The Traditional Model of Public Administration - Essay Example

Running Head: Financial management reforms "Financial management reforms must lie at the heart of any overall public sector reform initiative. Financial management in the public sector is more difficult [Name of writer appears here] [Name of institution appears here] "Financial management reforms must lie at the heart of any overall public sector reform initiative. Financial management in the public sector is more difficult The traditional model of public administration is based on the bureaucracy theory. It is characterized as "an administration under the formal control of the political leadership, based on a strictly hierarchical model of bureaucracy, staffed by permanent, neutral and anonymous officials, motivated only by the public interest, serving any governing party equally, and not contributing to policy but merely administrating those policies decided by the politicians." The traditional model of administration was an improvement compared to the earlier one, which was regarded as the replacement of personal administration with an impersonal system based on rules. Indeed these were central concerns of philosophers such as Aristotle in ancient Greece, Confucius in ancient China, and Machiavelli in medieval Italy. But the conception of the activist, bureaucratic state, despite its earlier parallels, is in practice an essentially twentieth century phenomenon. The characteristics of this bureaucratic state were set out most clearly by the German sociologist Max Weber in 1920, with strong echoes of earlier writings by the American Woodrow Wilson (Hughes, 1998): "There should be a clear separation between politics and administration, and therefore distinct roles for political leaders (normally elected) and state officials (normally appointed). "Administration should be continuous and predictable, operating on the basis of written, unambiguous rules "Administrators should be recruited on the basis of qualifications, and should be trained professionals "Organization should reflect a functional division of labour and a hierarchical arrangement of tasks and people "Resources should belong to the organization, not to individuals working in the organization "The principal motivation should be a sense of duty, or public interest, which should override organizational or private interests. Further refinement of the traditional model of public administration came through the application of private sector based ideas of 'scientific management', which introduced efficient operational methods based on standardization of tasks, 'one best way' of fitting workers to tasks, and systematic control of tasks, processes, and workers (Hughes, 1998,33-34). These principles were easily adapted to bureaucratic structures. A final addition to the traditional model was the application of the insights of social psychology, in a 'human relations' approach which is often contrasted with the scientific management approach, but in practice sought to achieve greater efficiency of performance too, though by paying attention to the need to motivate workers rather than merely control and direct them (Hughes, 1998, 35-6). Unfortunately, the ideal bureaucracy model had never happened in the real life. The critique of the traditional model is based in a comparison of the 'ideal' model of bureaucracy with what happens in real systems of public administration. The following differences can be identified: i. In many systems there is no clear separation between policy and administration, either in terms of decision-making processes or the respective roles of administrators and politicians, which are often fused together. ii. Decision-making processes do not, in any case, conform to the rules of technical and economic rationality, but are affected and shaped by processes of conflict, negotiation and exchange between interests both internal and external to the state bureaucracy iii. Hierarchy and centralization combine with a formal, sometimes slavish adherence to rules and procedures to produce defects (or bureaucratic pathologies) such as delay, inflexibility, unresponsiveness, and an arrogant disregard for the interests and concerns of citizens iv. Bureaucracies are characterized therefore by a process of 'top down' implementation which frequently produces inappropriate policies and inadequate results. v. The range of transactions within the modern system of state administration, both internally and with external organizations and interests, is so extensive that this produces a degree of complexity much greater than the model would suggest. Due to those limitations, the practice of traditional model resulted in the overlarge government constitution and inefficient political operation in the late 1970's in most developed countries such as UK and USA. Associated with the new development of economic and organizational theories, the idea of New Public Management" (NPM) became more and more popular. Those theories are coherent challenging with the problem of traditional model. The first challenge comes from the market economic aspect, which is concerned with the public choice. The public choice theory argues who is able to make the best choice, the government or the individual Public choice advocates the maximisation of choice by individuals for both individual freedom and efficiency reasons. Dunleavy (1986) describes people are "rational actors" because they always seek the biggest possible benefits and the least costs in their decisions. Meanwhile the bureaucrats in the traditional model will attempt to maximize their own utility, which would overstate the budget and the cost of providing service. Following this idea, there is a great wave of privatization and contracting out activities in most developed countries, especially in UK. This period brought a substantial restructuring of the public sector under a strategy of 'privatization', applied to the publicly owned industries, the major utilities, and the services sector. The key procedure here was known as the Prior Options Review, under which all ministries were required to consider all activities and ask: 1. Is the work necessary If not, abolish it. 2. Must government be responsible for it If not, privatise it 3. Should government provide it directly If not, contract it out to the private sector 4. If provided directly, decentralise to executive or other non-departmental agency The problem with the traditional model focuses on the Weberian model of bureaucracy. Critics question on the efficiency and responsiveness of bureaucracy. "Formal bureaucracy may have its advantages but it is also argued to breed timeservers not innovators, it encourages administrators to be risk-averse rather than risk-taking, and to waste scare resources instead of using them efficiently"(Hughes, 1998). Hughes also presents the reasons for the inefficiency of bureaucracy. Firstly, "there was always some divergence in practice from Weberian principle." Secondly, the rigid, hierarchical structure is also regarded as the killer of efficiency. On the other hand, the bureaucracy model of administration focuses more on the procedure than the result. It is becoming less and less responsive to the rapidly changed environment. Especially when people are more and more concerned with the quality of public services, the traditional model of administration is less and less to be satisfactory. References Batley, R. (1999) The Role of Government in Adjusting Economies: An Overview of Findings, International Development Department, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama Commonwealth Secretariat (1996) Current Good Practices and New Developments in Public Service Management: The Commonwealth Portfolio London Commonwealth Secretariat Dunleavy, P., and Hood, C (1994) From Old Public Administration to New Public Management in Public Money and Management 14, 3, pp 9-16 Hughes, O. (1998) Public Management and Administration: an Introduction 2nd edition, London Macmillan Kolthoff, E.and Huberts, L (2002) Integrity and NPM available at: http://64.91.236.79/ethicscommunity/documents/Integrity%20and%20NPM.pdf Minogue, M. (1998) Changing the State: Concepts and Practice in the Reform of the Public Sector. In C. Polidano, C. (1999) The New Public Management in Developing Countries. Institute for Development Policy and Management, University of Manchester, Manchester World Bank (1997) The State in a Changing World, World Development Report 1997 Oxford, Oxford University Press World Bank (1996) From Plan to Market, World Development Report 1996, Oxford, Oxford University Press World Bank (1995) Bureaucrats in Business: the Economics and Politics of Government Ownership, World Bank Research Report, Oxford, Oxford University Press Read More