IDPM Archived Publications
Public Policy and Management Working Papers
Please note : this working paper is part of a series that has been discontinued and archived .
The New Public Management in Developing Countries
Charles Polidano
Abstract
This paper assesses the extent to which developing countries have taken up new public management (NPM) reforms. While many developing countries have taken up elements of the NPM agenda, they have not adopted anything remotely near the entire package. Moreover, plenty of reform initiatives are going on that are unrelated or even contrary to that agenda. New public management ideas are influential, but more so at the level of rhetoric than practice. In practice NPM is only one of a number of currents of reform in developing countries.
The paper goes on to examine the argument that the new public management is inappropriate to developing countries on account of problems such as corruption and low administrative capacity. There are NPM success stories as well as failures in the developing world. The outcome of individual NPM initiatives depends on localised contingency factors rather than any general national characteristics. Reformers need to keep an open mind as to what may work and what may not, and to be guided by the needs of the situation.
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