The article written by Stephen Osbourne (2006) starts by making reference to Hood’s 1991

article on NPM which has had a profound effect on the arguments surrounding the impact of
NPM on Public Administration & Management. He also alluded to the whole debate about
whether NPM can be considered a paradigm. He posits that NPM is really been a transitory
stage in the evolution of Public Admin to what he terms New Public Governance.
Osbourne gave a chronology of the dominant modes that Public Administration &
Management has passed through, the longest period being that of Public Administration
which spans from the late 19th century to late 1970,s /1980s; followed by a second mode is
that of the NPM which dominated up to the start of the 21st century and the third and current
mode, that of New Public Governance. Note he was careful to use the term paradigm and I
think this was very deliberate given the controversy and counter arguments about the
different paradigms that Public Admin & Management is argued to have evolved through.
He used a portion of the article to expound on the tenets of these three modes of Public
Admin & Mgmt. Public Admin he pointed was characterized by dominance of rule of law, an
emphasis on set rules & guideline, the split between politics/admin ,welfare state, especially
true of the UK government post world war etc. It came under fire in the 1970s, hence its fall
from grace. NPM then change the discourse and there was a leaning towards private sector
managerialism techniques to be applied to the public sector / market driven ideology also was
advocated also a focus on service delivery. Osbournes highlighted the defieciencies of the
NPM which set the stage for a new mode to emerge. NPM was seen as geographically limited
to Anglo, American, Australia. NPM was seen as having mulptiple peronae, depending on
audience, ideological school of thought, or the approach. It was seeming a subschool of PA
and had no real theoretical base.

Osbourne in a subtle way casts doubts about the PA mode and the NPM and advances his
thoughts on NPG. He posits that both theories began to look like partial theories at best based
on the faults.
Osbourne advances that New Public governance is best suited for plural & pluralist
complexities of Public Admi and Management. He highlighted the different thoughts of
writers on governance in referring to ‘Kickert (1993) and Rhodes (1997) define governance
as the machinery of ‘selforganizing inter-organizational networks’ that function both with and
without government to provide public services; He posits that NPG is rooted in
organizational sociology, network theory, pointing to increasingly, fragmented and uncertain
nature of public mgmt. in the 21st century.
Pointed on some salient areas of NPG interorganizational governance, service processes &
outcomes, preferred suppliers and interdependent agents with on going relationships, trust or
relational contracts and it is neo corporatist.
Posits that ‘the NPG paradigm has inherent strengths for the study and practice of PAM. It
Relatedness of both the policy making and the implementation/service delivery
Processes’ (pg 384)

Osbourne’s article has some merit to it and he has point out what many other scholars have
pointed out about the deficiencies of PA & NPM. While NPG is the new direction which
PAM has moved it is not a pancea of one size fits all. It has to be tempered to the stage of
development that a country is in, also factors in the direct environment, including, cultural,
social, economic and political conditions. Evidence can be seen of all the phases that the
paradigms of PA has been through and how the public sector is show cases the evolution of
PAM. The current Procurement system across the public show the concept of preferred
suppliers. The focus on outcomes has seen the importance of strategic planning, targets and
KPIs in many public sector organizations. The new drive on service delivery and service
excellence is supported by the recent launch of a service excellence policy by the PM/office
of the Cabinet and supported by the drive to establish a customer service brance in every
ministry.