Assignment 2
Assignment 2
Assignment 2
ROLL NO : 20BPA003
(i) The Honey Report on Higher Education For Public Service, 1967,in the USA.
(ii) The Philadelphia Conference on the Theory and Practice of Public
Administration, 1967, in the USA (Chairman: James C. Charlesworth)
(iii) Publication of Dwight Waldo’s Article Public Administration in a Time of
Revolutions
Toward a New Administration The Minnowbrook Perspective
Public Administration in a Time of Turbulence
New Public Administration
(i) The 1960’s in the USA was a time of turbulence due to war in Vietnam (in
which America over-involved), black American movements, urban riots,
campus unrest, political violence and so on. On the other hand, as Dwight
Waldo puts, “neither the study nor the practice of public administration was
responding in appropriate measure to mounting turbulence and critical
problems”. Robert T. Golembiewski says, “public administration was shaken
and affected by the turbulent or revolutionary 1960s, public
administrationists, the 1960s were like war”.
(ii) In 1960s, public administration came under the influence of younger
generation, which was feeling restless with the prevailing status of the
discipline as highlighted by the Honey Report and Philadelphia Conference. In
brief, public administration was facing some sort of ‘generation gap’. In
September 1968, thirty-three young scholars and practitioners of public
administration gathered the Minnowbrook Conference Centre (Syracuse
university in USA) under the inspiring leadership of Dwight Waldo and
challenged the traditional public administration. It was this youth conference
on public administration, which gave rise to ‘new public administration’.
ANTI GOALS
According to Robert T.Golembiewski, the following three anti goals stand out
in new public administration—
GOALS OR THEMES
Frank Marini summarizes the themes of new public administration under five heads:
relevance, values, social equity, change and client-focus. These are explained below:
1. RELEVANCE : The new public administration points out that public administration
has traditionally been interested in efficiency and economy. It stresses that the
discipline had little to say about contemporary problems and issues and was
therefore becoming irrelevant. It demands meaningful studies oriented toward the
realities of social life.
2. Values : The new public administration , rejects the value-neutral stand taken by the
management oriented public administration. It makes clear its basic normative
concern in administrative studies. It advocates openness about the values being
served through administrative action.
3. Social Equity : According to new public administration, the realization of social
equity should be the objective of public administration. Social equity means that
public administrators should become champions of the under-privileged sections of
the society. They should use their discretion in administering the programmes to
promote the interests of the poor.
4. Change : The new public administration emphasizes that the public officials should
become active agents of social change and non-believers in status-quo. It does not
allow enslavement to permanent institutions which become self-perpetuating power
centres of dominant classes. It suggests innovations in administrative machinery for
bringing about social transformation.
5. Client-focus: The new public administration advocates a client-focussed approach. It
stresses not only on providing goods and services to the clients but also giving them
a voice in how and when and what is to be provided. It requires positive, proactive
administrators rather than authoritarian and ivory-tower bureaucrats.
Dwight Waldo identified the positive and negative features of the new public
administration. Positively, it is a some sort of movement in the direction of
normative theory, philosophy, social concern and activism. Negatively, it turns away
from positivism and scienticism. He pointed out that new public administration
projects three perspectives clearly:
On the goals of new public administration, Nigro and Nigro observed: “Client-
focussed administration is recommended along with debureaucratisation, democratic
decision-making and decentralization of administrative process in the interest of more
effective and human delivery of public services.”
The new public administration is similar to development administration in one
aspect—both are goal-oriented as well as change-oriented. However, it is primarily
concerned with Western societies, unlike development administration.
CRITICISM
Campbell argues that it “differs from the old public administration only in that it is
responsive to a different set of societal problems from those of other periods”.
Carter and Duffey doubts whether the social equity is actually getting recognized as
an established objective of public administration, apart from the prevailing objectives of
efficiency, effectiveness and accountability.
Dunn and Fozouni argue that the new public administration has resulted in the
propagation of an illusion of paradigm shift or paradigm revolution within the field.
Further, the cries opine that the protagonists of new public administration are trying
to arrogate to the public administration what actually falls within the legitimate sphere of
political institutions, political processes and political leadership.
SIGNIFICANCE
Inspite of the above limitations, Nigro and Nigro observe that the new public
administration has seriously jolted the traditional concepts and outlook of the discipline and
enriched the subject by imparting a wider perspective and by linking it closely to the society.
Further, they say that it has certainly broken fresh ground and imparted new substance to
the discipline of public administration. What is new in it is the advocacy of social equity role
recommended for the administrator. They conclude by saying that, “Clearly, advocates of
the New Public Administration have stimulated constructive debate and their emphasis
upon the positive, moral goals of administration should have a lasting impact . Since the
New Public Administration emerged, questions of values and ethics have remained major
items in Public administration.”
Ramesh K. Arora opines that new public administration movement has provided
solid foundation to the post-behavioural revolution initiated by David Easton and others.
According to him, it has:
MINNOWBROOK—I Vs MINNOWBROOK—II
However, the Minnow brook II Conference included many of the themes and areas
of the Minnow brook I Conference such as social equity, ethics, human relations,
accountability, reconciling public administration with in democracy, and administrative
leadership. Moreover, both the conferences shared concern for the state of the discipline
of public administration. This ensured a continuity in thinking.