# The role of paradigms

- Democratic Participation: A strong emphasis on enhancing democratic participation and engaging citizens in the decision-making process. This is vital not only for legitimacy but also for harnessing community assets and knowledge.
- Flexibility and Adaptability: Given the complex and changing nature of public challenges, flexibility and adaptability in policy-making and service delivery are critical.
- Accountability and Transparency: Even within decentralized and networked approaches, there is a need for mechanisms to ensure accountability and transparency in public service delivery and governance.
The role of paradigms
Shifts in public management approaches have been—and will continue to be—shaped by political, cultural, social, environmental, global and economic contexts, as well as societal beliefs, narratives, and values. For example, as neoliberal thinking emerged as the dominant paradigm of the
1980s, NPM emerged as the dominant public management approach.
Paradigms are “a grand organising story about how the world works. It affects how we understand our world, ourselves and our ability to change things.” (Lowe & McIntosh, 2023). Throughout history, the dominance of certain paradigms have both enabled and constrained the emergence of new approaches to public management.
According to Thomas Khun, paradigm shifts are typically preceded by periods of crisis, where anomalies or inconsistencies in existing theories or observations accumulate, challenging the validity of the prevailing paradigm. As the prevailing theories are challenged, we see the emergence of new ideas, theories, or conceptual frameworks. These new ideas often challenge the core assumptions of the prevailing paradigm and gain acceptance through empirical evidence, conceptual coherence, and explanatory power. As evidence accumulates and the new paradigm demonstrates its superiority, it gradually gains acceptance, leading to a paradigmatic shift.