Civil society and New Public Management in Western Europe. Opponents or bedfellows?

• In Event: Loyalty, Voice or Exit? Implications of New Public Management for the third sector

Abstract

As a doctrine guiding policies for human service provision, NPM has long been a much-debated phenomenon, although in the course of time, distinctive concepts have emerged with the aim to ‘cure’ inherent flaws (new public governance; co-production; joint commissioning etc.). Obviously, when exploring trends and effects regarding the role of NPM, much depends on the focus adopted. However, few scholars dealing with human service systems discuss the interrelation of voluntary agency and NPM in theoretical terms. This paper embarks on that endeavour by reviewing case study evidence across Europe and from past research of the author (and colleagues). The fields under inspection include areas such as elderly care; homeless assistance; active inclusion programmes; and family welfare services. Basically, it is asked whether, regarding the recent past, civil society and those responsible of designing public management can be considered as (virtual) opponents – or, after all, have turned out to be bedfellows.
The paper’s argument runs as follows: Over the last decades, the interface of civil society and welfare (service) states in Western Europe has clearly been imbued with NPM-concepts even though other ‘relational patterns’ have persisted or been added. In this context, numerous nonprofits have come to perceive public policies as producing hard challenges (e.g. competitive tendering, fixed-term programmes, restrictive accountability rules, an ignorance of the civic rationale of collective action). Hence they have often conceived of themselves as being opponents of the state and public management concepts therein. In various respects, however, NPM and 21st century civil society have been bedfellows and contributed to the proliferation of NPM and hybrid governance models incorporating the latter. This configuration has various roots and rationales. First, some non-state organisations have managed to remain powerful regarding the above interface, given their expertise and resources critical to what public managers need. Even in a more business-like partnership, entrenched European nonprofits have remained energetic in terms of turnover; facilities; and ‘service designs’. Secondly, part of the NPM agenda was endorsing civil society organisations as (formally) self-governed and economically active entities. This resonated with what many of their constituents were longing for, even as NPM concepts and subsequent public administration models were geared towards creating diversified (or fragmented) organisational landscapes in which innovation silos, fixed-term projects, and competitive practice could florish. Finally, influential political forces and numerous civil society protagonists became de-facto-comrades with regard to ideas for re-organising human service systems, with social entrepreneurialism and market-thinking becoming fashionable on both sides. A major background for this has been that important segments of the academic middle class were subscribing to progressive (economic) liberalism while other sections of the population lost ground in the civil society realm. That said, internationally, not all segments have followed this route, whereas associational agency as such persists as an important catalyst for ‘civilising’ public administration and helping avoid the ‘anti-social’ flaws inherent in the NPM model. This role may become reinvigorated with a blend of elements from the Nordic and corporatist partnership model, as will be briefly set out in the paper's conclusion.

References

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Author

• Ingo Bode, University of Kassel