One
of the many dystopian themes which figure in contemporary novels and films is
that of the pandemic - of a new virus being let loose in the world and causing
havoc. In fact, it’s already happened – it’s called neoliberalism and its
gestation can be traced back to a conference in 1947 in the Swiss resort of
Mont Pelerin attended by such luminaries as Hayek and .Popper
In the late 60s I was an early “reformer” – pushing at the open door offered by the 2 Royal Commissions on Local Government which operated in the UK between 1966-68 and which led to the wholesale reorganization of that system in both Scotland and England and Wales in the mid-1970s.
Since the mid 1970s, the search for the silver bullet of organizational improvement (or reform) in its public services has been endless. 50 years ago we thought that the right rules (and strategies) – fairly managed by well-intentioned officials and politicians in a system of accountable power – was the way forward…
The only problem was that most of the relevant services have this basic reality of being chunky monopolies ….Overnight therefore a system of regulators had to be created – bringing forth an Audit Explosion.
Update;
I have just come across a great book which identified and explored this issue of our being taken over by a new ideology – what the French used to call “La Pensee Unique”, It is Monoculture – how one story is changing everything by FS Michaels (2011).
The
full story of how the corporate world has patiently, over the past half-century
and more, funded the setting up of hundreds of right-wing think tanks who have unceasingly pumped out their anti-government message is told
in The
road from Mont Pelerin – the making of the neoliberal thought collective; P
Mirowski (2009)
And
it wasn’t just economic doctrine that was affected – it was also how we thought
government services should be organised. Academia in particular has had a strange
fixation over the past 30 years with the idea of organizational improvements of
public services called..."New Public Management" (NPM)
In the late 60s I was an early “reformer” – pushing at the open door offered by the 2 Royal Commissions on Local Government which operated in the UK between 1966-68 and which led to the wholesale reorganization of that system in both Scotland and England and Wales in the mid-1970s.
The
only academic discipline covering such developments at the time was that of public
administration whose intellectual fare was every bit as boring as its name
suggests – although my politics tutor, John
P Macintosh, wrote a powerful and prescient book in 1968 on “The Devolution
of Power – local government, regionalism and nationalism”.
And another academic, John Stewart, was shortly to start electrifying a new generation of officials at Birmingham’s Institute for Local Government (INLOGOV) with a new vision of local power - centred on a more open and flexible system of local government – which, sadly, failed to materialize.
And another academic, John Stewart, was shortly to start electrifying a new generation of officials at Birmingham’s Institute for Local Government (INLOGOV) with a new vision of local power - centred on a more open and flexible system of local government – which, sadly, failed to materialize.
Since the mid 1970s, the search for the silver bullet of organizational improvement (or reform) in its public services has been endless. 50 years ago we thought that the right rules (and strategies) – fairly managed by well-intentioned officials and politicians in a system of accountable power – was the way forward…
We
threw that model away in the 1980s and bought into the “theory of the market” –
believing that citizens would be better off being able to choose between
competitive suppliers.
David
Osborne’s "Reinventing Government" (1992) was the book which really opened the
floodgates – with its notion of “Steering…not rowing..”
The only problem was that most of the relevant services have this basic reality of being chunky monopolies ….Overnight therefore a system of regulators had to be created – bringing forth an Audit Explosion.
By
2000 it was obvious that wasn’t working – but it took 2008 to blow the thing
apart.
But
although another way of organizing things, whether in the economy or government,
has been actively explored for many decades we still do not have a consensus about
a better way….In
2015 the UNDP published a good summary of what it
called the three types of public management we have seen in the past half
century. There are different ways of describing the final column but this one
gives a sense of the values which have been trying to find expression..
The three types of public
management
Old Public Admin
|
New Public Management
|
New Public Service
|
|
Theoretical foundation
|
Political
theory
|
Economic
theory
|
Democratic
theory
|
Model of behaviour
|
Public
interest
|
self-interest
|
Citizen
interest
|
Concept of public
interest
|
Political,
enshrined in law
|
Aggregation
of individual interests
|
Dialogue
about shared values
|
To whom civil servants
responsive
|
Client
|
Customer
|
citizen
|
Role of government
|
Rowing
|
Steering
|
Serving,
negotiating
|
Mechanism for achieving
policy
|
Programme
|
Incentives
|
Building
coalitions
|
Approach to
accountability
|
Hierarchic
|
Market
|
Public
servants within law, professional ethics, values
|
Admin discretion
|
Limited
|
Wide
|
Constrained
|
Assumed organisational
structure
|
Top
down
|
Decentralised
|
collaborative
|
Assumed motivation of
officials
|
Conditions
of service
|
Entrepreneurial,
drive to reduce scope of government
|
Public
service, desire to contribute
|
But NPM - like neoliberalism - just seems to have too strong a grip. And we still await a replacement
This is the story I try to tell in my little book “Hos did Administrative Reform get to be so Sexy?” whose current version you can access here.
This is the story I try to tell in my little book “Hos did Administrative Reform get to be so Sexy?” whose current version you can access here.
Update;
I have just come across a great book which identified and explored this issue of our being taken over by a new ideology – what the French used to call “La Pensee Unique”, It is Monoculture – how one story is changing everything by FS Michaels (2011).
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