公民社會觀點之民主行政理論－以Denhardt新公共服務論為主軸

Abstract

眾人之事皆需要管理，都需要治，『治』又有兩種意義，一是統治，所著重的是基本秩序的維持，另一則是治理，著重在公共利益的追求。自1980年代興起的新治理研究，所關注的治，已從統治轉向治理，其中，公部門與行政機關角色的轉變是各派爭論的焦點，將公民參與納入行政過程更是重要趨勢，民主行政成為一個不容忽視的課題。公共行政領域中，民主行政的重要研究包括了1960年代末的新公共行政、1980年代的新公共管理及1990年代的黑堡宣言。這些理論多是以行政機關為分析的焦點，從行政理論的角度說明民主行政的意涵，所推論出的公民與官僚互動的基本原則，難以面對現今所處的多變社會，無法提供更多樣與有效的治理策略。 本論文從公民社會的觀點闡述民主行政的意義，針對不同需求下公民參與方式，檢視其所需要的官僚類型與治理策略，並以Robert B Denhardt的新公共服務論為主軸進行探討。Denhardt提出公民優先與官僚服務的民主行政主張，認為傳統公共行政及新公共管理關懷的重點是效率，需要的是中立的官僚，這卻造成行政過程去人性化與官僚支配的結果。對此，Denhardt認為官僚必須從划槳者及領航者轉向服務者，讓公民回到行政過程的中心。在民主行政的發展上，官僚必須幫助公民社會形塑公民意識、社區團結、公共審議、伙伴關係及擔負公共事務的執行，官僚更必須具備自我認識、自我學習、創造力開發、領導、激勵、溝通、衝突管理之能力。在新公共服務論之外，本論文中還探討了審議式治理、社區治理、全觀型治理等理論，這些理論對於官僚所承擔的責任與治理策略有不同的看法，卻共同主張官僚必須作為領航者，認同及尊重公民社會的主體性，協助公民參與行政過程。尤其是全觀型治理，其早期研究的焦點鎖定在分立與碎裂的公部門，主張必須促進公部門組織間的緊密合作，才能發展出具備全觀性視野的政策。近些年其關懷從公部門轉向多樣化的公民社會，主張公民社會的多樣性及複雜性更甚於公部門組織，並提出各種的協調與治理策略，更可見公民社會的重要性。 從公民社會的觀點探討民主行政理論確實開啟了一扇研究的大門。不同的公民社會理論下，有不同官僚類型、行政責任與治理策略之需求，其所展現的豐富成果將有助於我們對民主行政理論的開展。這些豐富的成果體現了官僚被寄予高度的期待與責任，這將促使我們在傳統行政理論研究之外，認識人們所需要的官僚。因為在未來的社會中，公民社會的角色及影響力更為深遠，若能深入的認識民主行政中官僚所需具備的態度、能力、責任與治理策略，將有助於我們面對未來民主治理的挑戰。

Public affairs need to be governed. There are two concepts derived from the word “govern”, that is, “government”, which emphasizes the maintenance of order; and “governance”, of which the goal is to pursue the public interest. Since the new governance school arose in the 1980’s, the focus of research has switched from “government” to “governance”, with the changing role of public sectors as the new focal point of debate, the way to incorporate citizens into administrative process as the new trend of interest, and democratic administration as the core of theories. In the development of the research of public administration, three important studies of democratic administration can be identified: the new public administration in the late 1960’s, the new public management in the 1980’s, and the Blacksburg Manifesto in the 1990’s. However, these theories are still adminicentric, and the principles of citizen-bureaucracy relationships thus proposed are incapable of solving complex problems of nowadays everchanging societies, not to mention providing varieties of useful governance strategies. In this dissertation, we will elaborate on the meaning of democratic administration form the standpoint of civil society, survey the different types of bureaucracy and governance strategies needed for different ways of citizen participation, and use the new public service theory of Robert B. Denhardt as the main line of discussion. Denhardt advances some famous sayings in democratic administration, such as “Putting Citizens First” and ”Public Administrators as Servants”. He argues that both the traditional public administration and the new public management lay emphasis on efficiency, and hence a neutral bureaucracy is required, but it would bring about a dehumanized administrative process as well as bureaucratic domination. Therefore Denhardt suggests that bureaucracy should change its role from the steersman and rower to the server, and citizens shall play the leading role in the administrative process. In addition to implementing public services, bureaucracy must also help the civil society to shape its civic consciousness, community solidarity, public deliberation, and partnerships. Moreover, bureaucracy shall have the abilities of self-cognition, self-learning, creativity exploitation, leadership, actuation, communication, and conflict management. Besides the new public service theory, we will investigate some other governance theories, such as deliberative governance, community governance, holistic governance, and so on. Although there are many differences in terms of the responsibilities and governance strategies of bureaucracy among these theories, they all contend that the bureaucracy must be the steersman, esteem the subjectivity of civil society, and help citizens to participate in the administrative process. The development of holistic governance theory is most illustrative. In its early stage, it was a public sector governance theory, and it argued that public sectors should cooperate tightly to overcome the fragmented organizational relationships in order to make the public policy comprehensive. Nevertheless, its analytic focus changes recently from public sectors to civil society, and accordingly its new viewpoint is that the complexity and plurality of civil society is much more severe than that of the public sectors. Obviously civil society is no less important than public sectors. The exploration of democratic theory from the perspective of civil society is a fruitful approach, from which we can find different kinds of bureaucracy, administrative accountability, and governance strategies. All these research outcomes may expand the scope of democratic administration theory and let us know more about the bureaucracy that citizens really need. And these achievements are away beyond what the traditional administrative theories can do. In the future, the role and influence of civil society will become more profound, and if we understand more of the essential qualities of democratic bureaucracy in terms of its attitude, ability, responsibility and governance strategies, we will cope with the challenges of democratic governance better.