Public Sector Management Reform in Developing Countries: Perspectives Beyond NPM Orthodoxy

Item

Title

Public Sector Management Reform in Developing Countries: Perspectives Beyond NPM Orthodoxy

Abstract/Description

With the passage of time and the accumulation of experience, the hegemony of the New Public Management (NPM) (now no longer new) as the dominant approach to public sector reform has weakened, particularly as applied to developing countries. What alternative frameworks for theory and practice offer insights and guidance beyond the NPM orthodoxy? This article offers some answers to this question and draws upon the contributions to this special issue to explore four analytic strands that constitute post-NPM approaches to reform: political economy and institutions, public management function over form, iterative and adaptive reform processes, and individual and collective agency. The discussion highlights the significance of functional mimicry, the challenges of measuring results, the practical difficulties in achieving contextual fit and accounting for the inherent uncertainty in reform processes, the tensions between ownership and outside expertise, and unpacking political economy dynamics within various micro-contexts and across regime types.

Author/creator

Brinkerhoff, Derick W.

Brinkerhoff, Jennifer M.

Date

2015

In publication

Public Administration and Development

Volume

35

Issue

4

Pages

222-237

Resource type

en Research/Scholarly Media

Resource status/form

en Published Text

Scholarship genre

en Synthesis/Overview

Keywords

agency

developing countries

international donors

isomorphism

iterative adaptation

New Public Management

political economy

public sector reform

Language

en

Open access/full-text available

en Yes

Peer reviewed

en Yes

ISSN

1099-162X

DOI

10.1002/pad.1739

URL

Official Publisher's Webpage (Wiley Online Library)

Full-text PDF Shared by Author (ResearchGate)

Citation

Brinkerhoff, D. W., & Brinkerhoff, J. M. (2015). Public Sector Management Reform in Developing Countries: Perspectives Beyond NPM Orthodoxy. Public Administration and Development, 35(4), 222–237. https://doi.org/10.1002/pad.1739

Cited in

Cross-Sector Research on Continuous Learning and Improvement

Item sets

OB Citations - Cross-Sector Research on Learning and Improvement

• Email