The Changing Role of the State

The diffusion of Government’s traditional roles with the dawn of new public management (NPM) paradigms does not mean that the government will be irrelevant in today’s world. Instead, the government remains distinctive and indispensable entity for the exercise of public management. What has been witnessed in the emergence of Globalization is not the end of the government but rather a transformation of the government and evolution of its roles and responsibilities. It is only an affirmation that everything follows a certain life cycle. With the dawn of globalization, a life cycle of governance paradigm ended, especially in the western democracies yet another cycle began, the NPM paradigm.

Today’s challenges are much different than in the past, hence our solutions continue to evolve, just as how governance transformed in response to the changing challenges of the times. As for NPM, much has been promised, however, not everything has been achieved. It can be expected therefore that NPM will continue to evolve, probably in another name or with other set of principles in pursuit of solutions to the gaps left unfilled.

ICT's Influence on Governance

Information and Communications Technology (ICT) has a major influence on governance. For one, it creates new expectations from citizens on how governments should deliver services or interact with them. The Institute of Governance, Canada says that Internet technologies are "redefining the boundaries of personal choice and private influence, and of collective decision-making on matters of public importance."

Moreover, there are expert opinions that ICT alters the patterns of complex interdependence among nations by increasing the channels of communications in world politics and between individuals. Before, the transnational flow of information were heavily controlled by large bureaucratic organizations, multinational corporations and the Catholic Church, which had the resources to establish a communications infrastructure. Today, anyone with a computer can communicate to all corners of the networked world and participate in the international exchange of information and opinions.

The Beginnings of New Public Management (NPM)

While New Public Management (NPM) carries the word “New”, it is relatively not new. In fact, it is only the third wave of radical reforms for running the business of the modern state. It is only a modified quality-driven version of older reforms in public governance. Probably, the epithet "New" indicates that NPM is a transformation from the previous thoughts and that indeed, public governance is a history of administrative transformations right from the Egyptian and Greek Civilizations up until today.

The first wave of radical change took place in Britain with the implementation of civil service reforms during the second half of the nineteenth century. The second wave, which was dubbed as "progressivism" occurred in the United States during the second and third decades of the twentieth century. Progressivism is a political movement that represents the interests of ordinary people in their roles as taxpayers, consumers, employees, citizens, and parents.

The third wave of public governance transformation occurred toward or during the New Millennium. In the United Kingdom, Tony Blair’s agenda in the new millennium was “modernising” public services and delivering "Best Value,” particularly at local government level. Canada introduced PS 2000 (client-focused approach) in 1989. New Zealand has had a series of reform measures extending back to 1986. The Scandinavian countries have also embraced similar managerial reforms. In the US, Bill Clinton asserted that “the era of big government is over” referring to the reforms encompassed by their theme “reinventing government.” Together, these reforms and transformations make up the era of NPM.

Transformation of Governance Paradigm

Over the last several decades, the modality for governing the public sector has undergone radical changes. This has been particularly true for the Western industrial democracies where globalization, which principally triggered such change, has gone way ahead than anywhere else in the world. In the past, governing the public is carried out predominantly through the “hierarchical government bureaucracy” model. This has been replaced with “governing by network” in which government executives redefine their core responsibilities from managing people and programs to coordinating resources for producing public value.

With the new paradigm, public services are delivered via various modalities but where efficiency and effectiveness are a common theme. Hence, some services are delivered through outsourced providers; some through the private sector or entrepreneurial bureaucracies under market or quasi market environment. This generally implies that conventional public administration is being replaced by public management. In effect, government agencies today are becoming less and less important as service providers/producers but more and more important as levers or facilitators of public value.