Public sector reform in developing countries: the state of practice. Introduction: new public management, old hat?

✍ Scribed by Charles Polidano

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1998
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 63 KB
• Volume: 10
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0954-1748
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1099-1328(199805/06)10:3<373::aid-jid512>3.0.co;2-3

✦ Synopsis

Mention the words public sector reform' and many listeners will take it for granted that you are talking about the new public management. Administrative reform is nowadays easily equated with the reduction of centralized procedural rules, an emphasis on outputs', the separation of purchaser and provider roles, the development of contractual mechanisms of accountability, and a move away from lifetime career employment. Such is, in a nutshell, the new public management agenda . Closely associated with it are privatization and retrenchment. The whole package Ð it is commonly thought of as such Ð amounts to reducing the size of the state and seeking greater eciency in the management of what is left.

To what extent, though, is the package actually being put into practice in developing countries? There has been a profound, ideologically charged debate about the merits and demerits of the new public management. But it has taken place over the heads of the advisers and practitioners who Ð surprisingly often Ð have pursued reforms that draw upon only parts of the new public management agenda, while being fundamentally at odds with it in other ways.