What can Australasia teach us? On the hunt for new paradigms in public management: a review of the regional academic literature

Australasia has long been regarded as a crucible for public management reforms. Both Australia and New Zealand were pronounced as exemplars of the ‘constructed’ doctrines presented in Christopher Hood’s original article... [ view full abstract ]

Australasia has long been regarded as a crucible for public management reforms. Both Australia and New Zealand were pronounced as exemplars of the ‘constructed’ doctrines presented in Christopher Hood’s original article on New Public Management (NPM)(Hood, 1991), and subsequent landmark assessments reinforced this view in New Zealand (Boston et al. 1996). Unfortunately it sometimes appears that the legacy of NPM still colours much current thinking, despite many of the reforms of the 1980s/1990s having been whittled down, and for some scholars superseded by new modes of governance (e.g. Lægreid & Christensen, 2006; Osborne, 2010). Even though more recent assessments suggest both countries have moved towards 'post-NPM' models in slightly different ways, elevating the position of public value, outcomes, collaboration, trust and facilitation of self-organised networks (e.g. Alford and O'Flynn, 2012), some commentators still point to the enduring dominance of the NPM model (Lodge and Gill, 2012; Chapman and Duncan 2007). This paper will therefore map the evolution of public management reforms in New Zealand and Australia as perceived by public management scholars in the region. In so doing we will draw out what (if any) underlying theoretical foundations, type of studies, definitions, methodological choice and selection of data that have been applied in the academic literature. While usually conceived as a single model in the Westminster family of industrialised democracies, we have all reasons to believe that there are variances between the jurisdictions. Most importantly, we will explore the extent to which new theory can be constructed form the Australasian experience.
The paper is based on a literature review of peer-reviewed academic writing on NPM and the plethora of post-NPM ideas from the Australasian region.