Crtical Appraisal of NPA and Final Summary

I)Desirability of goal of social equity

crtics have exressed doubts about the desirabilty and feasibilty of the goal of social equity.The've argued that this goal is not practically feasible.

In this context , CARTER and DUFFY observed that
"Whether the ibject of social equity can be recognised as well established of efficiency economy and effectiveness and doubtfull"

Similarly, victor Thompson crticised the idea as

"The value orientation can harm the professionalism, impersonality and equality which are essential in public service"

Infact since in the USA , the main emphasis has been on competitionness and individual initiative , the adoption goal of social equity was always seen with sceptiscism and was not acceptable idea.

As a result, NPA moreover didn't continue for so long and soon lost the momentum.

In that perspective . Golembeiski has noted "NPA was a temporary and transitional phenomenon which deserve to be faded away"

II)Over Ambitious Radicalism

The NPA Movement is criticised as a well intentional but over aimbitious and overtly optimistic idea.
Its crticised as being too radical and too idealistic and that much of radicalism was not practical in view of ground realities.

Further its argued that NPA ideology were more set of well meaning prescription on morale grounds but without much matching operation solutions.

As a result , many crtics argue that NPA movement was more a rhetoric than a set of actually workable solutions towards adminis. improvement.

Regarding hat , Golembewesiky observed
"NPA was revoultionary and radical in words but status altruist in skills and technologies"

Infact, it was left to Minnow-Brook II distribution scholars. It was realised that there are practical different scholars.

It was realised that there are practical difficulties like interconnected issues, political control over policy and inadequate public personnel administration and resource constraints.

Unless skills and capabilities are improved along these lines. the well meaning NPA ideas would remain paper tigers or rhetorics.

III)Encouraging Politicization of Administration.

-some scholars also crticised the NPA odeas for encouraging political equity rather than social equity. To elaborate it has been argued that there is always a possibility that in name of equity of affirmative action there are chances of

a.Populism
b.Appearance
c.Vote bank Politics

In other words, rather than a logical and efficient quest for equity it may become a political free for all in the form of freebies (like free water , laptop etc)

In this conext, its significant to note that , FW Riggs a prominent comparative development administration scholar described poli-functionalism or as elects a significant charachteristic of prismatic society representative of develping countries .


Here politicians and administrators have a tendency to act based on their elects association than impartial merit.

IV)Old wine in a new Bottle

It has been argued that some thinkers that NPA has nothing new,

ALLEH CAMPBELL , argued that issues brought to surface were not new and they have already been talked by earlier scholars from time to time.

example-in late 19th century there was a movement called progressive movement which had argued for sociologist features in capitalist America while exposing the ill effects of capitalism.

On this crticism , a very important observation has been made by Fredrickson,"NPA has newnes not in threads use but the way the fabric is woven and also in the agreements as to how to properly use this fabric"

Enduring Legacy of Public Administration

Although NPA as a movement is not have a prolonged success in America and this is centric movement soon fizzled out in USA , yet the essential terms which it advocated have continued to govern administartion specially in developing countries.

The NPA ideas found great contextual relvance to many emerging and developing nations which were iin their need of-

a)Basic and Polititative social transitions 

b)dibureaucratism

c)social conscious and client oriented public administartion

These themes were the essence of NPA movement and many related themes encoroprated these ideas.

Example-the develpoment admininstartive theories, the NPA perspective and the entittled theory essentially encorporated and contained these core ideas of NPA philosphy.

Thus in a way the NPA which faded away in US by late 1970 can be set to have continued relevance in developing countries like India even today.

As even today in developing countries there is need for equality, inclusive growth and social transormation.

Further am important administartive commentator RK Arora summarised the value addition offered by NPA movement to field of public administartion as under.

a)It has intesified the self awareness activism and ecological orientation of public administration community.

b)It had pushed the discipline of pubad towards greater relevance to critical problems of the day.

c)It has strengthen the client orientation of pubad

d)It has strengthen the policy perspective of public admin'

e)It has broad the acedemic field of public admin closer to practice and profession of administration.

Minnowbrook III September 2008

MinnowbrookIII September 2008

To comemorate 40 years of orginal MinnowBrook conference MB III was called under the aegis of syracause university. 

It was co-ordinated by ROSEMARY O'leary.

The environmental context in which this conference was called was again characterised by turbulence and critical problems of a day but of a different nature.

These crtical problems were described by Minnowbrook III as under -

Globalisation ie how global affects P.A in global perspecive 

Devaluation iee...how the relinquishing of power and authority by govt. organisation can create problem of nature on inter-govt. or inter-institution conflicts.

The issue of networked governance and associated  complexities are to be dealt with as they are exacted by multi-org arrangements 

ex-the problem of role setting and coordination has to be dealt with 

The impact of technology evaluation ie how it can be used to significantly redefine givt transparency to public.

Thus minnowgroup III conference also carried forward the central theme of all Minnowbrook conferences iee..how public administartion should be made a central instrument for tackling appropriately the critical problems of the day.

Minnowbrook III conference sought to delibrate on questions like how pubad is different on 2008 as compared to admin in 1968 or 1988 and what conclusion have been drawn after nearly 40 years of history of NPA and 20 years of history of NRM. It also sought to delibrate about the impact of globalisation and networking governance.

Themes of Minnow Brook Conference III

The Main New Themes of MB III

During MB III conference various subgroups of participants were created for delibrating on specific themes as mentioned below -

i)the themes of democratic performance management -

    the conference participants advocated that modern public administrators should be

• -operating multi organisational arrangement 
• -should be facilitative in nature
• -more delibrative and inclusive

(iee in a nutshell including more people reaching more sections of society and institutional pluralism)

a)Multi-Organisational Arrnagement

In other words , the modern day administrators are required to be negotiative and collaborative ie..instead of being unitary leaders of unitary organisation the will be expected to be facilitative democratic leaders of networked organisation.

Further, it was highlighted that this network and collaborative govt. we've features like role sharing, space sharin , fund sharing etc.

Further its a natural possibility that there are likely to be complexity and conflicts pertaining to role and responsibility , rights and duties and the concerns for public interests.

Thus in Public administration of today and tomorrow consideration , maturity and thoughtful regulation would be the very important aspects of Pub-ad.

Its an extension of anti-hierarchy theme of MinnowBrook I and consensus based decision making of Minnow-Brook II.

 b)Globalized Perspective 

On this theme the Minnow-Brook III scholars advanced as under-

1.A need for renaissance of comparative study. It was agreed by scholars that comparative Pubad had lost momentum after 1960s and 1970s and in todays world have all the countries independent ; so comparative stidies have become imperative or necessary for meaningful study.

2.The Importance of context sensitivity in comparative studies was strongly highlighted so as to draw meaningful lessons within a globalised perspective ie..."Think Global Act Local"

3.It was strongly emphasized that any modelling /prescription with underlying US oriented assumptions must be rigorously tested before advocating them as viable options for other countries.

                                      c)New search Methods

On this theme the Minnowbrook III delibration concluded as under 

1)New scholars of Public admin must serve as change agents by creating new methods of analysing pub-ad.

2)Methodological pluralisation should be encouraged new methodology should be conceptualised from admin principles or reformed.

3)A PEER reviewed was recommended as an important way to ensure thoroughness of scholarly researched before anything can be branded as principle.

4)Inter-disciplinary aspect of pubad was further emphasized and again it was reflected in the broad based composition of Minnowbrook III partcipants.

The conclusions , the best paper and the crtics of Minnow-Brook III delibrations have been combined in form of a book entittled 

"Further of pubad , public management and public service around the world "-A minnowgroup perspective jointly edited by Rosemary O'leary , David Yan Slyke , Soon Heekim.

Infact the tittle of the book was the theme of conference as well(ie..referring to NPA)-1988 NPM , NPS

  

NPA-Minnow-Group II

To comemorate the 20th anniversary of orginal minnowgroup conference , the second minnogroup conference was held in 1988 at same conference centre at syrcause university at initiative of Fredrickson.

Main intention behind minnogroup II were to

A.Assess the impact of NPA perspective on admin as a discipline as well as a practice.
B.Address the issues which were not discussed at minnowgroup conference I or which had now become relevant in changed scenario of administartionin last 20 yrs.

Thus the new issues which minnowgroup II highkighted were-

i)leadership and administration
ii)Technology specially impact pf Infotech in admin process
iii)Impact of market economy on pub-ad
iv) constitutive and legal perspective of studyin pubad
v)Inter disciplinary influence in study of pubad for its better conceptualisation
vi)Futuristic issues pertaining to pubad

At the same time minno-group II retained some of Minnowgroup I themes like

• social equity
• ethics in admin in terms of right values for seeking public interest
• reconcilling pubad with democracy
• change ie..societal transformation in context of pressing problems of the day using Pub-ad as useful instrument.

THEMATIC CONTINUITY

(of minnowgroupI in Minnowgroup II as well)

The discussion and the themes rising out of minnogroup I conference even in Minnogroup II.In other words even in Minnowgroup II.In other words even in minnowgroup II conference there was a continued focus on changing role of public adminstrators in a complex and a changing world. It was higlighted in second conference that environment complexity is to tackle this complexity and turbulence arising out of it. so as to be able to find the solutions to the crtical problems of the day which may keep changing;

consensus for social equity , democratic values , normative perspective and centrality of pub-ad as the instrument of change in a complex world were the co-themes which were reaffirmed by Minnogroup II conference.

Further it was realised that these were still the dominant themes despite some new issues having also emerged consensus for responsible and accountable administartion which would be responsible to society. Needs was also re affirmed.

However the nature of this responsiveness was expected to be merged with concerns for private interests as depicted by better client orientation.

In other words , moral tone of minnowgroup conference I was given much more pragmatic orientation under minnowgroup II under influence of market perspective.


Thematic reorientation in Minnowgroup conference II

1.Pragmatism replacing idealism 

2.Withdrawl of over indulgence in Policy making

3.fine toning of democratic and anti hierarchy administartion

1.Pragamatism replacing idealism-

In Minnow group II, there was a shift from radical belief that was prevalent in 1988 that the problem of society are indeed solvable , the only thing that was required was moral activism on the part of the admin. 

In 1988 it was realised that societal problems are complex and they inter connected social issues and therefore admin response could only ameliorate the problems rather than completely resolving them.

Thus there was a realisation during this delibration that only the radicalness of thoughts cannot be the sufficient condition for putting an end to the societal turbulence
therefore it was decided during MB II delibrations to set goals only for the near future.

It was again argued that "the dream of a new society is idealistic having goals of complete equity and comprehensive social transformation as these goals are over aimbitious.

Therefore pragmatic view would be to create governance which gradually would take care of these ultimate goals over a period of time.

Thus, it was argued that if good administration can be created , as the near future goals , then equitable societal transformation can be attemted as an ultimate goal.

Thus, there was a tacid(understood or implied without being stated/hidden/silent) approval for privatisatisation or market oriented administration which would ensure better governance and better client service as a stepping stone towards the bigger goals of administartion.


In this context it also needs to be noted that environmental perspective has changed in these 20 years and the context of MB II was characterised by demands for less govt and more governance.

The PCT and market friendly NPM perspective had gained momentum and the values of private interest and utility maximisation and gained recognition alongside, the values of public purpose /Goals.


Thus in a way MB II perspective can be described as an attempt to take the best out of both NPA and NPM perspective so as to create more realistic and pragmatic approach towards better governance.

II.Withdrawls of Over-Indulgence in Policy Making-

whereas MB I was very vocal about the normative orientation and value ladden policy making role for administration.
MB II again took more pragmaic view on this issue as well
It didn't recommend an out and out policy making role (complete policy making role) on the logicthat some dichotomy does and should exist.



It was argued that ultimately administrators are under political control as far as the policy agenda is concerned. and what is desirable in ideal world may not necessarily available in the real world . Thus the speicfic of the what the govt. should do but not doing was highlighted by MInnowbrook conference II.

III. Fine tuning of democratic and anti hierarchy administration

on the issue of admin being democratic and anti hierarchist as was suggested by MB I , the MB III delibration led to a further expansion and fine tuning of this idea.

It created a momentum towards consensus based decision making. In this context an important Minnow Brook II participant who was the chief proponent of this idea was ROBERT CLEARY.
He gave the theme of the slowed down bureauvracy.

This idea meant that the administrators role of advancing the democracy and welfare requires democratic methodologies ie...the administration have to learn and adopt open , participative and consensus based upon decsion making method using negotiation skills so as to be on effective catalyst.

MBI-Anti Hierarchy

MBII-Administration  need to use 
                    negation skill             - SLOWED DOWN BUREAUCRACY
                  participative skill


Thus the concept of slowed down bureaucracy recommended negotiated solution with greater role to public so that participative administration can replace the unitary, Again it was a realisation of practical constraint and was pragmatic idea. It highlighted how there may always be an imbalance between what people want and what are the available resources.



Thus idealistic a perfect solution may not come by easily and therefore may require trade offs (compromises) through negotiations .

wants-trade offs_resources.


Thus all and all it can be said that Minnowbrook conference realised the harsh reality of complex and inter-connected problems, limited resources and limited policy role that administartion actually have and therefore rather than emphasizing on idealism , it emphasized on pragmatic improvement in administration.


Minow brook I

Minnowbrook II      they followed more pragmatic approach rather than idealistic approach.

New Themes of Minnow-Brook II

Public personal and administrative relationships under Minnowbrook II delibration public personnel management came for those scrutiny and it was highlighted that innovative personnel policy are required enhance administration productivity.

In other words the focus was on building the capacity of administration and not rely only on their ugliness.

In other words focus argument here is that leadership capabilities need to be cultivated among public administrators because only willingness would not be enough.

Thus, whereas MB I gave a call for productive and gusty bureaucrats, MB II gave a call for capable Bureaucrats.

Motivation perception =valence increase + Expectancy Increase + Instrumentality Increase performance reward


Minnowbrook I-Moral activism willingness

Minnowbrook II-ppm-capacity building - training methods, various executive development , programmers like workshop conference etc.,Attachment


Early perspective to Information Technology

MB II developed the early perspective on the role of technology on Public administartion.
Information technology in particlular was sought to be studies as an emerging futuristic concern which would be a great relevance of public administartion of tomorrow.

However, it was also argued during minnow-brook II that technology cannot been idealised as a necessary tools meaning thereby though technology is useful but it cannot be all and end all and it has been seen that good capable and old commited administrators have performed well even without technology.

Thus, technology was visualized as a huge opportunity for administration improvement but it cannot be the only way to move forward.

An addition to the thematic re-orientation as described above , one more aspect of reorientation was the composition of group itself where Minnow-Brook scholars were largely from the background of political science and public administration , Minnow-Brook Participants were much more broad base and inter disciplinary.

These  participant were from different discipline such as laws , economics , politics, studies, urban studies , developmental planning etc.

New Public Administartion-Minnow group I

In second half of 20th century, USA has witnessed increased social tension and unrest , there was a massive unrest and dissatisfaction against the govt and there were protest mainly arising from minority group.

• The crisis reached its culmination because of vietnam war , civil rights movemnet and assasination of Robert F.Kennedy and Martin Luther King Junior. 

• There was growing disillusionment against government and discussion and debate started regarding how to solve challnging socila problems.

• There was growing disillusionment against govt and discussion and debate started regarding how to solve challengeing social problems.

• There was a feeling of  of Turbulence and revolt in societal mindset because current method of functioning of govt. was disapproved by many section of society.

• Against the backdrop in sept 1968 , Waldo a young professor at maxwell's school organised a conference of young public scholars at the Minnow-group Conference Centre of syracuse university.

• He was concerned that "Neither the study nor the practice of public admin was responding in appropriate measure to the mounting turbulence and the critical problems of the day"

• The scholars at this conference discussed the failure of American govt and gave a call for radical reorientation of discipline of Public Administration towards traditional phenomenon such as efficiency , Economic Principles and techniques of administartion and called for more relevant description of client oriented and socially conscious Public Administartion.

• The conference discussed major social issues of the day and the role which Pub ad can play in tackling them.

• The conference discussed major social issues of the day and the role which PA can play in tackling them.

• The conference discussed major social issues of the day and the role which PUb-ad can play in tackling them.

• The conference discussion included many concepts and ideas like 

1. reconcilling Pub-ad and democracy
2. Relevance of PA 
3. Anti positivism ie..Normative role dealing in values
4. personal morality in ethics in admin behaviour
5. Innovation-Built capacity of Administration

The thematic ideas which Minnow-group conference emphasized and advocated , have come to be known as NPA Perspective.

The NPA Movement has been described in the form of four goals , 3 Antigoals and four solutions

 

By giving the three Antigoals , The NPA Ideology presented a crtical examination of the traditional /orthodox administration .

It Argued that wrong and irrelevent priority of administartion has indicated by three antigoals can be corrected through 4 Ds so that more crucial and relevent goals of equity and personal change can be pursued and acheived.

Four Goals of NPA

1. Relevance -

• It was argued by NPA Scholar that traditional Public administration was not dealing with relevant questions and was not tackling with relevant priority. 
• It was noticed that traditional Public administration is management oriented Public administration because  having its focus on efficiency and economy as the relevant priorities in era of social turbulence.
• Therefore it was strongly argued that more real and relvant issues like social change , equity, social upliftment etc should become priority of public administration.

2.Value-

This theme was logically connected to the relevance goal of because as Public administration starts asking relevant questions pertaining to  realities of public life.

 It will have to have a value perspective. In other words the administartion  can't remain value neutral and has to start dealing with values. It was argued that positivism or value neutrality promotes inequity goes against goal of social change and transformation. 

It can be seen that the first two are essentially the preparatory goals for the ultimate goals of social equity and social change.

The NPA scholars argued that equity and change can only be brought about once there are relevant and normative consideration and orientation. 

In this context the following observation made by Frederickson-

"The NPA is less genric and more public , 

less descriptive , more prescriptive ,

 less institution oriented , more client oriented, 

less neutral, more normative, 

yet no less scientific"

Meaning thereby value orientation and seeking social equity and change has the more public values is not mutually exclusive of scientificness because even while scientific efficiency is not the relevant goal for public organisation , it can be and should be an important means.

3. Equity- 

NPA argues that public admin must become an instrument of social justice or distributed justice it was argued that unless equity or distributive justice is seen as a crucial goal of public administration , Public administartion cannot become an instrument or removing the wrongs of society.

Further a neutral equality has the potential of aggravating the social upheavels /Turbulence because such equality actually amounts to tolerating and even encouraging inequality.

In this context, following observation by Fredrickson

"A P.A which fails to work for changes which try to redress the deprivation of minorities will likely be eventually used to suppress those minorities"

Thus goal of equity prescribes an aggresive oriented, stand whereby admin will openly take side of social minorities .

This is necessary to play a provocative role in their upliftment they are ofetn historic and contextual factor which operate as anti weak. 

Therefore unless the admin becomes pro weak, the real equality will not happen and weak will remain weak.

In this context , Frank Marini has observed as under 

"The purpose of a public org is the reduction of economics, social and psychic suffering and enhancement of life opportunity for those inside and outside org."

meaning thereby public oraganisation should take care of weaker section so that they are not exploited socially , economically or pyscologically.

4. Change-

NPA questioned the status quo of admin and advocated for a radical change because for a meaningful pub-ad businesss as usual cannot be the goal. To take care of social turbulence and critical problems of day , transformation has to be evolved so that the errors of staus quo can be cured.

Infact the core goal of equity and social change has to come by then it can be through equity.

Thus, unless affirmative action is taken by public administration , change will not take place, it was further argued by NPA scholar that status quo leads to entrenchment of powerful interest in permanent institution ie..Bureaucracy , so Bureaucracy can have self serving tendency and can have entrenched vested interest.

Thus Goal of change as per NPA has a two fold connotations 

1.Change in Attitude and orientation of bureaucratic institution as suggested in form od de bureau-cratisation etc.

2.the ultimate goal of change has in societal transformation.

Three Antigoals 

Waldo himself talked about NPA both affirmatively and negatively iee...while defining NPA he defined both what it is and what it is not.

Acc. to him NPA is

•  normativism and not positivism;
• Activism and not scientificism.

They according to waldo, the NPA philosphy rejected

a.value neutraility or dichotomy-
b.Machine model of scientific effieciency as a main purpose behind administartion.

Robert Golebewesky in three fold categorisation of antigoals as they emrged from frank marini's edited volume of conclusion and themes of Minnowgroup I , these three antigoals are

1.Anti positivism iee NPA rejects and admin without value orientation.
2.Anti Technology ie,,NPA rejects any model of admin which treats human beings as non emotives and non creative entities.
In other words, it rejects model of admin which treats human beings as cogs in the machine.

It argues that NPA perspective regarding administartive organisation can't work on machine model and can't make admin work on the logic of a machine without seeking the relevant values.

c.Anti Hierarchy- NPA rejects that Pubad which suffers from bureaucratic rigidities. It rejects closed model of admin which just functions on pre set hierarchical rules under NPA.
Argument is for more open , innovative and flexible model of Administartion.

Although four solutions for acheiving goals of NPA were suggested in form of 4Ds yet it has been noted by critics of NPA movement that these solution were hardly elaborated upon as the focus of entire NPA discussion were confined to four ideas of relvance , values , equity and change.

Wilson's Vision of Public Administration

2.Pubad to be less Unbussiness Like

• Wilson Wanted Pubad to be less unbusiness like iee it should adopt the virtues of efficiency, promptness and economy as applicable to business administration. 
• He was critical of the govt functioning being unbusiness like in the sense that it was 

1. politicized 
2. corrupt
3. illogically populist.

• He argued that these unbusiness like traits should be replaced by more business like traits namely -economy, efficiency, speed and merit.

• To distinguish Goals and Means of govt, and Business , he used "less unbusiness like rather than more business like".
• Further, he argued that just as an efficient business organisation seeks some critical central concerns or effect, efficiency and economy...good govt. administartive oragnisation should also have these central concerns.
• In this sense Pubad has alot to draw from business adminstration so as to become more business like ie..less populist and more concerned with its efficient pursuit of its own business
• However, wilson clarified that there were some fundamental differences between the way business administration operates and the way Public administartion operates.
• he said-"Government is nt business, its organic life" meaning thereby that fundamental "consequence of government functioning " are sharply different from the way private business administration functions.

In other words there were fundamental differences in their respective goals and by organic life he suggested that government adminisatration has

a)more diverse goals
b)more dynamic goals
c)more humane goals.





"PSUs took initiative for development , private sector came to play later-seeing the profit-Best employeris railway"

"Means can be copied but goals are different"



In other words -As compared to Business goals which are homogeneous, static and commercial, the goals of government is diverse, dynamic and humane and oriented towards social good rather than profit maximisation.

Public administration can be more business like but its nit business in the sense that lot of efficient methods, techniques and ideas which make business administration efficient can be imported and replicated in P.A.