The New Public Service
Theorists of citizenship, community and civil society, organizational human- ism 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: