New Public Management

What is the New Public Management? And how has it expressed itself in the workings of public bureaucracies in the Caribbean?

Introduction

During the last twenty years, various public administrations of countries in Europe, North America, Latin America and the Caribbean, were characterised by a practical reform movement defined by Hood (1991) as the New Public Management (NPM). This is documented by other scholars such as Gernod Gruening (1998)[1], and Paul Sutton (2003). Throughout the literature, it is evident that the process of reform have been subject to different terminologies: Managerialism – Pollitt (1990); Market Based Administration – Lan and Rosenbloom (1992); Entrepreneurial Government – Osborne and Gaebler (1992).

NPM has its origins in public choice theory and the so-called ‚“managerialism’’. A simple conceptualization is that the New Public Management is a philosophy used by governments since the 1980’s to modernise the public sector. A more detailed construct is offered by Michael Barzelay (2001)[2] who indicated that New Public Management is a field of discussion largely about policy interventions within executive government. The characteristic instruments of such policy interventions are institutional rules and organizational routines affecting expenditure planning and financial management, civil service and labour relations, procurement, organization and methods, and audit and evaluation.

The New Public Management emerged in the 1980`s and 1990’s as a response to the creeping inefficiencies of traditional bureaucratic systems. The traditional philosophy of public administration as articulated by Max Weber – that bureaucracy made administration more efficient and rational - was subject to strong criticism. Bureaucratic dominance was being viewed not as a solution to the problems of public administration, but the very source of these problems (Teehankee 2003).[3]

Thompson (2003) argues that bureaucratic arrangements once,

Bibliography: | |Barzeley, M. 2001. The New Public Management. University of California Press. | | | | | |Best-Winfield, Gail. 2006. “Public Sector Reform – The Barbados Experience ’’, Case Study prepared for The Caribbean Centre for | | |Development Administration (CARICAD) | |Bissessar, Ann Marie, 2002.“Globilisation, Domestic Politicsin the Introduction of the New Public Management in the Commonwealth | | |Caribbean’’, International Review of Administrative Services | | | | |Bissessar, Ann Marie, 2006.“The Difficulty of Protecting Merit in a Plural Society: The Case of Trinidad & Tobago’’, Review of | | |Brown, Deryck, 2008. “Institutional Development and Reform in Public Services: Lessons from the experience of Small Caribbean | | |States’’, Paper prepared for The Commonwealth Association of Public Administration and Management (CAPAM) | |Public Sector Management. Vol II, No.6: 440-450. | | |Government of Barbados, 2004.“Public Sector Reform for the period 2004 to 2005 – Making Barbados Work Better’’, (Report of the Office| | |of Public Sector Reform 2004). | | | | | |Graham, Sandra, 1999. “ Public Sector Reform: The role of the Union in Transition’’, Jamaica Gleaner. August 9, 1999. | | | | | |Gruening, Gernod, 1998.“Origin and theoretical basis of the New Public Management’’, | | |Draft for the 1998 IPMN conference in Salem Oregon | | | | |Sutton, Paul, 2003.“Governance, Public Sector Reform and New Public Management: The Commonweath Caribbean Experience’’, Economic and | | |Sutton, Paul, 2006. Modernization the State: Public Sector Reform in the Commonwealth Caribbean. Kingston: Ian Randle. | | | | | | | | |Teehankee, Julio, 2003 | | | | |Thompson, Fred and Hugh Miller, 2003) [1] Gruening, Gernod. 1998.“Origin and theoretical basis of the New Public Management’’ Draft for the 1998 IPMN conference in Salem Oregon. [2] Barzeley, M. 2001. The New Public Management. University of California Press. [3] Teehankee, Julio (2003). “ New Public Management: Lean State Lean Government’’. [4] Thompson, Fred and Hugh Miller (2003). New Public Management and Bureaucracy Verses Business Values and Bureaucracy. Review of Public Personnel Administration. Vol. 23: No.4; December 2003 pp 328 -343. [5] Ibid [6] Teehankee, Julio (2003) [7] Gruening, Gernod. 1998.“Origin and theoretical basis of the New Public Management’’ Draft for the 1998 IPMN conference in Salem Oregon. [8] Ibid [9] Cited in Bissessar, Ann Marie, 2002.“Globilisation, Domestic Politicsin the Introduction of the New Public Management in the Commonwealth Caribbean’’ [11] Bissessar, Ann Marie, 2002.“Globilisation, Domestic Politicsin the Introduction of the New Public Management in the Commonwealth Caribbean’’. International Review of Administrative Services. March 2002; Vol 68, pp 116 [12] Ibid [14] Sutton, Paul. 2006. Modernization the State: Public Sector Reform in the Commonwealth Caribbean. Kingston: Ian Randle. [15] Sutton Public Sector Reform in the Eastern Caribbean [16] Sutton, Paul, 2006 [20] Review of Public Personnel Administration. 2006; 26; 74. The Difficulty of Protecting Merit -----------------------