公民社會在公共行政領域的發展趨勢

公共行政在傳統上是以推動政府組織運作及訂定公共政策的理論研究和實務處理為主要方向，然而隨着時代的演變，公民意識上升形成一種新的公民社會現象，民眾不僅勇於表達自己的看法，也會去爭取自己的權益，甚至對抗影響本身利害的政府措施，這種反應使公務人員不能只從政府本身的角度去處理公共的問題，而必須要暸解民眾的想法，並從民眾的需求去設計及推動各種公共政策及相關措施，才能有效展現施政的績效。這種施政思維反應在公共行政的研究領域中，可以看見各種相關新途徑的探討，例如公共治理、公私協力關係、第三部門發展、公民參與、社區發展、公私夥伴關係、民營化、地方治理、公民會議及電子化民主參與的主題。這種發展趨勢顯示政府部門已逐漸從內部公權力為大的思維，走向面對民意和公民社會的考量，然而公共行政相關人員卻缺乏足夠訓練和認知，造成公共行政研究或實務推展的無形圍牆。面對如此的困境，本文試圖從公民社會本身的演變來探討其與公共行政的關係，並從目前學術界和實務界的相關研究和作為，析論公共行政要如何與公民社會結合，以建立公共行政研究和政府部門實務工作的新領域。

關鍵字

公民社會；公共治理；新公共服務；夥伴關係；協力關係

並列摘要

Traditionally, public administration focuses on the operation of government and theoretical research of public policy. However, with civic consciousness rising, civil society has been booming. People are not only voicing their opinions publicly, but are also demanding their own rights openly. They even challenge government actions that they claim affect their interests. Therefore, public-sector employees cannot deal with the public problems from their viewpoints; rather, they should try to realize the people's thoughts first. They must follow the people's needs to design public policies and provide public services. This is reflected in the new approaches of government operations, such as public governance, public-private partnership, citizen participation, and community development. The development of these trends demonstrates that the government is no longer a major power to control public affairs, but has to share its power with the people and civil society. Actually, most of the public employees are not well trained to understand civil society. This study, therefore, tries to explore the relationship between public administration and civil society based on the changing nature of civil society, and to analyze how public administration can work with civil society, helping to build a new field for the research of public administration and the practice of government.