UNIVERSITY

OF

ZIMBABWE
DEPARTMENT

OF

POLITICAL

NAME

LIVEN MUTOKOSI

REG

R139344R

PROGRAMME

HAD III

COURSE

PUBLIC SECTOR DEVELOPMENT.

LECTURER

MRS CHIWARE

T/A

MRS GWESHE

QUESTION

EXAMINES

THE

AND ADMINISTRATIVE STUDIES

RELEVANCE

OF

THE

ADMINISTRATION PARADIGM IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR DISCOURSE.

SUBMISION DATE 06.10.15

NEW

PUBLIC

This essay is about discussing the relevance of new public administration (NPA) paradigm in the
public sector discourse. Aspects of the concept that are to be discussed vary from; change and
relevance, values and equity, fairness and justice. It is the view of this paper that, the concept of
new public administration is context specific, implying that the relevance should not be a generic
one. As a result, the essay shall use case studies from New Zealand, Australia, United States of
America, Zimbabwe and South Africa. The essay shall also interrogate critics concerning the
applicability of the concept. These include the discussion of new public management concept.
However, there is a lot of confusion concerning these two concepts, some use the concepts
interchangeably and some separately, but this paper shall discuss them as one inseparable
concept. The argument being that, NPA addresses the objectives to remedy the flaws of public
sector and New Public Management (NPM) addresses the methodology to achieve or realise the
objectives by emphasising on the culture of management. Therefore, this ensuing paper shall
further discuss the literature around the above raised arguments as it unfolds.
The concept of NPA was adopted as a shift from traditional public administration (TPA) or the
scientific management. The concept was developed in the post war period in 1960s when
agencies such as World Health Organisation and UNICEF was formed to alleviate post war
human suffering such as unemployment, poverty among others. However, these organisations
found it difficult to accomplish their task, accusing the then governments of being
ineffectiveness

and

inefficiency

(http://www.crackias.com/pdfs/samplenotesofpublicadministrationoptional.pdf).

The

NPA

concept can be traced from the Honey report on high education and public service 1967, and the
report stress the issues of institutional shortcomings. The Philadelphia conference on the theory
and practice of public administration 1967, the emphasise was on progressive transformation
from a police state to a welfare state and it recommended that governments should pay
increasing attention to social problems to promote social equity. Further, the Minnow brook
conference 1968, which advocated for normative approach in place of the value-free approach
(Marini 1971:168). Thus the concept emphasise the notion that, public administration does not
function in vacuum, and the administrators should be responsive towards the needs of the society
and

addresses

itself

to

the

problems

and

malaise

that

afflict

(http://www.crackias.com/pdfs/samplenotesofpublicadministrationoptional.pdf).

the

society

Change is one of the tenants of NPA. Public administration should be change oriented and
respond to the various socio-economic and political changes in the society. Emphasis is herein
put on operational flexibility, organisational adaptability and capacity building. The Australian
case clearly reflects this aspect of NPA. For instance, there was division of responsibility
between the federal government and the states, sometimes controlled by different parties in
1980s, this was to enhance operational flexibility in a bid to respond holistically to any change
be it socio-economic or political and to enhance organisational adaptability (Ferlie et al
1996:17). Further, there was a reform movement wave in Australia since 1980s, which
emphasises on more markets, incentives and importation of private sector techniques (Marsh
1994). The labour government stresses on a democratic and equity-based agenda, more
consensual and less top down reform style. These reforms were more successful to the labour
government because of democratic governance of the labour government.
However, in most developing countries in Africa such as Zimbabwe, the reforms proved
unsuccessful because of the type of governance and the central government grip to the affairs of
the devolved units such as local governments through the use of legislations such as the Urban
Councils Act and Rural District Councils Act which continued to limit operational flexibility of
local government in Zimbabwe (Madhekeni 2012). In South Africa, the aspect of operational
flexibility is relatively a success story, since there is clear devolution of central government and
the Unicities, such as Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg and Pretoria among others.
Nevertheless, the aspect of central government controlling is still prevailing, not only in SA but
in most developing countries as a result of vertical divided authority(). The mere fact that,
opposition parties are in control of other cities within a state, the central government continue to
sabotage or to act subversively in an effort to win elections. For instance, ANC and the DA party
in South Africa, ZANU PF and MDC in Zimbabwe, the former acting subversively to the later.
As a result, the aspect of operational flexibility is being limited in most developing countries.
NPA also stresses on values. This aspect opposes the notion of politics-administration dichotomy
of the scientific management or behavioral science approaches. This aspect of NPA advocates
that, public administration should be value-oriented, commitment to the ideology and philosophy
of the state, personal and organisational values, ethics and commitment towards the goals. The
overall focus of NPA is to make administration be less generic, and more public, less descriptive

and more prescriptive, less institution-oriented and more client oriented, less neutral and more
normative, but should be no less scientific (). Boston (1987) argues that, the labour government
of New Zealand adopted this reform in 1984. As a result, the government commercialized many
functions performed by public organisations, the human resource management policy moves
away from national system of pay bargaining to a more decentralized and enterprise based
systems. Further, there was a new accountability regime especially for Chief Executive Officers,
with emphasis on fixed term contracts, performance-based pay and performance reviews (Ferlie
et al 1996:16). Boston () argues that, these reforms in New Zealand proves successful and they
initiated an efficient public sector in New Zealand.
In addition, in America, the Presidential Private Sector Survey on cost control undertaken by the
Grace Commission in 1982-84, asked to report on ways of securing better value in civil service
using private sector best practices. However, some countries remain locked in the dictates of
nepotism, and politics of homeboyism as alluded by Makumbe (2010) especially the
Zimbabwean case, where quid pro quo arrangements are still into play and aspects of values are
not being taken into cognisance.
NPA was also concerned with equity, fairness and justice. Social justice/equity, distributive
justice and goal of equity should be the central concern of public administration, and it should
aspire to address the grievances of the minority thereby promoting harmony and integration in
the society. For instance, in the American case, the introduction of the Civil Service Reform Act
in 1978 during the Carter administration, provided for performance appraisal and merit pay
systems with new demotions and dismissal procedures that was more objective and efficient in a
quest to redress equity and social justice.
However, NPA was short lived; it was overridden by the events and the ambitious adoption of
NPM by most governments. The development of NPM brings about the new culture of
management in order to realise the objectives of NPA. Elements of NPM place more emphasis
on the new culture of management for instance issues to do with decentralization, market
oriented public sector, liberalization, privatization, contracting out, results based management, egovernance among other aspects. These aspects if adopted will enhance the achievement of
relevance, change, equity, fairness, justice and values in the public sector. Therefore, with the
emergence of NPM, the concept of NPA was overshadowed in the early 1980s. As already

alluded, this paper subscribes to the notion that, NPA and NPM cannot be separated since the
later adopted as a means to realise the principles of the former.
In conclusion, this essay was about discussing the relevance of NPA in the public sector
discourse. Aspects of NPA that was discussed include; change and relevance, values, equity,
fairness and justice. With the cases used above, it is apparent that, the relevance of NPA is
context specific as reflected by the cases of America, South Africa, Australia, Zimbabwe and
New Zealand. However, NPA was short lived and it was overridden by the ambitious adoption of
NPM in the public sector discourse which place more emphasis on the culture of management.
As a result, it is the view of this paper that, NPA and NPM cannot be treated as divergent
concept, rather they are inseparable, for one specifies the means to achieve the objectives or
principles set by another.

REFERENCE LIST
O'Leary, R. , Slyke, D. M. V. and Kim, S. 2010. The Future of Public Administration around the
World: The Minnowbrook Perspective. Washington: George Town University Press.

Ferlie, E., Ashburner, L., Fitzgerald, L., and Pettigrew, A. 1996. New Public Management in
Action. New York: Oxford University Press.

Boston 1987.
Marsh 199
Marini, F. 1971. Toward a New Public Administration: The Minnowbrook
Perspective. New York: Chandler Publishing Company.
Makumbe 2010.
Madhekeni 2012. Archiles Heel