The state of the art
Increasingly, then, both PA and the NPM have begun to look like partial theories, at
best. The strength of PA is in its exploration of the essentially political nature of PAM
and of the complexities and nuances of the public policy making process. The extent to
which the implementation studies literature in PA has been able to unpackage the
differential influences upon public policy implementation has been disappointing,
however. There is a tendency for implementation to be seen simply as a ‘black box’
with no apparent will to un-package the complex sub-processes of the management of
the outputs of the policy process – public services themselves (Schofield 2001; Hill and
Hupe 2003). At worst, public managers and management are portrayed as the villain(s)
of the piece, thwarting the resolve of their political masters and often subverting the
intentions of new policy to their own ends.