126 5: Th eories of Public Management
management theory. Th en, starting in the mid-1980s, the study of management
in the public sector began to reappear, although in new theoretical clothing and
speaking a new language.
One form of this theory, principal-agent theory, has been of particular interest
to scholars seeking to build knowledge of organizational and managerial behavior
in the public sector. Principal-agent theory has made an important contribution
to our understanding of the political control of bureaucracy, the subject of Chap-
ter 2; has generally demonstrated that political principals do control administra-
tive agents; and has added to our knowledge of some of the nuances of political
control and administrative responsiveness. But principal-agent theory appears to
be less useful as a basis for management theory in the public sector.
A second contemporary form of management theory in public administration
is the so-called New Public Management, or the new managerialism. Like earlier
reforms, it is partly imported from business management. Some of the business
management theories of the 1960s and 1970s colonized public administration,
such as management by objective and Total Quality Management. And the work
of the middle-range theories has been widely adopted in the reemergence of man-
agement theories in public administration. And like earlier reforms, the NPM has
oft en been the work of consultants, journalists, and politicians rather than the
work of scholars. Th e primary reason for this is methodological and theoretical.
Among scholars, the emphasis is upon building theory and the body of knowl-
edge. Th is requires the formal identifi cation of variables, some precision in their
measurement, a formal articulation concerning the relationships between vari-
ables, fi eld-testing of those relationships, and the replication of fi ndings. Little of
the work associated with the New Public Management would satisfy the canons
of social science.
Many management theorists in the newer schools of public policy represent an
important exception among scholars. One of their arguments was that their schol-
arship should contribute directly to solving public problems and to ensuring better
government management, and that this scholarship should not be held down by
the “dead hand of social science.” Th eir work tends to consist of observation-based
case studies, inductive logic, and a kind of informed presentation of suggestions for
either policy improvement or better management. It is oft en said that “this may be
good management, but it is not very good science.” Put another way, modern con-
cepts of public management work in practice, but not in theory.
Th ere is little doubt that the NPM has reconnected theory to practice. At all
levels of government, public managers are reinventing government, reengineer-
ing government, attempting to be entrepreneurial, attempting to better serve
their customers, attempting to be more innovative, attempting to take risks, and
attempting to add value. Although it may not be good science, at least in the pos-
itivist conception of social science, the New Public Management is infl uential. It
has replaced the old principles of public administration with a new set of prin-
ciples, or doctrines. Th ese are the doctrines of contracting out, decentralizing,