Journal of International Development

J. Int. Dev. 10, 373±375 (1998)

POLICY ARENA

PUBLIC SECTOR REFORM IN

DEVELOPING COUNTRIES:
THE STATE OF PRACTICE
edited by

Charles Polidano

INTRODUCTION: NEW PUBLIC

MANAGEMENT, OLD HAT?
CHARLES POLIDANO*
Institute for Development Policy and Management, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

Mention the words `public sector reform' and many listeners will take it for granted
that you are talking about the new public management. Administrative reform is
nowadays easily equated with the reduction of centralized procedural rules, an
emphasis on `outputs', the separation of purchaser and provider roles, the develop-
ment of contractual mechanisms of accountability, and a move away from lifetime
career employment. Such is, in a nutshell, the new public management agenda (Hood,
1991). Closely associated with it are privatization and retrenchment. The whole
package Ð it is commonly thought of as such Ð amounts to reducing the size of the
state and seeking greater eciency in the management of what is left.
To what extent, though, is the package actually being put into practice in developing
countries? There has been a profound, ideologically charged debate about the merits
and demerits of the new public management. But it has taken place over the heads
of the advisers and practitioners who Ð surprisingly often Ð have pursued reforms
that draw upon only parts of the new public management agenda, while being
fundamentally at odds with it in other ways.

* Correspondence to: Charles Polidano, IDPM, University of Manchester, Precinct Centre, Oxford Road,
Manchester, M13 9GH, UK.

CCC 0954±1748/98/030373±03$17.50
# 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
374 C. Polidano

Typically, developing countries have privatized parastatals and retrenched civil

servants. But they have often stopped short of taking up the rest of the agenda. Nor
have aid donors pushed hard for them to do so. World Bank sta€, for instance, have
cast doubt on the wisdom of deregulating management in core civil services; instead,
they have called for the strengthening of central control systems, particularly where
stang and spending are concerned (Nunberg, 1995; Beschel, 1995; see also Schacter,
1995, p. 333). This strand of thought has come to the surface in the Bank's latest
World Development Report (World Bank, 1997, p. 90).
Indeed, it can be argued that such a thing as a uni®ed, coherent new public manage-
ment model exists only in concept. In practice, new public management reform Ð like
most previous reforms Ð has been marked by halting incrementalism and inconsist-
encies aplenty. At times it has even found itself at cross-purposes with other reforms,
such as those intended to tighten ®scal control (see Larbi in this Policy Arena).
This Policy Arena is intended as a contribution to what remains an under-
researched ®eld of study: that of the implementation of current public sector reforms
in developing countries. It draws on papers presented at the conference `Public Sector
Management for the Next Century', organized by the Institute for Development
Policy and Management at the University of Manchester in June/July 1997. The
articles in this Policy Arena were selected to o€er a broad spectrum of analysis: from
organisational restructuring (Larbi), up to the rede®nition of government's role in an
entire policy sector (Arun and Nixson), down to the management of individual
projects (Jacobs).
In his article, Larbi deals with management decentralization in Ghana's Ministry
of Health. An ambitious project is under way to restructure the entire ministry on
`agency' lines. The new structures are in place. But as Larbi shows, they have not been
put into operation; the capacity to do so may simply be lacking.
Arun and Nixson look at reform on a broader front: the government of India's
e€orts to liberalize telecommunications and take up a regulatory role rather than
exclusively direct provision. Here again, the record of implementation has been mixed
at best. The transition has posed serious issues of capacity even for the Indian federal
state.
If this sort of evidence is any guide, we may not be far o€ from the time when
obituaries begin to be written for the new public management. The new public
management will be declared a failure, last month's ¯avour. The search for its
successor will then begin, spurred on by the promise of endless citations for the author
who can pin it down with a suitably succinct label. In the process, few will pay much
attention to the fact that most administrative reforms since time immemorial have
failed, particularly in developing countries (Caiden, 1991). In this respect at least,
there is nothing new about the new public management.
The ®nal paper in this Policy Arena, that by Jacobs, is a salutary reminder that not
all public sector reforms in developing countries are new public management. Jacobs
focuses on the timeless problems that beset change at ground level: project over-
ambitiousness, communication failures, mixed motives among participants, a lack of
local involvement. At this level, the grand debates on principle seem no more than
fading contrails in the sky. Yet it is often here that the obstacles emerge on which
great projects founder. We need to learn how to negotiate such obstacles better. Until
we do, public sector reforms Ð old public administration, new public management,
post-new public management Ð will continue to fail.

# 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Int. Dev. 10, 373±375 (1998)
 Introduction 375

REFERENCES

Beschel, R., Jr. (1995). `Developing a strategy for improving the budget process'. In Ministry
of Finance (Zambia) and World Bank, Workshop Report: Reforming the Budget Process in
Zambia. Zambia: Ministry of Finance and World Bank, pp. 21±23.
Caiden, G. E. (1991). Administrative Reform Comes of Age. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
Hood, C. (1991). `A public management for all seasons?', Public Administration, 69, 3±19.
Nunberg, B. (1995). `Managing the civil service: reform lessons from advanced industrialised
countries', World Bank Discussion Paper no. 204. Washington, DC: World Bank.
Schacter, M. (1995). `Recent experience with institutional development: lending in the Western
Africa department'. In Langseth, P., Nogxina, S., Prinsloo, D. and Sullivan, R. (eds),
Civil Service Reform in Anglophone Africa, report of workshop proceedings. South Africa:
World Bank and Government of South Africa, pp. 325±345.
World Bank (1997). World Development Report 1997: The State in a Changing World. New
York: Oxford University Press.

# 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Int. Dev. 10, 373±375 (1998)