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New Public Management (NPM) is a discussion and investigation of economic and political systems in various countries and their policies that aimed to modernize and render the public sector more efficient.

New Public Management is viewed as a more efficient means of attaining the same product or service; however, citizens are viewed as customers and public servers/administrators hold the title of Public Manager. Under NPM, Public Managers have incentive-based motivation and have greater discretion (as opposed to a regulated outcome per scenario, regardless of situation). NPM relies heavily on disaggregation, customer satisfaction, entrepreneurial spirit, and the "Rules of the Game." . "Public Managers under the New Public Management reforms can provide a range of choices from which customers can choose, including the right to opt out of the service delivery system completely".

History and Development
The first practices of New Public Management emerged in the United Kingdom under the leadership of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Playing the functional role of “policy entrepreneur,” as well as the official role of prime minister, Thatcher drove changes in public management policy in such areas as organization and methods, civil service and labor relations, expenditure planning and financial management, audit and evaluation, and procurement.

Thatcher's successor, John Major, kept public management policy on the agenda of the Conservative government, leading to the implementation of the Next Steps Initiative and the launching of the Citizens Charter Initiative, Competing for Quality, Resource Accounting and Budgeting, and the Private Finance Initiative.

In the 1980s, public management became an active area of policy-making in numerous other countries, notably in New Zealand, Australia, and Sweden. At the same time, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) established its Public Management Committee and Secretariat (PUMA), conferring to public management the status normally accorded more conventional domains of policy. In the 1990s, public management was a major item on President Clinton’s agenda. Early policy actions of the Clinton administration included launching the National Performance Review and signing into law the Government Performance and Results Act. At the time of this writing, there are few indications that public management issues will vanish from governmental policy agendas any time soon.

The term New Public Management (NPM) expresses the idea that the cumulative flow of policy decisions over the past twenty years has amounted to a substantial shift in the governance and management of the “state sector” in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia, Scandinavia, and North America. A benign interpretation is that these decisions have been a defensible, if imperfect, response to policy problems. Those problems as well as their solutions were formulated within the policy-making process. The agenda-setting process, in particular, has been heavily influenced by electoral commitments to improve macro- economic performance and to contain growth in the public sector, as well as by a growing perception of public bureaucracies as being inefficient. The alternative-generation process has been heavily influenced by ideas coming from economics and from various quarters within the field of management.

Differences Between Public and Private Sectors
New Public Management draws practices from the private sector and uses them in the public sector of management.

The New Public Management reforms use market forces to hold the public sector accountable and the satisfaction of preferences as the measures of accountability. In order for this system to proceed, certain conditions, such as the existence of competition, must exist and information about choices must be available.

That students of public administration have failed to adequately challenge the New Public Management. I also take issue with another theme that runs, perhaps more obliquely, throughout Lynn's piece: the methodological claims and interests of the New Public Management as compared with those of the "old" public management. Here, Lynn seems to suggest that, due to a tradition of being "unduly careless,"not only the New Public Management but the broader field of public administration itself "seems to have let lapse [its] moral and intellectual authority."

Reforms that promise to reinvent government by way of focusing on results and customer satisfaction as opposed to administrative and political processes fail to account for legislative self-interest. Institutions other than federal government, the changes being trumpeted as reinvention would not even be announced, except perhaps on hallway bulletin boards.

Criticisms
There are blurred lines between Policy Making and Rendering Services in the New Public Management system as well as whether or not they can be trusted to be involved politically. Public managers are involved with how to progress policies, but now what the public needs. NPM brings to question integrity and compliance when dealing with incentives for public managers. Will managers be more or less faithful? The public interest is at risk and could undermine the trust in government. How can we ensure accountability?

New Zealand exemplifies a functional New Public Management system because of its academically rigorous an alysis; however, to prove this is functional, there needs to be more than one country operating smoothly. Some difficulty surrounding the discussion and experimentation of New Public Management is managing the analysis.

Dunleavy believes New Public Management is phasing out because of disconnect with “customers” and their institutions. New Public Management was created in the Public Sector to create change based on: disaggregation, competition, and incentives. Using incentives to produce the maximum services from an organization is largely stalled in many countries and being reversed because of increased complexity.

Alternatives
Post New Public Management evolves the Digital Era Governance (DEG). Dunleavy believes this new way of governance should be heavily centered upon information and technology. Technology will help re-integrate with digitalization changes. Digital Era Governance provides a unique opportunity for self- sustenance; however, there are various factors that will determine whether or not DEG can be implemented successfully.