Public Administration and Democracy: The State of the Art
| Date | 01 September 1998 |
| DOI | 10.1177/014473949801800202 |
| Published date | 01 September 1998 |
| Author | John Kingdom |
Teaching Public Administration, Autumn 1998, VolXVIII, No.2, pp18-30
PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND DEMOCRACY:
THE STATE OF
THE
ART
JOHN KINGDOM
Sheffield Hallam University
The Thatcher era focused attention on the place
of
ideology in politics.
Britain (and much
of
the western world) moved out
of
an era
of
consensus politics. For enthusiasts it was not so much a return to
ideological politics
as
the final triumph for one
of
the ideologies around
which twentieth-century debate has revolved. An 'end
of
history' was
proclaimed in which neo-liberalism vanquished all before it (Fulruyama,
1992).
Of
course the triumphal ism was premature. Already, a number
of
former communist states are becoming disenchanted with free-market
liberalism and in the
US,
Britain, and to some extent other West
European countries, the concept
of
a 'third way' takes ideological
discussion into a new phase (see Giddens, 1998).
However, the implications
of
this change for public administration, both
as
a practical occupation and
as
an academic discipline, were seismic.
It
involved nothing less than 'reinventing government' (Osborne and
Gaebler, 1992). Amongst practitioners, some adopted the new ethos like
chameleons. They were augmented by a new breed moving in from the
private sector
as
chief executives
of
agencies or
NHS
general managers.
In the academic world 'New Public Management' became a recognisable
international phrase. However, by no means all were enthused by the
new public management stress on what it termed 'efficiency', which
seemed to threaten the fundamental ethos
of
public service (Chapman
and O'Toole, 1995).
When the state is seen
as
a problem rather than a solution, then
democracy itself is seen
as
a problem. Elcock (1991, p188) was quick to
go the heart
of
the issue, noting that democracy necessarily imposes
restrictions on the extent to which public service managers can expect to
operate with the kind
of
autonomy associated with the private sector.
18
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