Lecture 2:

Perspectives in Public
Administration

By Andrew
S.Sulle(PhD)
 FOCUS OF THE LECTURE

• Models of Public Administration

• Pre-weberian versus Weberian
model of PA
• The NPM Paradigm
• Comparative PA
• Conclussion
 Approaches/model of PA
• Models or aproaches refect a particular way of
organizating things (eg, PA)
• There could be many ways of describeing models
of PA in general, but in this lecture we will focus
at three models/ approaches:
• Pre-Weberian model,
• Weberian model
• NPM approach
• All these models have influeced how public
administration was organized over time and
years
 Pre- Weberian model
• This model existed during the pre-industrial
era and before the creation of modern state
• It was the model mostly used mainly by
kings/rulers to manage public affairs
• It is based on nepotism, patronage,and
wisdom of rulers and hence it is generally
ineficient and ineffective in PA
• Against its inefficiency and the major
social-economic and political development
in 19th C, administrative reform movement
grew out of the desire to get rid of this old
patronage administrative system
• As noted, in this earlier administrative
system, a king or those in power could
appoint public employees on the basis of
nepotism, favoritism, loyalty and friendship-
not on the basis of merit & qualifications.
• In the US, this system was called a ‘spoiled
system’ of public administration
• In such a system a party that wins election,
could appoint its own supporters and
followers to government positions, without
merit making the public administration
inefficient and corrupt.
• In such a system, administrative positions
were distributed to those who contributed
to the party’s electoral success.
• Civil servants often, changed frequently
leading to in- competences, inefficiency
and loss of institutional memory of PA
• This often affect the management and
performance of public sector in general
due to weakness/questionable
competencies of civil servants
• Hence, The most important characteristic
shared by the earlier systems of
administration is that they were
"personal", based on the loyalty to a
particular individual such as a king, the
president, a minister or a party, instead of
being impersonal", based on merit, legality
and qualifications and with loyality to the
state than to the ‘person’
• Don't we have similar situation in
most African public sector?
 Cont..
• The pre-Weberian model allowed
Public affairs to be run by
incompetent, unqualified and royal
cadres of the ruling class/kings
• In this model, the division between
politics and administration or between
private and public affairs is not clear
• Authority is often personal, it resides
in individual ruler (king or a leader)
and not in a formal position
• In this spoiled system the government
is similar to a private enterprise, and
decisions, financial allocation, and
voting are only the results of the
wishes of the ruling class/leader
• This created many problem for public
administration: nepotism, corruption,
inefficiency and chaos in administration
The reform to end the spoiled/Pre-
weberian model
• The end of this administrative system in
Europe and in the United Stated came at the
end of 19th century, where system of
administration based on merit and political
neutrality instead of political
connection/dependence and clientelism was
established
• Reform was initiated to establish impartial,
neutral and merit based administrative
system and it become the defining feature of
their public administration till to 1980s
• Eg, in the UK, the 1854 Northcote-
Trevelyan Commission was established
with the aim of abolishing this inefficient
and patronage system, replacing it with
merit based recruitment and separation
of politics from PA.
• After reforms, PA model in most western
countries were gradually transformed into
modern public administration model or
the or the do called weberian model
• It is called Weberian Model because Max
Weber is highly regarded as its founder
The Weberian model of PA
• The new model was characterised by .
separation of politics from PA, the merit
principle of civil service(tenured, neutral,
and competent administrators), and sound
financial management based on national
development planning
• It can however be noted that in most
LDCs this pre-Weberian model did not
disappear and it operated hand in hand
with the weberian model
• This model of PA was meant to replace the
old spoiled administrative system and to
separate politics from public administration.
• It is generally based on Weber‘s and
Woodrow‘s theoretical thinking.
• Key principles of this model include the
presence of a system of rational rules and
procedures, structured hierarchies and
formalized decision-making procedures
• Guy Peters(1996) summaries the
principles of the Weberian model as
follows; 1) Apolitical civil service; 2)
Hierarchy and rules; 3) Permanence and
stability; 4) An institutional civil service; 5)
strong internal regulation; 6) Equality
(internally and externally to the
organization)
 cont
• Other features are merit-based recruitment,
life tenure system of civil service employment,
and a politically neutral civil service.
• The system of control is rational and legal
• Public activity is kept separate from private life.
• This means that official duties are
impersonalized(only based of rules) and
decisions are made according to rules and not
on the basis of individual feelings.
• The core values of weberian model are built
around the principles of compliance, legality,
impartiality and predictability
 Cont.
• In the weberian system public affairs is
managed by professional civil servants
who are recruited on the basis of merits
and qualification –following clear
recruitment policies to ensure competitive
recruitment procedures
• This system ensures public sector get best
employees from the labour market
• The Weberian model spread
throughout the West and was key to
the success of their social-economic
development.
• The shift to this model was thus necessiated
by the need to bring efficiency to the public
administration
• In that sense, weberian model was thus seen
as efficient, rational, functionally specialised,
impersonal(rules/procedures), non-political
bureaucratic hierarchy, an image associated
with the western bureaucracy.
• The foundation of the Weberian model is
found in the work of Marx Weber- a German
sociologist, and Woodrow Wilson- a US
Professor of Political science
• It was seen as an efficient means of managing
public fairs in a very neutral, impartial and
professional manner
• It is described as a classical PA, based on
rational, apolitical and scientific management
based system
• In the 1980s it however started to face
strong criticisms from which the NPM
paradigm was born . It was criticized as rule
bound, more rigid, irresponsive, anti-
innovation, inefficient and outdated for modern
society driven by market forces and technology
 The New Public Managment(NPM)
• In recent years(from 1980s) the Weberian has
faced fierce criticisms
• According to its critique, weberain model is
rigid, rule bound, irresponsive, inefficient and
outdated
• Instead public sector can be managed on the
basis of market principles/ private sector
management design and techniques
• Public sector has to learn approaches from
private sector to improves its efficiency,
productivity and responsiveness to the general
public
• The term NPM has been coined and it
encompasses a wide range of techniques
and perspectives that are intended to
overcome the inefficiencies inherent in the
Weberian model of public administration
• NPM has also acquired many names: it is
often described as the use of private
sector management techniques and
models in the public sector
 Cont-

• NPM is sometimes described as a

new paradigm in PA .Eg the OECD
(1995) report, explicitly states that a
new paradigm of public management
has emerged in the Public sector.
• This new paradigm is the opposite
of the weberian
• Hood (1991) has indicated 7 common
characteristics of NPM: disaggregation
of public administration , Performance
contracts, competition in services
delivery ,the use of private sector
management principles/techniques in
the public sector, result-based
accountability and the use
performance measurement.
• These new management styles are
often found in the privatse sector
• For others the NPM has the
following features, and most of
which have been adopted in the
public sector reforms worldwide;
1. Public service budget cut and
improved efficiency
2. Performance accountability
&contracting
3. Performance measurement
4 .Result –based administration ( see
Sulle,2011)
5.Decentralization (management flexibility)
6.Customer care: more responsiveness)
7.Changed management style (do like
private sector)
8. Performance related pay(motivation)
 cont
• NPM model uses business management
approach, demanding for more managerial
freedom to use resources, and a focus on
results rather than inputs.
• These NPM ideas have now influenced PA
practice globally, and have ignited a far
reaching reforms
• The term of PA is gradually being replaced by
Public management in the literature.
• For LDCs donors have engineered their
adoption.The extent to which the LDCs have
actually taken up NPM is still debatable
• Since the 1990s, most countries have
implemented NPM –inspired
administrative reforms
• Indeed, many countries have tried
out specific NPM techniques such as
contracting out, the creation of
’arm’s length’ executive agencies,
performance management or
performance-related pay (PRP) for
civil servants (Sulle, 2010’2011)
• For Tanzania, although donor-driven NPM
reforms were introduced, but what is not
clear is whether reforms were effectively
implemented and the impacts of these
reform in service delivery is not well
documented
• Once again NPM is now facing its onw
crticisms and the west is now experiencing
post-NPM governance reforms; NPM is
being accused of fragmenting public
sector, treating citizens like customers of
the very public service of their taxes, it is
pushing bureaucrats out of political control
 COMPARATIVE PA
• Comparison is an important
laboratory of social scientists(Pollitt
2011), because it allow them to draw
lessons and the benchmarking of
local practice with what is happening
elsewhere.
• Increased interdependence between
nations makes the comprehension of
administration practice between
countries also necessary
• A major thrust of comparative public
administration (cpa) is to discovering
administrative patterns and regularities over
time and place. CPA pay attention to
identification of environmental factors that
affect administrative system of a country
• Why, because administrative system operates
within a context influenced by political, social
and economic forces. Thus the political, social
and economic factors constitute the
‘environment’ of the administrative system.
• CAP thus, tries to explain similarities and
differences in Public administration cross-nations
• CAP determine range and reasons for variations,
and the consequences of those variations in
determining critical administrative issues including
learning issues
• The aim is advance the twin objectives of theory
building and utility.
• In most cases comparison could be between
national administrative systems, or institutions
(courts within a given adm. System) or comparing
local authorities
 Cont.
• Now, for those focusing on administrative
system between nations, traditional PA
has often provided a point of departure or
benchmark
• Countries are compared to see to what
extent they have fully developed the
traditional PA model(the weberian model)
• This is because,since the work of Wilson
(1887) and Weber, the weberian model is
accepted as the most efficient form of
organizing public sector: see earlier
argument).
 Cont..
• As we noted PA features such: impersonal
rules, apolitical, rational, hierarchical,
technically specialized functions could be
explained by universal principles of good
administration.
• Comparative study, therefore provides
analysis that focuses on administrative
procedure and organization, weberian
model is often the benchmark.
• It was therefore natural to expect
every country to organise its public
sector in line with the traditional
model
• Scholars were interesed in knowing
where and why these weberian
administrative principles were not
implimented. Factors where also
identified
 Cont.
• Research on camparative studies
have informed many earlier reforms
and organisational design for most
LDCs in the 1960s, after
independence.
• Bureaucracies and their
administrative systems were design
and developed in line with Weberian
principles.
 Cont..
• Comparative work is still on-going. It
is for instance argued that in most
LDCs especially in Africa, PA has not
fully adopted the weberian
administrative principles (Sulle, 2011)
• African bureaucracy lacks the basic
Weberian bureaucratic features which
explains why it has generally been
performing poorly (Breyceson, 2000)
• In african PA is riddled with nepotism,
• One basic attribute of a pre-Weberian PA
is clientelism, a process whereby civil
servants are appointed on the basis of
their relationship with the leaders or
appointing authorities, instead of
technical or universal qualification.
• Political pressure rather than merit,
influences appointments and promotions
of public officials and this can affect the
performance of PA
 Cont..
• In such a system, civil servants work at
the ‘pleasure’ of the appointing leader
and, as a result they are not free to apply
their technical competencies when doing
their tasks (Soesters and Tessema, 2004).
• Formally most African PA may have
features of the Weberian bureaucracy, but
in practice they function in a pre-Weberian
way.
• Indeed, informal institutions and practices
are so dominant that they have weakened
the state’s formal institutions
 Cont.
• Since the 196os there were efforts to transform
PA into modern model and those efforts were
not sucessful because of a number of factors
• The questions that comparative PA then asked
are: How do differences in political, economic,
social and cultural environment affect the way
PA works in different countries
• The so called administrative ecology was
noted as a strong factor that influence
administrative practice and especially for most
developing countries.
 Cont…
• The notion of administration ecology refers
to the interrelationship between public
administration and its environment
• Ecological approach to public
administration can not only provide a solid
basis for research, but can explain and
predict public administrative behavior in a
national administrative system.
 Why CAP. Is it important?
• This is an intellectual endeavors
• It is strongly argued that (Riggs, 2002) any
scientific understanding of Public Administration
needs to be comparative.
• It should be noted that all systems of government
require comparative analysis if we are to
understand cause/effect relationships and
achieve predictability
• By taking a keen look at administrative
processes in all socio-economic and
ecological settings, we have a more
holistic view of the larger field.
• Indeed, formulating general principles of
administration requires a larger pool of
cases and hence the need to study diverse
administrative institutions and processes,
Hence theory building and utility values
• Others reasons for CAP, includes
colonialism where LDCs derived a large
part of their bureaucratic structures from
their former colonizers, globalisation and
advances in IT,
• Also the domino effects of human
development, including deliberate
attempts by various international bodies
to encourage development via adoption of
institutional and administrative models
that have proven to enhance the quality of
life
• Hence, comparative method is central to
both practical and academic aspects of
public administration. Scholarship that
informs practice can hardly be adjudged
as scientific if it lacks a comparative
dimension
 CONCLUSSIONS
• Throughout the history of human
development PA has experienced
continuous changes, adopting to its
external environment- taking
different models: pre-weberian,
weberian, NPM and now post-NPM
• It is the field in search of efficiency
and indentify
Final thoughts
1) What model of PA is used in
Tanzania?
2) To what extent is CAP a relevant
field on Inquiry

THANKS
 Some key references for this
lecture
• Kempe Ronald hope (2001) the new public
management: context and practice in Africa.
International public management journal 4 (2001) 119–
134
• Pollitt, C. (2011) Not odious but onerous: comparative
public administration public administration vol. 89, no.
1
• Pfiffner,J(2004) Traditional Public Administration versus
The New Public Management:Accountability versus
Efficiency
• Otenya, E., and Lind, ( 2006 ) COMPARATIVE PUBLIC
ADMINISTRATION: THE ESSENTIAL READINGS, Elsevier.
London
• Gruening,G (2001) Origin and theoretical basis of New
Public Management, International Public Management
Journal 4