Traces of Postmodernism in the New Public Administration Paradigm

In recent years, reform movements in public administration in many countries along with Turkey show that a new era has begun in terms of public administration paradigm. The fall of the bureaucratic and orthodox paradigm peculiar to the modern age provides the inspiration to think about new public administration practices with post-modern conditions. This study draws attention to the correlation between the roots of new public administration policy/practices and postmodern conditions. Besides, two postmodern streams on public administration are discussed; new public management, an extension of the Post-Fordist transformation and the discourse theory based heavily on the epistemology that originates from the United States of America. The analysis of new public administration practices reveals a conflict between practices and postmodern condition/themes. Debureaucratization, decentralization and downsizing bear traces of the first postmodern version (new public management), while a citizen-centered approach and interpretive policy-making are reactions of the second one (discourse theory).