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.