The Ashgate Research Companion to New Public Management

This collection provides a comprehensive, state-of-the art review of current research in the field of New Public Management (NPM) reform. Aimed primarily at a readership with a special interest in contemporary public-sector reforms, The Ashgate Research Companion to New Public Management offers a refreshing and up-to-date analysis of key issues of modern administrative reforms. This volume comprises a general introduction and twenty-nine chapters divided into six thematic sessions, each with chapters ranging across a variety of crucial topics in the field of New Public Management reforms and beyond. The principal themes to be addressed are: ¢

1: Introduction; I: NPM Processes: Driving Forces; 2: Basic NPM Ideas and their Development; 3: The Political-Administrative Design of NPM; 4: The Relevance of Culture for NPM; 5: New Public Organisations: A Revivalist Movement 1; II: Convergence and Divergence among Countries; 6: NPM in Anglo-Saxon Countries; 7: Public Management Reform in Continental Europe: National Distinctiveness; 8: NPM in Scandinavia; 9: NPM in Asian Countries; III: Sector Studies; 10: Healthcare States and Medical Professions: The Challenges from NPM; 11: NPM, Network Governance and the University as a Changing Professional Organization; 12: NPM Ideas and Social Welfare Administration; 13: Utility Regulation and NPM; IV: NPM Features; 14: Structural Devolution to Agencies; 15: Managing Performance and Auditing Performance; 16: Managerialism and Models of Management; 17: Privatization; 18: A Transformative Perspective on Public–Private Partnerships; V: Effects and Implications of NPM; 19: NPM and the Search for Efficiency; 20: Unions, Corporatist Participation and NPM; 21: NPM: Restoring the Public Trust through Creating Distrust?; 22: Scientization; 23: An Aftermath of NPM: Regained Relevance of Public Values and Public Service Motivation; 24: Serving the Public? Users, Consumers and the Limits of NPM; 25: Responses to NPM: From Input Democracy to Output Democracy; 26: Normativity and NPM: A Need for Some Theoretical Coherence; VI: NPM and Beyond; 27: Beyond NPM? Some Development Features; 28: Reinventing Weber: The Role of Institutions in Creating Social Trust; 29: Public Governance and Public Services: A ‘Brave New World' or New Wine in Old Bottles? 1

Professor Tom Christensen, University of Oslo, Norway and Professor Per Lægreid, University of Bergen, Norway.