providing roles. It is recommended that new public managers should be
given greater discretion to use the resources at their disposal. While they
may be judged against performance standards that have been made more
explicit and quantifiable than in the past, their accountability to political
leaders would be weakened. Furthermore, the constraints of the public
service ethic would be abandoned in favour of private sector management
techniques and practices, particularly in relation to personnel management.
NPM also discards the unrealistic distinction between politics and adminis-
tration, acknowledging that public managers will inevitably decide on
policy issues of political significance.
While there are obvious public benefits to be derived from any greater
efficiency and effectiveness in the provision of public services and func-
tions achieved by the employment of better managers, an emphasis on
achievements rather than budgetary inputs, the use of effective incentives
within public bodies, and greater concern for the economical use of public
resources, it is far less obvious that such reforms weaken the power of offi-
cialsvis-à-vispolitical leaders. Public officials become more like the equals
of politicians than their servants. The requirement under NPM that officials
be responsive to the needs of their clients actually increases their political
power by acknowledging their right to decide what needs to meet and how
to meet them. They will not be responding to sovereign consumers in the
manner of competing private forms.
Under NPM the actions of public officials may become more transparent,
making it easier for the public to judge the wisdom of government policies.
But the politicians’ control of their bureaucrats will have been weakened. It
is by no means clear that administrative reforms inspired by NPM will
ensure as much accountability of public officials to elected representatives
as more traditional methods of public administration, especially under
Third World conditions where legislatures are weak and client groups
poorly organized.
The practice of the new dogma in public management also affects the bal-
ance of power within civil society. Redefining the citizen as ‘customer’ or
‘client’ – an approach adopted by many countries in Asia, Africa and Latin
America – implies a monetary transaction and exchange rather than a
public duty to provide a service to those entitled to receive it. Charging for
services makes essential services such as education and health care less
affordable to low income groups. Divestment and ‘downsizing’ of public
services and social expenditure reduces the capacity of the state to serve the
basic needs of citizens for health, education, and shelter, services which are
critical to the living standards of the poor (Haque, 1999).
Bureaucracy and Political Power 171