ARELLANO-GAULT, David <br/><br/>
Challenges for the new public management :  organizational culture and the administrative modernization program in Mexico City (1995-1997) 

 -  2000 
<br/><br/> In developed countries, new public management (NPM) is typically used to improve existing institutions democratically where the bureaucracy is already controlled through agencies and institutions. However, in Mexico, it is being used as a top-down reform strategy where solid institutional frameworks, rule of law, checks and balances, civil service system, and accountability systems are all absent or ineffective. In the absence of robust institutions for administrative control and oversight, this use of NPM reform strategies faces twp basic dangers:(a) overrelying on techniques over substantive reform and (b) underestimating the difficulty of changing the existing bureaucratic culture. Given the current political and institutitonal sitution in Mexico, the most probable outcome of implementing  NPM ideas is symbolic rather than actual change. That is, government is most likely to implement reengineering teams but to render them ineffective by retainnnig the existig vertical and authoritarian structure and culture. A case study  evalutaing Mexico City`s  NPM-based administrative reform program is used to support these conclusions