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Non-hierarchical institutions and privatization
Explaining from a different angle, Kettl argued (2002) that
what is required of public administration is totally different
from that in 1887, the days when former U. S. President Woodrow
Wilson published his essay, The Study of Administration. In
Wilson's days, there was a loud call for strong hierarchical
institutions that could fit into systems within systems. Policy
making was then thought to be completely separated from policy
administration. Compared to what we have today, administrative
institutions are highly interdependent upon one another and show
much significant reliance on "third-party partners", or, as
Kettl's put it (2002, p. 51), contracted services. The estimated
percentage of all contracted federal government services, as
Kettl points out (2002, p. 52), will soar from 40 percent in the
1980s to more than 80 percent by the end of the twentieth century.
Other than policing, fire and emergency services, and education,
most of the other government services at various levels has
already been outsourced though various forms of contracts, grants,
and loans. Such a change has brought about the shifting of focus
for the government, from one being a direct manager, to now being
an indirect manager of services, or more specifically, now known
as privatization of services (Kettl, 2002, p. 52). As a
consequence, people with new sets of skills are required to cope
with such a change in the management focus.
In addition to the required new management skill sets,
privatization of government services indeed created other
problems as well. These new problems originate from the fact
that government institutions were mainly designed to be
hierarchical, meaning that they were designed to provide services.
However, with privatization of services, these hierarchical
institutions will now have to supervise, monitor, scrutinize, and
even manage, but indirectly, services provided by these
outsourced, non-hierarchical, third-party private companies -- a
new breed of work they were never designed to finish. Thus, as
management responsibilities have become broadly shared among
various different parties, both public and private, problems
occur immediately in governance and it is becoming harder and
harder to define with clarity "who is in charge of what" (Kettl,
2002, p. 120). Old methods like removing particular officials
from their positions, reassigning roles and responsibilities, and
even reorganizing the hierarchy no longer works. The system
today is twisted in such a way it is run both vertically and
horizontally. It is run vertically -- in the traditional,
hierarchical sense. And it is also run horizontally -- in the
sense that government institutions or agencies must now work with,
coordinate, and integrate with other organizations, public and
private alike.
Another common frustration seen among both the politicians
and the administrators is the balancing of the expertise, and
hence the power, required to fulfill the job. On one hand, one
would need expertise to fulfill the wants and the needs of the
public, whereas, on the other hand, such expertise and power,
particular for the individual administrator, has to be limit to
such an extent it would not allow the administrator to "intrude
on individual liberty" (Kettl, 2002, p. 151). Kettle (2002)
agues that such paradox has occurred within four very common
scenarios in public administration, and they are: "responsiveness
versus efficiency; centralization versus decentralization; strong
executive versus separation of powers; and federal control versus
federalism" (Kettl, 2002, p. 151). He concludes that a viable
solution has yet to be found.
Issues with personnel and leadership
As the hierarchical nature of the public institution changes,
its personnel demographics changes as well. Light (1999) noted
that nowadays public servants no longer stay in or move up the
ladder within the same hierarchical system throughout the
lifetime of their careers, but rather they become more and more
mobile. Many public servants, as Light (1999, p. 28) described,
seem to share the same desire and focus on how they could "make a
difference to the world", even at entry-levels of their careers.
They require readily-available benefits and immediate
satisfaction to help them motivate. This, in turn, results in the
need for constant changes and evolution at all government levels,
requiring administrators to stay abreast of all kinds of
organizational development while coping with the ever-shifting
workforce (Berman, Bowman, Van Wart, & West, 2006, p. 29).
McCurdy and Rosenbloom (2006) recalled that in the post-war
period of Waldo, changes are often implemented by means of
structural reforms, which do not seem to work for the present day
system of public administration. Changes and challenges, however,
are often dealt with by means of leadership, their charisma, and
by establishing links and networks between public institutions
and the private sectors (Kettl, 2002, p. 208). Such an approach,
as Kettl (2002) comments, has eventually become a new problematic
source of accountability, especially when these public-private
networks have become so inter-related and responsibilities are
become so vague "who is in charge of what" (Kettl, 2002, p. 120)
can no longer be defined.
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• 
12:42am
Hongkong Time
Others •
BY AREA OF INTEREST 
I am honored
to have obtained Professor Sidney Gluck's (right) permission
to allow me to repost here some of his work and interview
related to China and socialism.
Professor Gluck is professor emertius at the New School University in New York.
A classical Marxist, Gluck has been studying China for 60 years
in history and modern development. He has lectured all over
the U.S. and still welcomes engagement at the age of 94 – photo © Sandi Bachom
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