Public Management and Administration - Owen E.hughes

Government loomed large in economic activity, but did not have the competence
or standing to be successful and its larger role enhanced the power of the
bureaucracy even more than in Western countries. Government became by far
the most important societal actor, controlling the details of the economy in
addition to its normal functions. This needed to change.
Following the end of the Cold War and a global turning away from statist and
socialist ideas, most of the developing world, with some notable exceptions
such as North Korea, has been adopting principles of free markets and participation
in the world trade system. In addition, there are many more countries
adopting democratic elections in comparison with the one-party states previously
common. As part of these changes and under the direct encouragement of
international financial institutions such as the World Bank and the International
Monetary Fund, many developing countries are adopting principles of market
liberalization, including cutting the public sector and restructuring to follow
the principles of public management. There are arguments for and against the
principle of adopting public management in developing countries. Holmes and
Shand argue there should be greater attention to the implications of the management
reforms for developing countries adding ‘we believe that the basic
principles are relevant for every country’ (Holmes and Shand, 1995, p. 577).
On the other hand, Minogue argues that ‘sophisticated reforms such as market
testing and internal markets are unlikely to work outside developed economies’
(1998, p. 34).
Whether managerial principles will work in developing countries as they
have in the West is far from clear. Indeed, it is argued by some critics that new
public management does not work in developed countries, let alone developing
ones. There may be some danger in adopting new managerialist approaches
yet, the traditional bureaucratic model was not a great success in developing
countries either.
The traditional model in developing countries
Public Management in Developing Countries 219
It almost goes without saying that the public sectors of developing countries
can be characterized as following the traditional, bureaucratic model of public
administration. Weberian bureaucracy and Taylor’s scientific management
were successful exports to developed and lesser developed countries alike and
formed the basis of the model adopted in the period following independence.
There must be some speculation as to why this occurred to quite the extent it
did. Perhaps the prescriptions of the traditional model struck a chord with earlier
forms of administration, perhaps the inherent elitism was familiar. Some of
Weber’s ideas came from the Orient; it could be argued that China, for example,
had its own long history of bureaucracy going back as far as Confucius and with
some continuity today (Aufrecht and Li, 1995, pp. 175–82). More likely is that
at the time of its adoption in the post-independence period, the traditional model