Public Management:
A Vision Statement
• A self-conscious field of study, organized in
four subject areas, approached from
multiple reference disciplines, oriented to
improving lay probing of theoretical and
situational issues, with individual works
meeting appropriate standards of inquiry.
Field of Public Management
• Subject areas
– Designing programmatic organizations
• Closely related with organizational aspects of policy design in
substantive areas of governmental action
– Executive leadership in government
• Focus is on the strategic apex of organizational units within
government as well as on “the centre”
• Closely related to strategic management and study of politicalbureaucratic relations
– Managing government operations
• Focus is on the design, maintenance, and strengthening of the
operating core of units within government as well as on the
planning, budgeting, control, execution, and evaluation of
performed tasks
Field of Public Management
• Subject areas
– Public Management Policy
• Focus is on public management policy choices, i.e.
government-wide institutional rules and routines in the areas of
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–
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expenditure planning & financial management
civil service & labor relations
procurement
organization & methods
audit & evaluation
• Traditional subject of public administration, but perspective
comes from public policy and management
• Focus is on central co-ordinating agencies and other oversight
bodies
– program agencies seen as “implementers”
Field of Public Management
• Reference Disciplines
– Political Science
• Study of institutions within a governmental system
• Study of public policy-making processes and events within
various policy domains
• Traditions of normative argument about such topics as
responsible and good government
– Organization Science
• Study of organizational learning, error, and change
• Broader conceptions of decision-making and organizational
life
– Management
• Schools of thought, such as strategic management
• Functional disciplines, such as accounting and control
Field of Public Management
• Reference Disciplines
– Public Policy
• Provides a functional more than institutional view of good
government
• Oriented to issues of design, control, and evaluation of
“systems of systems” that shape outcomes of public action
• Sensitive to the public policy-making process, while focused
on the substance of policy problems
– Historiography
• Provides a framework for studying experiences
– Law
• (see political science)
Field of Public Management
(Reprise)
• A self-conscious field of academic study,
organized in four subject areas, approached
from multiple reference disciplines, oriented
to improving lay probing of theoretical and
situational issues, with individual works
meeting appropriate standards of scholarly
inquiry.
Your instructor
• Academic centered in the field of public management
– Primarily concerned with the subjects of public management
policy, executive leadership in government, and managing
government operations
• Interested in theoretical argumentation about these subjects
– Includes doctrinal issues arising in varied circumstances
– Committed to idea that such argumentation should be informed by
research and analysis about experiences
• Research questions about experiences usually drawn from
economics and management, especially financial management
I&CPM Goals
The course pursues a central theme: The big
questions about international public affairs are
about governance—how markets and political
systems shape the lives of citizens.
• Identify and explore the major themes in
international policy. “Globalization” has emerged
as one of the touchstones of the 21st century.
Often lost has been the simultaneous rise of
devolution. Both trends raise tough questions
about the role of nation states. The course will
investigate these trends and their implications.
I&CPM Goals
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Examine the links between public management and
international policy.
To learn how to analyze processes of administrative
reform and modernization.
To understand similarities and differences among recent
experiences with administrative reform and
modernization, drawing on comparative research
To develop an appreciation for how public policy-making
is related to public management
I&CPM Topics
• How to talk about public management
• Governance & Management
• Old public management
– Bureaucracy
– Personnel
– Budgeting
• New public management
– New organizational forms and self definition
– HR Management
– Financial management & control
I&CPM Topics
• Defeating/Overcoming corruption
• Public management in developing nations
• Managing international organizations
– WTO, IMF, WB
– EC, UN
I&CPM Technology
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Lectures
Reading
Seminars
Formative Essays
Class Presentations
Joining Up
• Access Course Website/Outline
– www.willamette.edu/~fthompso/pubfin/ICPM.html
• “Register” by Sending me an E-mail
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Address: fthompso@willamette.edu
Introduce Yourself
Indicate Preferred Presentation Topic
Indicate Timetable Clashes for Class
A Common Title
• P Aucoin, The New Public
Management: Canada in
Comparative Perspective
(1995)
• E Ferlie, et. al. The New
Public Management in
Action (1996)
• C. Hood, “A Public
Management for All
Seasons” (1991); The Art
of the State (1998)
N
P
M
But What is the
New Public Management?
Initial Concepts of NPM
• Administrative Philosophy or Doctrine
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–
–
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Hands-on Management
Focus on Results
Consumer Orientation
Stress on Transparency and Accountability
• Style of Organizing Public Services
– Executive Agencies
– Contracting out
– Quasi-markets
• International Trend
An Initial Model
Style
+
Doctrine
x 3
=
Trend
Hood (1994)
Strengths of Initial Concept
• Recognized that “public management” had
emerged on the public policy agenda
• Focused attention on change over time
rather than on stable properties of executive
government
• Invited analysis of ideas and arguments as
part of the process of change
Limitations of Initial Concept
• Focus on “international trend” was
incongruous with variation-finding research
strategies
• Preoccupation with “acceptance of ideas”
downplayed the dynamics of policy and
organizational change
Some Ways Forward
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Understand why change occurs
Differentiate among policy areas
Examine the policy-making process in detail
Employ variation-finding research strategies
Comparative Research on
Public Management Policy
Research Goal
Understand change in public management policy
Research Style
Research Objective
Case-oriented
Limited historical generalizations
Research Design
Select case
outcome
Select explanatory
framework/models
Select
cases
Research Task
Explain similarities and differences among cases
using explanatory framework/models
Disaggregating the NPM
Elephant by Policy Domain
Overall
Government
Policy
Public
Mgm’t
State
Enterprise
Macro
Economy
Health
Education
Defining Public Management
Policies
Government-wide institutional rules and routines
that guide, constrain, and motivate the public
service,
typically managed by central agencies
What is included in public
management policy?
• Government-wide institutional rules and
routines in several areas
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–
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–
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expenditure planning and financial management
civil service and labor relations
procurement
organization and methods
audit and evaluation
Illustration
• Audit and Evaluation
– Rayner Scrutinies
– Value-for-Money Audit
Mandate
• Expenditure
Management
– Financial Management
Initiative
– Resource Budgeting
and Accounting
• Organization and
Methods
– Next Steps Initiative
– Citizens Charter
Initiative
• Procurement
– Competing for Quality
– Private Finance
Initiative
What Public Management
Policies are Not
•
•
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Broad Political Reform
Political Decentralization
Executive Leadership
Program Designs
Reform Themes
The Benchmark Cases
UK
1979
Aus
NZ
199?
Cases are Essentially Narratives
Contemporaneous Events
Prior
Events
Events within the Episode
1980
1998
t
Narrative Structure of a
Single Experience
Contemporaneous Events
Prior Events
The Episode
Later
Events
Related Events
t
Studying Public Management
Policy Change
Period II
Period I
CE1 Economic Policymaking
PE 1 Election
Campaigns
Contemporaneous Events
PE 2 Economic
Events
E1 Expenditure Planning, Financial Management,
Audit, and Evaluation
Prior Events
The Episode
E2 Civil Service & Labor Relations
PE 3 Earlier
Reforms
E3 Procurement
Later
Events
Future
Reforms
RE1 Operating/Reforming Line Agenices
Related Events
t
What do we Achieve?
• Proximate results comparative research designs
include
– An understanding of why and how change occurs
• In the form of limited historical generalizations (Ragin)
– An understanding of “technologies” of public
management and policy implementation and “analysis
of smart practices”
• In the form of empirically and theoretically based claims about
relationships between system features and performance
outcomes (Bardach)
How Should we Compare?
• Answering comparative questions requires
narrating each experience studied in a systematic
(similar) way
– Apply the same descriptive scheme to classify events
comprising each experience
– Focus attention on explaining event outcomes within
the episode
• Decide what is analytically interesting about events in the
experience
• Characterize event outcomes accordingly
– Perform both cross-event and intra-event analysis
– Use similar theories to explain event outcomes
• Provide analytical narratives that explain what led to the event
outcomes
How Should we Compare?
• Compare the narratives to answer the
comparative research questions about
– stability and change in policy
Experiences Studied
• Public management policy-making in the
1980s and 1990s
– NPM benchmark cases (UK, Australia, NZ)
– US’s Federal government
– Russia, Georgia, Armenia
Comparing Narratives
• General research question
– Why did comprehensive public management
policy change occur in the UK, Australia, and
New Zealand in the 1980s and 1990s, but not in
Germany, USA, Spain, Mexico, Brazil, and
Thailand?
Related comparative questions
• How have linkages between economic policy-making and
the specialized policy agendas of central agencies varied
among experiences?
• What have been the mechanisms by which managerial and
economics ideas have affected the public management
policy-making process? How have these mechanisms
varied across cases
• What have been the developmental dynamics of public
management policy-making?
– How have these been influenced by varied but stable factors, such
as organization of the center of government?
– Have platforming and momentum effects been at work?
• What kinds of interference effects have limited public
management policy change? How varied are the sources
of these effects?
Review
• Public management is a self-conscious field
of study, organized in four subject areas,
approached from multiple reference
disciplines, oriented to improving lay
probing of theoretical and situational issues,
with individual works meeting appropriate
standards of inquiry.
Review
• Designing programmatic organizations
– Closely related with organizational aspects of policy design in
substantive areas of governmental action
• Executive leadership in government
– Focus is on the strategic apex of organizational units within
government as well as on “the centre”
• Managing government operations
– Focus is on the operating core of units within government and their
relationship to other parts, external co-producers, and clients
• Public management policies
– Focus is on government-wide institutional rules and routines, as
well as central coordinating agencies
Review
Contemporaneous Events
Prior Events
The Episode
Later
Events
Related Events
t
Review
The Field of
Public
Management
Reference
Disciplines
The
Work
Experiences
Studied
The Work
The
Reader