The Trend of the Development on Civil Society in the Field of Public Administration
Chin-Kuei Chen
Abstract
Traditionally, public administration focuses on the operation of government and theoretical research of public policy. However, with civic consciousness rising, civil society has been booming. People are not only voicing their opinions publicly, but are also demanding their own rights openly. They even challenge government actions that they claim affect their interests. Therefore, public-sector employees cannot deal with the public problems from their viewpoints; rather, they should try to realize the people’s thoughts first. They must follow the people’s needs to design public policies and provide public services. This is reflected in the new approaches of government operations, such as public governance, public–private partnership, citizen participation, and community development. The development of these trends demonstrates that the government is no longer a major power to control public affairs, but has to share its power with the people and civil society. Actually, most of the public employees are not well trained to understand civil society. This study, therefore, tries to explore the relationship between public administration and civil society based on the changing nature of civil society, and to analyze how public administration can work with civil society, helping to build a new field for the research of public administration and the practice of government.
Keywords: civil society, public governance, the new public service, collaboration, public-private partnership
* Chin-Kuei Chen, Professor of Department of Public Administration and Policy, National Taipei University, email: akuei@mail.ntpu.edu.tw.