Theorists of citizenship, community and civil society, organizational humanism
and the new public administration, and postmodernism have helped
to establish a climate in which it makes sense today to talk about a New
Public Service. Though we acknowledge that differences, even substantial
differences, exist in these various viewpoints, we would suggest there are
also similarities that distinguish the cluster of ideas we call the New Public
Service from those associated with the New Public Management and the Old
Public Administration. Moreover, there are a number of practical lessons that
the New Public Service suggests for those in public administration. These
lessons are not mutually exclusive, rather they are mutually reinforcing.
We will outline these ideas here, then discuss each one in more detail in the
seven chapters that follow. Among these ideas, we find the following the
most compelling: