NEW PUBLIC MANAGEMENT REFORMS: ORIGINS, INSTRUMENTS, OUTCOMES AND TRAJECTORIES: A REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

Abstract

New Public Management (NPM) has been one of the most influential and contested reform movements in the history of modern public administration. Since Hood (1991) gave the movement its name, a very large literature has described, evaluated and criticized the application of market-inspired and managerial ideas to government. This review synthesizes that literature in order to trace the intellectual and political origins of NPM, identify its principal reform instruments, assess the empirical evidence on its effects on efficiency, service quality, accountability and public service ethos, examine its reception in developing countries, with particular reference to Pakistan, and map the post-NPM alternatives that have emerged in response: the new public service, public value management, new public governance, the neo-Weberian state and digital-era governance. The review concludes that the effects of NPM are context-dependent rather than uniformly beneficial or harmful; that post-NPM reforms have largely layered new logics onto existing ones rather than replacing NPM; and that the spread of data-driven technologies and artificial intelligence opens a further reform wave whose relationship to NPM remains under-theorized. Research gaps and implications for reform design in settings of limited institutional capacity are outlined.