Public Management and Administration - Owen E.hughes

262 Public Management and Administration
is superseded, it is more the case that gradually paradigms change. A paradigm
based on formal bureaucracy, separation of politics from administration and
one-best-way thinking, combined with unusual employment practices cannot
easily compete with that of the public management reforms, in terms of the
strength of underlying theory.
The public management paradigm
Where the critics may have a point about paradigms is that a new one must be
based on very different premises than its competitor. It is argued here that the
public management reforms are sufficiently different from the traditional
model to be regarded as another paradigm.
The basic paradigms describing the public sector are those outlined by Ostrom
as derived from two opposing forms of organization: bureaucracy and markets.
Perhaps some consideration needs to be given to whether or not bureaucracy and
markets are alternate forms of organization. Dunleavy notes that most economic
analyses of bureaucracy posit ‘a fundamental dichotomy between two ways of
coordinating social activities in a industrialized societies – markets and command
structures’ (1991, p. 151). Ostrom certainly does this. He argued bureaucratic
organization is an alternative decision-making arrangement to individualistic
choice. The key difference between the two forms of organization is that between
choice and compulsion; allowing the market to find an agreed result or having it
imposed by a bureaucratic hierarchy. A market does not have the force of compulsion
behind it. At this most fundamental level, bureaucracy and markets are
very different and are based on very different ways of looking at the world.
A further look at what is involved in the public management reforms may
assist in assessing its candidature as a paradigm. An OECD report describes the
reforms as a new paradigm and sets out the key points involved (1998, p. 13):
In most Member countries public management reform has involved a major cultural shift in
response to a new paradigm of public management, which attempts to combine modern
management practices with the logic of economics, while still retaining the core public service
values. This new management paradigm emphasizes results in terms of ‘value for
money’, to be achieved through management by objectives, the use of markets and markettype
mechanisms, competition and choice, and devolution to staff through a better matching
of authority, responsibility and accountability. In place of the old paradigm, which was
largely process and rules driven with an emphasis on hierarchical decision-making and control,
the new public management environment is characterized by:
● a focus on results in terms of efficiency, effectiveness, quality of service and whether
the intended beneficiaries actually gain;
● a decentralized management environment which better matches authority and responsibility
so that decisions on resource allocation and service delivery are made closer
to the point of delivery, and which provide scope for feedback from clients and other
interest groups;