Revitalizing public management training in the Americas

Abstract

The decade of the 1980s signalled major changes within public administration and development-oriented activities. As a consequence of the internationalization of the agendas of practitioners and academics working in these areas, there is today a growing convergence among public policy, public management, public administration and political science. Given the complexity of the public sector cross-nationally, what has become necessary in public management education is the design of programmes that meet specific needs and priorities and which are responsive to very different national settings. This particular case study is centred around one endeavour to achieve more effective interfacing between theory and practice, in the teaching of public management and the design of development programmes in the United States (US). It is based on an assessment of a 10-year co-operative endeavour between the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration and the US Agency for International Development. The outcomes of this project provided not only leverage for important changes in the teaching programmes of schools concerned with international management education but also built a new relationship between government and a non-governmental organization through the contacting out of management development work.Since the early 1980s, there has been considerable ferment in public administration, public management, public policy and political science. While intellectual traditions in each of these areas embrace different sets of interests, varying agendas and distinct concepts as to which public issues warrant attention, by the end of the decade the acceleration of transitions to market economies and more open forms of governance on a worldwide basis had engendered increasing convergence among them. Despite different perceptions as to what constitutes relevant research and teaching, today these fields are coming to share common concern with the performance of public sector institutions, more precise identification of the actors and stakeholders influencing policy outcomes, and greater interest in the way in which public issues are articulated and processed. In such a setting where globalization of the economy and internationalization of public issues are on the increase, established demarcations between the public and private sectors are disappearing, as well as those between domestic and international policy arenas. As a consequence, one finds growing interest in internationalizing professional education and in designing curriculum and course offerings, which will enable the recipients of advanced training and education to respond more effectively to the demands of the marketplace and to demonstrate greater capacity in resolving the issues at hand.Professor Graham is in the

Designing effective management education programmes

“…Graham[10] states that there are three sets of conditions which public management education must be able to confront during the 1990s: How to enable public managers to conceptualize and process relevant data better from their external policy environments (by focusing on how issues are processed and how alternative choices can be posed more clearly).How to manage more effectively the interpersonal and interorganizational dynamics within the policy domain under the jurisdiction of public managers (through enhancing the skills component of management training).How to look ahead and plan more effectively in order to anticipate the uncertainty and turbulence characteristic of politics and markets (through the incorporation of strategic management considerations).…”

“…All discuss the relationship between client and provider without taking account of factors in the surrounding environment. Graham[10] reminds us that if we wish to think strategically about effective public management education we must take account of three crucial variables that place constraints on performance in individual countries: the existing power structure;the politics of donor organizations and host country institutions;the roles played by key actors and stakeholders who have a vital interest in the outcomes.…”

“…It has been argued that the project framework has the potential to address the concerns expressed by Graham[10 ], particularly through the assumptions column. However the framework may only seriously address this issue if all the stakeholders involved in a project participate in the initial planning and in subsequent reviews of the stages of implementation.…”