Reinventing hong kong’s public service: Same npm reform, different contexts and politics

Abstract

Hong Kong’s public sector reform since the 1990s is not just a continuation of an administrative reform trajectory started in colonial years to modernize the civil service. Although concerns for efficiency, productivity and value for money have always formed part of the reform agenda at different times, an efficiency discourse of reform is insufficient for capturing the full dynamics of institutional change whether in the pre-1997 or post-1997 period. During Hong Kong's political transition towards becoming an SAR of China in 1997, public sector reform helped to shore up the legitimacy of the bureaucracy. After 1997, new political crises and the changing relations between the Chief Executive and senior civil servants have induced the advent of a new “public service bargain” which gives different meaning to the same NPM-like measures