Public Management Reforms in Countries with a Napoleonic State Model: France, Italy and Spain

Walter Kickert

Chapter 3 in New Public Management in Europe, 2007, pp 26-51 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract This chapter addresses a main theme of this book: the influence of various institutional settings of states and administrations on the way public management ideas and practices are implemented. Different historical-institutional backgrounds of European states and administration do affect the form and content of their administrative reform. Western states and administrations do differ considerably in many relevant respects. That influences the path of their administrative ‘public management’ reforms (Kickert, 1997, 2000; Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2004). This chapter will concentrate on the administrative reforms in three European countries that significantly differ from the Anglo-Saxon state model, that is, on the three European countries — France, Italy and Spain — that have a Napoleonic state tradition. In comparison to the relative success of New Public Management (NPM) reforms in Anglo-Saxon countries, France shows more modest examples of that type of reform and Italy and Spain are relative ‘failures’ in terms of NPM reforms. One of the explanations for this difference is that Anglo-Saxon state models differ from continental European legal state traditions, such as reflected in the Napoleonic model (Wunder, 1995). France forms its origin and Italy and Spain have adopted the Napoleonic model.

Keywords: Civil Service; Public Management; Socialist Party; Parliamentary Democracy; Administrative Reform (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-0-230-62536-5_3

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.palgrave.com/9780230625365

DOI: 10.1057/9780230625365_3

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Palgrave Macmillan Books from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().