Supplementary Reading
Is the Public the Government's Customers?[3]
The NPM(New Public Management)views the public primarily as customers.The term“customer”is used to denote almost all encounters with public agencies.It includes service and regulatory relationships as well as public employment.For instance，welfare recipients are customers of social service agencies;taxpayers are customers of the Internal Revenue Service.As customers，the public is to be served in a businesslike manner.The emphasis is on effectiveness，efficiency，and cost reduction.
According to the National Performance Review(NPR)，applying the customer service concept to government has clear management advantages.It focuses attention on the results the customers want.It highlights the expenditures that yield those results and，by contrast，eliminates the expenditures that don't contribute to good service.The customers are the people who use the national park，forests，and water-ways;people who are eligible for social security and veterans'benefits，people whose living quality is diminished by unemployment，illiteracy，crime，pollution，and the other metropolitan or industrializing problem.
However，the term“customer”raises some concern.The NPR has received letters and phone calls from a few taxpayers who objected to being referred to as the government's customers.These people pointed out that they are the government's owners or，at the very least，stockholders.The NPR argued that it is possible to be an owner and a customer too.For example，if you own stock in Ford Motors，your relationship to the company is something like a taxpayer's to the government:You own a piece of it.A Ford stockholder can enter another relationship with the company by buying a Taurus and becoming a valued customer.When taxpayers call the Social Security Administration or stop by the post office，they are customers too.
But the NPM's devotion to customer service and satisfaction raises some unsettled issues.If the public is truly the customers of the government agencies，the government should know the customers'demand and find out how the public wants to be served.The NPM relied on surveys to determine what services it should provide.In consequence，this approach to ascertaining customer preferences may give rise to some problems.First，the customers of specific agencies are often a limited segment of the population.Responding to them may be at odds with what a majority of the voters would prefer.For instance，the customers of social welfare agencies of public schools may have preferences for eligibility or educational requirements that differ from those of the electorate at large.Another set of problems that arises when the public is viewed as customers is which customers to satisfy when not all customers have identical or harmonious interests.In the free market，firms would presumably seek to satisfy customers based on long-term and/or short-term profitability.For most public agencies，this option does not exist.Even if they were to substitute survey responses for profits，they are likely to operate under a norm or legal requirement of providing service equally to all customers.Working under a norm of universal service，public school systems cannot write off the customers they find it most costly to serve.Politics and law，not customer preferences，are usually used to resolve conflicts among the users of government services.Finally，though not an insuperable problem，identifying customers can be a thorny one.Who are the customers of the criminal justice system?Lawyers，the victims，or perpetrators of crimes?Who are the customers of prisons，the inmates or the taxpayers who buy space to confine them?
These problems are real，but they do not mean that considering the public to be customers is inappropriate or unfeasible.It can reinvigorate and strengthen the government agencies'commitment to service.At present，most of the government agencies have set standards for serving customers，and these agencies are held accountable for meeting these standards.(https://www.daowen.com)
Note:
New Public Management(NPM)is a concerted program of public sector reform aimed at replacing administration by management，replacing formal bureaucracy by markets or contracts as far as possible，and reducing the size and scale of the public sector.The 1980s and 1990s saw major changes to the public sectors of most advanced countries，best characterized as a change from traditional public administration to new public management.There are other names for the transition including“managerialism”，“market-based public administration”，or“entrepreneurial government”.
【注释】
[1]Source:Report of the National Performance Review，From Red Tape to Results:Creating a Government that Works Better and Costs Less(Washington，D.C.:U.S.Government Printing Office，September 1993).This is popularly known as“The Gore Report”because Vice President Al Gore was in charge of the review.
[2]Adapted from Jay M.Shafritz，et al.，Classics of Public Administration，Belmont:Wadsworth，2004，pp.384-386.
[3]Adapted from David H.Rosenbloom，et al.eds.，Public Administration:Understanding Management，Politics，and Law in the Public Sector(5th Edition)，New York:The McGraw-Hill Companies，Inc.，2002，pp.498-501.