Public Sector Management Reform in Developing Countries: Perspectives Beyond NPM Orthodoxy
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/pad.1739 |
| Author | Jennifer M. Brinkerhoff,Derick W. Brinkerhoff |
| Date | 01 October 2015 |
| Published date | 01 October 2015 |
PUBLIC SECTOR MANAGEMENT REFORM IN DEVELOPING
COUNTRIES: PERSPECTIVES BEYOND NPM ORTHODOXY
DERICK W. BRINKERHOFF
1
*AND JENNIFER M. BRINKERHOFF
2
1
RTI International, USA
2
George Washington University, USA
SUMMARY
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 con-
stitute 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 dy-
namics within various micro-contexts and across regime types. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
key words—public sector reform; New Public Management; developing countries; political economy; iterative adaptation;
isomorphism; agency; international donors
INTRODUCTION
The standard responses to public sector management deficits in developing countries have focused largely on a
combination of technical efficiency-enhancing reforms based on neoliberal market models and New Public Man-
agement (NPM) principles and tools. The dominant academic, policy, and practitioner discourses sometimes ap-
pear locked in endless loops, repeating variations on the same problem diagnoses and solutions. Yet public
sector management in developing countries, and arguably in the industrialized world as well given the blurred
boundaries between the global North and South, is under increasing pressure to perform. The litany of current chal-
lenges is well recognized: delivering quality services with fewer resources to diverse populations of users,
partnering effectively with the private and non-profit sectors, responding flexibly and rapidly to shifts in demands
and needs, assuring citizens’safety and security, stimulating widespread and equitable economic growth and op-
portunity, and coping proactively with transnational threats. These challenges call for looking beyond conventional
public sector management approaches and tools.
What new perspectives can shed a different light on public sector management, to either complement or con-
front the orthodox solution set? What alternative frameworks for theory and practice can move the discourse be-
yond NPM? What experience and lessons can help to shape new explanations and responses? This article
reviews dominant themes in the debates surrounding public sector and governance reforms and highlights some
emerging answers to the questions posed here. We first examine the substance and process of public sector reforms,
as well as the practical aspects inherent in donor–recipient country relationships centered on reform design and im-
plementation. This includes a discussion of four strands of current exploration in the search for what might be
*Correspondence to: D. W. Brinkerhoff, RTI International, 701 13th Street NW, Suite 750, Washington, DC 20005, USA. E-mail:
dbrinkerhoff@rti.org
public administration and development
Public Admin. Dev. 35, 222–237 (2015)
Published online in Wiley Online Library
(wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/pad.1739
Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
called post-NPM public sector reform. The next sections summarize the contributions to the special issue and detail
the findings derived from the contributions. The article closes with some observations and conclusions on the state
of the practice regarding public sector management and governance.
NEW PUBLIC MANAGEMENT: BEWITCHED, BOTHERED, AND BEWILDERED
To borrow from the lyrics of the 1940 Rodgers and Hart song, NPM has “bewitched, bothered, and bewildered”
policymakers and public sector reformers since its emergence as the preeminent solution set for public sector per-
formance problems in the 1980s.
1
At that time, policymakers and reformers were bewitched by the promise of
results-based management to reinvent government agencies, eliminate inefficiencies, and impose fiscal discipline.
The transfer of private-sector management principles and tools served as a practical recipe for reform and a
normative vision of effective government, promulgated by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development for industrialized countries and by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank for the devel-
oping world.
With accumulated experience with NPM in the 1990s and 2000s, and structural adjustment before that, donor
agencies and their country counterparts became increasingly bothered by the limitations and unanticipated conse-
quences of NPM. Privatization, smaller and leaner government, and a singular focus on neoliberal markets failed in
many cases to deliver broad-based socioeconomic development, although some countries experienced significant
growth. As Hood and Peters (2004) elaborate, as NPM has reached “middle age,”anomalies and paradoxes have
emerged that point up the gaps between theory and practice, which have undermined confidence in the efficacy of
its managerial remedies. Concerns for social inclusion, broad poverty reduction, and the inability of states to meet
the challenges enumerated earlier have called into question the wisdom of shrinking government when it appeared
that what was needed was—and continues to be—capable government.
Today, the epistemic bubble surrounding NPM that led reformers to prescribe more of the same Washington
consensus medicine in the face of growing evidence that the treatment was not a cure-all has burst. However,
policymakers in donor agencies and country governments are bewildered: What should replace one-size-fits-all
technocratic public sector reforms, and what Evans (2004) calls institutional monocropping? In the current re-
source-constrained environment, both for international donor agencies and for developing country governments,
the pressures to demonstrate results and “value for money”are strong. Regarding mainstream public sector reform,
such pressures have created incentives to maintain the core of the NPM package, with some tinkering at the mar-
gins, while espousing that what is proposed has moved beyond the old NPM (Lodge and Gill, 2011).
OUTSIDE THE EPISTEMIC BUBBLE: POST-NEW PUBLIC MANAGEMENT
As with any evolutionary shift in theory or practice, the old is never completely swept aside by the new, and the
post-NPM reform agenda is no exception (De Vries and Nemec, 2013). The ideologically driven orthodox univer-
salism of NPM has given way to a feasibility-first eclecticism that selects from a menu of public sector reforms to
pursue those that appear to fit individual country circumstances and to be doable within a donor-centric timeframe
(Fritz, 2015; Robinson, 2015). This menu retains, as noted earlier, a substantial number of NPM-like reform com-
ponents. At the risk of oversimplification, we identify four broad strands that capture the essence of the current
search for effective public sector reforms that are arguably in some sense post-NPM. These are identifiably distinct
but share some principles and practices across the strands.
1
We recognize that NPM is a heterogeneous mix of public management reform prescriptions and practices that derive from several analytic per-
spectives. To the extent that this variety fits within the NPM label, the broad unifying elements include an emphasis on performance-enhancing
interventions that rely on management technologies and systems to drive reforms (Moynihan and Pandey, 2005; Larbi, 2006; Manning, 2001).
We employ the label here for economy of presentation while remaining aware of the oversimplification it may convey.
223PUBLIC SECTOR MANAGEMENT REFORM
Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Public Admin. Dev. 35, 222–237 (2015)
DOI: 10.1002/pad
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