User:Rahebradfar/New Public Management

I will contribute to the "New Public Management" article. I will improve the "Globalization" section by adding details and citations. Moreover, I will improve the "Aspects" section by adding new subsections and improving the current subsections, which suffer from lack of sufficient content and citation.

Globalization
The initial New Public Management (NPM) reforms implemented in Anglo-Saxon countries inspired reforms across the world. These reforms, which were triggered and motivated by a variety of factors and resulted in the development of various models, led to the emergence of a global NPM trend. Despite the global nature of the movement, the concepts and models of the reform were diverse and developed in accordance with each country’s specific and unique context and in response to the distinct challenge that it was facing. Therefore, in spite of the common features of the reforms, their driving factors, objectives, extent, and areas of focus varied across countries.

While, in many countries, NPM reforms were inspired and influenced by the reforms implemented beyond their national boundaries, the driving factors of the reforms varied significantly across regions as well as across countries of the same region. In Europe, for instance, whereas the reforms in the Netherlands started in reaction to fiscal stringency, the driving factor for reform in Germany came from within the system as local government managers and politicians were dissatisfied with the traditional bureaucratic system and its shortcomings. Moreover, although the NPM reforms of Switzerland were influenced by the Netherlands’ Tilburg model, their main motivator was dissatisfaction with the old public management system and its deficiencies. In Africa, on the other hand, the main motivating and driving factors of the NPM reforms were bureaucratic corruption, dysfunctional governance system, fiscal crises, and the success of the reforms in other countries. For developing nations and former communist countries, the motivation for reforms was benefiting from participation in a globalized economy and fulfilling the requirements of international donors.

Although NPM reforms mainly aimed at increasing efficiency and decreasing costs of the public sector, each country’s reforms were focused on certain specific areas. In South Africa and Zambia, for instance, independent authorities were created for tax collection with the primary goal of promoting accountability. In Germany, the NPM reforms mainly focused on internal reforms. In France, the 1982 Act of Decentralization, which created autonomous local collectivities in the areas of budgeting and taxation, led to managerialism and privatization. The reforms also varied across time. For instance, while reorganization of responsibilities was the main focus area of the Tilburg model in the 1980s, the reform goals were reoriented from internal restructuring to the external environment focusing on the role of citizens in the 1990s.

Across countries, various actors played different roles in initiating, facilitating, and implementing NPM reforms. In the Netherlands and Germany, for instance, the reforms were initiated by local governments. However, the reforms in the Netherlands were supported by the central government while the New Steering model of Germany did not receive any support from the federal government. In Africa, most of the reforms were introduced and implemented by national governments. While national and local governments played a central role in initiating and implementing the reforms, some international organizations had a crucial role in facilitating and driving the reforms. For instance, OECD played a vital role in facilitating the transfer of reforms across its member countries by developing tools and guidelines. Moreover, it was World Bank and IMF that pushed non-western and developing countries for public management reforms. In Africa, for example, the reforms were part of the “economic liberalization packages of structural adjustment.”