Public Management and Administration - Owen E.hughes

(1995, pp. 105–106) and thirdly, whether the agenda for public management
reform ‘has been stable enough over the last decade or two to be counted as
a single set of ideas and practices’ (1995, p. 110).
There are, then, two quite divergent views of whether or not the public management
reforms constitute a global or worldwide movement of change. It now
remains to establish which makes more sense.
Convergence of practice
Conclusion 265
Pollitt and Bouckaert argue that, instead of there being a global movement, different
countries implement the changes in different ways. They argue ‘state
structures, the nature of central executive government, relationships between
ministers and mandarins, the prevailing administrative culture and the diversity
of channels of advice all have effects on which ideas get taken up and how vigorously
and widely these are subsequently implemented’ (Pollitt and Bouckaert,
2000, p. 60). In their view, some countries are more open to the ‘performancedriven,
market-favouring ideas than others’ particularly the Anglo-Saxon countries,
where the more statist continental European countries have been more
cautious (2000, pp. 60–1).
The point that there is a different pace to change is inarguable. National
political institutions may be more or less helpful to reform. British, Australian
and Canadian prime ministers work with political institutions that are much
more amenable to making government reform measures stick than is the case
for American presidents; New Zealand went further than other countries
because it has fewer institutional constraints. Management reform must fit
within a nation’s model of governance and ‘they must be supported by the
political system for the administrative reforms to succeed’ (Kettl, 2000, p. 32).
Some variance would be expected. Holmes and Shand also argue that there has
been a range of reform, with ‘many common themes but differences of substance,
comprehensiveness, speed and emphasis’ (1995, p. 553). Ingraham
argues that there are three models (1998, pp. 251–2):
The New Zealand model, which essentially blows up the old structures and replaces them
with competitive, market-based agencies, represents one end of the continuum that
emerges. The United States and its reinventing government initiatives represent the other;
reinventing government has been constructed on an old bureaucratic foundation. No systematic
reforms have been implemented that would change the rules of the game … The
middle spot on the continuum is occupied by staged-reform strategies. Examples are provided
by the national governments of Australia and the United Kingdom, which pursued
change strategies that first attacked the complexity and rigidity of the old base systems,
then built additional reforms on this simplified base.
That there are three models is a common view (see also Halligan, 2001). But
does this really mean that there are no similarities in the reforms being
followed around the world?