ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the emergence of New Public Management (NPM) as the dominant paradigm in government attempts at the modernization of the state over recent decades. This discussion proceeds by considering both past and current practices in the organization and coordination of public services. Despite the preoccupation of contemporary scholars and practitioners with an NPM agenda, this study presents the case for examining the landscape of the public sector as a site for layers of ideas and policies on public administration and management. This perspective argues that the durability of bureaucratic ideas in contemporary society is evidence of this. Policy analysts and scholars should not regard practices and initiatives as straightforward sequential reforms over time. While this book offers insights into NPM-type ideas, such as marketization, in practice it also reveals the deep-seated nature of reform processes and cautious attempts to pigeonhole the nature and dissemination of reform ideas in public services. This phenomenon of the fusion of ideas over time is evident in Scandinavian public administration, notably in Sweden. This chapter also offers a glimpse of what the future holds for public administration in a dynamic, changing world where the Scandinavian practices can resonate with the challenges facing governments internationally.
