Public Sector Reform: Which way are we headed? An overview of recent literature and research

This paper investigates recent literature and research on public sector reform and aims to answer the question to what degree public administration systems and reforms are still influenced by recommendations flowing from the NPM tradition. This paper distinguishes two dimensions of NPM: the internal and external workings of government. Whereas American scholars such as Osborne and Gaebler wanted primarily to improve the way government works vis-a-vis society, which would in their view only be possible if the public sector would withdraw and leave service delivery to the private sector, European scholars like Hood emphasized the meaning of NPM as a set of recommendations in order to make the public sector better organized and managed internally. The internal and external workings of the public sector pose an important, albeit somewhat neglected distinction between two dimensions of New Public Management. Important, because as this paper argues, the direction of the developments of public administration reform differs on both dimensions and whereas the ideas of NPM has become less dominant on the one dimension (downsizing the role of the public sector vis-a-vis society), this is not necessarily the case regarding the other dimension (improving the organization and management within the public sector)