Reconsidering Disaster Management in Terms of New Public Service Approach

Abstract

Public service refers to services carried out directly by the state or institutions under the control of the state. The state provides public services through public administration. Therefore, public administration has a primary role in the production of public services. The needs of citizens constitute the essence of public services and indicate the nature of the services to be provided by the public administration. The dynamic nature of citizens needs has caused the services offered by public administration to change and diversify over time. Public administration has adopted different service delivery approaches throughout history in order to meet the needs of citizens effectively and efficiently. This situation has brought about the emergence of different management paradigms in public administration. Every paradigm change in public administration is effective in the production of public services and brings about a transformation. The relevant change also applies to disaster and disaster management. Because disaster-related services are services that directly concern citizens and are public services. Therefore, it can be stated that all services provided by public administration regarding disasters are affected by the paradigm transformations. The New Public Service approach, which has become effective in public administration in recent years, emerged as a result of the paradigm shifts experienced by public administration. The New Public Service approach has an impact on the logic of providing public services with principles such as adopting active participation based on democracy, emphasizing a strong citizenship instead of the concept of customer, adopting the public interest as the basic principle, emphasizing a heavy responsibility for public services and attributing a superior value to people. This study, conducted in the light of this information, focuses on the possible effects of the New Public Service approach on disaster management. In the study, disaster management is rethought within the framework of the core values of the New Public Service approach and its role in successful disaster management is discussed.