Will Our Volatile Times Change Public Administration?

• Author: Eric S. Zeemering
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12859
• Published date: 01 November 2017
• Date: 01 November 2017

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 77, Iss. 6, pp. 946–948. © 2017 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.12859.

946 Public Administration Review • November | December 2017

Will Our Volatile Times Change Public Administration?

Eric S. Zeemering is associate professor

in the Department of Public Administration

in the School of Public and Global Affairs

at Northern Illinois University, where

he teaches classes on local government

management, performance management,

and collaborative governance. He serves on

the editorial board for

Public Administration

Review

and as chair of the Section on

Intergovernmental Administration and

Management (SIAM) of the American

Society for Public Administration (ASPA).

E-mail: zeem@niu.edu

Zeger van der Wal ,  e 21st Century Public Manager

( London : Palgrave , 2017 ) 392 pp. $120.00 (cloth),

ISBN: 9781137507433; $47.99 (paper), ISBN:

9781137507426 .

M any years have passed since Luther Gulick ’ s

( 1937 ) articulation of POSDCORB

(Planning, Organizing, Staffing, Directing,

Coordinating, Reporting, and Budgeting) as the

core tasks for public administrators, but even the

most progressive contemporary texts on public

management tend to be organized around a set of

staple tasks that must be undertaken by managers.

The durability of POSDCORB is evident in the

curriculum of many graduate programs in public

administration and the professional competencies

outlined for students entering the field. A new book

prepared by Zeger van der Wal offers a new acronym

and a new set of tasks for the manager, prompting

readers to give careful attention to trends sweeping

this globalizing profession. In The 21st Century Public

Manager , van der Wal argues public management

competencies must be developed to respond to an

external environment that is volatile, uncertain,

complex, and ambiguous (VUCA). Van der Wal

describes this book as a training tool for managers

around the globe because the VUCA forces reshaping

public management are just as relevant to those in

developing countries as they are to those in advanced

industrialized democracies. So too, the author reminds

us that public management education is now global,

placing a new burden on instructors to prepare

students to face future challenges, rather than adopt

past reform models. The book succeeds in stimulating

the reader ’ s imagination as to how the future might

be different than the past; however, placing VUCA at

the center of public administration raises normative

questions not fully engaged in van der Wal ’ s

presentation of public management training.

Sketching out the work of the twenty-first century

public manager, van der Wal builds upon a solid

foundation of public administration research,

acknowledging the field ’ s history and reform

trends. The second chapter of the book describes

the progression from hierarchical management in

bureaucracies to new public management (NPM)

reforms, to the emergence of multi-sector governance

and networks. Van der Wal suggests the progression of

models in the public management literature does not

necessarily reflect a linear trajectory of development in

practice. Across the globe, under different constitutional

regimes and levels of development, the public sector

may still place more emphasis on responsiveness to

hierarchies rather than an emphasis on decentralization,

performance, and stakeholder engagement. This is

similar to Fukuyama ’ s ( 2013 ) observation that sufficient

administrative capacity is a necessary pre-condition to

move away from hierarchical controls and allow greater

discretion. Instead, van der Wal directs our attention to

“global megatrends” shaping the external environment

for public management.

Chapter 3 outlines these global megatrends, which

include the expansion of technology, demands

for transparency, changing global demographics,

economic interconnectedness, pressure to do more

with less, the rise of Asia in a multi-polar world,

urbanization, and resource stress. Van der Wal

acknowledges, “A key question here is to what extent

public managers are actually able and capable to

affect—let alone drive—these dynamics” (62). From

these megatrends, the book derives a list of seven

managerial demands, presented in Chapter 4. This list

includes, managing stakeholder multiplicity, authority

turbulence, the new work (force), ethical complexities,

short versus long time horizons, and cross-sectoral

collaboration. Each subsequent chapter in the book is

devoted to one of these demands.

Several of the management demands discussed in

the book can be found in most public management

textbooks. For example, stakeholder engagement,

cross-sector collaboration, and ethics have become

routine topics presented in an overview of the field.

Other chapters prompt readers to take a fresh look

Danny L. Balfour , Editor

Eric S. Zeemering

Northern Illinois University