An Era of Change Introduction There has been a transformation (转化、变革) in the management of the public sectors of advanced countries.This new paradigm poses (形成,造成) a direct challenge to several of what had previously been regarded as fundamental principles of traditional public administration. These seven seeming verities (真理) have been challenged.Economic problems in the 1980s meant governments reassessed (重新评估) their bureaucracies and demanded changes. All these points will be discussed at greater length (长度) later, but the main point is there has been total change in a profession that saw little change for around a hundred years. A new paradigm There is some debate over whether or not public managemnet, particularly the new public management, is a new paradigm for public sector management. Some argue that a paradigm is a large hurdle (障碍) to jump, requiring agreement among all a discipline’s( 学科,纪律 ) practitioners-a more or less permanent way of looking at the world The basic paradigms for public sector management are those following from Ostrom’s(1989)argument that there are two opposing forms of organization: bureaucracy and markets. To Behn,the traditional model of administration qualifies as a paradigm; as he continues, ‘certainly,those who support traditional public administration would argue that they have a “discipline (学科、纪律) ”, complete (完整的) with” theories, laws, and generalisations”, that focus their research’ (Behn,2001,p.231). The public management paradigm has the very different underlying (潜在、含蓄、隐晦的) theoretical bases of economics and private management. However, it is not the case that at one point in time everyone in the discipline decided that the traditional public administration paradigm had been superseded; it is more the case that paradigms change gradually. The emergence of a new approach By the beginning the 1990s,a new model of public sector management had emerged in most advanced countries and many developing ones. In the United Kingdom there were reforms in the 1980s,such as the widesperad privatization of public enterprises and cuts to other parts of the public sector during the Thatcher government. In the United States,a key event was the publication (出版) in 1992 of Reinventing (彻底改造) Government by Osborne and Gaebler (1992). International organizations,notably the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development(OECD) and,to a lesser extent (程度、范围) the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) became inerested in improving the public management of their member and client nations:The public management committee(PUMA)at the OECD took a leading role in the public management reform process. This provides a reasonable ( 合理的 ) summary of the process of managerial ( 管理的 ) reform,although,as we shall see in Chapter 3 in discussing the various formulations ( 构想 , 规划 ) of different theorists;in the early days of reform there was little commonality ( 公共 , 共性 , 平民 ) in views of what was involved. While there have been striking similarities in the reforms carried out in a number of countries(see Chapter 14),it is argued here that the greatest shift is one of theory rather than practice. Administration and management It is argued here that administration is a narrower and more limited function than management and,in consequence,changing from public administration to public management means a major change of theory and of function. The Oxford Dictionary defines administration as : ‘an act of administering’,which is then ‘to manage the affairs of’ or ‘to direct or superintend (监督、管理) the execution (执行、实行) ,use or conduct of’,while management is : ‘to conduct,to control the course of affairs by one’s own action,to take charge of’. From these various definitions it is argued that administration essentially involves following instructions (指示,命令) and service,while management involves:first,the achievement of results,and secondly,personal responsibility by the manager for results being achieved. Similarily,the words‘management’and ‘manager’have been increasingly used within the public sector. These changes of title are not superficial. Public administration and public management It followsthat a public service based on administrative concepts will be different from one based on management and there aer continuing and unresolved tensions between the two views. The term ‘public adminitration’ always referred to the study of the public sector,in addition to being an activity and a profession. Rosenbloom(1986)argues that ‘public administration is the use of managerial, political,and legal theories and processes (处理) to fulfil legislative (立法的,有立法权的) ,executive (行政的,经理的) and judicial (公正的) governmental mandates (授权、命令) for the provision (规定,条款) of regulatory (管理的,控制的) and service functionsfor the society as a whole or for some segments of it’. , In genral, ‘public administration’refers here to the academic study of the public sector. Administration and management are argued here to have conceptual differences and adding the word ‘public’ to them should reflect these differences. Imperatives of change The changes in the public sector have occurred as a response to several interrelated (相关的,互相联系的) imperatives (命令的,祈使句) :first,the attack on the public sector;secondly,changes in economic theory; thirdly,the impact of changes in the private sector,particularly globalization (全球化) as an economic force;and,fourthly,changes in technology. The attack on the public sector In the early 1980s there were wide-ranging attacks on the size and capability of the public sector. There were three main aspects to the attack on government. The ideological (思想的,意识形态的) fervour (热情) of attacks on the role of government,and efforts to reduce its size,faded somewhat in the late 1990s. In the 1970s,conservative (保守的) economists argued that government was the economic problem restricting economic growth and freedom. The change in economic thinking profoundly (深刻地) affected the public bureaucracy Public choice theory The most important economic theory applied to the bureaucracy, particularly in the earlier debate over managerialism,was public choice theory. The key assumption of public choice is a comprehensive view of rationality. A rational man must be guided by the incentive system (动机系统) within which he operates. An assumption of such carrot (胡萝卜) and stick behaviour applies in any area. Making an economic assumption about behaviour does have its uses. These views found a governmental response. After thirty years of public choice theory and attempts to apply it to governmental settings,results have been mixed Principal/agent theory The economic theory of principal and agent has also been applied to the public sector,especially concerning its accountability. Principal/agent theory attempts to find incentive (动机) schemes (体制) for agents to act in the interests of principals.