New Public Management and ethics

Abstract

New Public Management (NPM) is a business-oriented approach to public administration that has existed for many years. While there are mixed opinions on NPM’s level of effectiveness, I believe that the more pressing question is if it is ethical. This paper seeks to answer said question by utilizing Terry Cooper’s insights on ethics. By discussing various matters and providing multiple illustrations, such as NPM’s relationship to privatization, contrasting out, elites, and everyday citizens, this work concludes that NPM is not an ethical methodology to public administration.

Keywords

• new public management (npm)
• ethics
• privatization
• contracting out
• elites