Public management reforms in developing countries: Toward a new synthesis

Abstract

Many developing countries are gradually moving toward newer public management regimes essentially to make their governmental operations more efficient and effective in response to the demands of economic growth, social development and environmental sustainability. They tend to follow trends and developments in advanced industrialized nations that have relatively successfully embedded methods or techniques which are generally considered organizationally functional, economically viable, socially acceptable and politically correct. However, designing public management systems (PMS) in complete accordance with Western ideas, norms or maxims can be self-defeating, since developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America have unique traditions, social-cultural characteristics, political styles and economic arrangements. Eclectic approaches and practices may not be easily absorbed. Yet, there are lessons to be learned from successful reinvention of the governmental wheel elsewhere. Policy transfers in a globalized world support reforms in these countries aspiring toward holistic development using appropriate structures and techniques for sound governance. This chapter, in general, makes a synoptic assessment of the nature of governmental reform in the context of state imperatives for inclusive structures and processional interlinks, and considers some parallels that also inform reform exercises. Apart from investigating diverse PMS models, it explores the usefulness of the emerging model of neo-Weberianism in addressing the pressing administrative/ governance dilemmas confronting the developing world and proposes a synthesized 'model' for inclusiveness, efficiency and effectiveness.