scholarly journals Reflections on New Public Management-Style Reform in the U.S. National Administration and Public Trust in Government

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (1/2) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
David Rosenbloom ◽  
Suzanne Piotrowski
Keyword(s):  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
The United States ◽  
Management Style ◽  
Trust In Government ◽  
Reform Agenda ◽  
Performance Review ◽  
National Performance Review ◽  
New Public ◽  
Government Work

A concerted effort to introduce thoroughgoing reforms into U.S. national administration began in September 1993, when the Clinton-Gore administration issued the first report of the National Performance Review (NPR). The continuing reform effort, which is generally called “reinventing government” in the United States, shares many characteristics with the broader global New Public Management (NPM) movement and is often treated as part of it. The American NPM-style reform program was augmented by congressional attempts to make national agencies more performance-oriented. President George W. Bush, who took office in January 2001, continued to advance several NPM goals, though with some important differences. There is no parallel period of such fundamental, comprehensive, and concentrated administrative reform in American history. The reform agenda has been coherent and consistent enough to allow reflection on its efficacy in terms of its own objectives. These were: 1) making government work better and cost less and 2) building citizens' trust in it. We made two conclusions within this paper. First, the record of the NPM's achievement of greater cost-effectiveness is ambiguous, disputing the Clinton-Gore administration's central claims; the public as a whole perceives no reduction in the waste of its tax dollars. Second, the NPM fell far short of building significantly greater trust in government.

Labour-Management Relations and New Public Management: The American Experience

2002 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven W. Hays
Keyword(s):  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Agencies ◽  
Management Reform ◽  
Reform Agenda ◽  
American Experience ◽  
New Public ◽  
Public Workers ◽  
Broad Overview

This paper provides a broad overview of the role that unions have, and have not — played in the unfolding drama of public management reform in the United States. Factors impeding the ability of unions to shape the reform movement are highlighted. Fragmentation of power and even the absence of rudimentary collective bargaining rights in many locations restrict civil servants' ability to influence the reform agenda. As a result, New Public Management (NPM) initiatives have progressed in a fashion that often works to the disadvantage of public workers. ‘De-privileging’, privatisation, and devolution of public agencies have become almost ubiquitous. The paper concludes with the observation that NPM offers a golden opportunity, if not the obligation, for management and labour to adopt a more cooperative and participatory approach to policy making in the workplace.

scholarly journals Hybridity as a Result of the Marketization of Public Services: Catalyst or Obstruction for Sustainable Development? Deductions from a Study of Three Hybrid Waste Management Organizations in The Netherlands

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 252
Author(s):  
Philip Marcel Karré
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
Waste Management ◽  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Management Style ◽  
Organizational Settings ◽  
Entrepreneurial Spirit ◽  
Professional Management ◽  
New Public

Increasingly, hybridity, i.e., the combination of contrasting and conflicting elements within organizations, is seen as a way to create innovation and synergy in dealing with complex societal questions, leading to more sustainable development. Much research on the subject deals with the phenomenon of social enterprise, but hybridity also takes place in other, more traditional organizational settings. For example, many governments have created hybrid organizations by embracing new public management (NPM) as a way to overcome the perceived shortcomings of traditional, hierarchical forms of public administration, such as inefficiency and the lack of an entrepreneurial spirit. Here, hybridity is often not so much seen as a way to increase sustainability but rather as a way to cut cost and to increase the quality of service provision. This article adds the sustainability dimension to this discussion through a deductive approach, reinterpreting the results from a study on the effects of the hybridity of three municipal waste management organizations in the Netherlands. The main conclusions are that hybridity leads to a more professional management style but also to more attention on output than on outcome. The article discusses what this means in terms of pursuing sustainability and sustainable development.

scholarly journals The Neoliberal University in Ireland: Institutional Bullying by Another Name?

Societies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 52
Author(s):  
Margaret Hodgins ◽  
Patricia Mannix McNamara
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Academic Staff ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
Decent Work ◽  
New Public ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Health And Well Being

New managerialism and the pervasive neoliberalisation of universities is by now a well-established phenomenon. Commentaries explore the political and economic drivers and effects of neoliberal ideology, and critique the impact on higher education and academic work. The impact on the health and well-being of academic staff has had less attention, and it is to that we turn in this paper. Much academic interest in neoliberalism stems from the UK, Australia and the United States. We draw particularly on studies of public Irish universities, where neoliberalism, now well entrenched, but something of a late-comer to the new public management party, is making its presence felt. This conceptual paper explores the concept of neoliberalism in higher education, arguing that the policies and practices of new public management as exercised in universities are a form of bullying; what we term institutional bullying. The authors are researchers of workplace culture, workplace bullying and incivility. Irish universities are increasingly challenged in delivering the International Labour Organisation (ILO) principles of decent work, i.e., dignity, equity, fair income and safe working conditions. They have become exposed in terms of gender imbalance in senior positions, precariat workforce, excessive workload and diminishing levels of control. Irish universities are suffering in terms of both the health and well-being of staff and organisational vibrancy. The authors conclude by cautioning against potential neoliberal intensification as universities grapple with the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper reviews neoliberalism in higher education and concludes with insight as to how the current pandemic could act as a necessary catalyst to stem the tide and ‘call out’ bullying at the institutional level.

New Public Management Reforms and Modernization Changes in Australia

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Tarek Rana
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Narrative Analysis ◽  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Good Governance ◽  
Management Style ◽  
Accountability Systems ◽  
New Public ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
New Ideas

This chapter explores and explains recent modernisation changes in the Australian Public Sector and provides insights on implications of new public management style reform for public sector accounting, auditing and accountability systems and practices. By adopting a narrative analysis approach, this chapter reconnoitres the change by dissecting the public-sector governance, performance and accountability reform and identifies significant modernisation changes in public sector management which has switched focus from a “rules-based” to “principles-based” accountability framework. Moreover, this chapter highlights the changes, challenges and opportunities that arises with the implementation of the new framework which can be seen as an innovative determination of modernisation. The modernisation change in Australia has produced new ideas of good governance and requirements for meaningful accountability systems and practices by mobilising various accountability mechanisms such as accountable authority, corporate plan, program evaluation, performance measurement, and risk management.

The Anglo-American Tradition

2021 ◽  
pp. 116-138
Author(s):  
B. Guy Peters
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Administrators ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
New Public ◽  
American Tradition ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Definition Of

The Anglo-American tradition is perhaps the most difficult to characterize. Although there are common roots, there has been a divergence between the United Kingdom and other Westminster systems and the United States. There are common roots among these cases, including a contractarian conception of the state, an emphasis on the separation of politics and administration, an emphasis on management rather than law in the role definition of public administrators, and less commitment to uniformity. But these common values are interpreted and implemented differently in the different countries. For example, the United States has a more developed system of administrative law than do most of the Westminster systems. All these administrative systems, however, have been more receptive to the ideas of New Public Management (NPM) than have other governments, although the United States and Canada had implemented many of those ideas long before NPM was developed.

Dismantling Democratic States

2005 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 506-507
Author(s):  
Chris Painter
Keyword(s):  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
The United States ◽  
Market Place ◽  
Political Values ◽  
The Public ◽  
Princeton University ◽  
New Public ◽  
Global Movement ◽  
The Public Sphere

Dismantling Democratic States, Ezra Suleiman, Princeton and Oxford, Princeton University Press, 2003, pp. 327.At the heart of this comparative text is a fundamental critique of the substitution of the norms of the market place for those of collective public interest. As citizens are transformed into ubiquitous consumers, so the reinvention of government raises profound questions about the public domain and its role. To this extent, the New Public Management (NPM) is a vehicle for a deeper ideological program, differentiating it from earlier reform endeavours. However, Suleiman contends it is a global movement very much constrained by cultural contexts. The reluctance of countries such as France or Japan to implement far-reaching reforms reflects deeply embedded socio-cultural and political values that underpin the public sphere, unlike prevalent values in the United States.

The Archivists’ Understanding of New Public Management and Outsourcing of Government Information: The Case of Sweden

Mousaion ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Proscovia Svärd
Keyword(s):  
Public Management ◽  
Best Practice ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Data Gathering ◽  
Trust In Government ◽  
Government Information ◽  
Sustainable Solutions ◽  
Government Institutions ◽  
New Public ◽  
The Government

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the archivists’ understanding of New Public Management (NPM) and its impact on their role as gatekeepers of government information. The paper therefore presents the views of the archivists who traditionally manage the creation, capture and organisation of information at the Swedish Transport Board (STB). Government information is key to institutional transparency and hence the stringent legal framework that governs it. Sweden is considered a highly transparent country and through its Press Act, which dates as far back as the 1766, all its citizens enjoy the right to access government information. This way, citizens can follow and scrutinise the government processes, which increases openness and trust in government institutions. However, this image of Sweden as open and transparent was challenged by the “Transportgate IT scandal,” which put it in the limelight of both national and international media. The scandal was due to outsourcing. Global governments these days operate under increased financial constraints, demands for efficiency and environmentally sustainable solutions and are therefore engaged in the outsourcing of government functions. Outsourcing is a strategy within New Public Management and is regarded as a solution to the above-mentioned constraints. Outsourcing is being done within the growing popularity of NPM, which is the adoption of methods and best practice from the private sector. However, among the challenges that outsourcing poses is data/information security. Yet, one of the building stones of trust in government institutions is secure and trustworthy government information. As the “Transportgate IT scandal” unfolded, the focus was on IT security and there was a total lack of discussion on the information contained in the systems. This paper used a case study as a method to explore the above issues. It applied a literature review and interviews as data gathering techniques. The results confirmed that the archivists had a full understanding of NPM and its impact on the management of government information. They are supposed to play a key role in the management of government information, but they were not at all involved in the outsourcing process. There is a danger that this development might impact the trust citizens have in government institutions since access to government information might be compromised. Therefore, outsourcing of government information should involve all the stakeholders and there should be well-formulated clauses to protect it.

American Electronic Constitution

2009 ◽  
pp. 54-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fortunato Musella
Keyword(s):  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
The United States ◽  
Administrative Reforms ◽  
Digital Era ◽  
Private Organizations ◽  
New Public ◽  
The Difference

The chapter is dedicated at analyzing the strategic use of new technologies in the United States. An evident synergy has been noted between the digital policy projects and the neo-liberal ideology wave that has traced origin in the fiscal crisis of the State in the 1970s. About four decades have transformed some political directions in true imperatives: public sector downsizing, cost-cutting in public agencies, decision-making privatization, and the principle of efficiency as a measure of collective action. If new public management has been imposed as a dominant paradigm for administrative restructuring, ICTs programs sustain reform objectives by putting emphasis on the sure advantages of technological applications. In addition to this, administrative reforms seem to be in continuity with some American historical tradition, in reasserting a central role of private actor in public activities and realizing a significant “fusion of political and economic power”. Digital era seems to have added a new chapter to the American corporate liberalism history, with the difference – and the aggravating circumstance – that private organizations have now more powerful instruments to control and regulate society. New technological instruments seem to be used essentially to produce a neo-liberal interpretation of government activities.

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