Challenges to Public Administration in the Era of Globalization

Quite far from regular public scrutiny is an institution of administrative officials who employ their technical, managerial and other expertise in order to ably assist the more publicly prominent elected leadership in the implementation of such policies as are required in national interest. Whereas the elected leadership is subject to periodic change and therefore called ‘non-permanent executive’, this institution of administrative officials is unelected and not subject to change, and therefore called ‘permanent executive’. These officials are called bureaucrats. Their institution as well as their field of work is termed, ‘public administration’ which is a discipline in itself.

As an activity, public administration may be defined as the “management and direction of the affairs of governments and institutions as well as the execution and implementation of public policy” (Jay M. Shafritz, et al). In view of the modernized nature of public administration today, it may often be difficult to discern that it has existed in variegated structures since ancient times. As a paper published by INFLIBNET notes, public administration as an activity can be traced to ancient civilizations of India, China and Egypt. China was the first to initiate public examinations for the same. However, the evolution of public administration as a discipline is attributed in substantial measure to the twenty-eighth president of the United States, Woodrow Wilson. The field has been developed with theories with great rapidity, and has evolved in considerable measure ever since. I deem it prudent to examine the contemporary challenges thereto by means of this essay.

The Era of LPG

That we live in the era of increasing Liberalization, Privatization and Globalization — commonly known as LPG — is indubitable, owing to which, the role of private entities has increased considerably. A. Hannibal Leach writing for the American society of Public Administration notes that globalization has challenged the hierarchical structure by which the administrative apparatus of states was hitherto characterized. The emergence of new and powerful competitors has made the new global system depend less on brute force and more on persuasion. In a sense, public administration has an incentive to be benign and work in tandem with people as opposed to dictating to them from positions of power.

Myriad challenges faced by public administration in the contemporary era could be attributed to the emergence of neoliberalism. It is known that neoliberal thought was provided with official impetus by the efforts of U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and U.S. President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. Critical of what Ms. Thatcher described as the “nanny state”, emergent philosophers and even governments commenced an endeavour to ensure leaner government structures in order to improve functional efficiency. This has also led to the popularization of the New Right movement in various parts of the world.

R.A.W. Rhodes of the University of Newcastle notes that this movement is characterized with a strong preference for private markets, which has “heralded lean times for public administration” and that in the view of the New Right, bureaucrats were “self-serving producers who sought to maximize the agency budget”. A popular notion was that public service itself was a myth. Governance as a concept is therefore a counter to increased marketization and the State reaffirming its importance. As a consequence, today’s governments resonate with the aphorism “minimum government, maximum governance” and in order to be relevant, public administration has to adapt accordingly.

Major challenges — Transformations

The most prominent method of actualizing the foregoing aphorism is increased reliance on information technology. Increased data processing and automation has added to ensuring efficiency in a substantial measure. As a consequence, one of the key requirements of ensuring an administrative apparatus that befits modern desiderata is employment of technology graduates, especially those skilled with database management techniques. Thus, we see that there is a hitherto unseen reliance on technology.

Yet another significant step involves hiring specialists in their respective fields. While certainly a crucial aspect of effective public administration, this tenet found particular emphasis in the 1980s courtesy of the New Public Management (NPM) approach, which encompasses efforts to “make public service more business-like and to improve its efficiency by using private sector management models” (Hood, Christopher 1991). The twenty-first century in particular is the precipice of hyperspecialization and rapid innovation. Specialized knowledge is much sought-after, for it improves efficiency in a substantial measure. In an article for the Harvard Business Review titled, “The Big Idea: The Age of Hyperspecialization”, Thomas Malone et al explain the phenomenon of increasing specialization in the following manner:

Looking at today’s terrifically complex supply chains, one might think we’ve already reached the extremes of specialization. Boeing’s initiative to build the 787 Dreamliner, for example, was hailed as the epitome of subcontracting — and then proved to have gone a bridge too far when the parts failed to come together as seamlessly as envisioned, and delays ensued. A web page listing just the “major” suppliers of the plane’s components contains 379 links. But an aircraft is fundamentally a physical product. Consider how much more finely work can be diced when it produces intangible, knowledge-based goods and the information involved can be transported anywhere in the world nearly instantaneously and at almost no cost. Just as people in the early days of industrialization saw single jobs (such as a pin maker’s) transformed into many jobs (Adam Smith observed 18 separate steps in a pin factory), we will now see knowledge-worker jobs — salesperson, secretary, engineer — atomize into complex networks of people all over the world performing highly specialized tasks. Even job titles of recent vintage will soon strike us as quaint. “Software developer,” for example, already obscures the reality that often in a software project, different specialists are responsible for design, coding, and testing. And that is the simplest scenario.

The foregoing paragraph from the said article evinces the significance of specialist knowledge. Accordingly, civil services require specialization in their respective duties. In numerous panel discussions, eminent analyst Abhijit Iyer-Mitra noted that French students inducted as diplomats were called back to France every six months even when pursuing further education abroad, for a month-long rigorous training session, which enabled them to specialize in inter alia the region of their operations and the realities concomitant therewith. The contemporary world, therefore, demands a lot of practical knowledge as opposed to mere abstract theorizing which ostensibly is the norm in International Relations studies, particularly in some third-world countries like India.

Importance of State: Increased or Decreased?

With the commencement of the LPG era, the traditional welfare state steadily transformed into a corporatist state. The focus of this era is discernibly on the marketplace and the private sector. As stated earlier, global supply chains and therefore the markets themselves have become highly integrated. This is on account of the fact that MNCs in particular integrate production across nations. That the power shall therefore shift from the State to the firms, as contended by Susan Strange, is but a natural first assumption. The integration of national capital with international capital, as well as the necessity for states to gain world market share as opposed to territory for survival, is exhibitive of the power that corporations wield today. Further, the subordination of states to international institutions such as the World Trade Organization (WTO) may even be construed as a partial loss of a nation’s economic sovereignty.

Notwithstanding the aforesaid observations, the reasoning that the State’s significance shall efface is perhaps inadequate. Aspects of law and order and national security apart, the State retains significant control over the economic reality. That the LPG era has significantly improved the lives of people across nations is indubitable. It has contributed both to employment and standard of living in a positive manner. Yet, globalization has produced challenges that are best dealt with by nation-states, for they remain the strongest sovereign institutions to date. Many of these challenges have been enumerated by Joseph Stiglitz in his book, “Globalization and Its Discontents”. Some of them are as listed hereunder:

• It has siphoned the resources and knowledge of the poor of the Global South (low-income countries; regardless of actual geographical location) into the global marketplace, stripping them of their life-support systems.
• WTO is run by an oligarchy of countries (United States, Japan, European Union) which claims to protect poorer states from unilateral actions of stronger ones by providing uniform rules and dispute settlement mechanisms for global trade. However, there is a gross imbalance in bargaining and negotiating capacities between the Global North (high-income countries; regardless of actual geographical location) and Global South.
• By joining WTO, developing countries give up their power to impose conditions on the entry of foreign companies. This liberalization of investment has enabled cheaper goods and services to swamp the markets of the Global South, often replacing local products.

Joseph Stiglitz had published the book in 2002. Therefore, a few of his observations may not be valid today. For instance, the national Gross Domestic Products of several developing nations have unceasingly been increasing, owing to inter alia the access to global markets and foreign direct investment. As stated earlier, the standard of living of numerous people has improved. India has in the past decade lifted a record 271 million people out of poverty. Some of his concerns, however, do remain valid. There remain significant economic inequalities at the global level. The Global North harbours 25% of the world population but nearly 80% of the income. Almost 90% of the manufacturing industries are located in the Global North. The trends in the Global South are diametrically opposite. It harbours 75% of the world population but only around 20% of the income.

Quite contrary to the hypothesis that the State’s influence shall diminish, it is in fact the State in every nation in the Global South that shall have to address the challenges emanating from globalization. Consequently, public administration has assumed far more monumental an importance. For instance, such states may impose a few protectionist policies in order to ensure a fair representation of local goods in the market. They may also resort to a system of progressive taxation, wherein the tax rate increases as the taxable amount increases. Nick Galasso and Marjorie Wood also recommend the enforcement of a living wage. They opine that governments must establish a national living wage and that corporations must also “prioritize a living wage for their workers and with the suppliers, buyers, and others with whom they do business.” Furthermore, they recommend a more transparent mechanism for the negotiation of trade policies, so that they may not cater merely to “bureaucrats and corporate lobbyists.”

It would also be incumbent on such nations to implement social security measures. Some developed countries such as the United States have robust social security systems. However, many developing nations have been observed to mostly possess schemes that are aimed, often in an inept manner, at the eradication of poverty. Social security schemes are particularly necessary for the more vulnerable sections of society. Measures such as disability benefit, maternity benefit, pensions, health insurance, old-age income protection and medical benefits would be of utmost essence.

In order to ensure the same, the role of public administration would amplify monumentally. This could also theoretically result in a healthy public-private competition, in addition to already extant public-private partnership, a phenomenon explored by Lawrence Martin in his research paper titled, “Public-Private Competition: A Public Employee Alternative to Privatization”, which he describes as “head-to-head competition with the private sector to retain government service delivery in-house.” Such social security systems may become a market, in that it may be seen as an investment by companies under the aegis of Corporate Social Responsibility to attract consumers. Popularity of consumers would, needless to say, be subject to the efficiency of such social security. The State and the private sector would then be compelled to deliver quality social security in order to be as efficient as possible.

Conclusion

We, therefore, see that in the era of LPG, public administration faces an assortment of challenges. It is in its best interests that it becomes more proactive, efficient and resourceful enough to compete with the globalized private sector in a healthy manner in order to prove beneficial to the people.

WORKS CITED

“Evolution of Public Administration.” INFLIBNET Centre, epgp.inflibnet.ac.in/epgpdata/uploads/epgp_content/S000030PU/P000179/M016452/ET/14658892832et.pdf.

Leach, A Hannibal. “Public Administration in the Era of Globalization.” PA TIMES Online, 16 Feb. 2016, patimes.org/public-administration-era-globalization/.

Rhodes, R.A.W. ResearchGate, 2000, www.researchgate.net/profile/R_A_W_Rhodes/publication/246335680_Governance_and_Public_Administration/links/5a11be7d458515cc5aa9c6a9/Governance-and-Public-Administration.pdf.

Shafritz, Jay M., et al. Introducing Public Administration. Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2017.

Stiglitz, Joseph, and Joseph E Stiglitz. Globalization and Its Discontents. Penguin Books Ltd., 2002.

Thomas W. Malone,  Robert Laubacher and Tammy Johns. “The Big Idea: The Age of Hyperspecialization.” Harvard Business Review, 1 Aug. 2014, hbr.org/2011/07/the-big-idea-the-age-of-hyperspecialization.

Wood, Nick Galasso & Marjorie. “Eight Ways To Reduce Global Inequality.” Inequality.org, 2 Feb. 2018, inequality.org/great-divide/8-ways-reduce-global-inequality/.