VARIATIONS ON A MANAGERIALIST THEME

BY: AKBAR PANDU DWINUGROHO MUTHIATUL HADLIROH NOVIYANTI RATNA PRADIPTA THERESIA OCTASTEFANI

INTRODUCTION

Bureaucratic reform 'came of age in the 1980s' as the winds of change droves political leaders to make radical alterations in the conduct of public administration. It change represent, a paradigm shift from the traditional Weberian model of public administration to the new managerialism (Barzelay, 1992; Zifcak 1994; p.1). The new managerialism encompasses a number or terms such as: New Public Management (Hood, 1991) Market Based Administration (Lan and Rosenbloom, 1992) Enterpreneurial Government (Osborne and Gaebler, 1992)

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The bureaucratic reform initiatives implemented since the late 1980s by state such as Britain, Canada, France have all been influenced by new managerialist ideas. Their reform policies key aspects of the new managerialist paradigm, including (p.2): 1. An emphasis on the delegation of authority 2. A shift from process to results in controls 3. Accountability mechanism 4. Focus on quality of services provided to the citizenconsumer Management policy is a technical field and issues related to administrative reform are generally under the responsibility of central agencies, staffed with superbureaucrats, whose clients are not members of the public as in the case of most government departments, but bureaucrats from other ministries (Campbell and Szablowski, 1979; p.6)

Explaining The Rise and Spread of Managerialist Ideas (p.7-8)

Three approaches explaining the rise on new managerialist ideas and policy changes in the area of public administration:

The first which might be termed the ideological interpretation, links the emergence and diffusion of managerialist ideas to the rise of the New Right in the 1980s

The second, which may be called the structural interpretation, relates the rise of managerialism to the process of economic globalization and to rapid developments in information technology.

The third and most recent explanation suggests that the diffusion of managerialist ideas and policies across nations is essentially a process driven by the interests of rational and profit maximizing management consultants from the private sector.

Concept of managerialism in the context of the New Right (p.8-9):

The rise of managerialism was perceived as being linked to the election of anti-statist politicians in the 1980s whose agenda was to denigrate the role of the public sector and its employees. (Hood, Dunsire and Thomson, 1988; Peters, 1991) Managerialism had advanced in parallel with New Right ideas and with the desire to replace bureaucratic institutions with market ones. (Cutler and Payne, 1994) Managerialism has become a steadily more prominent component in the policies adopted by right-wing government towards their public services. Managerialism is one central aspect of the new-right thinking concerning the state. (Pollit,1990:48-49)

Mechanism and ideas design to promote better services and costumer choice (p.10):
Increased

privatization Wider competition and contracting out Performance related pay Publish service standards and performance in meeting targets Tougher and more independent inspectorates More effective complaints procedures Better redress for individual when things go wrong

The process of Globalization

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- Refined information technologies have contributed to the globalization of approaches to public sector management (page 15) - The PUMA (public management) committe publishes yearly report and studies and has become a key focal point for the international diffusion of managerialist idea. For example in french, the renewal policy with name renouveau du service public (page 16) - Focused mainly on sevice delivery, accountability and evaluation.

Differences within corvergence

- improved communications may be leading to a greater awareness about what other states are doing and a keenness to learn from each others experiences. (p.17) - Proponents of this approach believe that improved direct communications and exchange of ideas between interested parties in various countries . . . helps to explain not only the uniformity of ideas but also the uniformity of language and practices (Greer, 1994: 229). P.17 Policy convergence is a concept which assumes that greater economic integration will encourage closer political relationships among the authorities responsible for the economies affected, and possibly convergence in institutional arrangements (Coleman, 1994: 274; Bennett, 1991) p.18

Consultocracy
Basically, the idea of an emerging consultocracy suggest that consultans have become powerful because, when implemented, the new managerialism model that they advocate tends to remove public administration from politics and thus, from public scrutiny. (p.20)

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Consultants are especially involved in promoting and developing the techniques that attempt to reproduce within the public sector the bottom line of commercial enterprises (Plumptre,1988) P.21
For instance, in britain the treasury published in 1990 a guide entitled Seeking help from management Consultants. In Figure 1.1.

The Shared Limits of Existing Interpretations (p. 23)

Britain, Canada, and France, there are a number of signs showing that the development of managerialist policies in the 1980s has been accompanied by the use, or by an encouragement to use, the services of management consultants (page 23).
There are important differences in the extent to which policy makers in the three countries embraced these ideas in the process of reforming their bureaucracy (page 23). If managerialist ideas simply reflected the material interests of rational consultants, French and Canadian consultants would, to some extent, be irrational consultants, because in these two states managerialist ideas have not been as influential as in Britain (page 23).

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Peters and Pierre, 1998 said that in all these interpretations and especially in the case of the globalization hypothesis where the state is said to be hollowed out or eaten away, there is no serious examination of the intervening processes by which ideology, interests, or structural factors enter state institutions and shape policies (page 24).

In the management consultant-centred interpretation the state is also invisible (page 24).

CONSULTANTS, THE STATE AND THE POLITICS OF MANAGERIALISM

The role of management consultants in the managerialization of state bureaucracies has not yet been the object of scholarly examination (page 24).

Historical Institutionalism and Policy Variation (page 25)

The 1980s and 1990s have witnessed a rediscovery of institutions in the study of political phenomena (March and Olsen, 1984; 1989). (page 25) In the historical literature, institutions are not only those associated with a countrys constitutions and formal political practices (page 25). In developing an explanatory framework that stresses the links between consultants and the state to account for differences in the reception accorded to managerialist ideas (page 25).

The Organizational Development of Management Consultancy (page 26)

One important factor that often stands out from these studies is that in a technically complex policy domain, ideas are more likely to influence policy and to be better received when they are advocated by a relatively well developed group of specialist or professionals (page 26). One crucial element deserving careful attention is the extent to which the services of consultants are consumed by the private sector (Alvarez, 1998)

The Openness of Policy Making Institutions to Outside Expert Advice (page 27)
The organizational development of management consulting does not alone determine the acceptance of managerialist ideas and policies by the states (page 28). The issue of institutional openness or permeability has often been discussed by comparing the American presidential model with parliamentary states (page 28). But this trend is not new, and did not develop suddenly with the emergence of new managerialist ideas in the 1980s (page 28).

Talking about the new managerialism implies that there was an old managerialism, but as noted earlier, many new managerialist ideas have their roots in the planning and rational management (i.e the Planning, Programming, and Budgeting System) movement of the 1960s (page 28). Following the example of United States, many OECD governments in the 1960s imported from Washington new management techniques that sought to strengthen the executive and rationalize the intervention of the state in society (Wildavsky, 1975). Page 30.

Policy Legacies And The Old Managerialism Of The 1960s If we want to understand whether it has been possible for consultants during the 1980s to enter state institutions and advocate new managerialist ideas in the process of bureaucratic reform, it is necessary to go back to the 1960s (p.30) Over the years, it has become more open to outside management experts, as well as to their associations and to reform-minded organizations promoting the adoption of certain management techniques in the public sector. (p.30) Accordingly, the approach will focus on the legacies of past bureaucratic reform initiatives. (p.31)

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When

they came to power during the 1960s after a long period out of office, the conservatives in canada and the labour party in Britain both distrusted the bureaucracy they inherited from their predecessors. (p.31) Diefenbaker and Wilson set up and Glassco and Fulton recommendation. (p.32) What about the French case? (p.33) By comparison, French consultants began to play a role in the process of administrative reform only in the 1980s. (p.33)

Method Of Analysis: Mills Two Comparative Logics

Britain,

canada and france were selected as case studies to examine the relationship between the role of management consultants in the bureaucratic reform policy process and the reception given by state to managerialist ideas for two main reasons. (p.33) Although britain, canada and french may all have in common the phenomenon to be explained, there are variations in the character or in the intensity of the phenomenon. (p.33)

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of these differences, it use french as a contrast to the british and canadian cases. (p.34) The method of analysis used in this study will therefore combine mills two comparative logics. This will be done by using britain and canada as positive or similiar cases with french case used as a contrast. (p.34)