New Public Management: An Assessment of Impact and the Influence on Public Administration

Abstract

The argument of this paper is that the traditional model of public administration has undergone major changes and effectively replaced by a new model of public management. This change represents a paradigm shift characterized by a shift from administration to management, and from bureaucracy to market. This transformation was a result of the economic pressure which resulted from the ongoing financial crises which was associated with the rise of conservative political parties within Western democracies. Conservative Political Parties were exceedingly critical of the public sector bureaucracy. Politicians were highly motivated towards reducing the public sector growth as part of political commitment to retrenchment policies. Both the economic crisis and the political intentions were also associated with the third factor, that of the emergence of new conservative economists whose theories brought new perspective to public sector bureaucracy.

Keywords: Public Administration, New Public Management, Bureaucracy, Welfare State