There is no denying the fact that Modern public administration is not just about efficiency; it also involves ideas of democratic participation, accountability and empowerment. There is therefore a constant tension between two main themes: making government efficient and keeping government accountable. There is a corresponding tension between the conception of people as customers, in the context of relations between the state and the market; and the conception of people as citizens, in the context of relations between the state and the society. The influential model of new public management promises to integrate these themes, linking efficiency and accountability together. The 'new public management revolution' has sparked unprecedented interest in attempts to reshape and improve governance, defined as the array of ways in which the relationships between the state, society and the market is ordered.
The radical public service reform programs of the 1980s that began in the UK, the USA and New Zea land have fostered a wave of reform in developed, developing and transitional countries, further fueled by the collapse of the iron curtain and the notion that there are specific models of 'good governance' that have universal applicability. While the most people would agree that developing countries need to create greater efficiency in systems of government and in the provision of the public services to the citizens, there is much less agreement on what kind of state this implies: should we be seeking to reduce the size and scope of the state, or should we be seeking to strengthen State capacity and powers?
It is interesting to note that the World Bank for the first decade or more a proponent of NPM ideas, in its most recent Annual Report reaffirmed the significance of the state in achieving developmental activities, asserted a clear relationship between 'good government' and levels of economic growth, and endorsed a strategy to 'raise state capability by reinvigorating public institutions, while describing the minimalist state approach as 'an extreme view'. If this call for a invigoration of the state is echoed by other aid donors, the millennium may see a return to the main idea of the 1960s: the developmental state. In the context of developing countries, the concept of NPM entered in the form of Structural Adjustment Program, which has been suggested by the international financial institutions like World Bank and International Monetary Fund as conditions of their loan. The macroeconomic approach to continuing internal economic crisis and balance of payment problem of developing nations witnessed a marked shift in the 1980s. The main creditors of the developing world- The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank-devised a new therapy to rescue the indebted developing nations from the acute balance of payment crisis, emanating from the world -wide economic turbulence mainly caused by the two major oil price shocks of the 1970s.
According to their postulation, the conventional short-term macroeconomic stabilization policies alone are not sufficient enough to address the macroeconomic disequilibrium of these developing countries as the causes are rooted in the structure of the economy. Therefore, these Breton Woods Institutions devised a new generation of stabilization "Facility" and "Policy based loans". These loans coupled with macroeconomic and sector- level microeconomics policies were packaged together by the Bank and Fund under a neutral sounding brand name of "structural adjustment". Bangladesh is one of the first South Asian countries to adopt the Structural Adjustment Program ,a package of structural and policy reforms sponsored by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF). In the name of rationalizing the services and optimizing public resources, important public sector enterprises have been privatized while some have been downsized under the structural adjustment.
In view of the above it may be pointed out that the purpose of this article is to explore the elements of New public management in the different western countries before attempting to analyze this extent to which these reforms in government have impacted upon the management of public organization in the developing countries. This should provide a useful context through which to view the introduction of the SAP in Bangladesh.
The radical public service reform programs of the 1980s that began in the UK, the USA and New Zea land have fostered a wave of reform in developed, developing and transitional countries, further fueled by the collapse of the iron curtain and the notion that there are specific models of 'good governance' that have universal applicability. While the most people would agree that developing countries need to create greater efficiency in systems of government and in the provision of the public services to the citizens, there is much less agreement on what kind of state this implies: should we be seeking to reduce the size and scope of the state, or should we be seeking to strengthen State capacity and powers?
It is interesting to note that the World Bank for the first decade or more a proponent of NPM ideas, in its most recent Annual Report reaffirmed the significance of the state in achieving developmental activities, asserted a clear relationship between 'good government' and levels of economic growth, and endorsed a strategy to 'raise state capability by reinvigorating public institutions, while describing the minimalist state approach as 'an extreme view'. If this call for a invigoration of the state is echoed by other aid donors, the millennium may see a return to the main idea of the 1960s: the developmental state. In the context of developing countries, the concept of NPM entered in the form of Structural Adjustment Program, which has been suggested by the international financial institutions like World Bank and International Monetary Fund as conditions of their loan. The macroeconomic approach to continuing internal economic crisis and balance of payment problem of developing nations witnessed a marked shift in the 1980s. The main creditors of the developing world- The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank-devised a new therapy to rescue the indebted developing nations from the acute balance of payment crisis, emanating from the world -wide economic turbulence mainly caused by the two major oil price shocks of the 1970s.
According to their postulation, the conventional short-term macroeconomic stabilization policies alone are not sufficient enough to address the macroeconomic disequilibrium of these developing countries as the causes are rooted in the structure of the economy. Therefore, these Breton Woods Institutions devised a new generation of stabilization "Facility" and "Policy based loans". These loans coupled with macroeconomic and sector- level microeconomics policies were packaged together by the Bank and Fund under a neutral sounding brand name of "structural adjustment". Bangladesh is one of the first South Asian countries to adopt the Structural Adjustment Program ,a package of structural and policy reforms sponsored by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF). In the name of rationalizing the services and optimizing public resources, important public sector enterprises have been privatized while some have been downsized under the structural adjustment.
In view of the above it may be pointed out that the purpose of this article is to explore the elements of New public management in the different western countries before attempting to analyze this extent to which these reforms in government have impacted upon the management of public organization in the developing countries. This should provide a useful context through which to view the introduction of the SAP in Bangladesh.
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