The Public Service Approach-Mohit Bhattacharya

• Public Administration as a discipline has been experiencing currently an unusual uncertainty about approaches to the study of administration.
•  Historically,there have been shifting stances from Taylorism to system theory via behavior and other process theories via behavior  such as those on decision making,leadership,coordination and communication and so on so forth.
• The uniqueness of current turmoil lies in raising 'fundamental' questions about the role of the state itself under the bewildering pressures coming from within and without the state.(eg globalization).

The two discipline-shaking approaches,in this context are
a)reinventing government approach of Osborne and Gaebler and
b)New Public Management Approach of Neo-liberal school of thought.

• The first thought has sought to reorient government studies from the point of view of core competence of government which has been termed as'steering' rather than 'rowing '.
• By contrast,the second approach has been focused on the downsisting of government (from the point of view of scope)and on enhanced management competence using

1.  Information technology,
2. Introducing Critical performance Appraisal and 
3. Allowing the 'market'to function in its designated sphere.

• The neo liberal philosophy as the critics points out,has functioned to the detriment of larger 'public interest',affecting particularly the poor and the marginalized.

• The other consequence of downsizing has been to the central position of government as the core regulator of society.

• There have been many reactions to the 'neo-liberal'approach to government,more importantly ,it has been suggested that the neo-liberal view,by apotheosizing(elevate) 'market' has failed to appreciate the crtical role of public institutions-the government-in the maintenance and development of society.

• In their path breaking publication entitled'The New Public Service:Serving not Steering'(M.E.Sharpe,2002)(Denhadt and Denhardt have succinctly put the central role of government as 'service'.Government' as they forcefully argue,'shouldn't be run like a business,it should be run like democratic.'

• Public interest and democratic citizenship are democratic hallmark of government.
• As the sense of service and community would be having better self estimation of dignity and self respect.
• They would in fact be reconnected with the citizens.
• As the public servants would be inviting citizens to participate in the governance process,their will emerge a new culture of co-governance  with the administration and citizens working together for the common good for the society.
• This new attitude and new involvement -co-governance is what Denhardt and Denhardt call the new public service.
• As it had been observed.'Administrators are realizing that they have much to gain by 'listening' to the public rather than 'telling' and by 'serving' rather than 'steering'.
• At the invitation of public servants,even their urging.ordinary citizens are once again becoming engaged in the governance process.
• Citizens and public officials are working together to define and to address common problems in a cooperative and mutually beneficial way."

• What Denhardt and Denhardt describe is more an expectation -a normative stand-in order to sensitize us to the democracy-diminishing trend inherent in the neo-liberal philosophy with its accent on 'market' and deemphaiss on 'government'.
• It is a timely waning and an appropriate cautionary note against the trendy 'down-sizing'movement in public administration.