Are Mayors in the Post-NPM Era? Political Leadership and Administrative Reforms in European Cities

The "new public management" (NPM) wave in public sector reform was founded on the need of a deep change in the organization culture. This reform had particular impact in local governments due to the ability of this level of govern to embed innovative proposal into their organizational structures. Although its effects are still working through, literature began to point out to a possible end of an era and to the start of a “post-NPM” wave. This paper aims at exploring the attitude of mayors towards the main elements of managerial reform in the local government in order to analyse whether the mayors have overcome the NPP. First, we examine the attitudes and perception of the mayor towards the typical features of the New Public Management reform wave. Second, patterns of behaviour in different local systems are also explored in order to identify factors related to political leadership that influence the emergence and decline of some reforms. The data used in this paper come from the second round (2015-16) of the “Political Leaders in European Cities” survey, which aims at studying the role of mayors and the transformation of political representation at the local level in 20 European countries.