No. 56-57 (2009): Modern trends in New Public Management

Starting in the 1980s, the issue of state reform became a central aspect of the world agenda, giving rise to a new economic, market-oriented wave, the predominant result of which was a more managerial current of government administration. This movement was accompanied by a wave of democratization in terms of breadth, geographical extension and durability; by a process of liberalization guided by economic openness, the institutionalization of the New Public Management, NPM, and the integration of the world economy.

The NPM transformation trend rearticulates State-Society relations, offering not only the opportunity for the modernization of the State apparatus, but also the strengthening of society itself and the generation of economic growth based on productivity, competitiveness, equity and environmental sustainability. Consequently, the NGP pursues the creation of an efficient and effective administration that satisfies the real needs of citizens at the lowest possible cost, favoring the introduction of competition mechanisms, user choice, and the development of higher quality services. All this action is based on control systems that allow full transparency of processes, plans and results, so that on the one hand, the election system is improved, and on the other hand, citizen participation is favored.

The main trajectories of these transformations can be grouped as follows:
- Organizational Structural. Adopting measures that have shifted the boundaries between the State, the market, civil society and citizenship, transferring public management responsibilities to other spheres, including measures such as privatization, contractualization, decentralization, devolution and deregulation.
- Regulatory and cultural rationalization. Introduction of new patterns of action and behavior that have led to the design of a new public operating system, concretized in the reform of public employment, budgetary finance and deregulation, including administrative simplification, the improvement of management and control tools through the introduction of private management techniques, and technological innovation aimed at digital government.
- Transparency of public administration. Openness and citizen access to public information such as plans and budgets, etc., and incorporation of the administered in the public decision-making process, encouraging citizen participation. 

The Central American Public Administration has undertaken efforts within the framework of the institutionalization of the NGP. Some of the results that have been obtained as a result of the advances in the implementation of this new trend of modernization of the Public Administration, feed this edition of the Central American Journal of Public Administration, which we are pleased to offer today to the academic and professional community of the Region.