# Changing the Model of Public Administration

Political Science I · Public Administration · https://tryals.app/learn/political-science-i/changing-the-model-of-public-administration

## Why the Model Was Reopened

By the late 1970s, classical bureaucratic administration faced four distinct challenges:

- **Fiscally**: the post-1973 economic slowdown restricted public spending.
- **Ideologically**: public choice theory depicted officials as self-interested budget-maximisers.
- **Managerially**: private sector practices offered models of performance and customer focus.
- **Democratically**: citizens criticised large bureaucracies as remote and unresponsive.

## Wave One: New Public Management

In 1991, **Christopher Hood** published "A Public Management for All Seasons". The paper identified New **Public Management** (NPM) and its core doctrines.

Two distinct intellectual traditions shaped NPM:

- **New institutional economics**: focused on contracts, competition, and incentives.
- **Managerialism**: emphasised professional management skills, urging governments to **steer, not row** (Osborne and Gaebler).

## Wave Two: Governance

Disaggregation created a fragmented public sector. **R. A. W. Rhodes** analysed this landscape of **self-organising interorganisational networks**.

Here, the state acts as one partner among many. It coordinates rather than commands directly.

## Wave Three: Reintegration

By the 2000s, governments sought to mend fragmented services. This wave took several related forms:

- **joined-up government**
- **whole-of-government**
- **digital-era governance**

Digital systems allowed agencies to reintegrate functions and organise services around citizens.

> **Common pitfall:** assuming each reform wave replaced the previous one. In practice, modern administrations use bureaucratic rules, NPM targets, networks, and digital platforms **at the same time**.

## Practice questions

9 of this lesson's 13 practice questions, with answers. The full set is in the app.

### 1. Arrange these contributions to administrative reform in order of publication.

**Answer:**

1. Niskanen on the budget-maximising bureau (1971)
2. Hood, A Public Management for All Seasons (1991)
3. Osborne and Gaebler, Reinventing Government (1992)
4. Rhodes, Understanding Governance (1997)
5. Dunleavy and colleagues on digital-era governance (2006)

**Why:** The twenty-year gap at the front is worth noticing: the intellectual case was available long before the political conditions that made it actionable. The rest of the sequence is a reaction chain, reform, then the problems reform created, then the attempt to repair them.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/political-science-i/changing-the-model-of-public-administration/arrange-these-contributions-to-administrative-reform-in-order-of

### 2. How many doctrinal components does Hood's 1991 account of new public management list?

**Answer:** 7 (within ±1.5)

**Why:** **Seven**: hands-on professional management, explicit performance standards, output controls, disaggregation, competition, private-sector management styles, and discipline in resource use. Hood's own point was that they do not form a coherent package, some of them pull against each other.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/political-science-i/changing-the-model-of-public-administration/how-many-doctrinal-components-does-hoods-1991-account-of-new-public

### 3. Why did the reform coalition of the 1980s draw support from opposite political directions? Select every criticism that fed it.

A. Fiscal pressure after the post-1973 slowdown
B. Public choice models of officials as budget-maximisers
C. A finding that bureaucracies had become technically incapable of routine administration
D. Democratic criticism that large bureaucracies are remote and unresponsive

**Answer:** A. Fiscal pressure after the post-1973 slowdown; B. Public choice models of officials as budget-maximisers; D. Democratic criticism that large bureaucracies are remote and unresponsive

**Why:** The fourth option is the one usually omitted from the story. Criticism of remote, standardised bureaucracy came from the left as well as the right and proposed participation and decentralisation rather than markets, and it is part of why the reform coalition was broad enough to succeed.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/political-science-i/changing-the-model-of-public-administration/why-did-the-reform-coalition-of-the-1980s-draw-support-from-opposite

### 4. Complete the account of the reform waves.

**Answer:** Osborne and Gaebler summarised the managerial programme as: government should **steer**, not row. Rhodes described the result of disaggregation as self-organising interorganisational **networks**. The response to fragmentation is variously called joined-up government and **digital**-era governance. Hood observed that the economic and managerial strands of the reform **conflict** with each other.

**Why:** The last blank names the internal contradiction. New institutional economics wants precise specification and tight contracts; managerialism wants managers freed to exercise judgement. A reform programme demanding both at once produces the familiar experience of being simultaneously empowered and audited.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/political-science-i/changing-the-model-of-public-administration/complete-the-account-of-the-reform-waves

### 5. In what year did Hood publish "A Public Management for All Seasons"?

**Answer:** 1991 (within ±2)

**Why:** **1991.** Naming a phenomenon matters more than it sounds: Hood identified a set of reforms already under way in several countries as a single recognisable model, which made it possible to compare them and to argue about it as a whole.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/political-science-i/changing-the-model-of-public-administration/in-what-year-did-hood-publish-a-public-management-for-all-seasons

### 6. Arrange these stages of the reform sequence in order.

**Answer:**

1. Classical bureaucratic administration comes under attack from several directions
2. Functions are disaggregated into agencies and contracted providers
3. The resulting landscape proves hard to coordinate
4. Networks are described as governing without government
5. Functions are reintegrated around client needs using digital systems

**Why:** Each stage is a response to the problems the previous one created, which is why the sequence looks so much like a pendulum. The important qualification is that the stages **accumulated** rather than replaced one another.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/political-science-i/changing-the-model-of-public-administration/arrange-these-stages-of-the-reform-sequence-in-order

### 7. Sort each element by the intellectual source it comes from.

**Answer:**

- New institutional economics: Contestability and competition between providers, Principal-agent contracts with explicit incentives, Precise specification of outputs
- Managerialism: Freeing managers to manage, Management as a general, transferable skill, Steering rather than rowing

**Why:** The two columns are the internal contradiction of the reform era. Ask a manager to be freed from rules and simultaneously held to a precise contract and you produce exactly the experience most public managers report, more autonomy on paper and more measurement in practice.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/political-science-i/changing-the-model-of-public-administration/sort-each-element-by-the-intellectual-source-it-comes-from

### 8. Rhodes describes the governance wave as replacing direct state command with self-organising networks. What does this shift mean for how public policy is delivered in practice?

A. Central departments regain direct hierarchy over agencies
B. Policy delivery is contracted out entirely to private firms
C. The state relies on coordination among multiple partners
D. Agencies are fully reintegrated through digital platforms

**Answer:** C. The state relies on coordination among multiple partners

**Why:** Governance is defined by interorganisational networks where power is dispersed, not unilateral privatisation or digital reintegration. Assuming hierarchy is restored confuses governance with traditional bureaucracy or later third-wave remedies.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/political-science-i/changing-the-model-of-public-administration/rhodes-describes-the-governance-wave-as-replacing-direct-state

### 9. The three waves of reform replaced one another, so a modern administration operates on the most recent model only.

**Answer:** False

**Why:** **False**: they accumulated. A European administration today runs Weberian legal procedure, new public management performance indicators, governance networks and digital reintegration simultaneously, often in different parts of the same organisation. That accumulation is why reform feels contradictory from inside and why no single model describes any real administration.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/political-science-i/changing-the-model-of-public-administration/the-three-waves-of-reform-replaced-one-another-so-a-modern