The Resilience of New Public Management

Abstract

Abstract New Public Management (NPM) has been the most significant public policy reform in decades. In this book we outline four dimensions of NPM, which focus on understanding both the pervasive nature of NPM and the challenges to the prevailing logic of NPM in public policy: (1) Mature NPM: this is a discussion of NPM in the contemporary environment. There is discussion of the emergence of NPM, NPM in crisis situations, gaming behaviour in performance management and the impact of the Audit Society. This reveals the enduring nature of NPM, including perverse outcomes. (2) NPM in action: this is a discussion which shows NPM’s ability to colonise, to adapt and its wide presence in government bodies, health care, and universities. (3) Alternative models to NPM: these alternatives are governance models, the advocacy of coproduction between government organisations and citizens more recent concepts like public value and Trust-based management. (4) An overview of NPM’s role in contemporary society: this includes a discussion of whether the widespread adoption of accounting and management technologies in support of NPM were merited. We comment on how NPM might reform in the future. We also discuss the resilience of NPM and a research agenda.

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