Abstract

This chapter examines the concept of New Public Management (NPM) as it emerged in Anglo-Saxon countries, and its life-cycle over the reform era from its origins in the 1980s through to the mixture of models in the 2000s as countries added to and subtracted from NPM features. After more than two decades of activity by the Anglo-Saxon countries – the early reformers – the products of that activity have become clearer: the more stark manifestations of NPM now have less prominence in practice. A more elusive matter is how to characterise NPM’s successor, and the ways in which NPM continues to exercise an influence.