Governance, Public Sector Reform and 'New Public Sector Management': Thoughts on the Commonwealth Caribbean Experience

• Author: Paul Sutton
• Pages: 416-433

416 STATE, ECONOMY AND SOCIETY

the public sector in the region has become charged with contributing to

good governance, improving international competitiveness and reducing

poverty. It has acquired these objectives as a consequence of both local and

regional priorities and of international and global concerns that have highlighted

the impact of globalisation and the need for new development paradigms if the

region is to survive in the 21st century. This presents a challenging task for the

public services. It has provided the rationale for substantive public sector reform

and a fundamental reconsideration of the role of the state in development. This

paper is concerned with the former. It begins with a brief review of the mounting

concern with governance in the Commonwealth Caribbean in the last decade.

It then describes some of the programmes of public sector reform that have been

undertaken in the same period. Many of these reforms have been influenced by

the growth of new approaches to public sector management. The third section

introduces the main ideas behind the current dominant paradigm of “new public

management” (NPM) and sets out some reasons for their adoption in the

Commonwealth Caribbean. Next, I examine the link between NPM and

governance identifying some of the problems an NPM approach to public sector

reform reveals. The final section sets out some thoughts on public sector reform

and governance in the Commonwealth Caribbean.

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Patrick Emmanuel was among the first to raise concerns about the standards

of governance in the Commonwealth Caribbean. In a revised study originally

presented to the West Indian Commission in 1991 he argued there was evidence

of “a profound malaise in the region, expressed in the feebleness of will towards

genuine change”. He also pointed to “growing evidence, especially among the

large generation of youth, of alienation from both formal and informal

institutions” and concluded sombrely “the legitimacy and authority of

GovernanCe, PubliC SeCtor reforM and

new PubliC SeCtor ManaGeMent:

thouGhtS on the CoMMonwealth

Caribbean exPerienCe

PAUL SUTTON

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Governance, Public Sector Reform and New Public Sector Mangement 417

governance itself let alone any specific system of governance may be under

threat of erosion in the present season of neglect” (Emmanuel, 1993: 111).

These conclusions, in turn, were alluded to in the final report of the West

Indian Commission in a section on “Disaffection with Governance” (West Indian

Commission, 1992: 493-497). They were also supported by observations from

the Commission’s own extensive consultations with governments and civil

society throughout the region between 1990-1992. The Commissioners noted:

there has been so much complaint to the Commission of decline in the

standards of governance and the erosion of the quality of civil society –

again, not everywhere, but in too many parts of the region for us not to detect

an unhealthy trend . . . [so raising concerns about] . . . whether we are going

into the twenty-first century on the best possible basis of governance (ibid:

494, 495).

Many of the elements contributing to the weakening of governance were

examined in a symposium on good governance held in Jamaica under the auspices

of the UNDP in July 1994. This concluded that:

Notwithstanding the commitment to liberal democracy (which prevails) a

crisis of governance is evident and the dimensions of that crisis appeared to

be growing. Its symptoms include apathy towards, and alienation from,

existing political institutions and processes (and) increasing disregard for

the norms of civil society by a growing number of persons, especially the

young (Hill cited in Ryan, 1996).

The participants also agreed

that political failure and its attendant crisis of governance are closely related

to the poor performance of most Caribbean economies and the persistence of

poverty; increased criminal activity, especially as it relates to drug trafficking;

the inability of Caribbean states to sustain the levels of welfare that were

put in place in the post-independence era; and the redefined position of the

state from its previous function as a development agency to that of a

facilitator of market driven policies (Ryan, 1996: 40).

Others contributing to the debate on the decline of governance in the region in

the mid-1990s included Trevor Monroe (1996), Selwyn Ryan (1996) and Neville

Duncan (1997).

The issue has continued to be aired at the turn of the millennium. Several

contributions are of particular significance. The first is the monograph on “The

Westminster Experience in the Caribbean” by Selwyn Ryan (1999). This broadly

considers the experience of government in most countries of the Commonwealth

Caribbean (the Bahamas and Belize are excluded) and reflects on the need to