt, J. 21–2, 26, 95, 97, 100–1 Denhardt, R. 21–2, 26, 95, 97, 100–1 development, ideology of 69–70 developmental states, divergent approaches of 8–10 discursive approach 36 distributive policies 32 domestic governance, challenges for 7–8 Dreze, J. 59–60 Dror, Y. 45–6 Easton, D. 30 e-governance 27, 49–50, 105 elections 39, 53, 61–3 Electoral Integrity project 63 employment opportunities, expansion of 9 engaged governance 16 ethics 23, 26, 27, 87–9 evaluation 37, 45–8 Farmer, D. 79 Fayol, H. 94

108

Index

Fischer, F. 36 Fox, C.J. 78–9 Franklin, G. 32–3

integrity 87–8 International Labour Organisation 104–5 International Migration Report (U.N.) 2

Gaebler, T. 16, 100 garbage can metaphor 42 G.D.P., in South versus in North 9 Gender Inequality index 98 gig economy 105 Global Gender Gap Report 11 Global Index of Good Governance 98 Global Multi-Dimensional Poverty Index 104 global production levels 5–6 good governance: concept of 74–6, 80; developing countries and 77–8; framework of 16, 28 good governance agenda 53–4 governance: cost of 96; models of 94–6 governance index 77 “governing development” 77 governing networks 35 group interests 43–4 growth versus equity discourse 104–5

Jenkins-Smith, H.C. 36

Hood, C. 100, 101 Human Development Index (H.D.I) 4, 11–12, 91, 98 Human Development Report (U.N.D.P.) 9, 10, 53, 90, 98 human security 89–90 human well-being 89–90 hurricane Katrina 19 Hyden, G. 77 identity politics 63–4 immigration 2 impacts, diffused 47 implementation 37, 44–5 “Implementation: How Great Expectations in Washington are dashed in Oakland” (Pressman and Wildavsky) 44 incrementalism 35, 41–2 India: cost of governance in 96; democracy in 54–60; growth versus equity discourse and 104–5; public healthcare in 73–4 India Wage Report (ILO) 104–5 Industrial Policy Resolution (1956) 56 inequality 4, 8, 60–1, 104 insecurity: types of 9–10; see also security

Kaufmann, D. 77 Kholi, A. 55 Kingdon, J.W. 42 Kravchuk, R.S. 77 Language of Public Administration, The (Farmer) 79 Lasswell, H.D. 34, 35, 36 Latin America 7–8 legality 87 legislative process 48 Lerner, D. 34 Lijphart, A. 63 Lindblom, C. 34–5, 39–40, 41 logic of appropriateness 42 logic of consequentiality 42 Lowi, T. 32 maintenance functions 1 Mandela, N. 61 March, J.G. 42 Marxist perspective 43 Mauritius 5 Mease, K. 77 medical tourism 73 military expenditures 10, 90 Millennium Development Goals 12, 28, 53, 59, 102 Miller 78–9 Minimum Agenda of good governance 2, 53, 80, 103 Minnowbrook III 28 mobility 89 Moore, M. 20–1, 26 Morris-Jones, W.H. 55 multiple-streams model 42 neo-liberal perspective 43 Neo-Weberian State 18, 103–6 New Governance, move towards 15 New Public Management (N.P.M.) 16–18, 20–2, 24, 26, 67, 78–9, 83, 94, 100–1 New Public Service 22 New Public Service, The (Denhardt and Denhardt) 95 Norris, P. 61, 62–3 Nyongo, P.A. 61–2

Index

Olsen, J.P. 42 Osborne, D. 16, 100 Ostrom, E. 50 O’Toole, L. 24 Panagariya, A. 59 parochial political culture 38 participant political culture 38 patronage policies 32 Peters, G. 15 policy agenda setting 37–40 policy cycle 37 policy evaluation 45–8 policy goals 46–7 policy impact evaluation 46 policy implementation 44–5 policy issue knowledge 45–6 policy output versus outcomes 46 policy perspective 70–1 policy project appraisal 46 policy science 45–6 Policy Sciences, The (Lerner and Lasswell) 34 policy strategy evaluation 46 political culture 37–8 politics-administration dichotomy 94 Pollitt, C. 18 post-modernism 78–9 Postmodern Public Administration (Fox and Miller) 79 post-N.P.M. initiatives 22–4 poverty eradication 54 poverty reduction 59 Pressman, J. 44 private sector 71 privatization 17–18 procedural democracy 52–3, 60 productive regulatory policies 32–3 public administration: in 21st century 82–98; classical model of 15–18; current state of 14–28; summary regarding 100–60; teaching 24–5 Public Affairs Index 58 Public Choice theory 26 public decision making 40–4 public goods: access to 60–1; business and 83–4; economic development and 39; policy implementation and 44; role of government and 17, 20, 26, 53, 54, 100–1; welfare states and 6 public healthcare 73–4 public interest 22 public policy: optimal decision-making and 49–50; overview of 30; politics and 33–48; study of 31–2; types of 32–3

109

public service: ethos of 26; new 21–2 public value, concept of 20–1 Reagan, R. 100 Rediscovering institutions (March and Olsen) 42 redistributive policies 32–3 regulatory policies 32–3 reinventing government 78–9, 95 Reinventing Government (Osborne and Gaebler) 100 responsiveness 24, 87 Rhodes, R.A.W. 21 Riggsian framework 65 Ripley, R. 32–3 Rosenbloom, D.H. 77 Rudolph, L. 55 Rudolph, S. 55 Rule of law Index (World Justice Project) 97–8 Sabatier, P.A. 36 security: human 89–90; perspectives on 90–1; see also insecurity Sen, A. 59–60 Simon, H. 40, 41 social services, expansion of 9 Soni, V. 78 South: lessons from 6–7; rise of 3–4, 92–4 South–South cooperation 91–2, 102 stages model 35–7 “Study of Public Administration, The” (Wilson) 14, 15, 94 subject political culture 38 Subramaniam, V. 69 subsidies 32 substantivist democracy 52–3, 60–1, 104 successful administration, criteria of 96–8 sustainable development 77 Sustainable Development Goals 12, 28, 53, 74, 80, 86, 102 taxation 32, 33 Taylor, F. 94 technology transfers 93 Thatcher, M. 100 think tanks 49 transparency 49–50, 85 universal healthcare (U.H.C.) 74 value-governance 101 Verba, S. 38 violence, inequality and 8

110

Index

Wanna, J. 21 Weber, M. 69, 94 Westminster systems 21 Whole of Government (W.o.G.) initiative 23

Wildavsky, A. 44 Wilson, W. 14, 15, 94 World Justice Project 97–8