The Re-Emergence of “Weberian” Public Administration after the Fall of New Public Management: The Central and Eastern European Perspective
The Re-Emergence of “Weberian” Public Administration after the Fall of New Public Management: The Central and Eastern European Perspective

Summary/Abstract: After the Fall of New Public Management (NPM) in general and specifically in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), in a world, a Europe and a region where we see the fundamental shift of emphasis from efficiency to effectiveness in Public Administration (PA) practice and discourse, we are aware of the need for capable State structures more than ever before.1 Such State structures, however, require – indeed, to a large extent consist of – quality PA, and this in turn requires – and again to a large extent consists of – quality Civil Service (CS), all of which does not come for free, or even cheaply. It is, in the end, the model of “Weberian” PA, the bête noire of the NPM. The Weber label so given is highly problematic, as NPM presents a caricature of it, and thus builds up a paper tiger (Samier 2001, p. 237, incl. N4), which is why “Weberian” is put into quotation marks here. Max Weber himself did not even particularly like the model of PA so described; he only saw it, rightly, as the most rational and efficient one for his time, and the one towards which PA would tend. The fact that this is by and large still the case 80 years later if one looks at the model rather than at its caricature, is something that probably would have surprised him quite a bit.

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