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NEW Right OR Government Oversupply Though
Theory & Practice of Public Administration (PA 56)
Aklan State University
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NEW RIGHT OR GOVERNMENT OVERSUPPLY THOUGH
The emergence of rational choice and public choice theory ushered in a new understanding and concept of bureaucracy based on the sighting of the New Right theorists. They believed that bureaucracy was simply inefficient and overly self-serving. As Heywood (2002) conceptualized public choice theory in this respect: Public choice theory is a sub-field of rational choice theory, based on the assumptions of neoclassical economics. Its central assertion is that political issues are best analyzed by examining the behaviour of individuals understood as rationally self-interested actors. The “public” character of public choice theory stems from its concern with the provision of so-called public goods, goods that are delivered by government rather than the market, because their benefit cannot be withheld from individuals who choose not to contribute to their provision. Public choice theorists have generally highlighted the failures and defects of government in this respect, focusing on issues such as the impact of the bureaucracy on the policy process and the consequences of lobbying and interest-group politics (p).
Meanwhile, rational choice theory postulates an individual as an abstract model. It supports to overestimate human rationality in that it ignores the fact that people seldom possess a clear set of preferred goals and rarely make decisions in the light of full and accurate knowledge. Thus, leaving the government to assume and presume what is best left for the constituencies to content with. (Lazo, 2009:17)
William Niskanen argued that senior bureaucrats regardless of their image as public servants are primarily motivated by career self-interest and thus, seek an expansion of the agency in which they work and an increase in its budgets. This is because bureaucratic growth guarantees job security, expands promotion prospects, improves salaries and brings top officials greater power, patronage and prestige. For New Right advocates, they also believed that and quite simply, “unless bureaucratic power can be checked or circumvented, any attempt to pursue free market policies is doomed to failure.”
BUREAUCRACY AS A CIVIL SERVICE
Bureaucracy is also known as the civil service working in operation of the “permanent” government. It is also engaged in a more theoretical way as a model for organizing public administration. It is one way to organize public management in any political system of this modern world. But the word bureaucracy is often used with a negative or pejorative connotation of a red tape or general distaste. Hence, the duty of a bureaucrat is to bring into practice policy guidelines or designed models into concrete and workable cases. It is a procedure administration that facilitates an ideal government to function with some degree of conformity, uniformity and predictability,
and in the language of Max Weber in a manner that is rational and controlled by
internal supervision and direction.
The civil service or bureaucracy is a major institution in democratic
governance. Its ideal role in a democracy is described by Philippine PA scholar L.
Cariňo in this regard:
The best bureaucracy is one whose expertise is utilized and tamed for higher democratic purposes. The best imaginable system is one where an executive with the will to substantiate democracy is assisted by a bureaucracy that believes in this goal and does all it can to achieve it. The political leadership would hardly find a civil service ready-made for its needs, the public interest not being something out there just waiting to be picked from a tree. Therefore, it must develop the democratic means that will enable the bureaucracy to fulfil its mission, even as the latter from its own view tries to modify its policies to align them with the procedures and practices it is used to, to ensure that it will not be left out of benefits, and to proffer its own ideas of where the society should be heard.
NEW Right OR Government Oversupply Though
Course: Theory & Practice of Public Administration (PA 56)
University: Aklan State University
