Public Management in the 1980s and Beyond

Critics of public management lament government's failure to use more businesslike methods. This criticism implies that the private sector is better managed than the public sector. Although this is not always the case, there are many techniques that have proved successful in the private sector that can be applied to public management problems. Public management traditions are changing. More sophisticated measures of program effectiveness are being developed. Some aspects of competition can be harnessed for better public management. Public managers are increasingly aware of such techniques and have used them when there has been political support. Under conditions of fiscal stress, for example, political forces have sometimes encouraged managers to use the spirit of budget reforms rather than just the rationalistic facade of such reforms. New public management techniques will be used only if political support for the consequences of these techniques can be mobilized.