Title: A Critique of the New Public Management and the Neo-Weberian State
Subtitle: Advancing a Critical Theory of Administrative Reform, Public Organization Review
Description: - **List item**The New Public Management, NPM, paradigm is a good direction in managing such an organization, state organization in particular that introduced into the developing coutries, like Indonesia. This paradigm notion is fundamentally based on how the organization management directed to the public needs and public services, not only in good procedure, but in direct, uncomplicated, and fast. 
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Actually, this paradigm emerged as a critic to Old Public Administration, OPA, that had been introduced through Max Weber's bureaucracy perspective. OPA paradigm was seen a very hierarkhy notion that obstructs the fast and good service delivery to the consuments. Beside that, this perspective was assumed to trammel the staff initiative and potentiality to be developed in order to give a direct and fast service to the customers.  
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 - List item-At first glance, the NPM notion seems to be  better and useful than the OPA, if it applies to the developing countries whose public managements, especially the state public management, were deeply influence by the combination between the feodal management and OPA. But, it is very hard to change the idea, the way of thingking, and the behaviour of the bureaucracies in the developing coutries, in Indonesia particularly. Indonesian bureaucracy is still very affected and coloured by the mandate from above, the boss. The decicion maker is the boss, the head, therefore the service delivery to the public in most of the government organization always fail to provide a good public services. There are some research data that may prove the unsuccessful application of the NPM in Indonesia, such as the case of some fresh water managements in a great part of Indonesian regions.
In Indonesia,  issues  on  the  bureaucracy  performance  of  the  public  service  gets increasing  attention  from  many  quarters  as  its  performance is,  in  providing  public services,  still  socially  considered  unsatisfactorily  that  assumed  to  be  a  stigma. According  to  Dwiyanto  et.al.  (2002)  that  such  a  bureaucracy will  affect  the performance of the government and the  society as a whole  in the effort to improve competitive advantage. The idea from Dwiyanto (2000) concerning bureaucracy is deeper and more critical. He  states  that  a  rigid  implementation  and  understanding  of  practical  and  technical guidelines has made the lower level bureaucracy unable to take initiatives in decision making.  A  hierarchical  bureaucracy  will  create  a  fear  on  the  apparatus  of  the bureaucracy towards their superiors. The leadership style in the bureaucracy tends to create a figure of an absolute ruler rather than a manager in the superiors. The fear of the bureaucrats to take initiative and innovation in the provision of service is strongly related  to  the  fear  of  making  mistakes  and  being  reprimanded  by  their  superiors. Therefore,  bureaucrats  tend  to  act  in  accordance  with  the  existing  guidelines  and avoid  to  take  discretion  despite  the  fact  that  it  is  sometimes  necessary  to  do  so. Bureaucracy seems to be still under the sway of dictatorial culture.

Dwiyanto (2000) explains further that centralistic tendencies  in the bureaucracy  has trapped the bureaucracy in the development of a organizational culture which tends to vertical orientation than the horizontal orientation which is more amenable to public interest. Centralization  in the bureaucracy  has  created pathological  symptoms in the form  of  many  abuses  of  power  and  authority  in  the  bureaucracy.  The  bureaucratic pathology  appears  because  the  norms  and  values  which  guide  the  actions  of  the bureaucracy is more upward-oriented, that is to the political interest of power, rather than to the public. Many development policies of the government is controlled by the central  government  and  this  shows  that  the  centralistic  culture  is  strong  in  the bureaucracy. This condition has reduced the responsiveness of the bureaucracy to the values, norms, aspirations, needs and interest of the public.
 Mahmudi  (2005)  added  that  NPM  has  a  doctrine  which  is  focused on  management instead  of  policy,  and  on  de-bureaucratization,  performance  and  performance evaluation, result-based accountability,  splitting up public bureaucracy  into working units, the application of market mechanism by contracting-out or outsourcing to help develop  the  competition  in  public  sector,  cost  cutting  and  efficiency,  performancebased  pay,  and  managerial  discretion  in  running  the  organization.  This  doctrine emphasizes  that  NPM  is  related  to  the  increasing  importance  of  customer  service, devolution  of  authority,  reform  of  regulations,  reform  of  budgeting  process  into performance budgeting.

Actually, the changes in the NPM orientation above has been adopted by state-owned enterprises such as PLN (state-owned electric utility company), Telkom and PDAM in Makassar.  PDAM  in  Makassar  has  adopted  the  second orientation  aspect  of  NPM, that  is  decentralization,  where  authority  is  delegated  to  the  smaller  service  units. Unfortunately,  the  aim  of  this  delegation  of  responsibility  is  only  to  increase bureaucracy. The authority to provide service directly without any letter of instruction (surat  perintah  kerja,  SPK)  is  not  delegated  so  that  the  objective  of  authority delegation is not achieved in the correct sense as understood by NPM.
As citizens, each individual has equal right to receive service from the bureaucracy.  But  in  reality,  it  is  not  manifested  according  to  expectation. Service  provider  often tends to give more favor to certain groups which are considered powerful, such as the well-to-do  and  those  with  strong  bargaining  power  to  the  bureaucrats.  As  a consequence, according to Partini et. al. (2004), a gap occurs between the bureaucracy and the  citizens  that  it  should  serve.  The  officers  should  provide  the  service  in  a courteous and fair manner as one of the primary tasks of the bureaucracy is to provide a good service for the society. 
Such  an  evident  appears  from  the  number  of  consumers’  complaints  on  the performance  of  the  service,  which  is  not  congruent  with  the  expectation  of  the consumers. The number of complaints received by all service units of PDAM (water utility  company)  in  the  municipality  of  Makassar  in  2007 is 1,597  complaints. The same condition applies  in many other PDAM in  Indonesia, such as  in Banda Aceh, where the performance of the employees of PDAM Tirta Doroy Banda Aceh received much criticism. According to Bahmi (2001), the public in the urban areas thinks that the  PDAM  employees  are  lacking  discipline  in  working.  Meanwhile,  Kompas reported that the performance of the PDAM Delta Tirta in Sidoarjo is also decreasing, as evident from the worsening quality and flow of water to the consumers.

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Subjects: Water Utility company, in Indonesia calls as PDAM
Places: Indonesia
People: Partini and Bahmi
Time periods: 2009