Public Management and Administration - Owen E.hughes

Managing External Constituencies 217
A public organization exists in a social context beyond the organization itself,
a context that contains threats to its budget and even existence, as well as
opportunities to advance its function. The management of external constituencies
has become one of the major tasks of the public manager, one that has
increased in importance in recent years and is likely to become even more
important in future. Public management is sometimes criticized as being narrow
and focused only on economic results. It is argued here that public management
is far from being narrow but enhances political processes. The
traditional model of administration tried to avoid politics, which was one of the
reasons it failed. The new model accepts politics of all kinds but uses these productively.
Any form of political persuasion is legitimate, ranging from legal action,
presentations, submissions and protest actions to cultivation of the print and
electronic media. As Pross adds, ‘books are written; advertisements concocted;
speeches rouse multitudes – or leave them indifferent – all in the name of
rational discourse’ (1986, p. 130). These points have a wider application. Public
management is sometimes criticized for being more inflexible or rigid than under
the traditional model. In fact there is far greater flexibility in the ways managers
can operate. Public managers have a number of political weapons available to
them. They can co-opt or persuade interest groups to assist them; they can go into
the public arena. In short, the game being played is one of politics, broadly conceived.
It is bureaucratic politics, personal politics: any kind of politics. This
means that politicians are rather more important than before, but because the
game they play is one they understand, the managerial system may be more realistic
than under the traditional model where public servants pretended they were
not involved in politics and did not need to deal with the outside.