Robert B. Denhardt

The New Public Service: Serving Rather than Steering

The New Public Management has championed a vision of public managers as the entrepreneurs of a new, leaner, and increasingly privatized government, emulating not only the practices but also the values of business. Proponents of the New Public Management have developed their arguments largely through contrasts with the old public administration. In this comparison, the New Public Management will, of course, always win. We argue here that the better contrast is with what we call the “New Public Service,” a movement built on work in democratic citizenship, community and civil society, and organizational humanism and discourse theory. We suggest seven principles of the New Public Service, most notably that the primary role of the public servant is to help citizens articulate and meet their shared interests rather than to attempt to control or steer society.

Time and Organizations

The concept of time is introduced as a major topic for organizational and management research. Including a discussion of differing times and temporalities, macro level research and theory are described that relate time to such substantive areas as organizational culture, strategic planning, and organizational contingency theory. At the micro level, theory and research on time and individual differences, decision making, motivation, and group behavior are reviewed critically. Organizational and management topics of particular salience forfuture temporal research and management practice are identified.

The Political Theory of Reinvention

In this article, we examine the implications of the reinvention movement for democratic governance, broadly defined. The most basic premise of the reinvention movement is a belief that the accumulation of the narrowly defined self-interests of many individuals can adequately approximate the public interest. By “narrowly defined,” we mean the interests of individuals as they privately apprehend them, unmediated by participation in a process of civic discourse. To illustrate the centrality of this assumption to the implicit theory of reinvention, we consider three of its elements—its use of the market model, its emphasis on customers rather than citizens, and its glorification of entrepreneurial management. We then examine the implications of the self-interest assumption, which entails a rejection of democratic citizenship, civic engagement, and the public interest, broadly conceived.

The Big Questions of Public Administration Education.

Following Behns observation that scientists in other fields understand the big questions of their disciplines and focus attention and their discussions on those questions, public administration scholars have attempted to identify the “big questions” in public management and public administration. In this article, I suggest that scholars in public administration should also be attentive to the big questions of public administration education, those timeless and enduring concerns that speak to the basic perspectives that we bring to the educational process. Specifically, I identify four big questions: Do we seek to educate our students with respect to theory or to practice? Do we prepare students for their first jobs or for those to which they might aspire later? What are the appropriate delivery mechanisms for MPA courses and curricula? What personal commitments do we make as public administration educators? I argue that these big questions in public administration education are far more connected than we usually think, and by posing these questions in terms of processes of human development we can at least provide a framework through which we might develop more coherent answers to these big questions, answers that recognize and build on the diversity of our students and our faculty.

The Pursuit of Significance: A Survey among top managers of public administration in the Netherlands

The results of a large scale research project among top public managers in The Netherlands are presented. On the basis of Likert-scaling the degree of Change Orientation is measured. Change Orientation consists of five components: commitment to values; serving the public; empowerment and shared leadership; pragmatic incremen-talism and dedication to public service.

Trust as Capacity: The Role of Integrity and Responsiveness

The article examines the relationship between trust and administrative capacity. Administrative capacity is enhanced by trust in government, and trust in government is enhanced by promoting greater integrity and responsiveness in government.

THE NEW PUBLIC SERVICE: AN APPROACH TO REFORM

Under evolving forms of governance, government will play a different role in the steering of society. Yet government will still be judged by legal and political criteria, economic and market criteria, and democratic and social criteria. The first of these was central to traditional public administration, the second is at the forefront of “the new public management,” and the third is central to “the new public service.” Here we outline the characteristics of the new public service and how its principles will guide future public administrators.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT PERFORMANCE THROUGH THE EYES OF CITIZENS

Citizens generally do not have a good understanding of local government and consequently have difficulty assessing performance objectively. Instead, they permit a variety of indicators and sources of information to shape their perceptions of government. This research takes a first step toward an improved understanding of citizen-government relations, especially focusing on how citizens see government. The survey results from over 1800 citizens in Orange County, Florida (including the metropolitan area of Orlando) are analyzed through a series of multiple regression models employing varied assumptions and citizen populations to better understand what drives citizen perceptions of local government performance. To effectively change citizen-government relations, local government must honor citizen values and priorities by demonstrating that it listens to citizens and acts on what it hears.

Public Administration and the Critique of Domination

Public administration is viewed here as facing a crisis of legitimacy which derives from (1) the fields association with societal tendencies toward regulation and control and (2) the failure ofpublic administration theory to adequately connect with adminis trative practice. In contrast, a critical approach to public administration is outlined, one which holds forth some promise of meaningful reflection and enlightened action in the public sector.

WHEN CITIZEN EXPECTATIONS CONFLICT WITH BUDGETARY REALITY: DISCONTINUITY BETWEEN THE PUBLIC'S DEMAND FOR SERVICES AND ITS WILLINGNESS TO PAY TAXES

The tension between demand for services and willingness to pay for those services, referred to here as tax-demand discontinuity, poses a dilemma for local government that will only intensify with growing fiscal constraints. This research is based on a survey of over 1800 citizens in Orange County, Florida, the county including Orlando, to develop a seven-position classification system to define the nature and extent of tax-demand discontinuity. Citizen demographic characteristics, perceptions of the economy and perceptions of government segmented by tax-demand discontinuity classifications are used to offer guidance to local government about opportunities for improving citizen-government relations.