1. According to Frederickson, what are the differences between New Public administration and Reinventing Government? What are the dimensions of comparison that Frederickson relies on to compare these two sets of reforms? Which set of reforms is in line with Hood's NPM?

Norma M. Riccucci University at Albany The "Old" Public Management Versus the "New" Public Management: Where Does Public Administration Fit In? Larry Lynn's piece, "The Myth of the Bureaucratic Para- philosophical underpinnings of the NPR, which, they ar- digm," is provocative to say the least. I come to this admis- gued, confute the fundamental principles of democracy and sion not because of the overwhelming popularity of Lynn's constitutional rule. Central to their argument was that the work or my enduring "affection for the author or ... the NPR's call for a shift from administrative bureaucracy to prestige [this] author confers on the field" (Lynn, 145; see entrepreneurial organizations ignores the very nature of also Karl 1976), but because of the intellectual merit the democratic government and how it evolved in the United essay demonstrates. I couldn't agree more with Lynn's over- States (Goodsell 1993). all premise and his conclusion that the traditional bureau- Moe (1994) points out that the NPR fails to account for cratic paradigm of public administration has proven to be critical differences between the government and private much more responsive to democratic values than has the sectors, and, in particular, ignores the constitutional premise revisionists' new, customer-oriented managerialism. And, that government is based on a rule of law and not market- not to be overlooked, for an "outsider," Lynn (152) pro- driven mechanisms. He states that "the government of the vides a respectable and comprehensive review of the intel- United States is a government of laws passed by the repre- lectual heritage of the field of public administration. sentatives of the people assembled in Congress. It is the That said, I fundamentally disagree with many of Lynn's constitutional responsibility of the President and his duly assertions. In particular, I disagree with one of his central appointed and approved subordinates to see that these laws, theses: that students of public administration have failed to wise and unwise, are implemented" (112). The "subordi adequately challenge the New Public Management. I also nates" would, in turn, be accountable to the president, not take issue with another theme that runs, perhaps more ob- customers of government agencies, for the execution of liquely, throughout Lynn's piece: the methodological claims the laws of the land. and interests of the New Public Management as compared For Moe, the bottom line is the supremacy of an institu- with those of the "old" public management. Here, Lynn tional presidency, where the president relies on the consti- seems to suggest that, due to a tradition of being "unduly tutional powers granted to the executive office in govern- careless," not only the New Public Management but the ing the country. This contrasts with what Nathan (1983) broader field of public administration itself "seems to have called the administrative presidency, where the president let lapse [its] moral and intellectual authority" (145, 155). exerts control over the bureaucracy by administrative fiat, Let me begin by parting company with Lynn's asser- and, as some have argued, by circumventing rules, regula- tions that traditional public administration was unable to tions, the law, and Congress's constitutional jurisdiction mount a sound, meaningful challenge to revisionist thought over the bureaucracy. advanced by the New Public Management. On the con- Similarly, Carroll (1995) sees the political objective of trary, a number of public administrationists virulently at- the NPR as changing the balance of power, control, and tacked the New Public Management, particularly its rein- venting government or National Performance Review Norma M. Riccucci is a professor and director of the Ph.D. program in pub- (NPR) manifestations. For example, there were many at- ic administration and policy at the Rockefeller College of the University at Albany, State University of New York. She has published extensively in the tacks against the NPR on the grounds that it failed to ac- areas of public management, employment discrimination law, affirmative count for the realpolitik of government (see, for example, action, and public-sector labor relations. Her book Managing Diversity in Public Sector Workforces is forthcoming from Westview Press. Her current Carroll 1995; Frederickson 1996; Moe 1994; Rosenbloom research focuses on the management capacity of state and local govern- 1993). In particular, many challenged the theoretical and ments to implement the Welfare-to-Work provisions prescribed by federal law. E-mail: riccucci@albany.edu. 172 Public Administration Review . March/April 2001, Vol. 61, No. 2authority over the federal bureaucracy. A presumption of power would rest in the executive branch, and Congress would have little or no role in executive administration. The constitutional doctrine of separation of powers would give way to absolute executive power over the administra- tive state. Carroll argues that the NPR [C]onverts government into an instrument of service consumption, ignoring the roles of government in resolving conicts, setting national goals, control- ling use of force in society, investing in the nation's future, and pursuing constitutional values and policy objectives which have little if anything to do with service or with satisfying customers... It neglects the reality of shared, commOn needs that cannot be dened or realized by satisfying individual consumer desires. It converts the citizen into a customer with little responsibility to the community. .. Government exists to satisfy immediate individual complaints and desires irrespective of the present or future needs of the nation. (309) He concludes, \"1n treating government as a Wal-Mart, the NPR ignores the fact that many operational assump tions based on customer service have implications for broader systems of values such as the rule of law, repre- sentative government, separated and shared powers, and individual liberty\" (310). Frederickson (1996), in a discerning piece, contrasts the values of the NPR with those advanced by the New Public Administration movement, which began in the late 19603. The main theme running through his analysis is that while the new public administration emphasized the positive role of public service in our society, the NPR espouses an anti bureaucratic thesis and promotes bureaucrat bashing. Frederickson notes that \"[a]lthough this bashing is denied [in the NPR], the public service is routinely held up to ridicule in the reinvention movement. When this is pointed out to reinvention advocates, they reply, 'We are only ridi- culing bureaucracy, not bureaucrats. We believe bureau- crats are good people trapped in bad systems.' However well meaning this distinction, it is lost on virtually all care ful observers\" (267, emphasis in original). Many critics of the reinvention movement acknowledge that efforts have historically been made to increase execu- tive power at the expense of other critical values within a democratic state (see, Kaufman 1956; Rosenbloom 1983). From Roosevelt's Keep Commission in 1905 to Reagan's Grace Commission in 1982, presidents have traditionally sought to improve government efciency and effective- ness by strengthening the powers of the executive branch. But, they note that one fundamental principle of demo- cratic rule had always been preserved: accountability. The NPR, as Moe concludes, \"repmsents an intentional break in management philosophy from earlier organizational management studies going back to the Progressive Era and indeed, in a very real sense, back to the founding of the Republic\" (1994, 112). Perhaps David Rosenbloom said it all in the title of his 1993 Public Administration Review article, \"Have an Ad- ministrative Rx? Don't Forget the Politics!\" As he notes, the advancement of administrative prescriptions have his- torically had popular appeal (see Lan and Rosenbloom 1992). However, reforms that promise to reinvent govern- ment by way of focusing on results and customer satisfac- tion as opposed to administrative and political processes fail to account for legislative self-interest (see Rosenbloom 2000). Rosenbloom contends that \"[e]ven if federal ad- ministration is reinvented.... Congress may manage to re- invent its leverage over the agencies." In the end, he points to \"an old lesson: If we want better government, we better talk politics\" (1993, 506). And, lest we forget, there was the rather caustic, almost contemptuous view of the NPR put forth by one of the nation's premier private-sector management gurus, Peter Drucker. In a February 1995 Atlantic M onrhiy article, \"Re- aiiy Reinventing Government," Drucker obviously not speaking from a traditional bureaucratic view, had this to say about the NPR: \"In any institution other than the fed- eral government, the changes being trumpeted as reinven- tion would not even be announced, except perhaps on the bulletin board in the hallway. They are the kinds of things that a hospital expects floor nurses to do on their own; that a bank expects branch managers to do on their own; that even a poorly run manufacturer expects supervisors to do on their ownwithout getting much praise, let alone any extra rewards\" (50). In any event, I'm not quite certain Lynn can legitimately claim that traditional public administrationists failed to ad- equately contest the New Public Management, thereby at- tenuating our intellectual heritage. Perhaps if one looks more closely, one might nd additional propositions being offered by Lynn. For example, do his criticisms have more to do with lack of analytical cachet and \"intellectual authority\" than with the philosophical merit behind the New Public Management? Has Lynn set up a struggle between the \"ol \" public manage- ment and its call for analytical rigor, and the New Public Management, which has been charged with being too \"squishy,\" further blurring normative-empirical lines? From a traditionalist standpoint, the old public manage- ment, which emerged in the early 1970s as a result of dis- satisfaction on the part of scholars in public policy and public administration (Lynn 1996), might be viewed more as an indictment of the New Public Management's meth- ods rather than its scope. Like the charges against tradi- tional public administration by the behaviorists, old pub- lic management, or at least a faction of it, questions the New Public Management's methodology from epistemo- The \"Old" Public Management Versus the "New" Public Management 173 logical and axiological standpoints, seeking to reinforce homiletic (or principle/proverb-based) approaches. In his what Simon initially told us in his celebrated Administra- book, Lynn takes issue with the works of a number of promi- tive Behavior (1947): There can never be a science of pub- nent folks, such as Bob Behn and Michael Barzelay, who lic administration from the viewpoint of practice, as Tay- approach public management from a homiletic perspective. lor (1911), Gulick and Urwick (1937), and others called He makes a not-too-flattering reference to Richard Nathan for, but public administration can and should be studied as "an exemplar of the antianalytical reductionist school" scientifically through the application of rigorous methods (Lynn 1996, 86). Thus, it seems that for Lynn, the New Pub- of the social sciences. ic Management fails to maintain the precepts supported and Simon's fact-value dichotomy, which many public ad- advanced by the old public management-as he and others ministration scholars quickly likened to the politics-admin- define it-and therefore, it has failed to advance the field in istration dichotomy, became a metaphor for the tension be- terms of intellectual inquiry. tween two approaches to studying public administration. The conviction surrounding the notion that a proposition One, urged first by the neoclassicists and later old public has meaning only if it can be empirically assessed seems management types, is logical positivism, seen as the right somewhat myopic. The scientific determinacy prescribed way or the "one best way" for conducting research in public by these old public management types leaves the impres- administration or public management. The other way, the sion that "research doesn't count unless it counts." This wrong way according to this faction in the old public man- marginalizes, indeed denies, a prodigious and illustrious body agement, is an approach that has historically dominated pub- of research in public administration and now the New Pub- lic administrative research-descriptive, normative, and lic Management, including case studies (such as, "best-prac- sometimes atheoretical. It is mainly qualitative and seen as tice" research), which have been highly useful for both prac- lacking analytic rigor and having failed to generate a strong tice and theory building (see deLeon and Denhardt 2000). It empirical base (see Thompson 1993, on critics of public also creates tensions in academic departments of public ad- administration's methods). ministration as they seek to define public management as a The resulting dichotomy is empiricism versus prescription inquiry for doctoral studies. Even Wittgenstein, not tion (or, alternatively, positivism versus metaphysics, sci- a member of the Vienna Circle, but one of the mathematical ence versus art or something to this effect). For the posi- philosophers who inspired the positivist movement, submit- tivists, there is no room for metaphysical speculation, ted that empiricism could establish that only some facts ex- reason, or innate ideas, as the rationalists called for. Rather, ist. Moreover, as Spinoza and John Stuart Mill would tell study must be inductive and based on value-free, ratio- us, by rejecting metaphysics we are also rejecting the possi- nally-derived, testable hypotheses. Empirically based, bility of an ethical and moral foundation to society. I am quantitative research is the only way to seek and discover certain that the modern-day thinkers of ethics, morality, and truth and reality. "administrative responsibility," such as Terry Cooper, John Positivists maintain that logical and mathematical propo- Rohr, and James Bowman, to mention a few, would agree sitions are tautological, and moral and value statements that rationalism continues to serve a vital role in public ad- are merely emotive. The goal of knowledge, they insist, is ministration and public management research. simply to describe the phenomena experienced. Its under- My point here is by no means to issue a wholesale dis- lying assumption of empirical certainty admittedly gives missal of scientific empiricism; this, too, would be fatu- it an air of seduction. But the doctrine of the old public ous and senseless. Rather, my purpose is to engage rea- management is a continuation and perpetuation of the be- sonable-minded scholars in public administration and havioral movement in political science and public admin- public management, new and old, in a dialogue on the istration, which repudiates the traditional paradigm-and importance of accepting diversity in research methods. now the New Public Management-from the standpoint There are many topics or issues in public administration that they are not grounded in empiricism. and public management that do not appropriately lend In an earlier work, Public Management as Art, Science, themselves to empirical study; others do. More to the point, and Profession (1996), Lynn seems to explicitly do just that. the field would be more consonant with the recognition As Beryl Radin accurately states in her jacket copy, Lynn that knowledge is derived from impressions both on the "demystifies the field of public management ..., navigating] intellect and on the senses. through its concepts, contradictions, and challenges." While As Frederickson (2000) recently suggested, the field Lynn does provide important insights into the conceptual can greatly benefit from "a rapprochement between the scope of public management, as Allison (1980) seminally ... administrative sciences and the humanities." He goes but inchoately did two decades ago, a central thesis of his on to say that "the analytical tools of social sciences help book is that the field of public management must generate a us know how organizations operate and how public man- more powerful knowledge base than its current normative, agers function. But to know public organizations and their 174 Public Administration Review . March/April 2001, Vol. 61, No. 2management is not to understand them. Understanding Interestingly, even Lynn sees some value in the NPR and requires perspective, experience, judgment, and the ca- the reinventing government movement, despite his view that pacity to imagine. These qualities have less to do with entrepreneurialism poses a threat to democratic rule. In an analytical skills and more to do with philosophy, language, article appearing in the American Prospect (1994), Lynn art, and reason" (52, emphasis in original). stated that the NPR "already has been catalytic, and public Despite my dispute with the underlying premises of the administration is enlivened by a palpable new energy. Prop- scope of the New Public Management and its consumer- erly mobilized on behalf of good policies, the movement to driven managerialism, I believe a solid body of research reinvent government will enter the history of administrative has emerged on the New Public Management, particularly reform as a useful step forward" (144). as it pertains to reinventing government and the NPR. For Ultimately, I think Lynn misses the mark in his conclu example, many supported the importance of reform and sions that public administration or even public manage- innovation in the federal government from a public man- ment has somehow been denigrated by a new movement agement standpoint, though they did not necessarily sub- that seeks to stake some claim in our collective intellec scribe to the underpinnings of the NPR (see Thompson tual endeavor. The field will continue to sustain attacks on and Ingraham 1996). As deLeon and Denhardt (2000) point its heritage and its methodology, which can only strengthen out, despite our sentiments about the reinvention move- rather than diminish public administration as a field of in- ment, the existing body of research contributes significantly quiry or as a profession (see Kettl and Milward 1996; to political theory insofar as it speaks to the nature of demo- Rosenbloom 1983; Stillman 1991). This is, after all, what cratic governance in our nation. public administration is all about