Autor(es):
Rodrigues, Miguel 
; Araújo, Filipe
Data: 2006
Identificador Persistente: http://hdl.handle.net/10198/1871
Origem: Biblioteca Digital do IPB
Assunto(s): New public management; Local government
Detalhes do Documento
Reforming portuguese local government: a new public management approach
Descrição
The last decades represented a severe strike to the public management model associated to the Welfare State. Different pressures from economics, financial, politics and ideological sources motivated the appearance of the so called New Public Management (NPM). Hood (1991) and Pollitt (1990) point out that the NPM introduced market type mechanisms, the adoption of private management practices, competition among public services, all of this with the specific goal to manage a better public service for the citizens and to raise efficiency and flexibility in public management. Osborne e Gabler (1992) argue that the NPM provides similar services to that delivery by the Welfare State, but it seeks to do it with new actors. It opened the public administration to private and third sector agents and promoted public-private and public-public parternership, creating a network of organizations responsible for public services delivery. All these changes, at government level, ended spreading themselves into the reform’s agenda in the Local Government. Following the analysis made by Fenwick, Shaw and Foreman (1994), in Westminster countries the changes occured, by the introduction of the Compulsory Competitive Tendering and the Best Value program. In Portugal, which follows a Continental Model, the political and administrative system imposed barriers that made it difficult for such management reforms to take place. Recently, however, with the creation of public local enterprises we can speak of management changes. Until then the main issue was a progressive but careful decentralization from central to local government. This paper is a case study carried out in the Districts of Vila Real and Bragança which analyses the changes in Local Government caused by the creation of Municipal Enterprises. The main focus is to analyse how these changes can be interpreted through the bias of the New Public Management. It aims to understand and to analyze local services delivering through the Municipal Enterprises, in order to grasp how New Public Management influences a continental administrative system organised under a traditional bureaucracy (Araújo, 2002). The analysis draws on a case study undertaken on the 26 municipalities belonging to the Districts of Vila Real and Bragança. These districts, whose total population is about 367 825 habitants, are located in the North East of Portugal. Data was collected from interviews and a survey administered from August to December of 2004 to 26 City Councils and 7 Municipal Enterprises, where we asked about the use of market type mechanism, management changes, the establishment of new local structures and the new type of relationships and co- ordination with local government. The survey was directed to Mayors and top civil servants in the municipalities.
The last decades represented a severe strike to the public management model associated to the Welfare State. Different pressures from economics, financial, politics and ideological sources motivated the appearance of the so called New Public Management (NPM). Hood (1991) and Pollitt (1990) point out that the NPM introduced market type mechanisms, the adoption of private management practices, competition among public services, all of this with the specific goal to manage a better public service for the citizens and to raise efficiency and flexibility in public management. Osborne e Gabler (1992) argue that the NPM provides similar services to that delivery by the Welfare State, but it seeks to do it with new actors. It opened the public administration to private and third sector agents and promoted public-private and public-public parternership, creating a network of organizations responsible for public services delivery. All these changes, at government level, ended spreading themselves into the reform’s agenda in the Local Government. Following the analysis made by Fenwick, Shaw and Foreman (1994), in Westminster countries the changes occured, by the introduction of the Compulsory Competitive Tendering and the Best Value program. In Portugal, which follows a Continental Model, the political and administrative system imposed barriers that made it difficult for such management reforms to take place. Recently, however, with the creation of public local enterprises we can speak of management changes. Until then the main issue was a progressive but careful decentralization from central to local government. This paper is a case study carried out in the Districts of Vila Real and Bragança which analyses the changes in Local Government caused by the creation of Municipal Enterprises. The main focus is to analyse how these changes can be interpreted through the bias of the New Public Management. It aims to understand and to analyze local services delivering through the Municipal Enterprises, in order to grasp how New Public Management influences a continental administrative system organised under a traditional bureaucracy (Araújo, 2002). The analysis draws on a case study undertaken on the 26 municipalities belonging to the Districts of Vila Real and Bragança. These districts, whose total population is about 367 825 habitants, are located in the North East of Portugal. Data was collected from interviews and a survey administered from August to December of 2004 to 26 City Councils and 7 Municipal Enterprises, where we asked about the use of market type mechanism, management changes, the establishment of new local structures and the new type of relationships and co- ordination with local government. The survey was directed to Mayors and top civil servants in the municipalities.
Tipo de Documento
Documento de conferência
Idioma Inglês
Idioma Inglês
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