The Rise and Demise of the New Public Management, 28 10
uphill struggle it is `beyond the pale', not the done thing. (Pollitt and
Bouckaert 2004: 201)
In PA, the problem is that on the one hand, experts are hired both on the basis of
fashionability and of their capacity to suggest change, not to say that things should
remain as they are the main reason why international consultancy has gone
strongly for NPM. On the other hand, for politicians it is very practical to turn to
experts, because it alleviates them from the pressure to, first, find out what the
proper decision should be and, second, to implement possibly unpopular measures.
Under the cloak of efficiency, NPM specifically returns decision-making to the
allegedly expert bureaucrat, therefore removing political control, and that also means
political responsibility, from the political sphere. "It may be convenient for politicians
to hide behind the smoke-screen of managerial decision and autonomy, but this
annaabi.ee 
