Nepal Administrative Staff CollegeGovernance and Development Management Learning Group

Center for Governance and State Management Professional Course on Governance and State Management

for Class III Officers of GON

Module II: Governance and State Management

Session on:

Managing Government

Yuba Raj BhusalSenior Director, NASC

August 04, 2015

Table of Contents

1. Background2. The Actors of Governance3. Government and Citizenry4. The Myth of Management5. Models for Managing the Government6. Governing the Management

a) The making of Statehood:– Hunting and Gathering– Agrarian era– Industrial revolution and aftermath

b) Changing roles of the State: – from a 'police state' to 'welfare state.'

c) The Post-war developments:the world divided into:–west/east; –north/south; – third world.

1. Background

2. The Actors of Governancea) Public Sector: – Communist countries controlled an enormous

proportion of all organized activity.– No countervailing force at all.

b) Private Sector:– flourished capitalism in UK and USA.– private sector controlling the government.

c) Mixed Sector: – Public, Private, Cooperatives, Development

partners, and the Civil Society Organizations.

3. Government and Citizenrya) The Issues• Most of the services provided by the

government, including highways, social security, and economic policy, involve complex trade-offs between/ among competing interests.

• The bonafide citizens of a country are the 'right holders'.

• Delays in works and ill treatment of the citizens is not acceptable, it should be businesslike.

• Everyone wants proper, quick, businesslike treatment from public sector organizations too.

b) Customers, Clients, Citizens & Subjects• Citizen (beneficiary): public infrastructures and

basic services (a reciprocal relation with the government);

• Client (education, health): providing basic services to all citizens;

• Customer: appropriately served by privately owned enterprises like General Motor Company for the motor sells. Citizenry also want reciprocal relation with the government.

• Subjects: paying taxes, respect government regulations.

4. The Myth of Management• Various institutions require ownership and

control within the public sector.• There is a wide range of roles for government.• Assumptions of management– particular activities can be isolated- both from one

another and from direct authority by the central headquarters;

– performance can be fully and properly evaluated by objective measures like cost-benefits analysis;

– activities can be entrusted to autonomous professional managers making them accountable.

• Many activities are in the public sector precisely because of measurement problems: If everything was so crystal clear and every benefit so easily attributable, those activities would have been in the private sector long ago.

• Our faith in managers trained in the profession of management collapses in the face of how government agencies must work.

• The belief that politics and administration in government can be separated is a myth that should die a quiet death.

5. Models for Managing Governmenta) The Government-as-Machine Model:– viewed as a machine dominated by rules,

regulations, and standards of all kinds.– motto might be Control, Control, Control.– the term bureaucrat, for civil servant, comes from

the influence of this model.– lacked flexibility and responsiveness to individual

initiatives.– However it is regarded as the countervailing force

to corruption and to the arbitrary use of political influence.

b) The Government-as-Network Model– loose instead of tight, free-flowing instead of

controlled, interactive instead of sharply segmented.– viewed as one intertwined system, a complex

network of temporary relationships fashioned to work out problems as they arise and linked by informal channels of communication.–motto is to Connect, Communicate and

Collaborate.– Individual projects function within a web of

interrelated projects.

c) The Performance-Control Model– the motto is Isolate, Assign, and Measure.– aims above all to make government more

like business.– overall organization is split into businesses

that are assigned performance targets for which their managers are held accountable.

– flexibility, creativity, and individual initiative honored.

d) The Virtual-Government Model– assumes that the best government is no

government.– the micro-structures would no longer exist

within the government.–work would take place mainly in the private

sector.–motto is to Privatize, Contract, and

Negotiate.–mainly practiced in UK, USA and New

Zealand.

e) The Normative-Control Model– its is not about systems but about soul.– Control is normative-that is, rooted in values and

beliefs.– service and dedication applauded.– characteristics: selecting people by values and

attitudes; socialization; guidance by accepted principles and visions; responsibility by inspiration; and performance judgment by the service recipients.

– more missionary, egalitarian, and energized; less machinelike and less hierarchical.

– mainly practiced in Japan.

• assumes that no government can function effectively without a significant overlay of normative controls.

• we should be aware of its resurgence in the performance model.

• need to be appreciative of the network model for a complex, unpredictable activities of today's government i.e., policy making, high-technology services, and research.

• Government desperately needs life force as there is no substitute for human dedication.

6. Governing the Managementa) Government needs managing, but management

could use a little governing, too.– Business is not all good; government is not all bad. Car

from general motors, policing service from the government, health facility at the cooperative/ community hospital would be much better.

– Business can learn from government no less than government can learn from business; and both have a great deal to learn from cooperative and non-owned organizations. Public sector problems are conflicting objectives, multiple stakeholders, and intense political pressure that need to be amicably resolved.

– We need proud, not emasculated, government. Attacks on government are attacks on the fabric of a society. We need strong policing and economic policies to protect general public. Find ways to achieve political control without resorting to political administration.

– Maintain balance among the different sectors of society. Government and other sectors should be careful about what they take from business! We need to balance our public concerns as individuals with the private demands of institutions. Let us not forget that the object of democracy is a free people, not free institutions.

Serve ever, Hurt never!

THANK YOU

Ref. Harvard Business Review,May-June 1996

By: Henry Mintzberg