Globalization and the Public

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Globalization and the Public Service
Organization by Demetrios Argyriades Professor of
Public Administration Consultant South African
Management Development Institute September 2007
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Summer of discontent brought into sharp relief
the perils and realities of climate change but
also the implications of globalisation
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Asymmetry and Disconnect Between Cause and
Effect Source and End Result
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In a globalised world, the governments and
people pick up the pieces of actions, decisions
or failures mostly committed by others, thousands
of miles away!!!
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Are governments to blame? How much do we
expect of governments?
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The Washington Consensus which dominated policies
in 80s 90s favoured a shrinking State the
structural adjustment programmes
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The assumption underlying the Washington
Consensus that globalization has
made traditional forms of government
intervention, redundant, even harmful
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From government to governance? What do we make
of it?
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What sort of State and Government? From Welfare
to Warfare From a Facilitation to a Garrison
State? Prof. Chester Newland University of
South California
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Life in the Global Village inevitably
means concurrent government action on national,
sub-national and international levels Interface
between them is needed
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Outstanding global challenges for governments
and governance
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• first and foremost
• climate change

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• secondly deepening poverty
• in segments of humanity
• in tandem with a growing and
• perilous divide between the
• affluent few and the bulk of the
• worlds population

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• a vast rearmament
• effort draining
• the worlds resources which
• could be spent more usefully
• on welfare and development

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proliferation of handguns in many developing
countries, accounting for child soldiers and
fuelling armed conflicts, breakdown of law and
order, political instability and diversion from
peaceful pursuits
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• high incidence of crime, abuse of power and
  corruption, creating a climate of lawlessness and
  a culture of impunity with disastrous
  implications for the political system, public
  services delivery and basic human rights

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• Growing frequency and intensity of natural
  calamities and disease of pandemic proportions

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Failure of the worlds most powerful and rich
nations meaningfully address these six most
pressing challenges.
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• Resulting problems and challenges migrate across
  time zones but Governments
• Must be prepared to meet them, wherever they
  surface
• Must speak for the poor and the future.

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• Governments must be prepared to take an active
  part in
• multilateral global governance
• The merits of banding together
• Les absents ont toujours tort!

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Hence need for capacity-building What does it
mean? deliberate, sustained and balanced
reinforcement of the institutional framework for
public policy-making and programme
implementation, with human resources development
and periodically-needed technological upgrading,
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Addressing the long-term results must be
sustainable
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• Roadblocks to capacity-building
• Corruption and Opportunism
• Results over process
• Downgrading integrity and knowledge
• Unidimentional thinking

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Rebuilding Public Service Restoring Prestige and
Professionalism What do we mean?
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Career development Structures Exemplifying
3Ms Merit Mobility Motivation
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Training as life-long learning The primacy of
knowledge
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• Speaking the Truth to Power
• Remember that Integrity
• Rests, in the final analysis, on
• Independent Judgement
• Personal Responsibility

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Thank You Very Much!