Democratizing Public Governance in Developing Nations

With Special Reference to Africa

Shamsul Haque, Anastase Shyaka, Gedeon Mudacumura

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781317371618
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: American Government
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This edited volume brings together critical insights that address the multifaceted problems of governance and democracy in the developing regions with specific reference to Africa. It explores both the externally prescribed and home-grown governance initiatives geared toward democracy and development, and suggests alternative strategies to improve the processes and institutions of governance. The chapters in the book deal with major concerns related to governance, including the strengths and limits of existing policies and practices and the structure and role of state and non-state institutions in promoting democracy and participation. All these issues, in general, have great significance for realizing an authentic and enduring mode of democratic governance in the developing world.

Part I

Perspectives on public governance

Regional scenarios

2 Legacy of the NPM model in governance

Impacts of its neoliberal principles on democracy in Asia, Africa, and Latin America

M. Shamsul Haque

In many developing countries, although the governing institutions and processes functioned largely as the instruments of postcolonial states in the past, at least officially they played certain roles in enhancing socioeconomic progress, realizing people’s needs, and increasing public participation through various means. However, these trends have changed over recent decades dominated by the emergence of anti-state or anti-bureaucratic ethos and the rise of businesslike reforms based on neoliberal principles (including privatization and deregulation, neo-managerial agencies, and performance standards). These pro-market reforms are usually presented as new public management (NPM), and have recently given rise to revisionist governance models like shared governance, new public service, good governance, and so on. While these NPM-style reforms have been pursued in the name of greater efficiency and effectiveness, its politico-economic implications have often been anti-democratic for many developing countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. This chapter aims to explore such adverse consequences of adopting NPM in terms of dilemmas between its promise of efficient and effective governance and its actual anti-democratic outcomes, such as the weakening of public interest and participation and the diminishing of people’s access and entitlement.

Introduction

It is globally recognized that the recent decades represent one of the most eventful epochs in the history of public sector reforms, which have been encapsulated as reinventing government, modernizing governance, reengineering public service, and articulating new public management (NPM). Such reform initiatives have allegedly flourished under more market-centered state formations presented diversely as the hollow state, the managerial state, the negotiated state, the neoliberal state, and so on (Peters & Pierre 1998). Among the terms and concepts used to capture the overall trend of these contemporary public sector reforms, the most widely used framework in both academic discourse and practical policy debate has been the so-called NPM, which is largely perceived as a paradigm shift or an ideological movement in public sector reforms worldwide (Terry 1998; Larbi 1999). It is observed that although the pro-market and businesslike NPM model originated in advanced capitalist nations like New Zealand, Britain, Australia, Canada, and the United States, to various degrees, it made significant impacts on recent reform initiatives pursued in developing countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America (Wood 2004; Berg et al. 2004).

Despite this globally and historically unprecedented nature of the NPM model, for some scholars it is basically a loose collection of market-driven ideas without a strong intellectual consensus (Haque 2004). Unlike the debates on earlier administrative models (e.g., bureaucratic model, new public administration, and development administration) grounded in relatively coherent conceptual, theoretical, and critical literature, the discussion on NPM has been quite incoherent, fragmented, technical, and uncritical (Common 1998; Haque 2004). For Lynn (1998), the inherent ambiguities in NPM are, in fact, conducive to its worldwide popularity – the advocates of the model have been quite busy answering questions and providing clarifications related to these ambiguities. Beyond such conceptual problems, the existing literature on NPM is also overwhelmingly dominated by other common issues related to its major components, causal factors, and cross-national similarities or differences

However, there is a relative lack of rigorous post-facto studies on the actual impacts of NPM on the administrative, political, and economic domains of societies, although some piecemeal observations are available in this regard (Manning 2001). As Christensen and Laegreid (1999: 1) mention, the “effects and implications of NPM are often assumed or promised, but not documented.” Similarly, for Monteiro (2002: 10), “success stories of NPM are told over and over again, but one hears less about the failures.” Among the potential impacts of NPM, it is even more difficult to come across comprehensive studies on its political impacts, especially with regard to its implications for democracy and democratization, except for a few studies highlighting the limits of NPM with regard to its critical implications for democracy in certain cases (Schedler 1996; Somers & Gregory 2009; Box et al. 2001; Tang 2004; Ritz & Sager 2010). According to Box et al. (2001: 608), “New Public Management goes beyond earlier ‘reforms,’ threatening to eliminate democracy as a guiding principle in public sector management” (italics in original).

In the above context, this chapter focuses specifically on the impacts of such neoliberal NPM-style reforms on democracy and democratization in developing countries where these reform initiatives have often been imposed or imitated without people’s consent, and the outcomes have often been anti-democratic in terms of the fragmentation of collective public interest into individualistic consumer choices, the diminishing people’s capacity and power to hold the government accountable, the erosion of citizens’ social rights due to the shrinking public sector employment and welfare services, and so on. In order to examine these crucial issues effectively, it is essential, however, to explore the existing views on the connotations and components of NPM and delineate its basic tenets more precisely and systematically.

New public management: conceptual controversy and consensus

One major difficulty in pursuing any comprehensive study on NPM is the incoherent, fragmented, and often superficial analyses of its concepts, theories, and principles offered by its proponents or advocates (Common 1998; Haque 2004). Although it is presented as a body of thought, a paradigm, a vision, or an ideology based on pro-market beliefs and business principles (Batley & Larbi 2004: 40–41), there are controversies and a lack of consensus in relation to what it really means and entails. For critics, NPM is a slippery concept; it is analytically inconsistent, ideologically incoherent, and practically diverse; it represents “a series of partially contradictory prescriptions”; and it offers a menu or shopping list of prescribed solutions (Bislev & Salskov-Iversen 2001; Manning 2001; Tang 2004). In fact, there are many sets of interpretations regarding the main tenets of NPM presented by different authors, and some of the major ones are summarized in Table 2.1 for further analysis and assessment.

It is clear from Table 2.1 that most authors hold some common views on the pertinent features of the NPM model, especially with regard to its organizational, managerial, and financial principles. However, a serious drawback of their NPM menus is that most of them list the major components of NPM at random without using any logical taxonomic criteria and principles. In addition, these sets of the NPM menu do not cover the underlying theoretical foundations and ideological underpinnings of the model. Due to these limitations of the existing views on NPM to offer clear interpretations of the model, an alternative framework is presented in Table 2.2.

Table 2.1 Main features or components of the New Public Management model

Authors	Basic features/components of NPM
Hood (1991)	Professional management; organizational disaggregation; competition and mixed provision; use of business management practices; emphasis on output controls; explicit performance standards and measures; and discipline and parsimony in resource use.
Armstrong (1998)	Cost-cutting, disaggregating organizations; purchaser–provider split; market and quasi-market mechanisms; decentralized management; performance management (targets and output objectives); contract-based employment; performance-related pay; and customer responsiveness.
Davis & Rhodes (2000)	Market mechanisms (contracting out, purchaser–provider split); corporate management (performance measures, managing by results); regulation (focus on outputs and outcomes); privatization (sale of state assets); and decentralization (redistribution of authority and responsibility).
Batley & Larbi (2004)	Organizational restructuring (decentralized management, autonomous agencies); use of market-type mechanisms (user charges, privatization, contracting out); and emphasis on performance (results or outcomes).
Dunleavy et al. (2006)	Disaggregation (purchaser–provider split, agencification); competition (outsourcing, liberalization, deregulation); and incentivization (property rights, privatization, performance-based pay, public–private partnership).

Source: Created by author based on sources cited in the table.

First, with regard to the ideological foundation, it has been pointed out that “the reforms and practices that can be described under the umbrella term of NPM generally arose out of neo-liberalism, and as such, involved in-built hostility to state monopoly provision of services” (Dibben & Higgins 2004: 28). For Drechsler (2005), NPM represents the neoliberal ideological tradition, and its market-led principles and businesslike techniques are compatible with the neoliberal view of the state and economy. Roper (2004: 124) also declares that “NPM remains rooted in neo-liberal assumptions.” More specifically, neoliberal assumptions – including the superiority of the market forces, priority of economic individualism, preference for government non-intervention, minimal role of the state in service delivery, and so on – are in line with the basic tenets of NPM adopted in both developed and developing nations (King 1987; Bangura 2000; Wood 2004; Cope et al. 1997).

Second, in terms of theoretical bases, NPM is founded upon certain strands of several theories, including neoclassical economics, public choice theory, new institutional economics, principal-agent theory, and managerialism or neo-managerialism (Batley & Larbi 2004; Kaboolian 1998; Terry 1998), all of which share to various degrees the basic neoliberal assumptions discussed above. In particular, some scholars point out that public choice theory and managerialism are not only founded upon neoliberal assumptions, they also reinforce the neoliberal ideological position held by recent reform initiatives (Wood & Roper 2004; Saint-Martin 2001). In relation to the basic tenets of NPM outlined above, neoclassical economic theory stresses the role of the free market in generating competition, actualizing self-interest, providing choices, and ensuring allocative efficiency (Batley & Larbi 2004). Public choice theory also assumes that all individuals (including public officials) are guided by self-interest. It accuses government and public bureaucracy of being unresponsive, inefficient, monopolistic, self-serving, and expansionist; prescribes the downsizing of the state and expansion of the market; and provides inspiration for NPM-type reform measures like organizational disaggregation, privatization, contract-based management, outsourcing, and performance measurement (O’Flynn 2004; Batley & Larbi 2004). Complementing these principles of public choice theory is the so-called new institutional economics that explores the kinds of institutions (e.g., contracts and property rights) appropriate for pursuing individual self-interest.

Table 2.2 New public management: analytical framework

Levels and dimensions	Features of NPM
Ideological bases and sources	• Neoliberalism, Neo-conservatism, New Right (in normative assumptions and institutional choices)
Theoretical principles and sources	• Neoclassical theory, public choice theory, new institutional economics, principal–Agent theory
Policy initiatives and priorities	• Washington Consensus, structural adjustment • Privatization, deregulation, liberalization
Functional roles and measures	• Facilitating or enabling role (not directing or leading) • Outsourcing, contracting out
Structural patterns and strategies	• Downsizing, disaggregation, agencification • Partnership and collaboration
Financial orientations and arrangements	• Financial autonomy, result-based budget • Outputs and outcomes, user fees
Managerial options, tools, and attitudes	• Operational discretion and flexibility • Performance targets and indicators, client-centeredness

Source: Author.

Third, with regard to policy initiatives and priorities of NPM, the above neoliberal assumptions and pro-market theoretical positions were central to the so-called “Washington Consensus” and the subsequent stabilization and structural adjustment programs that include policies such as privatization, deregulation, liberalization, and direct foreign investment (Haque 2001; Martin 1993). However, central to the realization of NPM has been the policy of privatization embraced by most governments in the name of achieving greater efficiency, generating much needed revenue, and overcoming fiscal problems like deficit and debt (Haque 2001; Polidano 1999). In many cases privatization became one of the most wanted policy options to reduce the size of the public sector and stop its further growth. According to the United Nations (2005), the NPM model not only accompanies these pro-market policies, it also becomes a part of this policy agenda.

Fourth, in terms of the functional roles of NPM, the whole public sector assumed the role of a facilitator (rather than leader) in the process of service delivery. It implies that public management should not directly produce and distribute goods and services; its expected role is to facilitate or enable the private sector to play the primary role in this regard (Peters & Pierre 1998). In line with this redefinition of the public sector role, in most OECD countries the public sector has abandoned its direct involvement in delivering services, especially by outsourcing them to private enterprises. Increasingly, the public sector is engaged in enabling private entrepreneurs, making deals with contractors, creating opportunities for private investors, and providing information to consumers (Haque 2004).

Fifth, there are also certain structural patterns that characterize the NPM model, including downsizing the scope of the public sector, disaggregating it into autonomous agencies, and forming partnerships with non-government entities. In order to downsize or right-size the public sector, beyond privatization and contracting out, it is prescribed that appropriate measures should be adopted to streamline government’s financial and human resources by reducing public sector ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Contributors
• Preface
• Introduction
• Part I Perspectives on public governance: regional scenarios
• Part II Politics, democracy, and good governance
• Part III Decentralization and local governance
• Part IV Innovative strategies and governance
• Index