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Reshaping Public Administration: The Spanish Experience Compared to the UK
Author(s) -
Torres LourDes,
Pina Vicente
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
public administration
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.313
H-Index - 93
eISSN - 1467-9299
pISSN - 0033-3298
DOI - 10.1111/j.0033-3298.2004.00402.x
Subject(s) - context (archaeology) , public administration , administration (probate law) , new public management , public service , service (business) , focus (optics) , political science , public management , public relations , service delivery framework , quality (philosophy) , business , public sector , marketing , law , geography , physics , archaeology , philosophy , optics , epistemology
This paper analyses the nature and extent of the policies of modernizing Spanish public administration. Successive Spanish governments have been involved in modernizing public administration with the stress on customer focus, improving service delivery and implementing quality awards, service charts and information technologies. As a basis for assessing the reforms, we compare Spanish New Public Management (NPM) developments with the initiatives undertaken in the UK. The paper evaluates the usage of NPM concepts in the Spanish and UK experiences and cultural differences based on public and common law traditions respectively, locating these reforms in a comparative context. We focus on why similar concepts and initiatives could provide such different results in each country and how the cultural and institutional features produce differences in the way that NPM postulates are defined, implemented, monitored and evaluated. The answer is probably rooted in the context in which the initiatives have been developing.