Guest editorial: Historical trends and emerging issues in public management education

• Date: 29 November 2023
• Pages: 289-299
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPSM-07-2023-352
• Published date: 29 November 2023
• Subject Matter: Public policy & environmental management,Politics,Public adminstration & management
• Author: Morten Balle Hansen,Anja Overggaard Thomassen,Dag Olaf Torjesen

Guest editorial: Historical trends

and emerging issues in public

management education

1. The evolution of continuing public management education

The question of how to recruit and educate those who work in the service of the state as

leaders and managers, to enhance dedication, relevant and state-of-the art competencies and

the right ethical habitus, is an ancient one (Rutgers, 1997). It was debated by Plato, Aristotle

and Seneca in the Greco-Roman era more than two millennia ago, was organized in the

classical Chinese mandarin system around 600 AD and was later emulated in other East

Asian countries such as Japan and Korea (Kim, 2017). The question has been a core issue in

public administration since its establishment as an academic field at the end of the 19th

century (Weber, 1968;Wilson, 1887;Wren and Bedeian, 2020).

Issues concerningpublic management education (PME) are related to the properties of the

public sector to be managed, and these properties changed dramatically, though with large

variations,acrossthe globe in the 20th century(Hansen et al., 2020;Tanzi andSchuknecht, 2000).

These changes were characterized by a move from relatively small states, as indicated by

the level of public spending, around 1,900 primarily responsible for security (military and

police) and with small welfare expenses to much larger welfare states with substantially

expanded responsibilities at the end of the century providing, besides security, education,

healthcare services, social security and redistribution of welfare between generations and

social groups.

The post-war decadesfrom the 1950s to 1980s in particular saw a rapid expansion of the

welfarestate. The trend was global,but it was especially strongin more wealthy economiesand

especiallyin Northern Europe. Forinstance, the small Scandinavianstates –Denmark, Norway

and Sweden–expanded government spendingfrom 10, 14 and 17% of national gross domestic

product (GDP) in 1951 to 56, 49 and 44% of GDP in 1980, respectively (see Table 1). Larger

wealthy economies like the US, Germany and Japan expanded government spending from

13%, 30 and 17% in1951 to 34%, 48 and 33% of GDP in 1980, respectively (Ortiz-Ospinaand

Roser, 2018). Large,recently independent and less wealthy countries like India and Indonesia

expanded government spending from 6 to 17% in 1951 to 17 and 22% of GDP in 1980,

respectively (see Table 1).

The public sector expansion trend has been less pronounced since 1980. The overall trend

is that it has continued or stagnated, but in most cases, it has not been reversed. Among the

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, the general

government expenditure averaged 40.8% of GDP in 2019, and among 27 of the 36 OECD

countries, government expenditures were between 35 and 50% of GDP. For instance, in 2019,

general government expenditure was 41% of GDP in the UK and 38% of GDP in the USA

(OECD, 2021).

The point in presenting these statistics is to show that the public sector, although with

important differences between countries, expanded enormously in the post-war decades in

most countries, and there was thus a need for another type of management in public

administrationto cope with this much larger publicsector responsible for, amongother things,

a major part of two of the most rapidly expanding industries in the world: education and

healthcare.There was, in otherwords, a need to substitute old publicadministration (OPA)with

something new. At first, this new shift, from traditional administration to New Public

Management (NPM), inspired a stronger focus on markets, performance and results-based

Guest editorial

289

International Journal of Public

Sector Management

Vol. 36 No. 4/5, 2023

pp. 289-299

© Emerald Publishing Limited

0951-3558

DOI 10.1108/IJPSM-07-2023-352