Measuring New Public Management and Governance in Political Debate

• Author: Hans F. W. Dubois,Giovanni Fattore,Antonio Lapenta
• Published date: 01 March 2012
• Date: 01 March 2012
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6210.2011.02497.x

Giovanni Fattore is associate professor

of health care and public management

at Bocconi University (Policy Analysis and

Public Management Department), Italy.

Previously, he was research off‌i cer at the

London School of Economics. His research

focuses on health policy and public

management reforms. He holds a degree in

economics from Bocconi University and did

postgraduate studies at the Harvard School

of Public Health and the London School of

Economics.

E-mail: giovanni.fattore@unibocconi.it

Hans F. W. Dubois is a research

off‌i cer at the European Foundation for the

Improvement of Living and Working Condi-

tions (Eurofound) in Dublin. Previously,

he was assistant professor at Kozminski

University in Warsaw and worked with the

European Observatory for Health Systems

and Policies in Madrid. He holds a doctorate

in business administration and manage-

ment from Bocconi University and studied

economics and medical biology at the

University of Amsterdam.

E-mail: Hans.Dubois@eurofound.

europa.eu

Antonio Lapenta is an economist and

public management specialist. He holds a

doctorate in health care management and

economics from Magna Græcia University of

Catanzaro, Italy, and has conducted training

and research for the Public Management

Department at Bocconi University from

2004 to 2008. He served as strategic

advisor to the Bolivian Health Minister for

the creation of a National Health System.

He is currently an international consultant

and advisor for government institutions.

E-mail: Antonio.lapenta@yahoo.com

218 Public Administration Review • March | April 2012

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 72, Iss. 2, pp. 218–227. © 2012 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.111/j.1540-6210.2011.02497.x.

Giovanni Fattore

Bocconi University, Italy

Hans F. W. Dubois

European Foundation for the Improvement

of Living and Working Conditions, Ireland

Antonio Lapenta

Magna Græcia University of Catanzaro, Italy

New Public Management (NPM) recently has been

compared and contrasted with public governance (PG) to

illustrate shifts in conceptions of public administrations

and in reform agendas.  e authors develop measures

to capture the relevance of NPM and PG in textual

discourse and investigate the extent to which they have

entered the political debate. Content analysis of electoral

programs for the 2005 Italian regional elections reveals

that even in this legalistic country, considerable attention

was paid to both NPM and PG issues. An important

explanatory variable in preference for NPM or PG

is party ideology, highlighting often-ignored within-

country dynamics. Furthermore, the authors show how a

methodological approach adapted from mainly political

science and business research can be exploited in the f‌i eld

of public administration.

New Public Management (NPM) and public

governance (PG) are two core sets of ideas

in the f‌i eld of public administration. In a

provocative article, tellingly titled “ e New Public

Governance?” Stephen P. Osborne (2006) argues that

NPM actually has been a transitory stage in the evolu-

tion from traditional public administration to what he

calls New Public Governance.

We investigate whether the theoretical interest in PG

is expressed in the broader society, as ref‌l ected by the

political debate. We also explore whether reference to

NPM and PG issues depends on candidates’ ideologi-

cal roots.  e interest in NPM and PG tends to be

generalized to the country level of analysis. Inclusion

of a proxy for ideological background could reveal

whether within-country dif‌f erences and dynamics are

of signif‌i cant magnitude. Furthermore, we make an

attempt to develop specif‌i c measures for these two

often referred to but rarely measured sets of issues.

 e article is organized as follows: In the next section,

we discuss recent developments in the NPM/PG

debate and explore core ideas that fall under these two

broad labels, setting the conceptual basis of the meas-

ures presented and discussed in the following sections.

Next, we argue that content analysis of electoral

programs is an appropriate approach for our analysis.

We discuss this in light of broader applications of

content analysis to various types of texts in public

administration research.  e 2005 regional elections

in Italy are identif‌i ed as a relevant, critical case. We

move on, carefully describing the procedure that we

applied to measure reference to NPM and PG issues

in these political documents. Descriptive statistics are

presented and statistical analysis is applied to test for

dif‌f erences in prevalence.  e results are discussed

and, f‌i nally, conclusions are drawn.

The New Public Governance?

NPM and PG have received considerable academic

attention over the last few decades, referred to as “the

two grand narratives of public management reform”

(Andresani and Ferlie 2006, 416). We present a brief

literature review of both NPM and PG in turn and

discuss how the second is gaining ground.

“New Public Management” is an umbrella term

(e.g., Hood 1991). Scholars as well as professionals

often have used the expression to refer to distinctive

themes, styles, and patterns of public service manage-

ment reforms of the last two decades (Barzelay 2001).

While some see NPM and PG as two dif‌f erent para-

digms, we agree with those who see the two concepts

as dif‌f erent sets of ideas. NPM’s origins lie in a mar-

riage of new institutional economics (public choice,

transaction cost, and principle–agent theory) and

scientif‌i c management–based business philosophies

(Hood 1991). NPM’s principal focus is intraorganiza-

tional processes and management, and it emphasizes

the economy and ef‌f‌i ciency of those service units in

producing public services (Osborne 2006).  e litera-

ture of‌f ers a large number of investigations into the

components of NPM (Ferlie et al. 1996; Hood 1991;

Osborne and Gaebler 1992). Following Andresani

and Ferlie (2006), NPM ideas stress a combination

of empowered and entrepreneurial management

rather than traditionally autonomous public sector

professionals and administrators. It favors the use of

Measuring New Public Management and Governance

in Political Debate