NEW PUBLIC MANAGEMENT: The effects of contractualism and devolution on political control

By Tom Christensen, Per Lægreid. 2001

190 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This article analyzes effects and implications of New Public Management (NPM) when implemented in the civil service systems in New Zealand and Norway, focusing especially on the effects of devolution and contractualism on political control. Using a transformative perspective, we interpret these effects as a result of a melding of environmental factors, polity features and national historical-institutional constraints. Norway scores low on both environmental and internal factors enhancing administrative reform, furthering a soft version of NPM and small changes in political control. In contrast a combination of external pressure, weak countervailing cultural forces and ‘elective dictatorship’ in New Zealand produces a radical version of NPM, resulting in a weakening of central political control.

Subfields: Political Science and International Relations, Public Administration, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/dc182c08d527f61084ba355312f603afdef6e0df

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In Political Science and International Relations

1. L. Bordogna
2. S. Bach

In Public Administration

1. L. Bordogna
2. S. Bach

In Sociology and Political Science

1. L. Bordogna
2. S. Bach

Citations in the corpus

• Varieties of new public management or alternative models? The reform of public service employment relations in industrialized democracies (2011, background): “Paradoxes, contradictions, trade-offs and unintended, even perverse effects have repeatedly been underlined (Hood 2000; Christensen and Lægreid 2001; Hood and Peters 2004).”