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Democracy and administrative policy: Contrasting elements of NPM and post-

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European Political Science Review (2011), 3:1, 125–146 & European Consortium for Political Research
doi:10.1017/S1755773910000299

Democracy and administrative policy:

contrasting elements of New Public
Management (NPM) and post-NPM
1 2
TOM CHRISTENSEN * AND PER LÆGREID
1
Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
2
Professor, Department of Administration and Organization Theory, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway

This article presents an analytical platform for discussing and analyzing administrative
reforms in terms of democracy. First, we present the democratic theory positions
represented by output democracy and input democracy. These two positions are used
to classify different types of reform. The second explanatory approach on democracy
and reforms is transformative, and it applies a mixture of external features, domestic
administrative culture, and polity features to understand variations in the democratic
aspects of public sector reforms. Central issues are whether these reforms can be seen
as alternatives or whether they complement each other in terms of layering processes.
Third, we take a broad overview of New Public Management (NPM) and post-NPM
reforms and carry out an in-depth analysis of a new administrative policy report by the
Norwegian centre-left government. Finally, we discuss briefly the broader comparative
implications of our findings.

Keywords: NPM; post-NPM; administrative policy; administrative reform; whole-of-

government; democracy

Introduction1

An important aspect of administrative reform is its implications for representative

democracy (Lægreid and Roness, 1999; Suleiman, 2003). The capacity of political
leaders to govern on behalf of the people and the effects of administrative reform on
political governance are particularly relevant. Public reforms in recent decades reflect
major changes in administrative policies in different countries (Pollitt and Bouckaert,
2004). They have chiefly been seen as technically oriented reforms intended to change
the organizational design of the public sector and rarely focus on more general
questions of democracy. It is the latter we would like to discuss in this article.
One aim of the article is to develop an analytical platform for discussing and
analyzing reforms and new features of administrative policy in terms of democracy.

* E-mails: [email protected], [email protected]

1
This is a revised version of a paper presented at the EGPA Annual Conference ‘The Public Service:
Public Service Delivery in the Information Age’, Study Group VI Governance of Public Sector Organi-
zations, Malta, 2–5 September 2009.

125
126 TOM CHRISTENSEN AND PER LÆGREID

This platform consists of two elements. First, we will present the fundamental
positions of democratic theory. Following Peters’ (2008) distinction between
input and output democracy, we will contrast the traditional model of repre-
sentative democracy, with its input orientation, with individual-economic and
pluralist models associated with an output perspective. Developments around the
world appear to indicate a shift in emphasis from input to output democracy.
These two positions in democratic theory are used to classify or categorize dif-
ferent types of reform, more specifically New Public Management (NPM) and
post-NPM reforms.
The second theoretical approach is a transformative one, which addresses a mix-
ture of external features, domestic administrative culture, and polity features to
understand variations in the democratic aspects of public reforms (Christensen and
Lægreid, 2007a). This analytical framework adds value not only by defining different
contexts and factors influencing the processes, content, and effects of public reforms
but also by providing insights into their complex dynamics. Thus, the transformative
approach has a more explanatory purpose, more broadly related to the major reform
waves and also to specific reform in Norway, used as an illustrative example.
The second aim is to use these two theoretical approaches to describe and
explain the democratic features of NPM and post-NPM reforms. We provide a
broad overview of such reforms. NPM reforms are chiefly about structural
devolution, horizontal specialization, market and management principles, and
efficiency, while post-NPM reforms focus more on central capacity and control,
coordination within and between sectors, and value-based management (Pollitt
and Bouckaert, 2004; Christensen and Lægreid, 2007a). However, neither of these
two reform waves explicitly addresses the democratic aspects of political-
administrative systems and civil service activities. One trend we will discuss is the
shift from input democracy in the pre-NPM era to output democracy in the NPM
reforms and possibly back toward input democracy again in post-NPM.
These issues are then addressed by a more in-depth analysis of a new admin-
istrative policy report by the Norwegian center-left government entitled
An Administration for Democracy and Community. The focus is on how this
policy document handles complex democratic values in the public sector and how
it links these values to different structural models, modes of governance, and
coordination features. We ask what the report means for democracy, how it links
democratic values to other public sector values, and whether this relationship
is unambiguous or complex. We also discuss whether the report, drafted in the
complex water between the two reform waves, tries to develop a new notion of
democracy or whether it just re-labels old norms and values.
Third, we revisit the transformative approach, analyzing the development from
NPM to post-NPM reforms in general as well as whether this specific policy
document is dominated by the post-NPM ideas that have replaced NPM, or
whether it represents a sedimentation process in which new ideas are added to
previous ones to produce a more complex and ambiguous administrative policy.
 Democracy and administrative policy 127

We also use the transformative approach to show how this administrative policy
document is the result of a complex mix of environmental events and pressures,
cultural norms, and structural factors. Fourth, we discuss briefly the broader
implications of our analysis.

A theoretical platform

Descriptive theory: classifying reforms in terms of basic democracy

perspectives
In discussing the connection between democracy and bureaucracy, Peters (2008)
sees these as complementary. He draws a distinction between input democracy
and output democracy, defining the former as the election channel and the latter
as a more direct connection between individual/collective actors and the public
bureaucracy. He asserts that the balance has shifted in favor of output democracy.
This is due to decreasing participation in the election channel and more direct
contact between the public administration and the public resulting from modern
reforms based on devolution, fragmentation, and increased user orientation.
This distinction is also closely linked to Fritz Scharpf’s (1999) distinction
between input legitimacy and output legitimacy. The former refers to legitimation
of political choices by reflecting the ‘will of the people’. The latter sees legit-
imation of choices as depending on results, performance, and effectiveness. His
argument is that both types of legitimation are equally essential in a democracy. In
light of this input–output democracy, NPM reforms can be seen as a shift from
a type of democracy that based the legitimacy of decisions on processes, repre-
sentativeness, and legality to one where greater concern about the effective
implementation of decisions features. It represented a shift away from the input
side of the political system to the throughput (e.g. management contracts) and the
output side (service delivery, performance targets) (Easton, 1965).
The input-oriented democratic model is the basic indirect democracy model,
here referred to as the collectivist model (Aberbach and Christensen, 2003). It is
built on the notion that government is a homogeneous and monolithic entity
(Allison, 1971). The sovereign people have a common interest in a collective state
and delegate authority to politicians and civil servants, so that collective interests
can be fulfilled (Olsen, 1988). It is a centralized model where political and
administrative leaders have substantial power (Hood, 1998), and they consciously
design the state apparatus to achieve collective goals.
The collectivist model can be seen as reinforcing core structural and cultural
elements, meaning that the structural order works in harmony with integral
features of the culture or main institutional arrangements (Christensen and Peters,
1999). Political leaders attend to and act in accordance with collectivist respon-
sibilities and obligations, embodied in a common heritage, purpose, and future
destiny (March and Olsen, 1989). Civil servants are pre-socialized through higher
128 TOM CHRISTENSEN AND PER LÆGREID

education, internalize, and share main institutional norms and values with poli-
tical leaders, and represent the perceived will of the public (Lægreid and Olsen,
1978). The general public share collective institutional norms and values and
learn how to behave as good citizens.
The output model, as defined by Peters (2008), is the second role of the
bureaucracy. Alongside its neutral role in indirect democracy, it maintains an
important set of contacts with society, either with individual or organized inter-
ests. The output model is not only about direct influence and control by the
bureaucracy but also about transparency, information, and legitimacy. It focuses
more on managerial accountability and ex post judgment of performance, and is
often rather particularistic and fragmented. It can be seen as challenging and
undermining the input model, but potentially also as supplementing and
strengthening it via more direct democracy (Aberbach and Christensen, 2005).
The output model actually seems to encompass two models of democracy: the
pluralist model and the individual-economic model. The pluralist model is based
on the notion that the government apparatus is heterogeneous, with different
power centers, institutions, and levels related to different interests (Allison, 1971).
The environment of government is also heterogeneous, and the bureaucracy must
therefore attend to and represent a plurality of societal interests and groups
(March and Olsen, 1983). Decision-making processes in a pluralist state are about
a tug-of-war between diverse interests, meaning that public policy is constantly
changing. Decisions in a heterogeneous setting of this kind can be reached via
compromises, winning coalitions or quasi-resolution of conflicts and sequential
attention to goals (Cyert and March, 1963). In such a model, politicians are
perceived as negotiators, mediators, and facilitators, trying to balance many
interests and furthering some. Central actors are either civil servants representing
specialized government units or interest groups outside the government.
Even though the individual economic model includes elements of a traditional
model of competition democracy, it can be seen chiefly as offering a generic view
of actors based on economic theories and private-sector management ideas said to
have relevance in the public sector, despite differences in main purposes, structure,
tasks, and culture (Allison, 1983; Aberbach and Christensen, 2003). The model is
heterogeneous concerning economic thinking and the structural solutions
recommended, as shown by Boston et al. (1996) in reference to reforms in New
Zealand. The model has no clear overall understanding of democracy and the role
of the bureaucracy in the political system. Its chief focus is running the civil
service efficiently, employing the principles of devolution, clear roles, contracts,
and the market (Olsen, 1988). Its view of executive politicians and administrative
leaders is complex and inconsistent (Self, 2000; Christensen and Lægreid, 2001).
The model represents a narrower customer or consumer role in which the main
emphasis is on individual rights and choices. The new output role in this model is
mainly about service delivery and direct contact with the civil service, and may be
seen as non-political or even anti-political (Frederickson, 1996).
 Democracy and administrative policy 129

The input and output models outlined potentially represent both contrasting
and supplementary models. We will first look at how they are represented in the
two major reform waves – NPM and post-NPM reforms – and then see how they
are reflected in the White Paper on administrative policy. First, we present our
explanatory approach.

Explanatory theory: a transformative approach – complex contexts

This approach sees public-sector reforms and the ability of the political-administrative
leadership to design and redesign the system as contingent on three sets of con-
texts (Christensen and Lægreid, 2007a). First, the actions of the leadership can be
constrained by environmental factors. The technical environment, be it external
factors like globalization or the financial crisis or internal economic or techno-
logical pressures, may have an important influence on reforms and administrative
policy. The institutional environment, however, may exert ideological pressures
as international and national concept entrepreneurs try to promote new ideolo-
gies, ideas, concepts, and myths about how to organize the public sector (see
Meyer and Rowan, 1977). Certain ideas become ‘taken-for-granted’ as they are
adopted and promoted by dominant professions, consulting firms, or interna-
tional and national commercial actors. In the analysis of the White Paper, we ask
whether its content and primarily its democratic profile reflect pressure from or
events in the environment.
The second context is related to cultural processes. Public organizations evolve
gradually by adapting to internal and external pressure. Through institutionali-
zation they develop distinct cultural features represented by their informal norms
and values (Selznick, 1957). Institutionalization processes are related to path-
dependency, that is, the norms and values that characterized the organization
when it was established will influence and constrain its further development
(Krasner, 1988). When reforms are introduced, cultural sensitivity and compat-
ibility are important. Reforms that are culturally compatible will be adapted and
implemented easily, while incompatible reforms will be bounced back or adopted
only partially (Brunsson and Olsen, 1993). In analyzing the White Paper, we
discuss whether there is a changing balance between different cultural norms and
values displayed.
The third set of contextual factors relates to the formal structures in political-
administrative systems like constitutions, electoral and representational system,
or whether the civil service is homogeneous or heterogeneous (Weaver and
Rockman, 1993). Certain combinations of structural factors offer better pre-
conditions for deciding on and implementing reform. Westminster systems, for
example, with their ‘elective dictatorships’ allow the winning party in principle
to implement radical reforms if it so chooses (Hood, 1996; Pollitt and Bouckaert,
2004). In systems with multiple parties, where there are often coalition govern-
ments, or systems with a lot of checks and balances, like the United States,
130 TOM CHRISTENSEN AND PER LÆGREID

the situation is very different. In the analysis of the White Paper, we ask whether
the formal structure and power relations are changing in the Norwegian political-
administrative system, and participate in explaining the democratic profile of
the paper.
Taken together, these three sets of constraining factors may at one extreme be
rather favorable toward modern reforms, as studies of NPM have shown
(Christensen and Lægreid, 2001; Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2004). Countries facing
economic crises, strong normative pressure from international organizations, and
which have an accommodating culture and ‘elective dictatorships’ may adopt
reforms most easily. Other countries might lag behind because of less external
pressure, less accommodating cultures, and more problematic structural pre-
conditions. Between these extremes are many other variants conditioned by the
complex way that these main sets of factors interact.
Depending on the contexts outlined, the civil service in a given country may
develop in several different ways. One scenario is a more or less wholesale
adoption of NPM in place of the old public administration followed by a kind of
pendulum swing back toward some main norms and values of the old public
administrations through post-NPM reforms in the late 1990s (Christensen and
Lægreid, 2007b). Another is the preservation of some aspects of the old public
administration and deinstitionalization of others. Only certain aspects of NPM
are implemented while post-NPM becomes only partially institutionalized leading
to a hybrid structure and culture containing elements of the old public adminis-
tration, NPM, and post-NPM, in a process of layering or sedimentation (Thelen
and Mahoney, 2009).
We will use the transformative approach to analyze the development from
NPM toward post-NPM reforms and also why the White Paper on administrative
policy handles democracy questions in a certain way. How may the dynamic
relationship between the environmental factors, cultural norms, and polity fea-
tures participate in explaining the democratic content and balance of the paper?
We also ask whether there is evidence of a layering process concerning democratic
values when compared with earlier administrative policy papers and reports
(Thelen and Mahoney, 2009).

NPM and post-NPM reforms – main features and democratic elements

NPM – toward output democracy

When NPM was introduced in the early 1980s, it sought primarily to address
what was perceived as government inefficiency, the lack of participation oppor-
tunities for the public and the decreasing legitimacy of the public sector. NPM was
built on the individual-economic model outlined above. This implies an ideolo-
gical dominance of economic norms and their subordination to many other tra-
ditionally legitimate norms and values, such as broader political concerns, sector
 Democracy and administrative policy 131

policy goals, professional expertise, various rights and rules, and the interests of
societal groups (Boston et al., 1996; Nagel, 1997). NPM is essentially an idea of
generic management because it argues that all management faces similar challenges,
and hence should be approached in similar ways (Peters and Pierre, 1998). The focus
here is whether NPM challenges democracy, popular sovereignty, and the political-
democratic control of systems, and what its implications are for them.
There is a tension in NPM between the need for greater managerial discretion and
the need for more accountability (Thomas, 1998). Here a distinction can be drawn
between political accountability, often labeled political responsibility, and managerial
accountability (Day and Klein, 1987). The former is about those with delegated
authority being answerable for their actions to the people and involves dialog and
debate about what should be done. Political accountability is designed to make
political leaders systematically responsive to popular wishes (Goodin, 2000). Man-
agerial accountability is a more neutral, technical exercise involving bookkeeping
and evaluations of whether tasks are being performed efficiently and effectively
(Gregory, 2001). It is about making those with delegated authority answerable for
carrying out agreed tasks according to agreed performance criteria. NPM focuses
primarily on strengthening managerial accountability, based on output, competition,
transparency, and contractual relations, and thus represents a departure from old
school public administration, where various forms of accountability were based on
input processes and procedures, hierarchical control, legality, trust, and cultural
traditions (Gregory, 2001; Christensen and Lægreid, 2002). It is important to
recognize the various dimensions of accountability, the complex context of public
accountability, and the multiple overlapping accountability relations of adminis-
trative reform (Day and Klein, 1987; Romzek, 2000; Behn, 2001).
The NPM model is also a customer-driven approach, where the public interest
is defined by bottom-up processes that permit each agency and its clients poten-
tially to determine the content of policy (Peters, 1998). It is preoccupied with the
state at the street level and sees the centralized state as overloaded and inefficient
at the central level (Boston et al., 1996; Gustafsson and Svensson, 1999). What it
lacks is a perspective on the relationship between the influence of voters or citizens
on politicians through the election channel, on the one hand, and their more direct
influence on public bodies as clients and consumers on the other.
Some elements of NPM do potentially present an alternative view of democ-
racy, a democracy that is directly oriented to the individual and that gives citizens
enhanced freedom of choice over public services (Christensen and Lægreid, 2001).
However, it does not answer the question of how atomized actors making choices
in a market can contribute to creating a stable and responsible democratic system.
Moreover, their potential to influence the provision and quality of services is
ambiguous and debatable, and the issues of discriminating ‘creaming’ and social
segregation might be highly relevant (Blomqvist and Rothstein, 2000).
It could be argued that seen from the perspective of popular sovereignty, the
most important part of the NPM model is not that concerned with democracy but
132 TOM CHRISTENSEN AND PER LÆGREID

that concerned with efficiency, quality, and direct influence on public services.
This might be labeled as the ‘empowering the people’ aspect (Aberbach and
Rockman, 1999). In theory, individual participation through competition and the
market should produce efficient, high-quality services. The model emphasizes
output democracy and downplays input democracy (Peters, 2008).
In a customer-oriented system, providing desired services to one set of clients
may drain resources from other programs (Fountain, 2001). And there is the
problem of democratic accountability. Political officials are less able to oversee
public bureaucracies and to impose sanctions when they behave in a manner not
in keeping with the law. The pressure to be responsive to service consumers tends
to run counter to the government’s obligation to be accountable to the public at
large through its elected representatives, so there is a potential clash between
input and output democracy. This may weaken responsibility, commitment,
political equality, and accountability even if some aspects of service are improved
(Thompson and Riccucci, 1998).

Post-NPM – more input-oriented democracy again?

In contrast to the NPM reforms, a new generation of reforms initially labeled
‘joined-up government’ (JUG) (Pollitt, 2003) and later known as ‘whole-
of-government’ (WG) – here labeled post-NPM reforms – was launched in the late
1990s (Christensen and Lægreid, 2007b). They sought to apply a more holistic
strategy, using insights from the other social sciences, rather than just economics
(Bogdanor, 2005). The new reform efforts can be seen as resulting from a combi-
nation of negative feedback, the undermining of political control, and an increased
emphasis on insecurities in the most radical NPM countries such as the United
Kingdom, New Zealand, and Australia (Perri 6, 2005). As a response to the increased
fragmentation caused by NPM, these countries adopted coordination and integration
strategies. The slogans ‘joined-up-government’ and ‘whole-of-government’ provided
new labels for the old doctrine of coordination in public administration (Hood,
2005). In addition to the issue of coordination, the problem of integration was the
main concern behind these reform initiatives (Mulgan, 2005).
The concept of JUG was first introduced by the Blair government in 1997, and the
main aim was to get a better grip on the ‘wicked’ problems and issues reaching across
sectors, administrative levels, and policy areas (Richards and Smith, 2006). JUG was
presented as the opposite of ‘departmentalism’, tunnel vision, and ‘vertical silos’. The
overlap with the WG concept is obvious. The Connecting Government Report
defines WG in the Australian Public Service as: ‘WG denotes public services agencies
working across portfolio boundaries to achieve a shared goal and an integrated
government response to particular issues’. WG activities may span any or all levels
of government and also involve groups outside government. Like NPM, the WG
concept does not represent a coherent set of ideas and tools, and can best be seen
as an umbrella term describing a group of responses to the problem of increased
 Democracy and administrative policy 133

fragmentation in the public sector and public services, and a wish to increase inte-
gration, coordination, and capacity (see Ling, 2002).
Post-NPM reforms have some of the same features as the main input democracy
model presented. Like the latter, they attend primarily to the electoral channel and in
doing so stress the need for more centralization and coordination to cope with the
challenges of modern society. One reason for this is partly that political executives
believe that they have lost the capacity to handle wicked societal problems that
straddle several sectors. Another reason for recentralization and reintegration is that
NPM seems to have problems delivering on efficiency at both the macro and the
micro level. Added to this, an increasingly insecure world with its terrorism, pan-
demics, and tsunamis (Christensen and Lægreid, 2007b) has enhanced the legitimacy
of increased control and coordination. Just like the collectivistic model, post-NPM
tries to reinforce control and coordination by combining structural and cultural
elements. The value-based management concept is meant to create a more common
cultural understanding of collective goals and norms, in order to counter the spe-
cialization and fragmentation of NPM, which is also related to sub-cultures and
more narrow cultural foci (Halligan, 2007).
However, post-NPM is not all about returning to ‘old public administration’ and
the collectivist model. Its notion of governance is more broadly defined than that, for
it entails reaching out to society, enabling individual and organized private actors in
civil society to be better informed about public policy and participate in making
policy more representative and its implementation – all elements taken from output
models. JUG, as exemplified in the United Kingdom, is one example. The use of
public–private partnerships and networks, supporting non-profit organizations, and
establishing user forums and user surveys all point in this direction.
We have drawn a rather sharp distinction between NPM and post-NPM for
analytical-pedagogical purposes. In reality, reform waves like this will have different
and somewhat overlapping elements; so we stress that the reforms balanced cen-
tralizing/coordinative and decentralizing/fragmenting elements in different ways.
New Steps in the United Kingdom was sold as devolution, but the Next Steps’
reorganization also had controlling elements (Perri 6, 2005; Richards and Smith,
2006). In addition, the Blair’s joined-up governance and Third Way exercises of the
1990s had symbolic elements that were difficult to implement as intended.
When analyzing the White Paper on administrative policy in Norway, we will
discuss which NPM and post-NPM elements it contains. Does it contain more
post-NPM and fewer NPM elements than earlier administrative policy papers?
How is the paper’s perspective on democracy and administrative policy related to
the two reform waves?

The Norwegian White Paper – a rebalancing of democratic values?

The current Red-Green government’s 2009 White Paper on administrative policy

(St.meld.nr.19 (2008, 2009)) is entitled An Administration for Democracy
134 TOM CHRISTENSEN AND PER LÆGREID

and Community. The main aim of the policy is said to be a combination of

political control, broad participation, and using resources in an environmentally
conscious and efficient way. It lists six more specific aims:

(1) Developing a basis for political control, including building on democratic

values and having the civil service help the government achieve political goals
by preparing and implementing decisions on a professional basis. Good steering
and organization are important and should include unambiguous account-
ability relationships, a sensible division of tasks, and balancing different aims
and interests. Combining more participation and more emphasis on higher
priorities makes demands on political control larger. A coordinated use of
means is also mentioned.
(2) Broad participation through a transparent and open civil service, easy access to
information, broad user rights, and user influence on solutions.
(3) An environmentally conscious civil service built on ethical standards and
energy efficiency.
(4) Efficiency in the civil service, including using resources well, so as to fulfill more
political aims. It also advocates ICT solutions that facilitate connections to
citizens and business, and unambiguous rules.
(5) A competent and committed administrative staff, with an emphasis on recruiting,
developing, and retaining competence, and on civil servants participating in and
influencing their working environment.
(6) Leaders who direct and motivate performance in an intelligent and result-
oriented way in the interest of the collectivity, while also focusing on local
responsibility.

The paper also outlines the value basis of the civil service, which consists of four
sets of values. First, democratic values. These are twofold, namely that the civil
service should attend to political signals and be loyal toward the minister, the
cabinet, and the parliament. At the same time, it should also be open to citizens
and facilitate their participation and influence. Second, the rule of law and
ensuring peoples’ formal rights and obligations. Third, professional competence
and integrity in the civil service. Fourth, efficient use of resources.
The paper says the central civil service in Norway has changed and is now less
focused on service provision (having moved this out to state-owned companies)
and more on enacting its decision-making authority. It now has a greater variety
of organizational forms, and subordinate levels and institutions have more
autonomy. It has become both more specialized (e.g. by ‘role purification’ in the
regulatory agencies) and less specialized through mergers. The demography of the
civil service has also changed, with more female staff at all levels.
The paper also underlines that administrative policy is about balancing differ-
ent considerations (see Olsen, 1988). One is the relationship between the ministry
and subordinate levels and institutions more generally and how much professional
leeway subordinate units should have. Another related issue is which tasks should
 Democracy and administrative policy 135

be organized in ordinary administrative bodies and under the authority of the

minister, and which tasks should be located in units with more professional and
financial autonomy. In this respect, the paper largely repeats the main views
expressed in a comprehensive public report published in 1989 (NOU, 1989: 5),
which stressed the use of different forms for different types of tasks. The third
issue concerns the balance between user orientation, local autonomy, and varia-
tion on the one hand, and equal treatment, common standards, and superior
political control on the other. The fourth addresses the balance between profes-
sional competence and efficiency. Here the main concern is reconciling the need
for specialized knowledge and organizational specialization with holistic and
coordinated policies.
The paper also outlines several challenges for future administrative policy. One
is the dilemma of adapting the civil service to a more differentiated, individua-
lized, and fragmented society, while maintaining standardization. Another is using
an ever more specialized ‘knowledge-society’ to develop collective solutions,
which is seen as a precondition for efficiency and achieving public goals.
So does this White Paper have a distinct profile distinguishing it from other
similar documents on administrative policy? The two main words in the title of
the paper – democracy and community – are rather unusual, as the modern
reform programs and reports mentioned have tended to emphasize efficiency and
service orientation. Whether this signals a new course of action is another ques-
tion, and our main interpretation is that while the paper contains a message about
rebalancing norms and values, this message is an ambiguous one.
The main story about democracy in the White Paper seems to be that there
should be more centralization, more central control of subordinate bodies, and
more coordination, both intra-sectoral and cross-sectoral elements of a traditional
collective democracy model as presented in the parliamentary chain or input
model. The emphasis on efficiency is also weaker compared with earlier admin-
istrative policy papers and reports, and the perspective now is that efficiency is
furthered through control and coordination. The paper also stresses that the
financial crisis indicates that specialization and market solutions are problematic
and that collective solutions are good for the private sector as well.
However, there is another major aspect of the way democracy is defined in the
paper that potentially makes it even more complex, hybrid, and inconsistent. It
stresses that democracy involves peoples’ participation in government outside the
election channel through a direct connection with the civil service. What is
interesting about this way of thinking is that the focus is more on citizens’ par-
ticipation in general as opposed to the user participation always cited in the NPM
rhetoric, and it is not entirely clear what is meant by this type of participation.
While the paper does mention user participation, corporative features in general,
and union participation in the civil service, these might be seen as subordinate to
the broader participatory view. Democracy is related to citizens playing a role in
the solution of tasks and their additional influencing on decision-making via this
136 TOM CHRISTENSEN AND PER LÆGREID

direct channel to the civil service. It asserts that in addition to their role as users,
people should be able to have greater influence over how society works, helped by
an open civil service providing them information. However, it also says that those
most affected by government services and decisions should have a say in the
decision-making process, which is a user-oriented element.
Therefore, what does this second democratic element add up to? The paper’s
perspective is pluralistic in that it perceives this form of democracy as supple-
menting the election channel; but it does not say much about balancing the two. It
also seems to take a pluralistic view of the direct democratic channel, seeing a
dual role for people as citizens as well as users. But here, too, it fails to specify
how to balance the roles of individual and private organizational actors in
influencing the government.
The more general perspective on democracy in the paper is rather complex and
somewhat ambiguous. One major element is definitely the more collective and
election-oriented notion of delegating popular sovereignty to the political
executive and its apparatus, the civil service. Without actually saying that the shift
toward more devolution, more specialization, and more market orientation has
been a failure, it emphasizes the need for more central control and coordination.
This brings input-orientated democratic elements back in and de-emphasizes
output elements, particularly individual-economic ones.
This perspective is challenged by the paper’s assertion that people need to
participate in government through direct contact with the civil service and not just
through the electoral channel, and, in relation to that, the need for openness,
information, and representativeness in the civil service. This is a general per-
spective emphasizing individual over collective elements and the role of citizens
over that of users. The White Paper provides little indication of how this addi-
tional democratic element should be organized, let alone what its relative
importance should be compared with the election channel. Should the election
channel still be dominant and this alternative, direct channel to the civil service be
more a source of transparency and information designed to secure support and
legitimacy for indirect democracy? Or, should the balance between the two
change to the detriment of the election channel?
How about elements from NPM and post-NPM in the White Paper? It does not
signal any major change in administrative policy. It states that the civil service must
renew itself, but also that basic norms and values should remain stable and that
renewal should be related to collaboration in the traditional tri-partite relationship
between government, employers, and employees. Overall, there are fewer NPM
elements than in earlier administrative policy papers and reports. One obvious NPM
element emphasized is management by objectives and results (MBOR), but it is
related more to coordinating the use of different means, and the need for qualitative
measures is underlined. It also stresses that MBOR and rule steering do not conflict
with but complement one another. The focus on user participation, even if modified
and weaker, is also typical of NPM, as is the emphasis on transparency.
 Democracy and administrative policy 137

One major post-NPM element is the view that the major challenges in con-
temporary society demand that more societal sectors work together. The paper
asserts that such challenges, whether national or international, create the need for
new collaborative forms and competence. A post-NPM perspective is also evident in
the statement that decisions further down the hierarchy must be clearly anchored
in the central level. Post-NPM concerns are also obvious in the requirement
that increased variety must be met by standardization, more holistic competences
developed, and that services should be more seamless across sectors and have clearer
over-riding priorities. The emphasis on ethical guidelines, platforms for leadership,
and strengthening the public ethos are also clear post-NPM elements. The previous
strong market orientation and focus on competition are criticized for producing
fragmentation and the disintegration of the civil service. The paper also calls for an
administrative policy that strengthens democratic values and stresses the need for
more political control of resources and institutions.
Summing up, the White Paper signals a reform break more than a new reform
wave. It presents a hybrid and multidimensional model. It may be seen as inspired
by the British ‘third way’ ideas that combine core NPM elements with discourses
of partnership, community, participation, and collaboration (Ashworth et al.,
2009). What we see is a coexistence of different institutional logics, such as
customer orientation, professionalism, markets, and corporative participation.
The multifunctional character of public administration is underlined. The paper
represents a combination of input and output democracy features. While still
recognizing the importance of output legitimacy, it brings input legitimacy back
into the administrative reform discourse. Even if the minister in charge of the
paper declared that she wanted to throw NPM into the garbage can, NPM is not
rejected but played down. The document represents a path-adjustment from
market solutions and efficiency towards more emphasis on political steering,
democracy, and community. In a comparative perspective the paper can be placed
on the trajectory of the ‘modernization agenda’ for public services launched by the
Labour government in the United Kingdom in 1997, which tried to combine
different institutional logics and add ‘JUG’ issues to the more fundamental ele-
ments of NPM, later pursued in the ‘WG’ initiatives in Australia and elsewhere.
The paper confirms these international tracks of different dominating logics
supplementing rather than replacing each other. It also illustrates another comparative
feature of administrative reform, that the domestic historical-institutional features
constrain and enable the contemporary administrative policy.
There is no obvious pendulum swing away from NPM, which is still very much
alive and kicking, but more restrained. Old NPM reforms are not reversed, but no
new ones are launched either, making them less dominant. The Nordic model of a
cooperative policy style between the government and interest organizations is
underlined. The result is increased complexity as a result of a layering or sedi-
mentation process. The White Paper is a collection of general ideas rather than
recipes for practice or specific reform measures.
138 TOM CHRISTENSEN AND PER LÆGREID

Understanding reforms: a transformative approach revisited

How is the development and combining of NPM and post-NPM reforms related
to the dynamics of the explanatory factors of the transformative approach? NPM
as a reform wave was rather compatible with the traditional cultures of Anglo-
American countries, which was why reforms fell on more fertile ground there than
in, say, Continental-European and Scandinavian countries. These were more
reluctant reformers because of less cultural compatibility (Hood, 1996). As post-
NPM reforms emerge, the interesting question of whether these have a path-
dependency related to the old administrative systems or to NPM arises. Some
studies construe post-NPM reforms as a return to the cultural norms and values of
the traditional Weberian and centralized system, while others emphasize that
NPM has created a new trajectory that makes it difficult to return to the ‘good old
days’ – that is, NPM has a constraining effect on post-NPM reforms (Christensen
and Lægreid, 2007b).
International reform trends like NPM and post-NPM have global potential, but
they can also be transformed in the diffusion process when they encounter
national contexts, so that they are not only seen as myths with no behavioral
consequences (Meyer and Rowan, 1977; Røvik, 2002). The main reforms ideas,
solutions, methods of implementation, and practice, as well as effects from out-
side, change when they encounter different political-administrative and historical-
cultural contexts. Such transformations may reflect a lack of compatibility
between reform content and national institutional norms and values (Brunsson
and Olsen, 1993). A kind of ‘editing’ of reform ideas occurs as they are imple-
mented and come face to face with existing national ideas and practice (Røvik,
1996; Sahlin-Andersson, 1996), or else a reform ‘virus’ manages to penetrate a
country’s administration only after a certain period of time (March and Olsen,
1983; Røvik, 2002).
Reforms are constrained by structural, cultural, and environmental features but
can also strike back and change such features. Thus, reforming the public
administration is a twofold process where it is important to stress the dubiety of
making a clear distinction between reforms and their determinants (cf. Jacobsson
et al., 2004). National administrations have the potential to transform reform
ideas in widely different ways. Some of these translations may be regarded as
strategic adaptations (Oliver, 1991), others as determined by the situation or the
process, while still others may be seen as an expression of how robust existing
administrations are. The translation of post-NPM reforms is subject to different
approaches in different countries and policy areas, as was NPM.
Taking the latest administrative policy program from the Norwegian govern-
ment as an illustration, this can be seen as a product of different driving forces and
their interactions as described by the transformative approach (Christensen and
Lægreid, 2007a). First, the political-administrative context is crucial for under-
standing the content of the White Paper. The electoral campaign of the parties of
 Democracy and administrative policy 139

the incoming center-left government was based largely on an anti-NPM ticket.

The civil service unions were a strong supporting partner in the campaign and
represented a clear anti-NPM position. The electoral campaign was successful,
and for the first time in 20 years Norway had a majority government in 2005. For
the first time, the Labour party joined with other parties to form a winning
coalition, and for the first time the Socialist-Left Party came to power. This party
was given the Ministry for Government Administration and Reform, responsible
for the White Paper. Given this background, the government might have been
expected to come up with a clear anti-NPM administrative program quickly. But,
this did not happen. Only toward the end of its 4-year term did the government
present its program, and it did not live up to the promises of the electoral cam-
paign. The White Paper in its rebalancing and complexity reflects both a regime
change and tensions in the new coalition, with the Labour Party trying to limit the
undermining of NPM and the Socialist Party trying to strengthen post-NPM and
input democracy.
In Norway, there are strong sector ministries and weak overarching ministries.
Thus, most reforms are conducted by the line ministries, while the Ministry for
Government Administration and Reform is a weak ministry with few opportu-
nities to instruct other ministries on administrative reforms. Its horizontal coor-
dinating power is rather weak. Whenever the ministry has tried to launch its own
administrative policy, it has been met with skepticism from the sector ministries,
which want to control their own reform processes. Thus reform programs, such as
that represented by the White Paper, tend to become vague compromises focusing
on some non-binding general values and principles rather than specific, concrete,
and operationalized programs.
Norwegian political-administrative culture is marked by cooperation and col-
laboration with civil service unions, by little tension between political and
administrative executives and by a high level of mutual trust between public-
sector organizations on different levels. The policy style is one of collaboration
and ‘sounding out’ processes (Olsen, 1988). During the former center-right gov-
ernment (2001–05) this policy style was challenged, especially regarding the
relationship with the civil service unions, which were seen by the political lea-
dership as a problem for democracy, rather than an asset. Now the traditional
culture has reasserted itself and the collaborative policy-making style has been
re-installed. Therefore, the cultural tilting of administrative policy toward NPM,
potentially undermining a traditional input-oriented culture, is now rebalanced.
Third, the external institutional environment also makes a difference. The
reform program was developed in a period in which post-NPM reform features
were becoming stronger in many countries. Efficiency was no longer the main
goal, and was challenged by other public sector values and ethical questions. The
focus was more on re-establishing the public sector ethos and rediscovering tra-
ditional bureaucratic values such as due process, impartiality, and predictability.
Policy capacity and political accountability became main concerns, and the problem
140 TOM CHRISTENSEN AND PER LÆGREID

of fragmentation and the need for integration and more horizontal coordination was
underlined (Christensen and Lægreid, 2007b). Instead of focusing on disaggregation
and structural devolution there was a strong bid to reassert central control and bring
the central state back in. Such international reform trends have obviously influenced
the new Norwegian reform program. Both changing environmental reform ideas
and myths, and instrumental challenges to NPM, participated in the White Paper’s
emphasis on norms of input democracy, control, and coordination.
Our argument is that administrative reforms are based on a combination of
different driving forces or contexts, as underlined in the transformative approach.
Public administration is faced with increasingly complex and multifunctional
organizational forms, and administrative reforms can be understood as compound
in the sense that they combine different organizational principles (Olsen, 2007b;
Egeberg and Trondal, 2009). Compound administrative reforms are multi-
dimensional and represent competing, inconsistent, and contradictory organiza-
tional principles and structures that co-exist and balance different considerations
(Olsen, 2007b). Multidimensional orders are considered more robust against
external shocks and therefore preferable to unidimensional orders (March and
Olsen, 1989). In a pluralistic society, with many criteria for success and different
causal understandings, we have to go beyond the idea of a single organizational
principle to understand how public organizations are organized and reformed and
to look at them as composite organizations (Olsen, 2005, 2007a).
Instead of assuming linear development toward more and more NPM reform
and more output democracy, or a cyclical development where tradition strikes
back and reinstalls the old public administration and input democracy, our
argument is that we face a dialectical development in which the old public
administration and input democracy mix with NPM and its leanings toward
output democracy and post-NPM features to shape new hybrid organizational
forms. Central components of the old Weberian bureaucratic model are sustain-
able and robust, but in the strong modern state they are supplemented with neo-
Weberian features such as performance management and user participation and
responsiveness (Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2004). This complex, dynamic, and layered
development is illustrated in our analysis of the White Paper.

Conclusion

At the core of administrative policy is the question of governance capacity and

efficiency, and to what degree developments in society are affected by government
decisions and public policy programs. This involves steering capability and public-
sector institutions’ capacity to act. Another main question, which has been a focus in
this paper, is the question of governance representativity, focusing on measures
designed to strengthen representation of citizens’ beliefs, attitudes, and opinions
in the policy-making process. This question concerns citizens’ effectiveness, user
participation and influence. The argument is that the study of administrative
 Democracy and administrative policy 141

policy needs to return to an enlarged concept of political effects and move beyond
the technical-functional flavor of administrative reforms with apolitical language.
The main challenge is to find organizational forms that enhance both governance
representativeness and governance capacity. Often there is a trade-off between the
two (Dahl and Tufte, 1974). Following Scharpf (1999), our analysis shows that
input-oriented representativeness and output-oriented effectiveness are both
essential elements for democratic self-determination. Input legitimacy of electoral
arrangements and output legitimacy of policy selection and service delivery are
both important components of sustainable democratic arrangements, and suc-
cessful administrative reforms in representative democracies have to take both
features into account. The interesting question is how the trade-off between them
changes over time.
We first discussed the implications of NPM and post-NPM for models of
democracy. These models do not focus on democratic values and challenges.
Second, it is evident that the balance and rebalance between different adminis-
trative models has changed the participation and influence of citizens, albeit in
some countries more than others, reflecting variations in the implementation of
reform ideas (Christensen and Lægreid, 2007a). The NPM model became influ-
ential in the 1990s and challenged the hierarchical model of governance, where
the public interest was determined by a hierarchical and representative political
process motivated by mass politics. This implied a redefinition of popular
sovereignty, from a collective focus, where people’s primary status is that of
citizen, to an individual and customer-oriented focus (Hood, 1998). Third, there
is a co-evolution of democracy and administrative reforms. As administrative
policy has moved away from direct service delivery through public bureaucracies,
democracy has also moved toward output democracy (Peters, 2008). However,
eventually these trends can bounce back and revitalize input democracy and more
traditional forms of public administration.
Over the past decade, this NPM model has been challenged by post-NPM
reform measures, by an increased focus on integration, networks, and horizontal
coordination, as well as by a rediscovery of bureaucracy and a renewed emphasis
on the rule of law and legal principles. The result is increased complexity and the
development of hybrid organizational forms. In a multifunctional public sector,
goals often conflict and are imprecise. Accountability in such a system means
being answerable to different stakeholders and achieving multiple and often
ambiguous objectives.
NPM has helped broaden the options of those trying to influence the public
authorities and participate in public decision-making processes through market
mechanisms and customer orientation. Whether this is a good thing from a
democratic point of view is, however, debatable. On one hand, one can argue
along the old pluralist lines that the more active channels there are between the
people and the public authorities, the better. Directly influencing public services is
the ‘real thing’. In a democracy, it is up to the citizens to choose which institutional
142 TOM CHRISTENSEN AND PER LÆGREID

arrangements they prefer, and if they are dissatisfied with the existing system, it is
their privilege to try other arrangements. However, we can also take a more
skeptical view of the democratic value of people’s status as customers. A man-
agerial concept of democracy might weaken civic responsibility, engagement,
and political equality, but enhance the roles of administrators and managers
(Christensen and Lægreid, 2001). In administrative reform there is a need to
strengthen the sense of trusteeship and the development of a polity with a com-
mon purpose based on trust, and to move away from the ideal of the politics of
management with its terminology of efficiency, toward a politics of citizens with a
language of power and legitimacy (see Wolin, 1960). It is a paradox that while
one goal of NPM is to open public administration to the public, it may ultimately
reduce the level of democratic accountability and lead to the erosion of the
‘publicness’ of public service (Peters, 1999; Haque, 2001). Post-NPM reform
measures are supposed to handle some of these challenges by moving reforms
away from output democracy and aggregative political processes in favor of a
greater emphasis on input democracy and integrative political processes.
The White Paper analyzed shows this tension between NPM and post-NPM
elements, that is, between output- and input-oriented democratic concerns. It
shows a new administrative policy trying to move the administrative system and
practice in a more input-oriented direction, through stressing traditional collective
ideals and political control. The most interesting aspect of the paper is, however,
how it handles the output-related elements. The NPM-related consumer orien-
tation is supplemented and partly overshadowed by a general view of direct
citizen participation in the civil service and its decisions and services. It is
understandable that modern and well-educated citizens want more information
about public activities, and eventually more influence, and that governments
would like to give them more insights and information to strengthen support and
legitimacy. The government seems to encourage consumer orientation and broad
citizen participation as well as traditional corporative participation and input
democracy. However, it is rather ambiguous what this amounts to, it terms of a
democratic ideal, influence patterns and added value for democracy. One unre-
solved problem is the traditional but still a sensitive issue of unequal access to
public institutions and services. Citizens with more resources might well be more
able to use the new possibilities of greater involvement and direct participation
than those with poor recourses, which can easily produce greater inequality
among the general public.
The new hybrid role of the citizen/user shown in the White Paper may have
different implications in this respect. On the one hand, it may lead to the
strengthening of direct democracy through an alternative channel to elections. On
the other hand, the new role may lead to greater demands on peoples’ resources
for participation and therefore add to social inequality in influencing the political-
administrative system. In this respect, actors with strong political and social
resources may benefit from a combination of output-oriented features, whether
 Democracy and administrative policy 143

individual efforts or collective efforts through interest groups, and keeping their
influence in the election channel.
In what way may the results of our analysis have wider implications for
understanding administrative policy and civil service in different countries? First,
Nordic countries were NPM laggards, so based on this the depth of NPM reform
will be more shallow and the use of post-NPM reforms probably more extensive.
In this respect, the Norwegian experience may have implications limited to a
certain set of Scandinavian and Continental European countries (Hood, 1996).
Second, the content analysis of the White paper, may show a more general bal-
ancing (also in democratic terms) typical for most countries, namely by combining
elements from different reform waves and models of democracy, making the civil
service more complex and hybrid, whether layered or not. The UK experience of
Blair’s joined-up governance may well be a similar act of balance and new par-
ticipatory forms (Perri 6, 2005; Richards and Smith, 2006), as may the cultural
leanings of modern reforms in Australia, the integrative features of the New
Zealand experience (Gregory, 2006; Halligan, 2007), collaborative public man-
agement in the United States and the cross boundary horizontal governance
initiatives in Canada (Christensen and Lægreid, 2007b).
Third, Norway, like other countries, faces ambiguous success-criteria and
motivational complexity (Goodin, 1996) implying that economic standards have
to be balanced with other normative standards such as different democratic values
with shifting priorities (Olsen, 2007b). Democracies are founded on multiple
coexisting principles with competing purposes, resources, and capabilities, and
this is also reflected in administrative policy and reform initiatives related to the
public administration as a core political institution.

Acknowledgements

We would thank the participants at the Study Group on ‘‘Governance of Public

Sector Organizations’’ at the EGPA Conference in Malta, 2–5 September 2009 and
two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments to an earlier version of this article.

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