Public Management and Administration - Owen E.hughes

208 Public Management and Administration
management. There are demands to provide a client focus and for the administration
to be responsive and advantages for the quality of administrative
processes for clients to be considered and involved at an early stage (OECD,
1987). Responsive administration and a client focus challenge administrative
cultures because the traditional bureaucracy is uncomfortable with external
relations. A managerial approach is more open and better equipped to cope
with the outside.
Interest groups
The most important part of managing external constituencies is dealing with
interest groups. These were once regarded with disdain by the bureaucracy but
are increasingly regarded as vital for the policy and management processes.
Interest groups have a number of what Pross (1986, p. 84) terms ‘systemic functions’:
they facilitate communications between members and the state; provide
legitimation of the demands their members make on the state and the public
policies they support; regulate their members; and sometimes assist the state in
administration of policies and programmes.
The terminology varies; some prefer ‘interest group’ while others prefer
‘pressure group’. Here, the two phrases are regarded as meaning exactly the
same thing. Wilson defines interest groups as ‘organizations, separate from
government though often in close partnership with government, which attempt
to influence public policy’ and, as such, they ‘provide the institutionalized linkage
between government or the state and major sectors of society’ (1990, p. 1).
Saying that groups are the institutionalized linkage between government and
society is a long way from the largely negative role they had for most of the
twentieth century. Interest groups were always a well-recognized part of the
political process, but it is only comparatively recently that they have been
seen as part of the whole governmental system, including both policy and
administration. Some writers (Richardson and Jordan, 1979; Pross, 1986, 1992)
argue that parts of the bureaucracy and relevant groups are ‘vitally important
allies’ in the policy process. Interest groups are now recognized as doing far
more than simply exerting pressure on political parties or governments.
Groups are not part of government, but being the ‘institutionalized linkage’
with government, or providing ‘systemic functions’ is far more important as a
role than was assumed in the traditional model. Managing in the public sector
now has far more to do with the managing of interest groups than it did in the
past. Instead of being regarded as something of a nuisance, interest groups are
increasingly and actively wooed. The bureaucracy relies on interest groups in
making policy. An overlooked fact of modern policy-making is that ‘the
bureaucracy is not a passive recipient of group demands, but … actively
encourages, impedes, and otherwise manipulates group participation’ (Chubb,
1983, p. 13). The demands made by interest groups are a resource to be used by