Public administration and public management

In the entry named “Political Organizations and Public Management – An Institutional Approach”, Per Lægreid takes a closer look on the similarities between the two academic fields. The chapter applies an institutional perspective to public management as a political form of organization, an issue the author describes as a neglected issue in the New Public Management (NPM) turn in administrative reforms.

Public management is analyzed as part of a larger political-democratic order and system of governance, implying that history and context matter for how political-administrative systems are organized and how they change.A core argument in Lægreid’s chapter is that the organizational basis of governmental institutions is not simply a technical, apolitical matter but also mobilizes bias in various ways. The focus is on ‘living’ organizations and institutions and how they work in practice.

The chapter was published as a part of Elgar Encyclopedia of Public Management,  edited by Kuno Schedler. The full chapter is available at Elgar online.