By comparison, the NPM is a child of neo-classical economics and particularly of
rational/public choice theory. Influential writers include Tiebout (1956) and Niskanen
(1971). It is concerned with a disaggregated state, where policy making and implementation
are at least partially articulated and disengaged, and where implementation is
through a collection of independent service units, ideally in competition with each other.
Its focus is almost wholly upon intra-organizational processes and management and it
emphasizes the economy and efficiency of these service units in producing public services
(conceptualized as the outputs of these processes).4 As already noted, it assumes
competitive relationships between the independent service units inside any public policy
domain, taking place within a horizontally organized market-place – and where the key
governance mechanism is some combination of competition, the price mechanism and
contractual relationships, depending upon which particular variant of the NPM one
chooses to expound. Its value base is contained within its belief that this market-place,
and its workings, provides the most appropriate place for the production of public
services. An extreme form of this argument is made by Pirie (1988). An alternative
version, that emphasizes contractual mechanisms within rather than without government
is offered by Schrijvers (1993).