(a) The objective of Liberalization, Privatization and Globalization and of New Public Management was to limit government…

The LPG-NPM Paradox: State Expansion and Expenditure

The New Public Management (NPM) paradigm and Liberalization, Privatization, and Globalization (LPG) reforms prescribed rolling back the state, downsized bureaucracies, and reduced public expenditure through market mechanisms. However, the subsequent decades witnessed an expansion in both state functions and public budgets.

This paradox is explained by the transformation of the state rather than its diminution. First, as captured by the "hollow state" thesis, contracting out and public-private partnerships do not eliminate state responsibility; instead, they replace direct administration with complex, resource-intensive networks of contract management, audit, and oversight. Second, the shift from direct provision to "regulatory capitalism" necessitated the creation of specialized regulatory bodies across sectors, expanding administrative machinery. Third, globalization generated domestic vulnerabilities, necessitating compensatory welfare interventions. In India, despite sustained disinvestment policies, public expenditure expanded due to rising subsidy obligations in food, fuel, and fertilizer, alongside rights-based welfare architectures such as the National Food Security Act and MGNREGA.

Furthermore, the modern state must finance new collective goods, notably digital public infrastructure such as the India Stack, cybersecurity, and green transitions. Rather than shrinking, the state has absorbed higher capital and revenue outlays to build systemic capacity and govern market externalities.

Evolution and Theoretical Status of Comparative Public Administration

The basis of Comparative Public Administration (CPA) shifted across decades to capture administrative realities across diverse political contexts. Early CPA relied on rigid, Western-centric institutional approaches. In response, Fred Riggs introduced the ecological and structural-functional approach, formulating the prismatic-sala model to analyze developing polities, while Ferrel Heady advanced developmental administration to evaluate public bureaucracies against nation-building goals.

Despite these frameworks, CPA long remained pre-theoretical. Riggsian typologies, while conceptually rich, were largely descriptive, static, and culturally deterministic, failing to yield falsifiable, predictive general laws across differing political systems.

The contemporary political-economic process approach addressed these gaps by situating public administration within the wider matrix of state power, global markets, and social classes. Theorists such as Peter Evans, Dietrich Rueschemeyer, and Theda Skocpol spearheaded the "Bringing the State Back In" perspective, conceptualizing state capacity through structural linkages. Evans' formulation of "embedded autonomy" successfully generated robust, middle-range theories explaining divergent developmental trajectories across East Asia and Latin America. While a singular, universal theory of CPA remains unrealized due to context-dependent governance ecologies, the political-economic approach has provided CPA with rigorous, empirically testable middle-range frameworks.

Competency Mapping and Service Delivery in Civil Services

Competency mapping identifies the specific domain knowledge, functional skills, and behavioural indicators required for designated public roles. Moving beyond generalist assumptions, linking competency assessments to career progression incentivizes civil servants toward effective, citizen-centric service delivery.

In India, the Second Administrative Reforms Commission (ARC-II) recommended institutionalizing competency frameworks for placement and promotion. This transition has been operationalized through Mission Karmayogi and its Framework of Roles, Activities, and Competencies (FRAC), governed by a Special Purpose Vehicle (Karmayogi Bharat). By continuously assessing competencies and aligning them with dynamic role requirements, this architecture seeks to create an intrinsic incentive structure where domain specialization and demonstrated performance drive career advancement.

However, several institutional rigidities constrain this mechanism. The persistence of the seniority principle over performance in promotions dampens individual motivation to upgrade competencies. Rigid rank-in-corps structures preserve cadre monopolies over specific posts regardless of merit, while pervasive political executive interference in appointments and arbitrary transfers disrupts the objective matching of assessed competency with administrative placement.

Transforming civil service delivery requires reconciling market-era state responsibilities with embedded institutional capacity, supported by an HR architecture that translates competency frameworks from formal compliance into merit-based career progression.