Owner Owed Owned : New Public Management and the Swedish Work of Development

New public management (NPM) is influencing the Swedish work of development. Collaboration with the NPM influenced International Monetary Fund and World Bank Group along with major structural reforms within Sida hint towards such development. Traditionally Sweden follow the line of Progressive Public Administration (PPA) and the rhetoric policy for aid was formed before the breakthrough of NPM. Does the current rhetoric policy document follow the change in practice? If NPM is implemented in the rhetoric policy it would also most likely bring along changes in motives to give aid, view on and use of money, view of ownership etc. Has a change in motives, methods and values occurred in the rhetoric policy?The aim of the thesis is to study whether a management change from PPA towards NPM occurred in the rhetoric policy steering the Swedish aid, and to observe how it affects motives, methods, values and the receiver in the work of development. The rhetoric policy management view development is studied through an ideal model analysis. The motives, methods and values are studied in the descriptions of the same in the bills, along with a literature study.An increase of NPM is found in the current government bill (PGU) in the study but PGU is not based on the NPM theory and the motives and goals remain quite stable. There is however a change in methods used, and new concepts to obtain the goals arose. Some values are also reintroduced after a period of absence, such as ownership for the receiver. The major change for the receivers over the period is how they are steered by others (i.e. the giver). The receivers were no longer considered as the owners of their development as their ownership disappeared in the 1980’s and implementations of structural reforms were heavily stressed by the givers. A lesson from the study is to be even more careful about applying new management theories in the work of aid. Implementation takes time and the grass is not always greener on the other side.Validerat; 20110907 (anonymous