From Efficiency Discussions to Democracy in Public Administration:
A Theoretical Analysis
Kadir Caner Dogan (Volume editor)
Summary
Excerpt
Table Of Contents
- Cover
- Title
- Copyright
- About the editors
- About the book
- This eBook can be cited
- Contents
- Introduction
- From Efficiency Discussions to Democracy in Public Administration: A Theoretical Analysis (Kadir Caner Dogan and Omer Ugur)
- Part I Studies on Mainstream Public Administration Theories
- 1. New Public Management in the Context of Transformation and Change in Public Administration (Niyazi Karabulut and Erhan Orselli)
- 2. From Bureaucracy to Governance: Transition from Centralism to Localism in Public Administration (Canan Cakir)
- 3. An Evaluation on the Neo-Weberian State Theory (Tekin Avaner and Recep Fedai)
- 4. New Public Service Approach: Democratic Citizenship–Oriented Public Service Understanding (Dilek Memisoglu Gökbinar)
- 5. Values in the Public Sector: Values that are Effective in the Decisions of Public Administrators (Yurdanur Ural Uslan)
- 6. Value Co-creation in Public Services: A Conceptual and Theoretical Overview (Abdullah Uzun)
- 7. A New Discussion on the Theories of Contemporary Public Administration: International Public Administration (Cantürk Caner)
- 8. The City Council Experience as a Governance Practice in Turkey (Mithat Arman Karasu)
- 9. E-municipality and E-democracy Relationship (Nur Sat)
- 10. Regulatory Challenges for Digital Governments: Privacy, Net Neutrality and Control of Internet Content in Turkey (Dilek Dede)
- Part II Other Interdisciplinary Studies Related to Public Administration Theories
- 1. Democracy and Participant Political Culture (Fatma Okur Cakici)
- 2. Investigation of Global Climate Change and Climate Change Project Results of Gümüshane as a Disaster (Afsin Ahmet Kaya and Meryem Akbulut)
- 3. An Analysis of the Relationship Between Property Rights and National Income Within the Framework of New Institutional Economics Theories (Pınar Koc)
- 4. The Impact of Globalization on Public Employment: The Case of Emerging Market Economies (Orkun Celik)
- 5. Evaluation of the Effects of Public Choice Theory on Human Behaviours in the Context of Turkey (Kurtulus Merdan)
- 6. A Discussion on the Possible Impact of Cryptocurrencies on State Sovereignty (Ibrahim Karaaslan)
Introduction←11 | 12→←12 | 13→
Kadir Caner Dogan and Omer Ugur
From Efficiency Discussions to Democracy in Public Administration: A Theoretical Analysis
Public administration, as a discipline, first emerged in the 19th century in the United States (US). While structuring this discipline, it is reasonable to claim that there are also traces of Continental European tradition (France and Germany at the front) from the earlier ages. This discipline, which evolved in the United States mostly around the axle of capitalism, efficiency and organization-science, maintained this tendency till the end of the 1970s. Till that period, public administration was referenced in relation to the bureaucracy theory in the Weberian model and the “traditional/classical public mdministration” approach (Frederickson et al., 2012). Traditional public administration approach and public administration discipline focused on a centralist, hierarchical and bureaucracy-centered organization.
As of World War II and post the 1950s, the “new public management movement” sprang in the sphere of public administration. To instill democracy theory in public administration, intellectual roots of this movement led by American intellectual Dwight Waldo were once again grounded in the United States (Waldo, 2007). At the same time, these ages correspond to a period in which neoclassical organizational approaches also play a role in the process within the frameworks of administration science or organizational theories. Indeed in such periods, emergent breakups in the shift of paradigm in public administration allowed to add the concepts of organizational-level participation and pluralism to this discipline (Sener, 2005). The concepts of participation and pluralism in public administration were initially discussed on a limited organizational level. Its discussion on a social level and gaining validity could become possible much later. Subsequently, public administration as a discipline began to seek a novel identity under the pressure of major changes.
On the other hand, after the 1950s, postmodernism movement started to replace modernism. Modernism laid the ontological basis of public administration discipline; in another saying, it introduced the main philosophy in its establishment phase. It has thus been acknowledged that modernism dominated till the 1950s. From this perspective, postmodernism had its word on public administration after the 1970s, but its deep extensions on the philosophical and theoretical level of public administration began in the 1990s (Fox and Miller, 2007). ←13 | 14→Within this framework, the reflection of postmodernism as a meta-discourse or movement in academic literature on the public administration of the 1980s could be materialized through “new public management,” (NPM) while in the 1990s, it could be materialized via the “governance” approach. Within the scope of NPM, the governance theory or approach can be delineated as a political, democratic and philosophical public administration theory (Dogan, 2017: 38). Likewise, some groups argued that the governance theory is, as the second generation extension of neoliberal economy policies, which emerged in the 1980s, the summit or roof approach of public administration theories and is a reflection of the slogan “democratization in public administration” (Parlak and Dogan, 2016).
The concept that should be emphasized here is NPM. Indeed, the big symbol of the great transformation in public administration in the 1980s was NPM. NPM is a concept that advocates the application of business techniques and methods in public administration and refers to the concepts of efficiency and quality in the public (Gruening, 2001). On the other hand, scientific examination of the NPM approach began in the 1990s (Hood, 1991). As mentioned above, this concept, which is the embodiment of the postmodern public administration discourse, has also been subjected to intense criticism on the grounds that publicity does not carry facts such as legitimacy, democracy, ethics and responsibility (Peters, 2003). Therefore, the NPM approach based on efficiency is subject to criticism that shows public discourse. In this context, the source of the criticisms emerges from here. Because NPM overwhelms public administration discipline with organizational theories and causes it to move away from its core (Drechsler, 2009; Thompson and Miller, 2003).
In addition, public administration discipline, particularly after the 1990s, started to follow the steps of Frankfurt School or critical theory trend, which severely criticized the enlightenment dialect, its methodology and its foundational rationalism at the onset of the 1900s. In that sense, a number of academicians and intellectuals paved the way for a new intellectual ground as a result of the birth of an approach named “critical theory in public administration.” Here, critical reasoning in public or critical theory approach in public administration, which especially escalated over new public administration/NPM critics, suggested that social justice, ethics, democracy and legitimacy as the key points in public administration went unnoticed in mainstream public administration theories (Box, 1995). In the same vein, within the context of critical theories in public administration, novel ideas and forms such as “new public service” and “new public governance” in public administration theories fueled diversity after the 1990s. Here, new public service is expressed through democracy, participation and mostly by the change in public service approach (Denhardt, ←14 | 15→1981). New public governance, however, is an approach aiming to mobilize synergic bodies such as public welfare and network theory in public administration (Osborne, 2010). Besides these, other theoretical or intellectual arguments in public administration are: “neo-Weberian State” (Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2011: 118), “public value approach” (Moore, 1995), “whole-of-government approach” (Christensen and Lægreid, 2006) and “international public administration” (Bauer et al., 2017). An extensive body of these theories has been widely analyzed in this chapter.
This study, which analyzes theory-based thoughts and approaches that sprang in the historical and cyclical scope of public administration, is basically built upon explaining modern public administration theories lying at the core of efficiency and democracy arguments. That is because public administration discipline in its beginning or establishment stage was attempted to be explained via the “efficiency notion” and relevant theories and approaches. However novel an approach that was, introduced by some of the aforementioned modern public administration theories, it was now tried to be analyzed through new, questioning and relevant theories and approaches stemming from the “democracy notion” in relation to critics. Within this framework, theoretical evolution of public administration discipline historically progressed “from efficiency to democracy.”
Theoretical ground executed within the axle of efficiency arguments in public administration forced this discipline to break up from the political, philosophical, sociological and ideological unity that it embodied. In public administration literature, this situation was termed as identity crisis. Indeed, public administration, as a social-sciences discipline that inherently calls for an interdisciplinary character, cannot be explained by purely operation-based organizational theories alone since, as mentioned earlier, public administration is a multidimensional scientific discipline that entails quite a complex methodology. In order to mention theory or theories in public administration, it is imperative to mold the said theoretical unity (Parlak and Dogan, 2016). This major change that can be grouped in public administration mostly under democracy notion offers great contribution both to eradicate identity crises in the discipline and also to ensure theoretical unity. In this particular study, as a result of interdisciplinary and holistic features of public administration, relevant concepts and theories of different academic disciplines were references. Hence, in this study, it became viable to analyze different theories within public administration discipline itself and it was also feasible to examine certain disciplines (political science, economy, disaster and environmental sciences, finance) on the basis of issues that mattered in public administration theories. In this way, a variety of academic disciplines ←15 | 16→that present the main source of theoretical path in public administration under certain conditions have also been elaborated in this particular study.
In general, the social sciences likely expressed unification after the second half of the 20th century. Indeed, its extension in public administration can be detected in intellectual analyses executed within the axle of efficiency and democracy arguments. As can be seen in public administration, integration of this discipline with other disciplines, making use of their concepts, approaches and theories, could assist in the liberation from identity crises that correspond to a lack of theoretical unity. Before anything else, in order to state theory or theories in public administration, it is suggested to develop recognized, tangible and scientifically proven theses or hypotheses in this discipline. Next, these hypotheses are tested to measure their accuracy.
Within that context, this study consists of mainly two parts, split into 16 chapters.
The first part is titled Studies on Mainstream Public Administration Theories, and in this part there are 10 chapters. The first chapter is co-written by Niyazi Karabulut and Erhan Orselli and titled “New Public Management in the Context of Transformation and Change in Public Administration.” The second chapter is written by Canan Cakır and titled “From Bureaucracy to Governance: Transition from Centralism to Localism in Public Administration.” The third chapter is titled “An Evaluation on the Neo-Weberian State Theory” and co-written by Tekin Avaner and Recep Fedai. The fourth chapter is titled “New Public Service Approach: Democratic Citizenship–Oriented Public Service Understanding” and written by Dilek Memisoglu Gökbinar. The fifth chapter is titled “Values in the Public Sector: Values that are Effective in the Decisions of Public Administrators” and written by Yurdanur Ural Uslan. The sixth chapter is titled “Value Co-creation in Public Services: A Conceptual and Theoretical Overview” and written by Abdullah Uzun. The seventh chapter is titled “A New Discussion on the Theories of Contemporary Public Administration: International Public Administration” and written by Cantürk Caner. The eighth chapter is titled “The City Council Experience as a Governance Practice in Turkey” and written by Mithat Arman Karasu. The ninth chapter is titled “E-municipality and E-democracy Relationship” and written by Nur Sat. The tenth chapter is written by Dilek Dede and titled “Regulatory Challenges for Digital Governments: Privacy, Net Neutrality and Control of Internet Content in Turkey.”
The second part is titled Other Interdisciplinary Studies Related to Public Administration Theories and consists of 6 chapters. The first chapter is written by Fatma Okur Cakici and titled “Democracy and Participant Political Culture.” ←16 | 17→The second chapter is co-written by Afsin Ahmet Kaya and Meryem Akbulut and titled “Investigation of Global Climate Change and Climate Change Project Results of Gümüshane as a Disaster.” The third chapter is written by Pınar Koc and titled “An Analysis of the Relationship Between Property Rights and National Income Within the Framework of New Institutional Economics Theories.” The fourth chapter is written by Orkun Celik and titled “The Impact of Globalization on Public Employment: The Case of Emerging Market Economies.” The fifth chapter is titled “Evaluation of the Effects of Public Choice Theory on Human Behaviours in the Context of Turkey” and written by Kurtulus Merdan. The sixth chapter is written by Ibrahim Karaaslan and titled “A Discussion on the Possible Impact of Cryptocurrencies on State Sovereignty.”
References
Bauer, Michael W., Christoph Knill and Steffen Eckhard (Eds.) (2017). International Bureaucracy: Challenges and Lessons for Public Administration Research, Palgrave Macmillan, UK.
Box, Richard C. (1995). Critical Theory and the Paradox of Discourse, The American Review of Public Administration, March, 25(1), pp. 1–19.
Christensen, Tom and Per Lægreid (2006). The Whole-of-Government Approach-Regulation, Performance, and Public-Sector Reform, Stein Rokkan Centre for Social Studies Unifob as August, Working Paper 6.
Denhardt, Robert B. (1981). Toward a Critical Theory of Public Organization, Public Administration Review, 41(6), (Nov.–Dec.), pp. 628–635.
Dogan, Kadir Caner (2017). Postmodern Kamu Yönetiminin Kuramsal Temelleri Çerçevesinde Yönetişim Yaklaşımı: Literatür Taraması, Ömer Halisdemir Üniversitesi İktisadi ve İdari Bilimler Fakültesi Dergisi, 10(1), Ocak, ss. 27–45.
Drechsler, Wolfgang (2009). The Rise and Demise of the New Public Management: Lessons and Opportunities for South East Europe, Uprava, letnik, VII(3), pp. 7–27.
Fox, Charles J. and Hugh T.Miller (2007). Postmodern Public Administration, M.E. Sharpe Inc., The United States of America.
Frederickson, H. George, Kevin B.Smith, Christopher W. Larimer and Michael J.Licari (2012). The Public Administration Theory Primer, Westview Press, USA.
Gruening, Gernod (2001). Origin and Theoretical Basis of New Public Management, International Public Management Journal, 4, pp. 1–25.←17 | 18→
Hood, Christopher (1991). A Public Management for All Seasons, Public Administration, 69, spring issue, pp. 3–19.
Moore, Mark H. (1995). Creating Public Value: Strategic Management in Government, Harvard University Press, Massachusetts.
Osborne Stephen P. (Ed.) (2010). The New Public Governance: Emerging Perspectives on the Theory and Practice of Public Governance, Routledge, London.
Parlak, Bekir ve Kadir Caner Dogan (2016). Kamu Yönetimi: Kamu Yönetimi Disiplininin Gelişmesinde Rol Oynayan Kuramsal Yönler Üzerine Bir Giriş, Beta Basım Yayım, İstanbul.
Peters, B. Guy (2003). The Changing Nature of Public Administration: From Easy Answers to Hard Questions, Viešoji Politika Ir Administravimas, 5, pp. 7–20.
Pollitt, Christopher and Geert Bouckaert (2011). Public Management Reform: A Comparative Analysis-New Public Management, Governance, and the Neo-Weberian State, Oxford University Press, UK.
Details
- Pages
- 288
- Year
- 2020
- ISBN (PDF)
- 9783631833100
- ISBN (ePUB)
- 9783631833117
- ISBN (MOBI)
- 9783631833124
- ISBN (Softcover)
- 9783631817223
- DOI
- 10.3726/b17465
- Language
- English
- Publication date
- 2020 (August)
- Published
- Berlin, Bern, Bruxelles, New York, Oxford, Warszawa, Wien, 2020. 288 pp., 8 fig. b/w, 25 tables.
Biographical notes
Ömer UĞUR (Volume editor)
Kadir Caner Dogan (Volume editor)
Kadir Caner Dogan is an associate professor at the Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Gumushane University, Turkey, where he teaches public administration -related courses. Postmodern public administration, governance, new public management and ombudsman are among his interests. Omer Ugur is an associate professor at the Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Gumushane University, Turkey. He works on The European Union, global environmental governance, and environmental law.
