Transcending New Public Management: The Transformation of Public Sector Reforms

摘要

The objective of the book as stated in the first (and introductory) chapter is primarily to examine recent administrative reforms in the Scandinavian countries, Australia and New Zealand, following two decades of the global ideational predominance of the new public management (NPM). The analytical framework consists of what the editors refer to as the 'transformative approach', seeking to explain various national trajectories of administrative reforms by combining a number of theoretical perspectives accounting for how environmental pressures, polity features and historical institutional context shape the process and outcome of public policy. As with most edited books, some of the chapters are stronger than others in addressing the editors' objective. Nevertheless, taken together, the chapters bring out certain important elements in what has been generally referred to as 'post-NPM reforms'.