Neoliberal Economics, Public Domains, and Organizations:
Is There Any Organizational Design after Privatization?
Professors Alexander Kouzmin and John Dixon note that at a time when the Bretton Woods institutions are increasingly concerned about “rein- venting” governance and building institutional capacities, the new mil- lennium is an appropriate moment to refocus public discourse and policy- making debates about the complexities of market-state dependencies and emerging public-private partnerships. The emerging willingness to reas-
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sess the instruments and practices of economic liberalism in dif ferent political milieus also raises many significant questions about the limits and enhanced capabilities of the state, let alone the business corporation, to be an effective manager of the public interest. According to Kouzmin and Dixon, the main thrust of major research undertaken in 21st-century public administration will be to build on the cor nerstone concept of public domains in order to audit putatively shrinking public domains and policy capacities in an age of globalization and strategically down- sized governments.
Kouzmin and Dixon assert that the state’s role in the 21st century will not only be strategically redefined as its budget-funded public-provision role is cut back in the face of burgeoning budget deficits, but it will also become more complex as its regulatory and reregulatory role increases to ensure that the accommodation of off-budget provision by the private, NGO, and state corporate sectors achieve desired public-policy goals. This important repositioning can only occur if, at the political level, policy decision-making institutions and, at the administrative level, budget-funded public agencies are both required and able to design, implement, and evaluate long-term and strategic changes compatible with the way they manage the achievement of public-policy goals. Kouzmin and Dixon assert that governance capacities in globalizing contexts raise significant concerns about the vulnerability of national governments, the appropriateness of free-market rhetoric, and the role of self-interest in new, global economic orders. Economic change and the strategic competence of government have not been widely discussed, nor has the proposition that public sectors can be, and are, strategically deskilled in a putative process of adminis- trative reform, a process that can also be seen as a hostile restructuring for privatization of public domains and their explicit assets.
In the extremities of public-choice theory, claims made on behalf of efficient, privatized managerial action and the new public management’s (NPM) complicity in the socioeconomic costs of downsizing and reengi- neering need to be confronted urgently. In the 21st century, as corporations and privatized agencies begin to recognize and count the long-term damage inflicted by rampant managerialism, the chapter authors raise the question: Has the cost-benefit analysis been carried far enough in an age when managerial elites participating in the “slash and burn” (or, more politely, the “increasing shareholder value”) regimes might be asked to justify individual complicity in the economic exclusion experienced by many under neoliberal political and neoclassical economic dogma?
Kouzmin and Dixon advocate an epistemological audit of economic ratio- nalism that can help to precipitate and accelerate such an appropriate reckoning. They also recommend that a search for more-sophisticated
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managerial voices, ones more prone to reflexivity about economic dogma, may also help.
Public Entrepreneurism: A New Paradigm for Public Administration?
Professor Alan C. Melchior addresses the contemporary and emerging public entrepreneurism that is alerting public administration to the most recent technological and social paradigm shift influencing society. He argues that public entrepreneurial advocates like David Osborne and Ted Gaebler are inadequate, but that they do highlight the importance of competitiveness as a value for public administration that can supplement or replace the concept of efficiency. However, neutral competence and
“justice as fairness” remain a moral imperative. Although entrepreneurial theory does not provide a basis to understand the administrative state, it is significantly challenging the older lens of understanding. Propelled by the rapid advances in information technology, technical revolutions permit managerial and even political and social revolution rather than marginal modifications. The ability of society to cope with popular demands for both moderate taxes and high-quality public service may well depend upon the ability to utilize fully the possibilities made available by advanc- ing information technology. Certainly, public entrepreneurism is one of the new possibilities that is emerging as American society moves into the 21st century.
The Multicratic Organization: A Model for Management of Functional Interdependence
Professor Richard Narad begins his chapter by offering an answer to the question posed by Professors Kouzmin and Dixon in chapter 28, “Neolib- eral Economics, Public Domains, and Organizations: Is There Any Orga- nizational Design after Privatization?” Narad proposes and describes a new organization form, the multicratic organization, as both a possible answer to Kouzmin and Dixon’s question and as an organization design adaptable for public-sector activities in the 21st century. Narad notes that public- policy objectives requiring the participation of multiple organizations can be harmed by self-optimizing efforts by autonomous organizations. Poten- tial responses range from a laissez faire approach to bureaucratization.
According to Narad, the “multicratic organization” is a model that coordi- nates autonomous organizations with high degrees of functional interde- pendence. It provides for public accountability while maintaining the sovereignty of individual entities. In this chapter, Narad describes an ideal
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type of multicratic organization, develops it, and applies the ideal type to the emergency medical-services system.
Virtual Program Evaluation: A 21st-Century Approach
Professors Peter L. Cruise and Thomas D. L ynch note that program evaluation in the public sector is confronted with many new challenges, most notably new public management (NPM) techniques and virtual- networked organizations spanning across agencies, jurisdictions, and even countries. They ask: How can the practice of program evaluation adapt to the new organizational realities of the 21st century? Their chapter examines the rich history of program evaluation in the public sector by exploring its continuing acceptance of many alternative perspectives as evaluators were presented with new problems and the changing needs and values of society. In particular, the use of various evaluation criteria is highlighted as key to the past success of public-sector program evalu- ation. Cruise and Lynch then examine aspects of NPM, the growing insular nature of public-sector networked organizations, and the potential ethical dilemmas presented by such networked configurations. In such organiza- tions, the public manager will need to rely even more on tools (such as program evaluation) that can provide useful information developed from a variety of data sources in both actual and virtual configurations, as well as strong steering mechanisms under which to act responsibly and be responsive. Next, at a time when current and future public managers should look to academics for the tools, information, and skills necessary to cope with the challenges ahead, the field of public administration is trapped in an intellectual “box” created by the proponents of postmodern logic. Cruise and Lynch explore aspects of postmodernism and its potential for mischief if it is viewed either as a tool to provide useful evaluation information for the public manager or as a steering mechanism helpful for the public manager to act responsibly or be responsive in 21st-century networked organizations. Finally, Cruise and Lynch discuss several key issues that must be addressed if effective program evaluation is to be conducted in virtual-networked organizations in the 21st century.
Twenty-First-Century Philosophy and Public Administration:
Refocusing the Lens
In our final chapter, Professors Thomas D. Lynch and Cynthia E. Lynch bring together many of the ideas and perspectives contributed to the discussion and address the question of where we go from here. In this chapter, they provide a critique of both modernist and postmodernist
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philosophy in an attempt to rethink the role of philosophy in understand- ing public-administration theory. The chapter authors suggest that a pri- mary goal of an epistemologist examining public-administration thought is to have the ability to “think outside the box” created by traditional forms of understanding. By doing this, one identifies those ideas that transcend traditional borders of our limited knowledge and, in the process, expand our boundaries.
According to Lynch and Lynch, the approach to ethics in the public sector used during the latter years of the 20th century is inadequate. They propose an alternative approach for the 21st century. By using a virtues- based approach to ethics combined with the common spiritual wisdom found in the world’s major religious traditions (Hindu, Jewish, Buddhist, Christian, and Islam), Lynch and Lynch suggest that public-administration practitioners and scholars can begin to establish a superior approach to ethics in the 21st century.