New public management and post-new public management paradigms: Deconstruction and reconfiguration of the South African public administration

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Introduction
Public administration is said to be static yet dynamic.In the past years, drastic changes due to massive explosion of paradigm shift particularly in advanced economies including African countries have resulted in both benefits and problems in the socio-economic and political arenas causing the field and practice of public administration to be challenged within the academic community (Vyas-Doorgapersad, 2011, p.235).Transformation in policy implementation and demands for change as a result of the new paradigms of Public Administration are sometimes unrealistic and sometimes practical, and this need to be re-examined holistically (Basheka, 2012, p.25).Theoretically, the unrealistic demands for change in public administration is a matter of ongoing debates, while the practical demands for change is a matter of new policy proposals which requires a new set of skills and expertise in effecting change in the delivery of public services (Hudson, Hunter & Peckham, 2019).
Due to the high demand for change and expectations from governments including the South African government, there has been a need to improve socio-economic, political, environmental, cultural, and public administration approaches to meet the expected needs of the citizenry (Karataş, 2019).Hence, the past decades depicts a remarkable paradigm shift in Public Administration.Traditional Public Administration was in dire need for a change of a New Public Administration (NPA) approach.From early 2000s, the NPA 328 began to be subjected to heavy criticism, which influenced public administration to take complete control of different reforms and approaches regardless of their diversity, complexity, hybrid and contradictory situations rather than offering the perfect approach and reform to the public sector (Karataş, 2019(Karataş, , p.1796)).The New Public Management (NPM) and Post-New Public Management (Post-NPM) paradigms emerged in times whereby the NPA was already experiencing a massive deconstruction and reconfiguration of the public sector management (Karataş, 2019(Karataş, , p.1797)).
The NMP is one of the most dominant approaches within the field and practice of public administration, yet the most criticised approach over the past 20 years (Vignieri, 2020).The criticism of the NPM has opened up new doors for scholars to express their satisfactions and dissatisfactions.From this point of view, the post-NMP is currently at the forefront of discussions within the academic community (Vignieri, 2020).The concept of the post-NPM is often referred to as the "umbrella concept" of the NPM for the current theoretical discussions in public administration (Christensen, 2012).Consequently, there seem to be a discrepancy between public sector reforms and efforts of the field of public administration in offering stable approaches for good governance and actually delivering or meeting the expected needs of the citizens (Karataş, 2019(Karataş, , p.1797)).Although the NPM sought to bring about efficiency for the public sector within the parameters of the private sector logic, understanding of the market and competition, customer focus, performance standards, decentralisation, private-sector management, output control, development of charging technologies and many other aspects, the doctrine of the NPM is still criticised for not fulfilling the expectations of the citizens and businesses (Karataş, 2019(Karataş, , p.1797)).From this position, there is a need to answer some research questions on Public Administration within the view of both NMP and the Post-NPM.Hence, this study sought to answer the following research question: i.
Does the NPM arguments and criticisms seeks to build a better public administration or to expose its weakness in maintaining and delivering services? ii.
What is the relationship between the NMP and the Post-NMP?
iii.What change(s) is the post-NMP offering to the South African public administration?
In the context and scope of the proposed research questions, this study sought to unpack the transition of public administration into the postmodern public administration.This emanates from the apparent postmodern public administration challenges that ought to be addressed both in the academic field, public and private sectors.From this point of view, there seem to be an overlapping connection within public administration partly due to the international and local milieus created by one of the dominant paradigms of public administration known as the NMP.Therefore, this study attempts to make a significant contribution through arguments and discussions supported by theoretical and empirical evidence on how public administration has transformed through the application of the NPM and the Post-NPM.
In addition, the study tries to bring about an understanding on the move or the lack thereof of existing literature on the generated questions in order to attempt to answer them thoroughly.First thing first, this study begins by setting the scene on the postmodern public administration theory, old public administration.Secondly, the NMP approach alongside its critics are evaluated to understand whether such critics are for building or exposing the cracks and weaknesses of public administration.Thirdly, the Post-NMP is defined and its relationship to the NMP is explained.Finally, the study seeks to evaluate the changes the NPM and Post-NMP is attempting to offer to the South African public administration within the context of deconstruction and reconfiguration methods.

Theoretical and Conceptual Background
This study is grounded on the postmodern public administration theory.The postmodern public administration theory plays a fundamental part as the antithesis of positivism within the context of logic and objective social science (Bogason, 2005).From this perspective, postmodernity comprises particularism which tend to be overly preoccupied with matters of management, leadership, efficiency and organisation.This resonates well with the NPM and the Post-NPM approaches, which forms part of the overall discussion of this study.In support of the deconstruction and reconfiguration of public administration, the postmodern public administration theory accommodates the element of deconstruction and reconfiguration of institutions (Bogason, 2005).In some instances, the governance theory is often linked with the postmodern public administration theory to create a field to practice public administration in a sense of promoting nation-state building and state sovereignty.Additionally, the postmodern public administration play a key role in offering an analytic approach aimed at reconfiguring structural territories of public administration (Dingcong, 2016).
In a nutshell, the postmodern public administration theory challenges public administration approaches into reconstructing the normal thinking and knowledge acquisition (Dingcong, 2016).From this point of view, postmodernism argues that the foundation of public administration is linked to faulty beliefs and interpretations, hence, the postmodern public administration theory comprises elements of deconstruction, deterritorialisation, dialectic, imagination and alterity.Dialectic simply implies that society has lost its capacity to distinguish reality from illusion, and that scholars have attempted to explore ways in which public administrators can create relationships with citizens to achieve a well-informed and knowledgeable society, however, the dialectic nature between public officials and citizens still operates in uncertain conditions (Denhardt, 2011).On the other hand, deconstruction is one of the most postmodern methods which seeks to scan and critically analyse traditional public administration and its centralising tendencies and also the ever-changing nature of society.From this perspective, postmodern scholars advocated for inheriting a fragmented and diverse government system, and failed to establish new system of governance and engaged into the deconstruction and reconfiguration process of public administration.Hence, this study attempts to review the NPM and Post-NPM and their effect on public administration.

The Old Public Administration
From the ideas of Max Weber, the 21 st century public administration inherited the 20 th century model of bureaucratic system which was founded on the principles of hierarchy and meritocracy.Introduced in the United Kingdom (currently known as Britain) and Prussia, the bureaucratic system was applied and implemented as a means to overthrow the systems of administrative patrimonialism in the 19 th century, which was engrossed much on favouritism and patronage to facilitate dominant government decisions and the appointments of public officials (Vignieri, 2020).This fragmented system comprised distinctive features which relied but not limited to centralised authority and control, pre-selected rules and regulations, adopted a hierarchical organogram in order to ensure the separation of policy designs from implementation (Robinson, 2015, p.5). Although, Wooldrow Wilson (1887) already indicated that "politics set the administrative tasks", this fuelled the system to prioritise matters of separating political activities from administrative activities.In other words, the system sustains that administration is rule-governed, predictable and continuous, while ensuring that public administrators are employed on the basis of their educational qualifications, experience and are to be trained professionals in order to maintain the system.The system was built on ideas that government comprises a division of labour ready to execute any given hierarchical tasks without being involved in policy-making (Robinson, 2015, p.5).The system indicates the centralised feature that public servant ought to serve the public as opposed to the public needs, whereby resources allocated belongs to the organisation and not necessarily to the employees working within the organisation (Minogue, 2001;McCourt, 2013).From this time onwards, the bureaucratic system was introduced and inherited around the globe due to the colonial rule which lasted for hundreds of years.
Despite the so-called independence of most Commonwealth countries in Africa, including South Africa, most of the aspects of the bureaucratic system still remain prevalent even today (Igbokwe-Ibeto, 2019).Some question may be sought as to "what changes has all the public management reforms and approach brought forwards within the field and practice of public administration?and to what extent can one evaluate if change truly focused on the deconstruction and reconfiguration of the South African public administration?".In attempt to answer these questions, both empirical evidence and systematic analysis is necessary, which means new research and policy monitoring and evaluation ought to be done in South Africa before finalising complete answers.Various case studies may assist in improving public administration that is still inflicted with bureaucratic filters.For instance, the bureaucratic model is said to have remarkable success notably in China and Singapore, which managed to achieve their post-independence and political leadership on high quality, efficient and effective civil service (Robinson, 2015, p.6).While China managed to have one dominant political party (one-party state) to control all their political matters (Robinson, 2015, p.6).In contrast various countries including South Africa continued to be confronted with post-colonial breakdowns after adopting the centralized bureaucratic system which created a top-down and hierarchical structure, and afterwards it continued affecting their quality of governance and public administration subsequent of the aftermath of the neo-patrimonial heat contributing to the formation of multiple political parties to establish party loyalty (McCourt, 2013).In the South African context, various political parties meant state resources, appointments and elections became subjected to personal influence of political leaders alongside their sponsors and supporters, hence, the current disruptive collision amongst political institutions within the country (Lodge, 1999;Levy, Hirsch, Naidoo & Nxele, 2021).Despite the inherited bureaucratic system, Osborne (2006)

Research and Methodology
Methodologically, this study used the qualitative research methods with aid of secondary data to review the old public administration, evaluate both the NPM and Post-NPM paradigms, criticisms, arguments, and the challenges the post-NPM offers over the NPM.The document analysis technique was employed in analysing data.Document analysis is beneficial as the researcher can access document data, review, interpret, evaluate and analyse the data in order to establish empirical knowledge and understanding of the concepts of new public administration, new public management, post-new public management and many other terms within this study (Swanepeol, 2021).The documents used comprised scholarly journal articles, books, government policy, academic databases and trusted academic websites.

New Public Management: Some arguments and criticism
The New Public Management laid the foundation of replacing the bureaucratic and strict system of government which was hierarchically designed (Hood, 1991;Hood, 1995;Hood, 2001;Larbi, 1999;Pollit & Boukaert, 2011;Bryson, Crosby & Bloomberg, 2014).Since the NMP emerged to cause a shift in the traditional public administration, the NPM was labelled a paradigm in the field of public administration (Bryson et al., 2014).As a model, the NPM managed to gain much momentum in an attempt to address the limitation of the traditional and old public administration (Hood, 1991).The ultimate aim of the NPM was to bring about some element of change on the demands for change, expectations of customers and the demands of a global and competitive markets.In attempting to achieve this, the cost containment became the key driver of the NPM approaches so as to instill private sector management logic and principles of competitiveness as the heartbeat of the NPM approach (Hood, 1991;Hood, 1995;Hood, 2001).
Basically, the Neo-liberalism and the New Public Service (NPS) and New Public Governance (NPG) are related to the NPM approach (Hood, 1991;Karataş, 2019Karataş, , p.1798)).Neo-liberalism denotes an important economic philosophy that affects the lives of people in the socio-economic and environmental aspect encountered across the world today.Neo-liberalism allows unregulated capitalist system to benefit society based on their individualist choices to reach optimum economic performance while considering issues of wealth, cost, value of economic growth, efficiency, distributive justice and technical progress (Metcalf, 2017).However, to worsen the situation, the government is afforded limited power to control and regulate the functioning of the economy (Metcalf, 2017).On the other hand, the New Public Governance emphasizes the government-citizens' relationships whereby governance mechanisms are aimed at establishing public trust, relational contracts and capital as opposed to placing much focus on the government structure and its functions (Robinson, 2015, p.9).In other words, New Public Governance dismantles the bureaucratic and hierarchical government administration by placing the interests of the citizens' first rather than placing the government's interests at the forefront.Again, Robinson (2015, p.10-11) assert that the New Public Service approach transcend from the old public administration and the NPM.It further comprises the democratic theory to incorporate both strategic rationality and the interests of the citizenry.And lastly it deals with collaborative structures alongside shared leadership in order to influence the public service to committing and contributing to society by establishing coalitions of public-private partnerships and the non-profit private organisation to bring about remarkable change (Robinson, 2015, p.10).
Despite the progress achieved through the NPM approach, there are still ongoing arguments/debates often contradictory and criticism based on the structure, efficiency and functioning of the public sector (Karataş, 2019).Ongoing criticism often seem to be tied around the multiple principles and strategies of the NPM (Weikart, 2001, p.362).Some of the strategies include the downsizing strategy, which focuses on the reduction of costs in public administration (Karataş, 2019(Karataş, , p.1798)).This implies that a new management approach was necessary to be adopted in order ensure cost curtailment on items so that there can be efficiency in the management of resources (Hood, 1991).In simple terms, this approach sought to bring about a culture of innovation, management flexibility, problem solving, productivity and entrepreneurship.Conversely, the NPM advocated for public administration to adapt the private business management logic in order to implement business-like production and for public institutions to set performance management standards to enhance their efficiency (Hood, 1991;Hood, 1995;Hood, 2001).To summarise the principles and strategies of the NPM approach, it actually emerged to introduce public administration into reducing bureaucratic rules, to enhance human resource management, to decentralize authority, to implement the use of information technology (electronic government/governance) and to design competitive strategy, and allow the management to be flexible.
With its multiple benefits to transform the public sector, the NPM has been criticised as a paradigm for not being able to offer concrete solutions for the past decades and also that it presents some lack at various points of the field of public administration (Karataş, 2019(Karataş, , p.1798).In the South African context, the NPM is often criticised for not being able to offer efficient and effective management of state problems hence the economic turmoil, political instability and corruption within government (Rubakula, 2014).From the economic perspective, the NPM is criticised for partly failing to ensure economic efficiency within public administration as private sector and individuals cannot achieve it separately without government's involvement.In addition, the NPM approach is also criticised in a sense that the appropriateness of implementing the private sector management logic in public institutions is almost impossible (Puttaswamy, 2014).Frankly speaking, it has been difficult in setting defined, clear, precise, limited, and prioritise stable targets in relation to the providing of public services, hence the challenges of lack of political leadership, inadequate skills and expertise, and corruption (Munzhedzi, 2020).
As the NPM advocates for business-like performance management techniques in the order to instilling organisational behaviour so as to maintain and improve the socio-psychological state of staff, it is argued that these techniques remain theoretically sound, and not necessarily matching the implementation of this techniques causing serious criticism of the approach (Hughes, 1998, p.73).The most apparent criticism of the NPM approach is the failure to achieve effective implementation of the approach due to the unavoidable potential politicization of public administration (Karataş, 2019(Karataş, , p.1798)).In South Africa, the cadre deployment policy by the African National Congress (ANC) and other political parties has been one of the most obvious barriers towards the government to fully implement the NPM approach (Swanepeol, 2021).In locating pressing issues Swanepeol (2021) argues that the cadre deployment policy has been blamed for the widespread corruption, mismanagement and unmatched appointments of officials into various spheres of government (national, provincial and local).As such, political involvement in crucial important government appointments rather than focusing only in the process of appointments has been a major problem towards an efficient New Public Service to fully implement the NPM approach (Swanepeol, 2021).From this point of view, the NPM approach is criticised for being a temporary fashion within public administration as it does not seem to be valid for all government and for all timeframe (Hood, 1991;Hughes, 1998, p.77;Karataş, 2019Karataş, , p.1799)); .Therefore, the question that arises may be "what could the Post-NPM could offer to bridge the gap created by the NPM?".The following sections attempts to answer this question:

The New Public Management and Post-New Public Management
As the NPM managed to gain much momentum and popularity within the field of public administration, the approach underwent a heavy criticism over the past decades.As simply put De Vries (2010) argues that some researcher such as Dunleavy, Margetts, Bastow and Tinkler (2006) widely accept that the New Public Management is "dead".Hence, the emergence of the Post-NMP to define, describe and clarify new various reforms approaches.The concept Post-NPM is relatively new and it attempts to add to the existing NPM theory and possibly the application of government's efficiency.However, different studies indicates that the Post-NPM still remain a controversial concept however, it focuses on improving coordination, the network management capacities of public managers to ensure accountability, transparency and democracy in all public institutions (Dent, 2005;Christensen, 2012;Kinder, 2012;Rieter & Klenk, 2019;Karataş, 2019).
The Post-NPM is treated as a theory as it shares similarities from approaches namely; the New Public Service, New Public Governance and the Neo-Weberian State which operates with the logic of the NPM approach (Karataş, 2019(Karataş, , p.1800)).In an attempt to locate the reasons for the Post-NPM emergence it is crucial to understand that towards the end of the 1990s, whereby the Information Age or the digital era caused the digitalization and reintegration of government services, hence the electronic governance (e-Governance) reforms (Hughes, 1998).From this position, the Post-NPM advocates for public sector reforms that aimed to transfer authority to local agencies to have shown serious fragmentations in the delivery of public services (Hughes, 1998).Therefore, due to the service delivery fragmentations, the Post-NPM suggests the implementation of e-Governance through the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) to establish a public-private spheres to drive efficiency in public service delivery beyond normal working hours (Klenk & Reiter, 2019).Additionally, the Post-NPM is also referred to as an approach aimed at establishing a more collaborative government approach to join various network structures for a lesser fragmented public sector (Kinder, 2012).
The substantial works of Christensen (2012) indicates that the Post-NPM emerged for various reasons.First, it was adopted as an approach to bring structural revolution, which affected the transfer of authority from centralised political-administrative structures to decentralised political-administrative structures (Rabakula, 2014, p.88).Another reason is that the Post-NPM emerged in order to expose the weakness of a single-purpose public institutions, which gave less regard to horizontal coordination and integration, and as a result affecting specialised institutions and performance management standards of the NPM approach.The Post-NPM challenges the vertical coordination approach which has proved to be a barrier to satisfactorily performance of the public sector due to being single-purpose institutions comprising many expertise/consultants with non-overlapping functions (Karataş, 2019(Karataş, , p.1800)).This in turn has created a fragmented public sector depicted with lack of horizontal coordination and corporation due to the overuse of consultants.In short, the Post-NPM criticizes the NPM approach in a sense that public servants are only seen as neutral individuals deprived from getting involved into political ambitions that may cater for politicians.Although, the Post-NPM ought to be used to re-examine authority and control within public administration, it seems as both senior public servants and politicians are losing control of the field of public administration (Basheka, 2012).For instance, the South African government has recently barred even those public officials who were previously allowed to hold any political position (Masungwini, 2022).Therefore, it may be sound to indicate that the Post-NPM establishes it grounds on building a unified sense of belonging, a sense of value, team building, trust, involvement of the private business structures, value-based management, self-development of public officials, training and smooth cooperation

The Post-New Public Management on New Public Management and the changes it offers to Public Administration
In the African public administration context including South African, the position of the Post-NPM over the NPM still remain unclear.(Lodge & Gill, 2011;Nemec & De Vries, 2012;Nel, 2015).Some arguments suggest that the NPM approach might be reaching the end line (De Vries, 2010;Dunleavy et al., 2006).Karataş, (2019) is of the opinion that due to the the gradual process of change, the Post-NPM somehow supports the NPM by attempting to bridge its criticism via the use of technological advancements like the ICTs to govern public affairs and offer certain service online (e.g.e-filling, application of drivers' licence, e-passports and many other services).From this point of view, the Post-NPM aims to transform the roles and functions of the dysfunctional aspects of the New Public Management approach.In turn, the Post-NPM seeks to strengthen the management capacity as well as coordination of the political-administrative control (Nel, 2015, p.85-86).Based on the ongoing debates the Post-NPM may become the most dominant paradigm as it shares some aspects of the NPM approach.
A comparative analysis to evaluate both approaches may be a pre-requisite: Attributes towards a typical position to the leader.Emphasizes much focus on managerial skills.
Places much focus on technical skills.Advocates on designing a contract.
Advocates for forming partnerships.Subjected on the merit system in its management approach.
It is based on objective procedures.Focuses on advocating for performance-based compensation logic.
Focuses on fixed wages for employees.
Allows a fixed-term duty period for managers and employees.
Emphasizes a limited period of duty.Advocates for business-like control methods.
Employs control by following a process.

Source: Own illustrations
The emergence of the NPM and Post-NPM comprises multiple benefits and criticism as this study shows.However, the field of public administrative through these approaches cannot fully satisfy all parts of the government in a sense that "there is no one size fits all" and there would still be some challenges encountered due to the rapid technological, socio-economic, environmental and cultural changes and expectation (Nel, 2015).It would be useful for all interested stakeholder to gather empirical evidence and systemic analysis in areas where both the NPM and Post-NPM is found to be weak, and develop some new ways to solve whatever problem encountered.This study contends that in each and every single problem encountered it somehow or indirectly determines such a problem ought to be tackle if carefully studied and evaluated.

Deconstruction and Reconfiguration of the South African Public Administration
The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa (1996:99) stipulate that there is only a single public administration that must be governed by democratic values and principles.One of them states that public administration must ensure efficient, effective and economic utilisation of public resources (Section 195 of the RSA Constitution, 1996, p.99).This implies that in the deconstruction and reconfiguration of public administration it must be fully promoted and ensured.The deconstruction and reconfiguration of the South African public administration was initiated in 2019 when the Mr. Cyril Ramaphosa as the State President pronounced that "Growth, development and transformation depend on a strong and capable state" (Department of Planning, Monitoring & Evaluation, 2019).The aim of this initiative was to transform government's structures in a manner that is optimally sound and suited to address the needs and expectations of the citizens (Department of Planning, Monitoring & Evaluation, 2019).Moreover, the NPM and Post-NPM grants the government to ensure efficiency in allocation of state resources thereby allowing the processing of deconstruction and reconfiguration of the national and provincial departments.To summarise the main thrust of this initiative, some government department were merged and renamed, the number of municipalities reduced in order to redesign and promote a better coordination and coherence to improve efficiency in the delivery of public services.
According to Koma and Tshiyoyo (2015, p.36) the government had to deconstruct and reconfigure departments in order to ensure closer cooperation, coordination and be able to attain an integrated governance system.The government clustering mechanism has helped the state to usher in an era where resources are jointly utilized for the enhancement of the citizens' welfare (Koma & Tshiyoyo, 2015, p.36).This is a remarkable progress made by the South African government.However, there is still much more work to be done, particularly in the local government, because the idea of deconstruction and reconfiguration is linked to the inherited government system after the apartheid regime, and the South Africa public administration continues to be affected by new paradigms that seem to offer better solutions, yet the latter is challenged and criticised.Implying that scholars and practitioners ought to continue the search for new solutions to respond to postmodern public administration challenges.

Conclusions
The most prevalent Post-NPM over the NPM is to deepen understanding that citizens are more than customers as citizens ought to be active stakeholders to be considered and actually be involved in the production and management of public services.In turn, this is to improve public oversight and political processes which tend to affect public policy.As citizens shares democratic rights, then they ought to be considered more than just random customers.Another obvious administrative change of the Post-NPM is to promote the formulation, execution and control of networks in the process of production and the provision of public services.As a result, public administration is to be integrated so that government administration is treated as a whole function to ensure effective public accountability mechanism aimed at controlling both the political and administrative spheres.In short, the Post-NPM aims at enhancing sensitivity and accountability of all public affairs affecting the lives of the citizenry.
In the current public administration context, the Post-NPM approach emphasizes on the frequent utilization and implementation of e-Government and ICTs to enhance accountability and transparency within the public sector and ensure the maintenance and interaction of government-citizens' relations.Lastly the goal of the Post-NMP emphasizes on a sound and strong public bureaucracy which gives room for the effect of professionalization and appreciation of public officials to achieve a capable, productive and interdisciplinary government that is responsive to the needs of society.Recommendation based on the NPM and Post-NPM cannot be exhaustive, but the following may be considered: i.
The Post-NPM should not only be treated as a complete continuation of the NPM, but as a complementary approach to help tackle critical issues the NPM partly failed to address satisfactorily. ii.
There is a serious need of empirical research and systematic analysis that ought to be undertaken within government and the academic community in order to evaluate whether or not public administration is being robbed of its integrity in attaining all-inclusive state to better the livelihoods of various communities.
highlights on Public Administration's three dominant modes of changes.First, it has passed through the longer and pre-eminent stage from the 1990s to the 1980s.Secondly, the New Public Administration emerged from the late 1980s and remained dominant up until the 2000s, whereby the emergent New Public Governance and New Public Service started to gain much momentum within the field of public administration.Although there is a remarkable paradigm shift, new paradigm shifts are still suggested like that of electronic governance as the result of the Post-New Public Management.The following modes of public administration may help trace the development and paradigm shift initiated over the past years(Osborne, 2006).

Figure 1 :
Figure 1: Three management modes of public service organizations

Table 1 :
Comparative analysis of the NPM and Post-NPM in public administration