Trends in Public Administration Reforms: Assessing the Past and Looking into the Future; Rationales, Approaches, and Impacts

Abstract

This article addresses four major questions and tries to answer them within a limited scope of analysis based on evidence and experiences of the last three decades around the world. First, what trends have characterised the public administration reforms of the last three-four decades worldwide? Second, what are the rationales, nature, and purposes of these reforms? And, third, what have been the consequences or legacies of these major reforms? Finally, what does the future hold, what directions will public administration reforms be moving into in the future? This paper addresses the first three questions and leaves the last/fourth question for further analysis in another presentation and refers the readers to this author’s seminal article, “The Future of Public Administration: Challenges and Opportunities,” published in Administration and Society, in 2012.