соЦиально-ЭконоМиЧеская МодеРнизаЦия казахстана: стРатегия «казахстан – 2050»
daryoush farsimadan
Relevance of the New Public Management
Model for Public Administration Reform
and Civil Service Modernisation for Central
Asian States
ÌÅÌËÅÊÅÒÒІÊ
ãîñóäàðñòâåííîå
óïðàâëåíèå è
ãîñóäàðñòâåííàÿ
ñëóæáà
24
25
Politicians in NIS have shown interest towards Western Countries experiences to find solutions for
their complex problems. The relative lack of domestic expertise, as well as the politicians wishes to
find fast and ready-made solutions to the complex problems of their public management may explain
this interest. For that many of those countries have entered into various bilateral and multilateral
technical assistance cooperation with the international development partners such as EuropAid,
World Bank, USAID, others
Several other factors have added weight to the role of technical cooperation in public administration
reform and civil service modernisations in NIS. One has been the obvious concern of not wasting
much time and energy in “re-invention of the wheel”; the mistakes that others have made, can offer
valuable lessons. Another set of factors flow from two powerful trends, notably the globalisation and
the technological progress. Both are rapidly transforming the ways in which markets operate the
methods of public service delivery, production, transportation, and information management.
During the past two decades, transitions from socialism to the market economy have already
entailed significant changes in the structure and nature of the NIS. That has primarily been in the
form of public enterprise privatisation and the reorientation of the public policies emanating from
public institutions that are on the front lines of economic reform.
In the midst of these radical changes, reforms of the public administration (the core government
apparatus) and civil service modernisation have taken a slower path and their reform could be
characterised by continuous and incremental changes rather than by a single big bang.
The critical effects of those reforms to the transition process have not been significant, and
that draws attention to the fact that, contrary to the past beliefs and even current language, the
administrative machinery that is run by civil servants is not a passive instrument of the political
system. It is a dependent variable, the one that starkly affects the nature and the workings of the
political system.
The public administration is devised to serve political system and thus it should closely reflect
the salient characteristic and main features of that system; and in other words in order to function
effectively, it must function in accordance with its main values.
During the last decade, the NIS have embarked now-and-then reforming and modernising their
public administration and civil service system through various projects and undertakings, mostly
supported by international organisations, e.g. European Commission, the World Bank and United
Nation Development Program (UNDP) and others. “Typical” objectives of these projects have been
restructuring of the public administration system towards an efficient organisation, through:
- Downsizing of the public administration by reducing number of the public employees and also
reduction number of ministries and public agencies;
- Utilization of efficient methods of operation that are applied in Western countries
’
public
administrations;
- Decentralisation of the administrative functions, towards the delegation of authorities and
responsibilities to the local self-administrative bodies;
- Professionalization of the civil service by establishment of various mechanisms such as
implementation of civil service law, enforcement of employment regulations and bylaws, and wide
range of in-service- training activities;
- Privatisation of public enterprises and services and attempting contracting out, provision and
delivery of public goods and services, e.g. in the area of secondary and thirty health services,
university education and local transportation;
- Exposure of senior civil servants to the “best practices” of public administration in Western
countries through “study tours”, with the objective of demonstrating how the modern public
administration functions;
- Legal and judicial systems development.
The accumulative characteristics of these objectives to a great extend bear resemblance to the
main elements of the New Public Management, which has been the dominant paradigm of the public
management reform models in the Western European countries in 1980s and 1990s
1
.
The New Public Management has been driven from Managerialist school of business
administration as funded by the contribution of Fayol and Taylor. It advocates the application of
1 There are three general and competing approaches to the public administration: one considers it as being essentially management,
another emphasis its political nature and the third one is concerned with the legalistic concerns and processes. The managerial approach
has two subsets, which are traditional and the new public management (NPM). Each prospective favour a different set of values and
offers distinctive organisational approaches for maximising these values and also considers the role of individuals in different ways.
look
to: Rosenbloom D. (1998), Public Administration – Understanding Management, Politics, and Law in the Public Sector, forth edition.
classical managerial principles and instruments in organisation of public administration, such as clear
analytical distinction between politics and administration, leading to a practical separation between
politics and administration, and also resulting in practical separation between the process of political
decision-making by cabinet of minister and parliament and the administrative implementation of these
decisions that conventional are concentrated in government agencies. These method emphasis
internal as well as external controls over bureaucracy.
According to the above-mentioned justification it is of utmost importance to investigate whether
models and concepts which are driven from the New Public Management and have been applied in
reforms of the Western European countries’ public administration, could be of relevance for those
New Independent States that embarking on their public administration and civil service reforms.
Public Administration in the NIS is built upon the political-administrative remnants of the Soviet
era. The former administrative structure was an integral part of the Communist Party’s Politburo. The
demise of the Party structure left significant institutional void and administrative distortions. Along with
the administrative distortion, the transition to market economy also surfaced the mismatch between
the administrative and managerial capacities’ of governments in performing new roles and duties
and that has been an additional impetus to reform the public administration and the civil service.
The principle argumentation of this paper is whether it is mistaken to suppose that a program of
reform that had been successfully carried out within other politico-administrative systems could be
transplanted to another. Although the public administration reform is a political undertaking, but its
success would not only depend to the political will of the ruling elites, rather on various elements
including administrative system capacities to carry out the reform activities.
Thus, to imagine that, by simple act of political will, the “New Zealand Model” could be exported
to, say, Finland or Netherlands would be quite unrealistic, however beneficial that model might be
judged with its country of origin
1
. That triggers two fundamental questions:
Whether the models of public administration reform and strategies that are applied in the Western-
advanced countries based on the New Public Management concepts would provide suitable model
for administration reform and civil service modernisation?
Whether copying those reform models and applying their strategies might rather aggravate those
problems?
The above-mentioned questions are explorative in nature rather than explanative, due to that
nature, and it is unrealistic to harvest simple “this is better way that is not good” recipe, for three
obvious reasons:
- If such straightforward lessons were available, they would already have been plucked from the
tree of knowledge produced by PUMA/OECD
2
, academic experts, or wide arrays of management
consultants that could have made good business from advising governments;
- The nature of the public management reform does not lend itself to simple, formulaic rules.
The number of potentially influential variables (resource climate, available skills, ideological context,
formal authority available to reformers, stability of political setting and etc.) is too large for the
experiences of one group of reforms to be transferred to another group of reforms in another country
without a very careful examination of the context from which they come
3
;
- The problems in reform and/or “re-invention” of the public administration system are numerous,
ranging from lack of essential data on administrative service to lack of transparency, inconsistency in
legal and structural functional and insufficient capacity in policy formulation and policy coordination
process.
In the following model a “generic” framework for analysing, and describing effects of the main forces
that are at work in both driving and restraining directions of the change in the public administration
and civil service are illustrated. The idea of this Model is borrowed from Christopher Pollitt & Geert
Bouckaert (1997), and new factors are added into it.
From conceptual point of view, the Model is a
heuristic device
4
and is based on the perception
about the public administration reform is a dynamic and political undertaking, which interacts with its
volatile environment.
The Model contains of four “
internal elements”, i.e. (A) Socio-Economical Forces, (B) Political
Forces, (C) Administrative System and (E) Ruling Elites, which their collective actions and interactions
1 Pollitt C, Hanney S, Packwood T, Rothwell S and Roberts S (1997), Trajectories and Options: An International Perspective on
Implementation of Finnish Public Management Reforms – Ministry of Finance, Helsinki, Finland, p.9
2 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development/Public Management forum.
3 Pollitt C, Hanney S, Packwood T, Rothwell S and Roberts S (1997), Trajectories and Options: p.19
4 This term is borrowed from Christopher Pollitt & Geert Bouckaert (1997)
соЦиально-ЭконоМиЧеская МодеРнизаЦия казахстана: стРатегия «казахстан – 2050»
daryoush farsimadan
Relevance of the New Public Management
Model for Public Administration Reform
and Civil Service Modernisation for Central
Asian States
ÌÅÌËÅÊÅÒÒІÊ
ãîñóäàðñòâåííîå
óïðàâëåíèå è
ãîñóäàðñòâåííàÿ
ñëóæáà
26
27
create the “
system of change”. The principle of this Model is borrowed from Christopher Pollitt
and Geert Bouckaert and new elements added to that by this Author including the Role of the
Administrative System.
The actions and interactions of the internal elements are effected by three “
external elements”,
i.e. (F) Degree of Organisational Stability & Complexity of the Administrative system, (G) Degree
of Political Stability, and (H) Degree of Economical Stability, which are the outcome of “
another
system of change”. Although these two systems are interactive, the direction of their interactions
and the degree of influences are only looked into in a general fashion and the focus is put rather on
the interplay of the “internal elements”.
The Administrative System in this Model is considered as the “
agent of change” that is involved
in the process of implementation of the reform rather than a pure driving and/or restraining force.
Theoretically, the degrees of the influence, which is or could be exerted by the Administrative System
over the Reform Process, depend on three interrelated factors:
- The organizational complexity
1
;
- Dependency of the Ruling Elites on the Administrative System as the main tool of governance;
- The Administration’s ability to control allocation and amount of resources that would be devoted
to the reform process.
In some countries due to the absence of professional civil service and total politicisation of the
public administration, the ruling-Elites control and also being a part of the Administrative System;
although in various occasions, when the creditability of the Administration System have been at
stake they (the Ruling –Elites) separated themselves from the Administration and acted as critics.
This duality has been due to the characteristics of the transition.
The Ruling Elites in this model are considered as the “
agent of refinement”, who take the face-
responsibility of leading the reform and also assume the role of “
interacting & mediating agent”.
That is mediating and interacting between the Socio-Economical, Political forces in one hand with
the Administrative System on other hand.
The reason of situating the Ruling Elite in the centre of the Model is their dominant position that
has emerged from the process of transition.
The amount of Financial & Human Resource, which would be devoted to the reform process, is a
secret weapon under the control of the Ruling Elites. That is shared with the Administrative System.
The amount of financial and human resources devoted to the reform activities would affect the
reform process and define the real priorities.
Along with the effects exerted by the internal and the external elements over the (D)
the reform
Process, it creates its own sub system, which in turn generates priorities that have consequences on
the national priorities. That becomes a tool in the hand of the Administration System and Ruling Elites
to undertake various changes within the Administrative System, and justify their actions accordingly.
The important part of the interplay between the internal elements results from the action and
interaction between the Ruling Elites and Administrative System, as following:
- While the Ruling Elites in government and parliament deal with elaboration of laws and other
general rules for the Reform, the elements of the Administrative System, i.e. civil servants and public
employees -who are commonly named as bureaucrats, are entrusted with their implementation. This
is the traditional view, which prevails mainly in democratic political system and in some authoritarian
states, and is based on the
doctrine of the political responsibility of ministers, which is at the
root of democratic theory, particularly in the context of cabinet systems
2
.
The distinction between policymaking and policy-implementation is not always clear-cut, nor is
the distinctions between the roles of politicians and of bureaucrats always are precise. This is due to:
- Largely, what constitutes implementation of the Reform is often obscure, where bureaucracies
are involved in a vast array of activities. The Ruling Elites need technical advice, which administrators
and specialists have at their disposal
3
;
1 That refers to the degree of differentiation that exists within an organisation. Horizontal differentiation considers the degree of
horizontal separation between units. Vertical differentiation refers to the depth of the organisational hierarchy. Spatial differentiation
encompasses the degree to which the location of an organisation’s facilities and personnel are dispersed geographically. An increase
in any one of theses three factors will increase an organisation’s complexity.
Robbins Stephen P. (1990) Organisation Theory – Structure, Design, and Application, third edition – Prentice Hall International Edition,
pp. 85-92.
2 As a practical arrangement, it emphasise the special role of politicians and thus enables the administrative structure to remain
when governments change.
3 Mainly in United Kingdom many top civil servants are expected to give advice the question has been debated most thoroughly,
both within the civil service and among politicians.
- Partly, a sharp separation at the level of personnel does not always exist. Members of the
bureaucracy and in particular those at the highest echelons of the Administrative system are naturally
involved in the crucial phase of preparation of parliamentary legislations and other normative acts
which flow from this legislation
1
;
When Reform programs are complex, and dependent to fulfilment of various preconditions, which
at times could be contradictory, to undertake reform activities no longer means to ensure that a given
pronouncement is put into practice, rather it means exercising choice, judgement, and discretion
among a number of different alternatives. Even when plans and programs are not complex and
difficult to undertake, attention needs to be paid to the implementation approaches in a given context.
Apart from the issues in relation to the complexity of the relation between the Ruling Elites and the
Administrative System, there are other issues which results from the structure of the Administrative
System, regarding its ability to change, which depends on several factors:
- Technical competence of the bureaucrats is an important element in comprehending the Reform
and Modernisation undertakings and to perform it effectively and efficiently
2
;
- The level of the Reform and Modernisation implementation is directly affected by the size
of the Administrative System. Despite some benefits of small scale, which tend to relate more to
management than to implementation, the greater the distance between the top and the bottom of
the administrative pyramid, the greater the likelihood that the rule-application process will distort the
intentions of the rule-makers;
Status of control mechanism over the Administrative System including control agencies is an
important issue:
- The controlling agencies are themselves affected by problems of competence and size, as are
the controlled agencies; in particular, the larger the controlling agency, the less likely it is to exercise
its control effectively.
The distance between the controlling and the controlled agency is important. However, it is
not possible to maximise both tightness of control and a good knowledge of the operations of the
agencies to be controlled. Controlling agents are under the close supervision of rule-making agents
only if they are somewhat distant from the agencies that they have to control. However, they will not
be truly familiar with what these agencies do. Conversely, controllers who know what implementing
agencies do have to remain close to these agencies, but are unlikely to control the controlled agencies
effectively, as they are closely involved in the activities of these bodies
3
.
Дата поступления статьи в редакцию 20 октября 2012 года
1 he sharpness of the distinction arises principally in cabinet systems, in presidential systems, for instance in the United States,
there is more of a gradation and there are a larger number of ‘political’ appointments within the departments. Suleiman E.N., (1984)
Bureaucrats and Policy-making
2 See for instance La Palombara, J (1963), Bureaucracies and Political Development
3 Blondel Jean (1990), comparative Government – An Introduction, European University Institute, Florence, Philip Alan, p. 209
соЦиально-ЭконоМиЧеская МодеРнизаЦия казахстана: стРатегия «казахстан – 2050»
daryoush farsimadan
Relevance of the New Public Management
Model for Public Administration Reform
and Civil Service Modernisation for Central
Asian States
ÌÅÌËÅÊÅÒÒІÊ
ãîñóäàðñòâåííîå
óïðàâëåíèå è
ãîñóäàðñòâåííàÿ
ñëóæáà
28
29
удк 354
u. Alakbarov,
rector of the Academy of public administration under the
President of the Republic of Azerbaijan (Azerbaijan)
from sustAinAble deVeloPment to An ecoloGicAl
ciVilizAtion: the Problem of trAininG of the ciVil serVice
Abstract
This article supports a transition to the ecologically civilization, effective mobilization of the green technologies
and implementation of the green mentality and green behavior.
Keywords: ecological civilization, civil service training.
аннотация
В статье предлагается переход к экологической цивилизации, к эффективной мобилизации
экологически чистых (зеленых) технологий и внедрение «зеленого» менталитета и поведения.
Ключевые слова: экологическая цивилизация, подготовка кадров госслужбы.
аңдатпа
Мақалада экологиялық өркениетке, экологиялық таза (жасыл) технологияларды тиімді
мобилизациялауға және «жасыл» діл мен жүріс-тұрысты енгізу ұсынылады.
Тірек сґздер: экологиялық өркениет, мемлекеттік қызмет кадрларын даярлау.
The modern philosophy and practice on environmental management based on ecological
civilization principles, ecologically friendly “green” technologies implementation, ekologization of the
human life style and human behavior, and ”green” mentality formation [1, 2]. Capacity building for
transition to ecological civilization involves the different actions, including formation through formal
and informal education relevant occupational/professional knowledge and skills both on secondary
and tertiary levels, as well as increasing the people’s general knowledge and awareness on
sustainable development. The implementation of this program is based on knowledge and awareness
about existing ecological situation, sources of environmental contamination and degradation,
updated information about the environmental quality assessment and management methodology.
The prevention and mitigation of the environmental damages are also based on information about
ecologically status of environment and possibilities to mitigate the contamination consequences with
mobilization of the natural biologically active compounds with protective and preventive properties.
Therefore the first steps toward capacity building for development, implementation and monitoring
ecological civilization processes are environmental quality assessment and environmental quality
management with the mobilization of the plant origin biologically active compounds and their mixtures
for environmental impacts prevention and mitigation [3].
The environmental quality assessment shown that the problems associated with environmental
degradation and environmental contamination, almost all ecologically problems that we are currently
experiencing results from both previous and ongoing economic activities of the human society and
human life style. Starting from early years of civilization until to the nowadays, increasing of the number
and density of population, processes of establishing of the new cities and villages, expanding existing
human settlements, laying communication lines and constructing roads, increasing the transport
have been associated with destruction and contamination of the environment. Same negative eco-
toxicological effects have resulted from economic projects in the field of industry and agriculture.
Exploration and following development of the extractive and manufacturing industries contributed
to degradation, contamination of the air, water, soil, increasing of health risks for people and cutting
down of the biodiversity. Analogous effects on terrestrial and water leaving being had resulted
from the impact of land, air, marine transportation. Mobilized agrarian technologies with overuse of
agricultural techniques and chemicals also initiated the processes of soil degradation, soil erosion
and environmental contamination. The presence of the residual chemicals in agricultural products
and food staffs, existing of the genetically modified food products are also another ecologically
problem. This, in turn, has triggered processes with immediate and long term effects on loss and
degradation of biodiversity, negative health effects for both current and future generations [4]. The
knowledge about biologically active compounds with protective properties is the different way for
addressing this problem through breeding of the new agricultural plants and animal variety and
breeds, creation of the new generation of the food staffs and food additives, as well as medicines
with appropriate characteristics [1, 2, 5].
One of the most important requirements for environmental management planning, environmental
quality management with mobilization of the biologically active compounds for mitigation measures
is identification of the scale and level of those changes in environment which normally occur as a
result of naturally ongoing processes or anthropogenic impacts. Human activities impact, including
that resulting from industrial and agricultural technologies as well as resulting from the natural
processes may initiate changes on different levels of biological organization of the nature. These
levels involve different scales from multi-component ecosystem or biogeocenotic level to molecular-
genetic (Figure1).
Generational and regulational genetically disorders induced by chemical, physical and biological
environmental contaminants induce the pathological processes in all leaving being. These results
in increases in different human deceases, including cancer and early ageing, negatively influenced
on biodiversity conservation. The transition to ecological civilization with implementing of the green
technologies in industry, agriculture, construction and transportation, relevant level of consumption
are the most effective approach for prevention and decreasing the genetically consequences of the
environmental contamination with chemical and physical xenobiotics (Figure 2). Antimutagenesis is
an important element of ecological civilization (ecocivil) planning and management and is considered
to be one of the most feasible approaches to the prevention and reduction of genetic pathology
induced by chemical, physical xenobiotics and biological environmental contaminants. Comparative
assessment of the efficiency of the synthetic and natural antimutagens shows that natural inhibitors
of the spontaneous and induced genetically disorders, including those of plant origin are more
effective than synthetic antimutagens [2, 3].
Transition to the ecologically civilization, effective mobilization of the green technologies and
implementation of the green mentality and green behavior can be achieved in the future [2]. Today
addressing of the genetically consequences of environmental contamination by xenobiotics or
natural contaminants can be achieved through the implementation of the different principles and
technologies. Decreasing of the contamination level or (and) replacement of the ecotoxic xenobiotics
with the non-toxic are the most appropriate way for environmental quality management (Figure 2).
Figure 1 – Levels of environmental degradation: classification, assessment and management
Достарыңызбен бөлісу: |