New Public Management (NPM) as a framework for the comparative Article

New Public Management (NPM) as a framework for the comparative analysis of public administration - Article Example Having said this the study will now move on to summarise Pollitt (2001). Pollitt (2001) begins by stating that the thesis that there is an inevitable and global convergence towards a particular, new style of public management. He notes that despite the evolving literature in support of diversity, some politicians, academics and civil servants continue to preach convergence. He suggests that to better understand this controversial issue, it is necessary to tackle the problem from different perspectives. He states a series of angles that can be compared to see if there is convergence. They include debate, reform decisions, actual practice or results. Pollitt (2001) begins his introduction by reviewing some literature on the convergence towards the "New Public Management"/"Reinventing government" styles of public management reform. According to Pollitt (2001) most of the studies are in favour of divergence and not convergence. These studies include (Flynn and Strehl, 1996; Kickert 1997; Olsen and Peters, 1996; Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2000; Pollitt and Summa 1997; Premfors 1998; Wollman, 1997). This implies that the Orsbone and Gaebler thesis that global pressures are producing an inevitable and inexorable global convergence on what they term "entrepreneurial government" is now being open to criticisms by many academicians. Pollitt (2001) however, also identifies studies that continue to be in favour of this thesis. They include (Halligan, 1996; Kettl, 2000). The main aim of Pollitt (2001) was to develop a concept of convergence that will enable us understand why many commentators continue to invoke convergence in spite of the evidence in support of divergence. Pollitt (2001) asserts that the strategy should be to consider whether the very idea of convergence has value of its own. Pollitt (2001) relates the convergence myth of public administration to the creation myth in art and religion, which has served so many purposes irrespective of whether it is true or false. He identifies four main steps to the argument as follows: The convergence process can be divorced from ideas of global and functional imperatives by summarizing the still developing critique which has been articulated by comparativist scholars. The notion of institutional isomorphism can be used to see that convergence, in the sense of replication of rhetoric forms and practices across the world, may have more to do with government fashions, symbolism and the propagation of norms than with the grim dictates of the global economy or the functional necessity for increased government efficiency. The third adopted by Pollitt involves the acknowledgement that words and concepts can develop lives of their own. According to Pollitt (2001) in the fourth and final step, an analysis of who benefits from a situation of where convergence is more a matter of talk, symbolism and pronouncement that of the day-to-day practices. Pollitt (2001) then goes on to discuss two disclaimers namely that the line of argument advanced his work is not intended to seem Macchiavellien. The second disclaimer is that a partial rehabilitation of the idea of convergence is not in any way to deny the diversity of national regimes and