Strengths And Weaknesses Of The New Public Management (NPM)- Cross-Sectional And Longitudinal Analysis

The paradigm of NPM, like its forerunners, has been trying to answer the same question for almost twenty years: how to implement policies, strategies, programs and projects, using the market-type mechanisms, so that the institutions of the state could achieve the desired results. The praises and criticism that have accompanied this paradigm along its evolution are fully justified. Indeed, the NPM has strengths and weaknesses as well, and one purpose of this paper is to identify them and to find answers to the following questions. Which components of the mechanism named NPM generate negative results? Why? What can be done? It is not easy to answer these questions, taking into consideration the multitude of factors influencing the public management, and especially the tremendous impacts of the accelerated process of globalization. The global problems of nowadays make any unilateral action of a government unconceivable, and this brings us to the concept of global public management (GPM). Nevertheless, the way forward will be the subject of another paper. The paper is structured in two main sections, as follows: The first section provides a conceptual framework, examining the multifaceted structure of the NPM and its mechanisms (the “state-of-the-art” of the “art of the state”). The second section suggests a theoretical framework on “measuring” the aggregate attribute of the NPM – the QoG – illustrated by practical cases, in a twofold perspective: longitudinal (variation in time) and cross-sectional (variation among countries).