Traditional Public Administration versus The New Public Management: Accountability versus Efficiency (original) (raw)

The development of the classical model of administrative owes much to the administrative tradition of Germany and the articulation of the principles of bureaucracy by Max Weber. The development of modern bureaucracies made possible the industrial revolution and the breakthroughs of modern economies. But at the end of the 20 th century that classical model of public administration was challenged by what has been called the "new public management." This chapter will characterize the "traditional" and the "new public management" approaches to public administration and then compare them on three fundamental questions that every theory of public administration must answer: 1) what shall be done, i.e. policy direction; 2) who shall do it, i.e. personnel management; and 3) how to enforce compliance, i. e. accountability. The conclusion will examine the tension between accountability and efficiency in traditional public administration and the new public managem...