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PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to discuss the rationale and functioning of the partnership-based brokerage model as a vehicle of service integration with special reference to its support for information intermediation, learning and service market creation.Design/methodology/approachThe theoretical framework is built on the tension between New Public Management (NPM) and post-NPM thinking, which frames the analysis of the brokerage model for elderly care services in the city of Tampere, Finland. The empirical data are derived from interviews, evaluation reports and existing case descriptions.FindingsIn the Kotitori model, the broker enhances the capacity building of the city government and the cost-effectiveness of its service provision, provides added value through improved information processes and handles matters relating to subcontracting and the facilitation of the service provider network. The model as a whole reflects the hybridisation of public administration. Even if Kotitori contains many NPM-inspired elements, they are complemented by features derived from New Public Governance and the neo-Weberian local state. The most neglected aspect of post-NPM thinking in the design of Kotitori is citizen centredness.Originality/valueThis paper broadens the perspective on the role of brokers in public service provision and highlights the multi-dimensionality of the brokerage function. It also shows how such partnership-based brokerage model reflects various aspects of both NPM and post-NPM paradigm.

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.

Between 2008-15 Ireland undertook unprecedented and systemic public sector reforms in a polity not traditionally considered a prominent reformer. While some of these reforms comprised part of the loan programme agreement with EU and international actors, many others did not. This article argues that the crisis in Ireland provided a window of opportunity to introduce reforms that political and administrative elites had previously found difficult to implement. The authority of the Troika was invoked to provide legitimacy for controversial initiatives, yet some of the reforms went further than the loan programme strictly required. A number of these concerning organisational rationalisation, the public service 'bargain' and transversal policy coordination, are considered here. Agreements were negotiated with public sector unions that facilitated sharp cuts in pay and conditions, reducing the potential for opposition to change. The reform effort was further legitimated by the reformers' post-NPM, whole-of-government discourse, which situated considerations of effectiveness and efficiency in a broader framework of public service quality and delivery.

Published version available in Local Government Studies 2017, 43 (4):512-532. ; This is an exploratory study of re-politicisation of municipal companies in one Norwegian municipality. Unlike re-municipalisation, which seems to imply the reversal of privatisation and out-contracting, and the reinstitution of municipal ownership, the Norwegian case demonstrates a continued adherence to the provision of certain public services through municipal companies. However, our study reveals increasing re-politicisation, especially with respect to board composition. The mechanisms behind this process seem first and foremost to be a post-new public management (NPM) response (re-centring) combined with efforts of rebalancing NPM-inspired solutions without changing them in any fundamental way (learning from experience).

This article examines China's government reforms over the past 40 years from an instrumental–structural and a cultural–value perspective with the aim of exploring the supposed shift from New Public Management (NPM) to post-NPM. It finds that some aspects of the Old Public Administration (OPA) have been combined with NPM and post-NPM features in a layering process, resulting in new hybrid organizational forms and value orientations. In particular, the analysis shows that China's post-NPM-oriented reforms have focused on positive coordination in the sense of super-ministries and networks on the one hand and value-based governance with a service orientation on the other hand.

Between 2008 and 2015, Ireland undertook unprecedented and systemic public sector reforms in a polity not traditionally considered a prominent reformer. While some of these reforms comprised part of the loan programme agreement with EU and international actors, many others did not. This article argues that the crisis in Ireland provided a window of opportunity to introduce reforms that political and administrative elites had previously found difficult to implement. The authority of the Troika was invoked to provide legitimacy for controversial initiatives, yet some of the reforms went further than the loan programme strictly required. A number of these concerning organisational rationalisation, the public service 'bargain' and transversal policy coordination are considered here. Agreements were negotiated with public sector unions that facilitated sharp cuts in pay and conditions, reducing the potential for opposition to change. The reform effort was further legitimated by the reformers' post-New Public Management, whole-of-government discourse, which situated considerations of effectiveness and efficiency in a broader framework of public service quality and delivery.

Seeking to close the gap between expectations and capacity, presidents have utilized a broad interpretation of executive power to control administrative affairs. However, the emergence of a post–New Public Management environment characterized by loosely constructed networks and a surge of governmental activity has required an evolution in the tools needed to govern. In exploring this dynamic through a constitutional governance model, it becomes evident that a new ethos of presidential governance is starting to develop that is marked by a mixture of governing alone and governing with partners. This dynamic potentially enables more effective and responsible execution of public laws.