New Public Management - Criticism

Criticism

Some authors say NPM has peaked and is now in decline. Critics like Dunleavy proclaim that NPM is 'dead' and argue that the cutting edge of change has moved on to digital era governance focusing on reintegrating concerns into government control, holistic (or joined-up) government and digitalization (exploiting the Web and digital storage and communication within government). In the UK and US NPM has been challenged since the turn of the century by a range of related critiques such as Third Way thinking (see Anthony Giddens) and particularly the rise of ideas associated with Public Value Theory (Mark Moore, Kennedy Business School, John Benington, Warwick Business School) which have re-asserted a focus on citizenship, networked governance and the role of public agencies in working with citizens to co-create public value, generate democratic authorisation, legitimacy and trust, and stress the domains within which public managers are working as complex adaptive systems with characteristics which are qualitatively different from simple market forms, or private sector business principles.

In his book Bad Samaritans, economist Ha-Joon Chang claims that "increased NPM-inspired reforms have often increased, rather than reduced, corruption," as a result of "more contacts with the private sector, creating new opportunities for bribes" and future, direct or indirect, employment in the private sector. Chang claims that "corruption often exists because there are too many market forces; not too few."

Robert Nield, a retired Cambridge economics professor and a member of the 1968 Fulton civil service reform committee, has stated, in reference to civil sector reforms implemented by British PM Margaret Thatcher, a pioneer and strong proponent of NPM, "I cannot think of another instance where a modern democracy has systematically undone the system by which incorrupt public services were brought into being."