Exploration of Policy Integration Theory in the Post-New Public Management Era
Chang-Yen Lee, Rene Ying-Yu Chen, Shu-Chuan Tseng
Abstract
The transformation and modification of post-NPM, as countries around the world respond to globalization, high-risk societies and the rapid development of information and communication technologies, whether it is to solve difficult problems or advanced deployment opportunities, they are constantly promoting a new wave of public administrative transformation. They may be government-centered or governance-centered reforms, all presenting a competitive appearance of a mixture of multiple values and diverse policy tools. At the same time, they hold high expectations for the joint governance of the government, the market and civil society, and the operation of the governance mechanism on coordination and cooperation has also become a common belief, value and research path. Therefore, in the post-NPM era, policy integration through a comprehensive view of meta-governance and coordination of various governance mechanisms will become an important strategic tool for achieving meta-governance, and even forms an integrative paradigm.
The research of policy integration theory and the analysis of policy integration practice will become the trend of reform and innovation in the post-NPM era. In order to improve the conceptual understanding of policy integration, what empirical problems are worth analyzing in the study of policy coordination and integration? Which theoretical methods are suitable for explaining the coordination and integration process of integrated policies? These are the two main research questions in this article. Therefore, this article intends to explore the reasons for the rise of the policy integration theory inspired by the transition from NPM to post-NPM through theoretical context and then explore the four questions: the development image of policy integration theory, the analysis framework of policy integration process and governance capacity, and the challenges of theoretical research on policy integration. These are the four questions guiding the construction of the theoretical framework of policy integration, and then serve as the foundation for subsequent integration theoretical research and practice.
Keywords: NPM, Post-NPM, policy integration, policy coordination, integrated strategies