New Public Administration (NPA) vs New Public Management (NPM)

The 1968 Minnowbrook movement's NPA and the market-based NPM reforms of the 1980s-90s, and how they differ.

At a glance

NPA: Minnowbrook Conference, 1968, led by Dwight Waldo and younger scholars. NPM: 1980s-90s reforms associated with Christopher Hood, David Osborne and Ted Gaebler ("Reinventing Government").

These two "New" movements are easy to mix up in an exam, but they pull in different directions -- NPA is a values-driven reaction against value-free efficiency, while NPM is a market-driven reaction against a bloated, rule-bound bureaucracy.

New Public Administration (NPA)

Reacted against the 1950s-60s obsession with scientific, value-neutral efficiency (the legacy of the efficiency-era POSDCORB thinking).

Centred on social equity as a third pillar alongside efficiency and economy -- administrators should actively advocate for disadvantaged clients, not stay neutral.

Embraced change, relevance to real social problems, participative decision-making, and a more "client-focused," less hierarchical administrator.

Associated with the broader 1960s-70s climate of civil rights and anti-Vietnam-War activism in American academia.

New Public Management (NPM)

Treated the citizen as a customer and government as something to be run more like a business.

Key ideas: privatisation and contracting-out, competition between service providers, performance-based pay and targets, decentralised "agencification," separating policy from delivery, and the "3 Es" -- economy, efficiency, effectiveness.

Christopher Hood's "7 doctrines" of NPM include hands-on professional management, explicit performance standards, output control, and greater competition in the public sector.

Criticised for weakening public accountability, treating citizens as mere consumers, and importing private-sector logic into functions (law and order, welfare) where it doesn't fit well.

Answer-writing cue: the fastest way to show you understand both is one line each -- "NPA asked administration to care about equity, NPM asked it to behave like a business" -- then develop whichever the question actually points at. Don't conflate the two even though both have "New" and "Public" in the name.

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New Public Administration (NPA) vs New Public Management (NPM)