The New Public Management: How to Transform a Theme into a Legacy

Abstract

Two Parables A traveler returns from a three-day stopover in India and entertains his friends with stories he heard there. Aha! cries one of them, a publisher. Your stories will make a fine book. was there only three days, the traveler protests. It doesn't matter! asserts the publisher. Readers won't care. That may be, says the traveler? but the book's title must clearly indicate that I spent only three days in India. Of course! agrees the publisher. When the book appears, it is duly titled India: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow. A traveler to the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand returns to his public administration colleagues with stories of far-reaching administrative reforms he has heard about in these countries: Next Steps, managerialism, whole of government reform driven by economic theory. Aha! an entrepreneurial colleague cries. Very interesting! Let's publish your stories. But, it's only three countries, and it's only neo-Thatcherism, and it's too soon, and ... the traveler protests. Nonsense, the entrepreneur scholar replies. Readers won't care. scrupulous traveler nonetheless insists: The title must clearly indicate that these reforms are unproven. Certainly! says the colleague. In due course, the traveler's stories begin to circulate as The New Public Management. claim that a neo-economic New Public Management, or NPM, has been inexorably replacing bureaucracy with virtual markets around the world has, from its first appearance, seemed tenuous to many students of public administration.(1) At an International Public Management Network workshop in June 1997, participants noted that the New Public Management begs many questions, such as: do we mean by new? do we mean by public? do we mean by management? And, above all, What is actually happening--what specific changes are being implemented--and why? How are they related? How are they different? Such ambiguities are reason enough for the term's popularity, especially among academics. Advocates for the New Public Management--those with answers--and public management scholars--those with questions--can both advance their agendas through associating with an alleged worldwide movement whose sweep and drama they can promise to promote or clarify. Despite being nominated to paradigm-hood by admirers, the New Public Management is an ephemeral theme likely to fade for several reasons: (1) the initial shape of the Westminster reforms that inspired the term will eventually be disfigured in the course of political succession, and partisans and scholars alike will see opportunity in proclaiming the metamorphosis or death of the New Public Management; (2) as comparative work across countries and sectors accumulates, fundamental differences among reforms will begin to eclipse superficial similarities; (3) the term new will be viewed as an inconvenient adjective for emerging forms or objects of inquiry; and (4) political debate will require a fresh theme to attract attention to and support for the next wave of ideas for administrative reform. Most of us could write the New Public Management's post mortem now. temporary excitement surrounding the New Public Management creates an opportunity worth exploiting, however, and I shall attempt to do so in this article. movement has created an opening for further intellectual development of the field, at least for those prescient enough to avoid crawling incautiously out on the same limbs where the remains of Brownlow Commission, Hoover Commissions, Planning-Programming-Budgeting System (PPBS), Zero Base Budgeting (ZBB), Management by Objectives (MBO), Total Quality Management (TQM) (and, soon, Reinventing Government, or REGO) enthusiasts decompose in the wind. For those who position themselves between the tree and the saw, the New Public Management will leave behind a toothy grin, as have its predecessor reforms. …