New Public Management and the Quality of Government:

　Coping with the New Political Governance in Canada

　Peter Aucoin

　Dalhousie University

　Halifax, Canada

　peter.aucoin@dal.ca

　Conference on ‘New Public Management and the Quality of Government’,

　SOG and the Quality of Government Institute,

　University of Gothenburg

　Sweden

　13-15 November 2008

　A tension between New Public Management (NPM) and good governance, including good public administration, has long been assumed by those who regard the structures and practices advocated and brought about by NPM as departing from the principles and norms of good governance that underpinned traditional public administration (Savoie 1994). The concern has not abated (Savoie 2008).

　As this dynamic has played out over the past three decades, however, there emerged an even more significant challenge not only to the traditional structures, practices and values of the professional, non-partisan public service but also to those reforms introduced by NPM that have gained wide, if not universal, acceptance as positive development in public administration. This challenge is what I call New Political Governance (NPG). It is NPG, and not NPM, I argue, that constitutes the principal threat to good governance, including good public administration, and thus the Quality of Government (QoG) as defined by Rothstein and Teorell (2008). It is a threat to the extent that partisans in government, sometimes overtly, mostly covertly, seek to use and override the public service – an impartial institution of government – to better secure their partisan advantage (Campbell 2007; MacDermott 2008 a, 2008b). In so doing, these governors engage in a politicization of the public service and its administration of public business that constitutes a form of political corruption that cannot but undermine good governance. NPM is not a cause of this politicization, I argue, but it is an intervening factor insofar as NPM reforms, among other reforms of the last three decades, have had the effect of publicly exposing the public service in ways that have made it more vulnerable to political pressures on the part of the political executive.

　I examine this phenomenon by looking primarily at the case of Canada, but with a number of comparative Westminster references. I consider the phenomenon to be an international one, affecting most, if not all, Western democracies. The pressures outlined below are virtually the same everywhere. The responses vary somewhat because of political leadership and the institutional differences between systems, even in the Westminster systems. The phenomenon must also be viewed in the context of time, given both the emergence of the pressures that led to NPM in the first instance, as a new management-focused approach to public administration, and the emergence of the different pressures that now contribute to NPG, as a politicized approach to governance with important implications for public administration, and especially for impartiality, performance and accountability.

　New Public Management in the Canadian Context

　 Since the early 1980s, NPM has taken several different forms in various jurisdictions. Adopting private-sector management practices was seen by some as a part, even if a minor part, of the broader neo-conservative/neo-liberal political economy movement that demanded wholesale privatization of government enterprises and public services, extensive deregulation of private enterprises, and significant reductions in public spending – ‘rolling back the state’, as it was put a at the outset (Hood 1991). By some accounts, almost everything that changed over the past quarter of a century is attributed to NPM. In virtually every jurisdiction, nonetheless, NPM, as public management reform, was at least originally about achieving greater economy and efficiency in the management of public resources in government operations and in the delivery of public services (Pollitt 1990). The focus, in short, was on ‘management’. Achieving greater economy in the use of public resources was at the forefront of concerns, given the fiscal and budgetary situations facing all governments in the 1970s, and managerial efficiency was not far behind, given assumptions about the impoverished quality of management in public services everywhere.

　 By the turn of the century, moreover, NPM, as improved public management in this limited sense, was well embedded in almost all governments, at least as the norm (although it was not always or everywhere referred to as NPM). This meant increased managerial authority, discretion and flexibility:

　? for managing public resources (financial and human);

　? for managing public-service delivery systems; and,

　? for collaborating with other public-sector agencies as well as with privatesector

　agencies in tackling horizontal – multi-organizational and/or multisectoral

　– issues.

　This increased managerial authority, flexibility and discretion was, in some jurisdictions, notably the Britain and New Zealand, coupled with increased organizational differentiation, as evidenced by a proliferation of departments and agencies with narrowed mandates, many with a single purpose. “Agencification’, however, was not a major focus reform in all jurisdictions, including Canada and Australia where such change, if not on the margins, was clearly secondary to enhanced managerial authority and responsibility (Pollitt and Talbot 2004).

　The major NPM innovations quickly led to concerns, especially in those jurisdictions where these developments were most advanced, about a loss of public service coherence and corporate capacity, on the one hand, and a diminished sense of and commitment to public-service ethos, ethics and values, on the other. Reactions to these concerns produced some retreat, reversals, and re-balancing of the systems in questions (Halligan 2006). Nowhere, however, was there a wholesale rejection of NPM, in theory or practice, and a return to traditional public administration, even if there necessarily emerged some tension between rhetoric and action (Gregory 2006). The improvements in public management brought about by at least some aspects of NPM were simply too obvious, even if these improvements were modest in comparison to the original claims of NPM proponents.

　 At the same time that NPM became a major force for change in public administration, however, it was accompanied by a companion force that saw political executives seeking to assert greater political control over the administration and apparatus of the state, not only in the formulation of public policies but also in the administration of public services. Accordingly, from the start, at least in the Anglo-American systems, there was a fundamental paradox as political executives, on both the left and the right sides of the partisan-political divide, sought to (re)assert dominance over their public-service bureaucracies while simultaneously devolving greater management authority to them (Aucoin 1990).

　The impetus for this dynamic lay in the dissatisfaction of many political executives with the ‘responsiveness’ of public servants to the political authority and policy agendas of these elected officials. Public choice and principal-agency theories

　provided the ideological justifications for taking action against what were perceived as self-serving bureaucrats (Boston 1996). Beyond theory and ideology, however, the practice of public administration by professional public servants in some jurisdictions, notably Australia, Britain and New Zealand, offered more than sufficient evidence to political leaders of a public-service culture that gave only grudging acceptance, at best, to the capacity of elected politicians to determine what constituted the ‘public interest’ in public policy and administration.

　 The Canadian case is of interest, I suggest, for several reasons. In comparative perspective, Canada did not approach public management reform with much of an ideological perspective. When the Conservatives defeated the centrist Liberals in 1984, neither the new prime minister, Brian Mulroney, nor his leading ministers were hardcore neo-conservatives in the Ronald Reagan or Margaret Thatcher mold. At that time, and until the end of the Conservative government in 1993, the party was essentially a centrist party in the Canadian ‘brokerage’ party tradition. While important aspects of neoliberalism unfolded, especially under the umbrella of economic deregulation that came with a free-trade agreement with the United States, there were no major administrative reforms that were politically driven. Pragmatism prevailed (Gow 2004). As a result, the reforms initiated during this period were essentially undertakings of the professional public-service leadership that sought to stay abreast with developments elsewhere. The scope and depth of these reforms were affected, however, by the extent to which ministers wanted to maintain an active involvement in administration (Aucoin 1995).

　 By comparison to developments elsewhere, Canadian ministers were less inclined to worry about the professional public service being unresponsive to their political direction. Nonetheless, the Mulroney regime saw an expansion in the number, roles and influence of ‘political staff’ appointed to ministers’ offices, most notably in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). These staff, who have grown continuously in number over the past four decades, are not public servants, although they are employed on the public payroll. Unlike public servants, who are appointed independently of ministers, political staff are appointed and dismissed at the discretion of ministers and, of course, they have no tenure beyond their ministers. And, in official constitutional doctrine, they have no separate authority to direct the public service. In the Canadian tradition, moreover, they are appointed almost exclusively from partisan-political circles and appointees rarely possess any public service experience.

　 For all these reasons, the Canadian government did not go as far down the NPM road as its three major Westminster counterparts (Australia, Britain and New Zealand) in terms of such matters as ‘agencification,’ devolution, term contracts for executives, external recruitment, or contracting-out. And, the reforms that did occur did not fundamentally transform the traditional administrative architecture. Throughout, there was retained, and even further developed:

　 ? an integrated public service, with the most senior levels drawn from the career public service and managed and deployed as a corporate executive resource;

　 ? departmental organizations, structured hierarchically with the minister as political executive and combining public policy and operational/service delivery responsibilities; and,

　 ? public administrative structures for addressing both corporate or governmentwide concerns and horizontal policy and service delivery issues.

　 These features were seen as strengths of the Canadian approach (Bourgon 1998; Lindquist 2006; Dunn 2002).

　 At the same time, reforms were initiated to improve public management that followed the principal NPM script: some measure of devolution of management authority from central management agencies to the senior public-service executives of line departments for (a) achieving greater economy and efficiency in the use of public resources, (b) improving service delivery, and (c) enhancing collaboration across departments to address those wicked ‘horizontal’ problems that defy government’s organizational boundaries (Bakvis and Juillet 2004).

　 Further, in addressing one major challenge that was critical in the first years of NPM, namely, the fiscal crisis of the state in the latter part of the 20th century, the record of Canada was at first dismal and then dramatically successful. While the Conservative government, in power from 1984-93, was unable to wrestle annual deficits to the ground, a major program-budget review initiated following the Liberal Party victory in 1993 resulted, in surprisingly short order, in annual multi-billion dollar budget surpluses for over a decade – the best record in the G-8 nations (a group that does not include Australia which has had a similar experience with very large budget surpluses). On this front, political will and discipline, but not ideology, was a decisive force.

　 By the first decade of the 21st century, moreover, Canada also came to be ranked first both in E-Government and in Service Delivery on one major international scorecard. On this front, the fact that the public service has been able to operate essentially on its own has helped spur progress. The Canadian emphasis on citizen-centred service drew inspiration from the NPM focus on ‘customers’ but, at the same time, paid serious attention to the priorities of citizens as defined by citizens – the outside-in perspective that enabled a significant advance in integrated service delivery structures and processes using multiple channels of service (Flumian, Coe and Kernaghan 2007). The Canadian methodology for this performance-based approach to service-delivery measurement and improvement is being adopted elsewhere in the Westminster systems.

　 Finally, and clearly on a much less positive note, a good deal of attention has been required in Canada over the past decade to codes of ethics, public service values, transparency, comptrollership, and public accountability – thanks in large part to a series of alleged and real political-administrative scandals! Not surprisingly, this is where NPG and its effects on the quality of government can be witnessed in spades.

　(文章有节选)

　新公共化管理与政府质量：

　符合加拿大的新的政治治理

　彼得奥克

　达尔豪西大学

　哈利法克斯，加拿大

　peter.aucoin@dal.ca

　在会议上发表“新公共管理与政府质量”

　SOG和政府机构的质量，

　哥德堡大学

　瑞典

　2008年11月13日至15日

　 新公共管理（NPM）和良好的管理之间的张力，包括长期以来一直承担那些倡导结构和做法和把带来关于新公共管理作为善政的原则和传统的公共规范作为基础的良好的公共行政（萨瓦1994年）。这种关注并没有减弱（萨瓦2008年）。

　 由于这种动态在过去三十多年持续的发展，然而，它不仅对传统的结构，实践和专业的价值，非党派的公共服务，而且对哪些属于NPM的已经取得了一些改革的公共行政的发展产生了重大的挑战。这个挑战就是我所说的新的政治治理（NPG）。这是NPG,新的政治治理，而非NPM，新的公共管理。我认为，这对好的管理构成了威胁，包括良好的公共管理和那些有素质的政府（QoG）,类似于罗斯坦和特奥雷下的定义（2008年）。这对政府的支持者来说是一个程度的威胁;有时候是公开的，然而大多数时候，则主要是隐蔽的。他们设法利用和覆盖公共的服务机构——政府的一个公正的机构，从而为更好的保护他们的党派的利益（2007年，麦克德莫特2008年a，2008年b）。像以上那样做，这些州长搞了许多政治化的公共服务和公共事务管理，这些政治化地公共服务和公共事务管理构成了那些不仅仅能削弱好的政府管理的政治腐败形式。我认为，NPM不是一个政治的原因，而是一个干预因素，这个干预因素只要NPM形式，在最后三十年中的其他改革中，都有过揭露这些政治腐败，而这些公开的揭露，都使得它更容易受到公共服务方式上的政治行政和政治压力的影响。

　我首先通过查找加拿大的情况来检查这一现象，但是同时也应用了一定数量的威斯敏斯特的数据。我认为这个现象是一个比较国际性的影响最大的，如果不是，也是西方国家影响最大最具代表性的现象。下文概述的压力几乎在世界各地都是一样的。世界不同的地方也会产生一些不同的反应，因为政治领导体制和政治系统之间存在着差异，甚至在西方的体系中也会有所不同。这种现象也必须视为在特定时间背景下，给予了在第一个例子中导致NPM作为一个新的政府焦点的压力的产生，和建立现在的NPG，作为一个郑智化的做法的具有重要影响的公共管理，以及特别是公正性，表现和问责制的压力的产生。

　加拿大背景下的新公共管理

　 20世纪八十年代初以来，NPM在不同司法管辖区已经采取几种不同的形式。采用私营部门的管理做法被视为只有一个部分的采用，即使只有很小的一个部分，但是这样的政治经济运动，要求政府和公共企业进行私有化改造，提供私有化服务，对民营企业进行广泛的放松的管制，并且明显减少公共开支的“回滚状态“，它一开始就很突出。（胡德1991年）。通过一些记述可以发现，几乎所有事情在过去四分之一个世纪的一切的改变都是由于NPM引起的。在几乎所有的司法管辖权里面，NPM，作为公共管理改革，它至少是原先关于实现公共资源管理的政府的业务和提供公共服务的更大的经济和效率的服务（伯特利1990年）。焦点，简短的来说，就是两个字”管理“。实现更加经济的公共资源的使用正处于最前沿的关注，考虑到所有政府在二十世纪七十年代的财政和预算状况，管理效率不甘落后，对各地的公共服务的管理的低下质量进行了假设。

　 到了世纪之交，NPM，作为在这个有限的意义上的改善政府管理很好的嵌入了几乎所有的政府，至少作为规范（尽管它并不总是在到处都被认为是NPM:新公共管理）。这意味着增加了管理的权利，自由裁量的权利和灵活性：

　公共资源的管理（财政和人力）；

　公共服务提供系统的管理：

　与其他公共部门机构的合作以及与多组织多部门的问题的协调。

　 这样增加了的管理权，灵活性和自由裁量权在某些地区，特别是英国和新西兰增加了组织分化，增殖成多个部门和机构证明确实缩小了任务，任务的目的单一化使效率提高了。然而，并非主要集中在所有的司法改革上面，包括加拿大和澳大利亚这些改变的地区，如果不是在边缘，显然增强管理的权利和责任是次要的（伯特利和塔伯特2004年）NPM的主要的创新迅速的导致了关注，尤其在那些上述发展最先进的地区，也倒置了公众服务的连贯性和企业能力的丧失。一方面，归属感削弱和承诺公共服务精神，职业道德和价值，另一方面，对这些问题的反应也会撤退、逆转、并重新系统平衡的问题。（哈利根2006年）。然而，任何地方，都有排斥NPM的，不管是在理论还是实践上面，他们把这作为对传统公共行政的一种回报，即使出现的一些言论和行动造成了紧张的局势（格雷戈里2006年）。公共管理的改善至少在一些NPM方面的改善是显而易见的，即使这些改善，那些NPM的支持者称谦虚。

　 在新公共管理成为一个公共管理变革的重要力量的同时，然而，它伴随着认为政治管理人员主张更大的政治控制和管理权限的力量的产生，这不仅体现在公共政策的制定上，也在公共管理服务的管理上。因此，从一开始，至少在美英系统里面，有一个政治高管同时在左翼党派和右翼政治党派两边周旋的一个根本的悖论，要求他们对于公共服务的官僚机构的优势地位，并且同时把更大的管理权限下放给他们（奥克1990年）。

　 在许多政治高管对于称为“人民公仆”的政治权威的不满和这些民选官员的政策议程充满活力的动力。公众的选择和委托代理理论，为打击为自己牟利的官僚提供了行动的思想理由（波士顿1996年）。除了思想和理论，然而，专业公务员在一些司法管辖区做的公共管理的实践，尤其是在澳大利亚，英国和新西兰，提供了比对政治领导人的公共管理服务文化更充分的依据，这充其量给民选的政治家确定了构成在公共政策和管理中的“公共利益”。

　 加拿大的情况是比较有意思的，我认为，有以下几个原因。在比较的角度看，加拿大没有办法在意识形态的角度上面进行更多的公共管理的改革。当保守党在1984年击败中间自由党，新的总理——布莱恩马尔罗尼，和他领导的部长们都没有像新的硬派罗纳德里根和马格里撒切尔那样的保守的样子。在那个时期，直到保守党执政到1993年年底，保守党基本上是一个加拿大的搞“经济”的中间派政党。在有关开展新自由主义的重要方面，尤其是在经济宽松政策的保护伞的条件下，同时和美国的自由贸易协定制定下来，没有重要的带有政治动机的行政改革的产生。实用主义占了上风（高岩2004年）。因此，在此期间发起的改革基本上是要求同步其他地方的发展步伐专业公共服务的领导的事业。这些改革所受影响的范围和深度，然而，部长希望维持在政府的积极介入的程度。（奥克1995年）

　 通过比较其他地方的发展的情况，加拿大的部长们不太愿意顾虑专业的公共服务影响他们的政治方向。然而，马尔罗尼政权看到了数量上的扩大，指向政府工作人员尤其是总理办公室（POM）的政治指责的增多。在过去的四十多年里不断的增加的上述工作人员，他们不是公职人员，尽管他们是对公众薪金聘用的。有别于部长任命的独立的公务员，政治工作人员的任命和解雇是由部长决定的，当然，他们并没有超越其部长的任期。而且，在正式宪法原则里面，他们没有独立的权利，而是直接为公共服务。而且，在加拿大的传统中，他们几乎完全由党派政治圈的人任命，而且他们是很少有任何公共服务的经验的人。

　 由于所有这些原因，加拿大政府并没有走三大西方盟友国家走的新公共管理（NPM）的道路（澳大利亚，英国和新西兰）取而代之的是这样的“代理机构”，权力下放，行政人员的长期合同，外部聘用，或合约形式外的外判工作。而且，确实发生的改革没有从更笨长转变传统的行政架构。自始至终，没有被保留下来，甚至是进一步的发展：

　集成的公共服务，与来自最高层的职业公共服务和管理作为企业的行政资源的调配。

　部门组织，结构和层次，部长作为政治行政和公共政策还有业务/提供服务的责任的相关方

　公共管理结构解决了企业或政府范围的关注和水平的政策和服务提供的问题。

　这些特征被认为是加拿大的办法（博根1998年，林德基斯特2006年，邓恩2002年）。

　 与此同时，改革是为改善紧随主要的新公共管理的公共管理的依据：一些从中央机关的管理机构的行政部门高级公职服务人员的一些权利下放（一）实现了更大的经济效益和公共资源使用的更大的效率，（二）改善服务，（三）各部门加强合作，解决了这些无视政府组织的行为（巴克维斯和朱丽特2004年）。

　 此外，一个重大的挑战是解决在新公共管理的关键的头几年，国家在二十世纪后期的财政危机，加拿大的数据是令人沮丧的，然而后来却是第一个显著成功的。虽然保守党政府从1984年至1993年期间执政，有无法衡量年度赤字的水平，一个主要的方案预算审查是在1993年自由党大选获胜之后获得通过的，并且在很短一段时间内就建立起了秩序，每年有数十亿美元的预算盈余，是近年来一直是八国集团（G8）最佳的记录（一组不包括已经有一个相似预算盈余经验的澳大利亚）。在这方面，政治意愿和纪律是一个决定性的力量，而不是意识形态。

　 到了二十一世纪的第一个十年，此外，加拿大也开始名列电子政务和提供服务的主要国际统计的第一名。在这方面，事实上，公众服务已基本上能在其运作上帮助国家促进贸易谈判进程。加拿大的重点在对公民为中心的服务上吸引了来自新公共管理（NPM）的“顾客”——运用NPM的国家的注意。但是同时，花费在重视公民的利益为优先考虑的事项上利用多种渠道来服务是一个综合服务的结构和进程的重大的进步（弗拉米安，安科和科纳汗2007年）。加拿大是提供服务的测量和改善该系统为基础业绩这样的做法，然后不断改善该系统以适应西方其他地区的系统和制度。

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