Critical appraisal of NPA::

1. Desirability of goal of social equity:

Critics have expressed doubts about the desirability as well as feasibility of the goal of
social equity. It has been argued that this goal is not practically workable. In this context, Carter
and Duffy have noted as under: - “ Whether the objective of social equity can be recognized as
a well established value for public administration in addition to the value of effectiveness,
efficiency and economy, is doubtful”

Similarly, Victor Thomson has observed as under: - “The value orientation can harm the
professionalism, the impersonality and the equality which are essential in public services.”

In fact, since in USA, the main emphasis has always been on competition and individual
initiative, adoption of goal of social equity was always seen with skepticism and never found
easy acceptance. This was the main reason why New Public Administration as a movement did
not last long in USA and soon lost momentum. In this context Golembeiwski has noted as
under:-
“New Public Administration was a temporary and transitional phenomenon which deserved
to fade away.”

2. Over-ambitious radicalism:

The New Public Administration movement was well intentioned but over-ambitious and
over-optimistic idea. It was argued that it was too radical and too idealistic and that much of
radicalism was not practical in view of ground realities. The revolutionary objectives like Change,
Values, Equity are difficult to be achieved within Weberian bureaucratic structures. It has also
been argued by critics that New Public Administration was a set of moral prescription on high
ground but without matching prescription. In other words, New Public Administration was more
rhetoric than a set of actually implementable ideas. In this context, Golembiewski observed:-

“New Public Administration was radical and revolutionary in words but status quoist in skill
and technologies.”
 In fact, it was left to Minnow Brook III deliberations to inculcate pragmatism in the
morally revolutionary New Public Administration ideas. During this III conference, political
difficulties were realized in terms of inter connected problems, resource constraints and less
of policy making freedom for administrators. Further, it was realized that improved public
personnel management skills and improved use of technology is crucial for actually bringing
about the social change.

3. Politicization of Administration::
The New Public Administration perspective has also been criticized by some scholars
for encouraging political equity rather than administrative equity. It was argued that in the
name of equity, there is a possibility that populism, appeasement and vote bank politics may
start, thus adversely affecting administration. Thus, equity was argued as a difficult goal, fraught
with danger.

In this context, it significant to note that F.W. Riggs, a prominent comparative and
development administration thinker has described that feature of poly- functionalism or
“CLECTS” to explain a significant feature of under-developed societies. Under this feature,
politicians and administrators have a tendency to act based on their celect associations rather
than based on impartial merit. Thus, equity is a difficult goal under most circumstances and has
huge potential of being misused.

4.Hardly anything “new”:

It has been argued by some thinkers that New Public Administration had nothing new. It is just
old wine in new bottle. In this context, Allen Campbell has argued that-
“The issues brought to the surface by the New Public Administration movement were not new.
They were already talked about by earlier scholars from time to time.”
For example, it can be recalled that in late 19 th century there was a movement called Progressive
Movement which had argued for socialist features by exposing the ill-effects of capitalism.
On this criticism, a very important response is available from Frederickson –his reply to criticism
of “nothing new”.
“New Public Administration has newness not in threads used but the way the fabric is woven,
and also in the arguments about how to use this fabric.”

Meaning thereby that NPA perspective was a systematic accumulation of pro-welfare

suggestions for administration which might have been available in disjointed form from time to
time. Moreover, the NPA perspective for the first time shook up the administration and the
administrators out of their pessimism and generic management orientation. In other words,
publicness was a very important idea strongly emphasized by the New Public Administration
perspective.

5) Dunn and Fozouni argue that the NPA has resulted in the propagation of an illusion of
paradigm shift or paradigm revolution within the field.

6) Critics opine that the protagonists of NPA are turning to arrogate to the public
administration what actually falls within the legitimate sphere of political science.

7) The phenomenological approach (an approach to study a phenomenon based on

experience and sensory observation rather than ideas) proposed by NPA has not
encouraged theory-building in public administration.