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New Public Management

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What is the New Public Management? And how has it expressed itself in the workings of public bureaucracies in the Caribbean?

Introduction

During the last twenty years, various public administrations of countries in Europe, North America, Latin America and the Caribbean, were characterised by a practical reform movement defined by Hood (1991) as the New Public Management (NPM). This is documented by other scholars such as Gernod Gruening (1998)[1], and Paul Sutton (2003). Throughout the literature, it is evident that the process of reform have been subject to different terminologies: Managerialism – Pollitt (1990); Market Based Administration – Lan and Rosenbloom (1992); Entrepreneurial Government – Osborne and Gaebler (1992). …show more content…

Implementers of The Movement

The NPM movement began to develop in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. The first movers were the United kingdom, which was reformed by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and communal governments in the US under Ronald Reagan which suffered heavily from recessive developments and tax revolts of their citizens. Later the national governments of other Commonwealth countries, mainly New Zealand and Australia joined, after news the reform successes in these countries, and administrative reforms got on the agendas of almost all OECD countries.[7]

Philosophy of the New Public Management

Some of the major philosophical underpinnings of the NPM were outlined by Teehankee (2003) and are very pervasive throughout the literature: • Management culture that emphasizes the centrality of the customer • Transparency with regard to resource allocation and results • Organization that promotes decentralized control through a wide

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