| Review of: | The Oxford Handbook of Public Management edited by Ewan Ferlie, Laurence E. Lynn, Jr., Christopher Pollitt |
|---|---|
| Reviewed By: | Gerald Caiden |
| Reviewed in: | Public Administration Review |
| Date accepted online: | 02/11/2007 |
| Published in print: | Volume 67, Issue 2, Pages 343-366 |
A Handbook for Whom?
Many centuries ago, an early Confucian administrative reformer, Fan Zhong-yan, warned public administrators that they ought to start worrying long before the rest of the world, but that after the world rejoiced, they could, too. [1]What he meant was that they had to be one step ahead of everybody else in running public affairs, and if they did well enough, they could afford to relax on a job well done-that is, public administrators have to understand their subject matter so well and understand the causal relationships so well that they know what is coming next and can take steps in advance to prevent catastrophes, which is a crucial function of the public sector. Today, he would probably urge them to keep abreast of their field of public policy, administration, and management by anticipating developments and refreshing themselves on the sage wisdom of the age so that they are not caught unawares. Public administrators can easily do that these days because, as in other disciplines, they are being flooded by handbooks purporting to be instruction manuals or encyclopedic references or scholarly surveys of the current state of the art.
The celebrated editors of these handbooks invite their choice of experts in various aspects of the discipline, select what they considered to be the best submissions, and provide an introductory overview and a concluding summary of what they expect will be the next steps in research and practice. Some of these volumes-indeed most-are directed at fellow academic researchers and advanced students, whereas others are designed to keep practitioners conversant with current global trends and best practices. The really ambitious ones try to provide both sets with convenient reference manuals. Every so often, their first choices let them down, and the hasty substitutes do not meet the editors' exacting standards. Nevertheless, all involved expect the final product to make an impact on the profession. Alas, all too often, their combined efforts barely make a ripple as their bulky tomes languish on library shelves, certainly unknown and unread by any practitioner audience.
Occasionally, there comes along an exceptional blockbuster that makes it all worthwhile-that is, a volume that becomes a standard collection of historic interest that goes through edition after edition or is so well done and so superior to its rivals that, for a time, it becomes
Some evidence of what the editors have had to overcome can often be detected in the foreword or introductory chapter. In
In much their own words, first, they wanted "well-written authoritative essays that discussed the important developments both in public policy and in relevant scholarship" (2), encouraging "originality, preferring provocative ideas and arguments and strong individual voices over bland, encyclopaedic summaries" (2). Second, they "wanted to ensure strong international coverage across the chapters" (2) but admit that they failed to include sufficient contributors from outside the English-speaking scholarship and the non-Western developing world. (So why not use translations or rely on known stars or reliable scholars recommended by international authorities, such as the World Bank or the United Nations Panel of Public Administration Experts?) Third, they sought "to encourage different perspectives rather than orthodoxy" (3) (i.e., a mélange of diverse ideas and approaches ranging across a wide political and philosophical spectrum). Yet, fourth, they wanted to be politically correct in representativeness but again admit that they erred on the side of maturity. Again, largely in their own words, the editors
grouped the essays into five sections ...to move from the more general to the more particular, and then to return to the general at the end. Section 1 [containing five chapters, including Christopher Hood, Hal Rainey, and Linda DeLeon] orientates the reader by exploring basic frameworks, backgrounds, and key current controversies at a high level of generality. This is followed by a set of chapters in Section 2 [nine chapters, including Patrick Dobel and George Frederickson], which explore alternative theoretical and disciplinary perspectives on public management. Section 3 [seven chapters] covers a number of current public policy or management themes, albeit from a scholarly and social-science-based point of view. The [five] chapters [including Patricia Ingraham and Irene Rubin] in Section 4 consider developments in particular functional areas, such as Human Resources Management. This is followed by a Section 5 [four chapters, including the afterword by the editors] which explicitly considers the international and comparative dimensions of public management reforming. The final chapter by the editors considers emerging overall themes across the set of chapters and outlines possible future directions. (3-4)
In short, the editors wanted their readers to be invigorated and their handbook, "useful to faculty, reflective practitioners, research students, and international public management institutions" (4). The final product of nearly 800 pages includes some 38 authors, some of whom should be familiar to readers of the
This is indeed a lavish menu. But whether the final product will become a blockbuster remains to be seen. It has all the makings of one and deserves to become one. Although it does not always come up to its editors' expectations, it should satisfy all but its harshest critics. The authors include several international stars, familiar names in the profession, who are joined by promising newcomers from whom more will undoubtedly be heard. Altogether, the contributors make this an outstanding book, head and shoulders above the rest. It deserves to be read and discussed. As the editors admit, there are blemishes and omissions, common to all like ventures. Again, carping critics will have their day nitpicking and scolding, but even they must admit that this handbook is one of the best of its kind. The publisher, the editors, and the authors all deserve to be congratulated on a fine performance. This book stimulates thought, puts materials together in a new way, presents basic data in ways that are likely to redirect research, provides a better foundation for that research, eliminates much repetition of mindless ideology in place of research, and poses new questions and approaches.
But, in being so bold, the editors open themselves to professional criticism. To take their own criteria, the authoritative essays deliberately stress the new, novel, and innovative, thereby relegating orthodoxy to the traditional, which in itself provides a distorted perspective on reality. Because so much emphasis is placed on the fresh, controversial, and eccentric, the traditional tends to get short shrift, with many famous past contributors to the field hardly mentioned at all in passing or glossed over and taken out of context. The orthodoxy of proven worth has lasted for generations-for good reason-and has adapted itself to changing conditions. It probably will outlast many of the oddball ideas given space (such as the heirs of European theorizers Jacques Derrida, Michael Foucault, and Gilles Deleuze and echoes of the contemporary postmodern philosophers) that may well be the current flavor of the day among selected radical intellectuals but will probably disappear, like so many other past fads and fancies, into the garbage can, where they belong. Many are so divorced from the realities of daily public management, being far too simplistic, that experienced practitioners will scoff at their impracticality, given the circumstances under which they toil just to keep things from falling apart, let alone achieving near perfection.
Second, although the search for universalism is a worthwhile international endeavor, and the global village promises much, the conditions under which public management operates are so different from place to place that it should be no surprise that much of the world is left out altogether. Once again, as in so many handbooks, the members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) seem to dominate this text. But even within the OECD, surely authors from France, Germany, and Japan could have been found to offer quite different perspectives from those presented. What about all of the countries that have actually outperformed OECD members over the past 50 or so years, such as Singapore, Israel, South Korea, and now possibly India and China? Have they nothing to contribute to today's discussion about the field? Have their public management and scholars nothing worth knowing? To whom is this book addressed? There is innovative public management in many countries, particularly in South America, which is completely ignored. Because of the book's slant, much of its international and comparative content is unrealistic or implies that the rest of the world should mimic what OECD members have done or now do, irrespective of vastly different circumstances. There is little excuse for this major defect, given the easily accessible information available on the Internet and the abundant examples of current developments broadcast by international public management bodies, to whom this book is specifically directed.
Third, the editors "sought to encourage different perspectives rather than orthodoxy." But what constitutes orthodoxy? Is it just a straw man to be knocked down by any pretentious researcher or crackpot theorist? What does any of this mean in terms of public values? Much new stuff is simply ideologically driven, politically slanted, based on biases against the public sector, public initiatives, and public enterprise (or conversely, slanders capitalism, business enterprise, and private initiatives). Much denigrates the careers of loyal, devoted, hard-working public servants in favor of those who, given half a chance, would plunder the public purse, distort public policy, and perform worse than is currently the case, despite promises to perform much better. One of the most crucial challenges today in public management is the decline in public integrity and the issue of conflicts of interest. Yet this barely gets a mention in the index, and it is one of the topics that is poorly exhibited. Instead, almost nothing is said about the infiltration of private interests into the public domain or the occurrence of institutional corruption where once it rarely appeared-this in a book in which governance all too readily replaces government.
Fourth, the editors may have sought political correctness, but they have failed. Why? Prejudice, discrimination, and unequal opportunity abound everywhere, even in public management and its study. The taboos surrounding this aspect of the discipline still dominate so-called discussion. Yes, the barriers are falling, but not fast enough. As long as the private sector is far worse and overly exploitive, its victims will look for relief in the public sector, certainly among the better educated, professionally qualified, and communally active. But greater opportunity is still no guarantor of greater success, nor should it be, given the lack of adequate talent in public policy, administration, and management, which have difficulty recruiting and retaining their fair share.
Finally, whatever the intentions of the publisher, editors, and authors, a harsh reality faces them. In these days of computers and modern information technology, who is prepared to go through nearly 800 pages of text, however well-written, distinctive, comprehensive, and invigorating? Who is inclined to bother unless compelled to do so? Certainly, fellow academic researchers and instructors who are avid to find out whether they are mentioned and whether their pet topics and ideas are included. But the reception of practitioners is crucial. It is obviously useful for them to know and understand what the academic community is thinking. But they want something that helps those on the job get through the day and get the job done-and done better than before, to the satisfaction of everyone, even the most demanding. Their tasks become more and more complex, elaborate, and frustrating as their conditions change dramatically, sometimes virtually overnight. When things go right, others are quick to take the credit, and when things do not go so well, they get the blame and are held to scorn. When not so long ago, they were put on a pedestal by the New Public Management movement, they were quickly hauled down again. They seem to get more help from business school manuals, which at least are shorter, simpler (perhaps too simple), and more focused, and above all understandable to lay readers. If this handbook were to languish, it would be a great pity and another missed opportunity to improve the state of the art. But who would be to blame?
Actually, both tribes would be at fault. The academics hide too much behind the cloak of the intellectual, living in a rarified otherworldly atmosphere, distant from the action, and too afraid to get their hands dirty in the public place. Too often, they mix only with their own kind, afraid of rejection, jealous of those who achieve public acclaim or fame by using their intellectual authority to appeal to the broader public. They distance themselves, probably for better cause, from their fellows who manipulate passions rather than reason or deliberately seek to create dissension, unrest, anti-intellectualism, vulgarity, and outrage. Intellectuals still play an important role in society. They are still admired and given an audience because they can be so influential and because their ideas can still make a profound impact on everyone else. One only has to think of John Maynard Keynes, the economist who profoundly changed thinking about public finance and much more. For example, even at the start of the Great Depression (1930), he still envisaged a much brighter future for his grand-children a hundred years hence when he estimated that they would enjoy a standard of living some six to eight times that of his own generation, provided population growth were controlled, wars and civil violence avoided, science and technology (intellectual property) allowed their freedom, and wealth more widely shared. He was that optimistic, but he was also that realistic about things likely to come (Keynes 1930, 373). One can mention other intellectuals and academics who have had a profound impact on public policy, administration, and management, such as economists like Milton Friedman and John Kenneth Galbraith and thinkers like James Q. Wilson, Jeffrey D. Sachs, and Francis Fukuyama.
The practitioners are too prone to overlook the role of the academic world, best represented by John Gardner in
I like to think that the university will stand for things that we forget in the heat of battle, for values that get pushed aside in the rough-and-tumble of everyday living, for the goals we ought to be thinking about and never do, for the facts we don't like to face, and the questions we lack the courage to ask. (Quoted in Wohlgelernter 2005, 75)
They have to be aware of what others are thinking, preaching, teaching, and indoctrinating to whoever is listening so that they are not caught by surprise or too wedded to the past to understand why there is so much discord about their public management. So, when a book comes along with pickings for both academics and practitioners-with so much meat, too-neither can afford to pass it by and pretend they never knew of it.
Yet when all is said and done, the academics have not made as much impact on the practice of public management as the business consultancy industry has had on business administration, and possibly as public management, too. One suspects that unlike their counterparts in business administration, they are not given the same respect and welcome from their possible clients, and they are not so prepared to translate their handbooks into simple, everyday advice that is understandable to even the most unsophisticated people. Business management consultants can do this well, despite all the criticisms leveled at them for being out of touch with reality, even though many fail to realize that the business assumptions on which they work are not applicable to government or governance, no matter how much some folks would like them to resemble business. Managers in the public sector do not have such freedom of choice and freedom from the social repercussions of their actions. If they have the patience and incentive, this book should enable them better to anticipate problems before they occur and to alter the all-too-prevalent firefighting model of public administration, the stepping from crisis to crisis.
[1]The actual quotation reads, "Before the rest of the world starts worrying, the scholar worries; after the rest of the world rejoices, he rejoices" (Fairbank and Goldman 2006, 96). Fan was prime minister of Northern Song.