Abstract:

ABSTRACT New approaches have continuously being discussed due to different dynamics and interactions in the societies since public administration has emerged as an academic discipline. These approaches recommend innovations in order to change and develop Traditional Public Administration which mainly reflects Weberian hierarchical bureaucratic model. For instance, The New Public Management, which appeared in 1960s and became popular in 1980s, has increased its influence on public administration, and proposed effective transformation of the traditional public administration in order to achieve active and efficient state. The success of New Public Management changes from country to country due to different political and cultural institutions and values. However, it faced criticism since 1990s due to negligence of democratic processes, public service for citizens and public interest which are main characteristics of the public administration. Therefore, alternative approaches have appeared such as New Public Service and Governance. The former has located itself on the basis of criticism of New Public Management. The latter also appeared as an alternative to New Public Management but it became more successful, compared to former approach, in theoretical conceptualization and practice in the academic world. This study firstly evaluates locus and focus discussions on public administration, and argues that it is necessary to establish comparative analysis between Traditional Public Administration, New Public Management, New Public Service, and Governance. In this way, the changes in the Traditional Public Administration can be understood better. In this direction, this study evaluates the philosophical, theoretical and historical developments of these approaches, and seeks to find out interaction with each other. There is also a special discussion part on the relations between New Public Service and Governance. As a result, it is argued that New Public Service was discussed in theoretical level in the academic arena, but it was overshadowed by the Governance paradigm which has become more successful approach in the theory and practice. Nevertheless, New Public Service contributed to Governance because of its values such as democratic processes, accountability, transparency, active citizenship, negotiation and dialog.             

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