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