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[MWS 23.1 (2023) 13-59] ISSN 1470-8078
doi: 10.15543/maxweberstudies.23.1.13
© Max Weber Studies 2023, Global Policy Institute, University House, Coventry University
London, 109 Middlesex Street, London E1 7JF.
The neo-Weberian state:
From ideal type model to reality?
Geert Bouckaert
Abstract
Public sector reforms have been a feature of past decades. Many of these
reforms reacted against hierarchy and bureaucracy to shift to markets
and networks. Next to New Public Management (NPM) and New Public
Governance (NPG), the neo-Weberian state (NWS) also remained a crucial
ideal type, certainly for the Western European practice which is embedded
in Weberian public administration (PA). A theoretical and empirical
question is whether NWS is sustainable and resilient in re-inventing and
re-appraising ‘bureaucracy’ in the 21st century. This contribution claims
that initially there was an empirical observation, certainly in continental
Europe, of neo-Weberian public administration derived from the dynamics
of public sector reforms in the second half of the 20th century. It was then
‘upgraded’ as an NWS ideal type model for theoretical reasons. NWS is
a hierarchy-driven system within a hierarchy-market-network space. This
NWS (based and driven by hierarchy) then moved to one of the normative
reform models.
It is also claimed and assumed that NWS, contrary to NPM (market-
driven) and NPG (network-driven), will ensure the three core functions
of a ‘whole of government’ strategy within a ‘whole of society’ context:
inclusive and equitable service delivery, resilient crises governance, and
effective innovation for government and society.
Keywords: NWS, neo-Weberian State, hierarchy, bureaucracy.
1. From Weber’s PA to Weberian PA to PA reforms
In the beginning of the 20th century, scientic management was a key
paradigm focusing on the productivity of organisations.
In 1911, in the US, Frederick Taylor (1856–1915), an engineer, published
The Principles of Scientic Management, which resulted in ‘Taylorism’ as
an expression of rational organisations. In 1916, in France, Henry Fayol
(1841–1925), also an engineer, published Administration Industrielle et
Générale. In 1923, at the Second International Administrative Science
Conference in Brussels (which in 1930 resulted in the establishment of
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the Brussels-based International Institute of Administrative Sciences),
Fayol presented a paper in which he applied his principles to ‘public
administration’. The American Lyndall Urwick (1891–1983), who worked
at the International Management Institute in Geneva, translated Fayol’s
work in 1929 (Industrial and General Administration) (Sager et al. 2018).
Luther Gulick (1892–1993), from the Institute of Public Administration at
Columbia University in New York, recognised these European contribu-
tions to management science, but also focused on better management
by improving and training ‘the top’ of an organisation. In a combined
effort, in 1937 Gulick and Urwick published their Papers on the Science of
Administration, resulting in the still famous POSDCORB (planning, organi-
sing, stafng, directing, coordinating, reporting, budgeting) acronym.
Even though his disciplinary background and historical context
were very different, Max Weber (1864–1920) studied bureaucracy and
contributed to, and was part of, this productivity Zeitgeist (Drechsler
2020). His chapter on Bureaucracy (Weber 1947: 196-244) led the way
in his thinking about the progressive move from traditional community
(Gemeinschaft) to modern societal relationships (Vergesellschaftung) and
legal authority. His reections emphasised an instrumental vision of
bureaucracies. Even though Weber was not an engineer, his sociological/
economic and rational/instrumental vision was in line with the scientic
management approach of that time (Weber 2012; Whimster 2007;
Whimster and Lash 1987).
Ultimately, Weber’s vision of bureaucracy and public administration
evolved into a ‘Weberian PA’ (an ideal type becoming a normative
model and a concrete reality), which then evolved in an almost dialectic
way into post-bureaucracy reforms (for an excellent overview of seven
paradigms: see Torng et al. 2021).
In trying to surface the essence of public sector reforms since the
end of the 1970s, reform trends shifted as a result of corrective actions
and ideological shifts. The initial editions of Public Management Reform
(Pollitt and Bouckaert 2000, 2004) covered roughly 20 to 25 years of
the reform timespan (from the end of the 1970s until the beginning of
the 2000s). Our concluding reections resulted in four reform models,
expressed as the 4Ms: maintain, modernise, marketise and minimise.
According to Weber, ideal types are a methodological tool to interpret
reality. In his 1904 essay on ‘Objectivity’ (‘Objektivität’) he discussed this
pure type of thinking in applying it to abstract economic theory, which
allowed him to offer an ideal-type depiction of rational action-based
processes in a so-called free market economy (Weber 2012 [1904]: 123-
134; 1968: 146-204). Obviously, the construction of ideal types is inspired
by existing theories, praxeological models and concrete reality.
Bouckaert The neo-Weberian state 15
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An ideal type is a construction obtained by conceptually heightening
specic aspects of reality, for example relationships. A type helps us
understand and think about reality by constructing relationships that exist
in reality, but which are emphasised in the constructed and consolidated
type. Ideal types are therefore pure constructs of relationships. The
requirement for an acceptable emphasis is that they are ‘sufciently
motivated’ and ‘objectively probable’. This makes them sufciently
adequate to heighten a causal process of mechanisms. Although these
constructs need not be proven, there is a need for evidence in support of
this objective probability. This results in scientically acceptable value
added to knowledge of ‘concrete cultural phenomena in their inter-
connections, their causes, and their signicance’ (Weber 1904, Whimster
2007; see also Bouckaert and Halligan 2008: 211).
Ideal types are representations of modelled behaviour reduced to its
essence, which therefore has a ‘pure’ avour and could be considered
as pure types with features of models, such as modules and veriable
causal links. But they are more than common denominators of reality,
because of their intrinsic causal coherence. Their purpose is not so much
to feed a praxeology, but to help interpret complex realities (Bouckaert
and Halligan 2008: 212).
It became clear that the ‘maintain’ ideal type kept in essence the
classical Weberian system by tightening up traditional controls (Pollitt
and Bouckaert 2004: 186). The German Federal level, in contrast to the
system at state and local level, is a good t for this ‘maintain’ model.
The modernised version of the ideal type is predicated on the
distinctiveness of public provision, and the need to strengthen rather
than to weaken or dilute the state. We labelled this as the Neo-Weberian
State (NWS) with two variations of the ideal type. The rst ‘emphasises
the need for professional, performance-oriented management on
the assumption that public servants are often full of initiative and
will improve their own operations once they are freed from heavy
bureaucratic regulation from further up the traditional hierarchies. The
second, by contrast, stresses that the best route to modernization is to
engage citizens and service users in a variety of participatory processes.
It puts its faith in more “bottom-up” inuence from civil society, whereas
the rst variant is more concerned to reduce the amount of “top-down”
regulation’ (Pollitt and Bouckaert 2004: 187).
The marketised ideal type, which applies market-type mechanisms
within the public sector, is close to NPM as a ‘supermarket’ state model
(Christensen and Laegreid 2011). The more minimal model hands over
as many tasks as possible to the market and therefore is ‘hollowing
out’ the state machine (Frederickson and Frederickson 2006), resulting
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in the linking of politics to the economy, unmediated by bureaucratic
structures.
In reality, however, we see hybrids and blends combining into
(hybrid) models. Maintain and modernise are combined in reality, and
mostly t within the NWS, depending on the specicities of the policy
eld. Marketise and minimise can also be combined, mostly tting
NPM, and are certainly compatible from an ideological point of view.
The subsequent editions of Public Management Reform (Pollitt and
Bouckaert 2011, 2017) cover a reform timespan of about 30 to 35 years
(from the end of the 1970s until about 2015). It became clear that the initial
four ideal types were not covering the full range of possible and thinkable
governance systems. The presence of network governance became a real
practice and was not covered by the 4M’s. We dropped our initial idea
to add a fth M (as in mediating or moderating). Hence, we shifted our
level of ideal type denition and qualication from a verb (to maintain,
to modernise, to marketise, to minimise), which corresponded to reform
as an active and deliberate process of change, to an ideal type described
as a driving principle, which triggers all mechanisms and determines an
entire system. As a conclusion we observed, rst, the driving principle
of ‘hierarchy’ results initially in a Weberian, and ultimately in a neo-
Weberian state (NWS). Second, the driving principle of ‘market’ results
in New Public Management (NPM). Third, the driving principle of
‘networks’ results in New Public Governance (NPG).
While observing NPM being promoted and pushed by the OECD as
The Way Forward (OECD 2015), and showcased by the most extreme NPM
country, New Zealand, it also became clear that there is a ‘limitation
of discussing reform exclusively in terms of “more or less NPM”. To
put it briey, we suggest that it is not simply a case of some countries
being reluctant or opposed to the NPM: it is more the case that there are
alternative and positive concepts of modernization, one of which we
describe as the “Neo-Weberian State” (NWS)’ (Pollitt & Bouckaert 2004:
3), especially for continental Europe.
A pivotal effort in bringing NWS to public attention was the First
Trans-European Dialogue (TED) in 2008, hosted by Professor Drechsler
at Tallinn University of Technology (TUT), a combined effort of the
European Group for Public Administration (EGPA) and Network of
Institutes and Schools of Public Administration in Central and Eastern
Europe (NISPAcee). The papers of the conference theme (‘Towards
the Neo-Weberian State? Europe and Beyond’) were published in the
NISPAcee Journal of Public Administration and Policy (Volume 1, No. 2:
Winter 2008–2009) as a special issue (‘A distinctive European Model?
The Neo-Weberian State’).
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This article makes an attempt to describe this systemic shift from a
Weberian to a neo-Weberian state (ideal type) model and to assess to
what extent NWS is not just an ideal type model, but is also becoming a
reality and even a normative reform model.
2. Elements of a Weberian ideal type state model
According to Sager and Rosser, ‘Weber conceived of the state as a
mechanistic phenomenon’ (Sager and Rosser 2009: 1137). For Weber, the
emerging private and public bureaucracies were an important indicator
of a transition from a traditional, charismatic mode of administration, to
a legal-rational mode of administration (Thompson 2003). Bureaucracy,
as a state administration based on the rule-driven principle of hierarchy,
dened its authority within the state (Torng et al. 2021). In general,
rationalization is the driver leading to hierarchy by rule-driven
administrations leading to bureaucracies. As Thompson stated: ‘The
need for constant calculation and decision making resulted in a kind of
organization based on acceptance of a rationalized system of operations’
(Thompson 1976: 30) Weber called this control ‘legal-rational’.
One could conclude that the main analytical vectors of the Weberian
state are its state administration as a bureaucracy (Bürokratie), its
economy (Wirtschaft), and its society (Gesellschaft) (see Figure 1). All
dimensions are subject to, and driven by, ‘rationalization’.
Figure 1: Components of the Weberian state model
3. Some reasons to go beyond Weber and the Weberian state model
Weber assumed that the rational spirit of bureaucracy was so efcient
and powerful that bureaucracy gained an irreversible momentum
(1968: Economy and Society). This momentum was driven by competition
in markets, competition among states and equal protection under the
law (Weber 1968: 974). However, DeMaggio and Powell argue that, ‘The
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causes of bureaucratization have changed.. Bureaucratization and other
forms of homogenization emerge… out of structuration… This process,
in turn, is effected largely by the state and the professions, which
have become the great rationalizers of the second half of the twentieth
century’ (DiMaggio and Powell 1983: 147). What ultimately drives
rationalization processes remains an open question, even for Weber.
This implies a shift from a ‘closed system of logic’ to an ‘open
logic’, taking ‘bounded rationality’, ‘satiscing’ (Simon 1957) and
‘uncertainty’ into account, which ‘reect something fundamental about
the cultures surrounding complex organizations—the fact that our
culture does not contain concepts for simultaneously thinking about
rationality and indeterminateness… The newer tradition with its focus
on organizational coping with uncertainty is indeed a major advance’
(Thompson 2003: 9-10).
In his Understanding Weber, Sam Whimster dedicates a separate chapter
on ‘Going beyond Weber’ in which he states that, ‘The expansion in the
scope of Weber’s thinking should not be deliberated over as if it was a
planned or preconceived strategy. Rather, it is perhaps better thought of
as an eforescence in Weber’s remarkable capacity to develop an original
thesis in a variety of different contexts’ (Whimster 2007: 193-94).
This article is not addressing the need to move ‘beyond Weber’
by discussing the need to move beyond Weber’s concepts of ‘logic’,
‘singularity of causation for modernity’, ‘rationalism’, or ‘agency’ (Bruun
and Whimster 2012; Whimster and Lash 1987). However, a critical look
at these concepts also allow to move to NWS. The ‘beyond Weber’
discussion is also relevant for the debate of how well Weber ‘travels’
to non-Western, and non- or less developed democratic systems. Ang
studies the Chinese context and contrasts classical ‘public bureaucracies’
with ‘bureau-franchising’ as a ‘beyond Weber’ model where market and
hierarchy are combined (Ang 2017). Cho et al. concluded that Weberian
professional bureaucracy ‘functions differently within different
democratic contexts… [and] works better in less democratic countries in
terms of its impact on bureaucratic performance’ (Cho et al. 2013: 131).
System transitions are multiple. From closed and certain to open
and uncertain, impacting organisational theory; from national to global,
impacting reform policy transfer theory; from state to society, impacting
innovation theory; from consequences (results) to consequences and
appropriateness (values) impacting behavioural theories; from adminis-
trations as standard bureaucracies to mixed variety hybrid organisations,
impacting coordination theories.
These transitions suggest a positive need to go ‘beyond Weber’.
However, there is also a negative push away from Weber, emphasising all
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pathologies of bureaucracy such as ‘red tape’ or obstacles to innovation
and change (Rhodes 1997). There are more fundamental criticisms based
on the disbelief in ‘legality’ for legitimacy (see also Stivers 2000) or the
public choice theory-driven arguments where monopolistic expansive
bureaucracies push for budget maximalisation, reduced responsiveness
to users and increasing inefcient delivery.
However, there are also arguments varying from a defence of
(amended versions of) ‘bureaucracy’ to really ‘praising bureaucracy’ (du
Gay 2000). In principle, bureaucracy could support economic growth.
Evans and Rauch developed a Weberianness scale which shows that,
‘Weberianness provides a parsimonious analytically satisfying account
of observed differences in regional growth performance’ (Evans and
Rauch 1999: 760). Also, ‘Bureaucratic effectiveness of public institutions,
in a given country, is likely to be decisive for that country’s ability to
reduce poverty’ (Henderson et al. 2007: 528). Or, ‘[A] prima facie case
has been made for the proposition that the arrival of post-bureaucratic
organizational forms has tended to reduce both the completeness and
the actual inuence of organizational memories’ (Pollitt 2009: 215).
In his ‘praise to bureaucracy’ du Gay states that ‘If we allow radical
humanist critique or entrepreneurial discourse to set the terms by which
the bureaucratic ethos of ofce is to be understood and evaluated,
then we might expect the job that the public bureau performs for us,
among us, to become increasingly inconceivable. Perhaps it is time,
once again, to appreciate the ethos of bureaucratic ofce—albeit in a
suitably contextualized manner, as a positive extension of the repertoire
of human possibilities rather than merely as a dehumanizing or
disempowering subtraction’ (du Gay 2000: x).
There is a theoretical debate between, on the one hand, the ‘organisa-
tional’ theories, which include the Weberian frameworks that consider
bureaucracy and hierarchy as functional, effective and efcient, and, on
the other hand, the public choice theories, which consider bureaucracies
as economically and administratively inefcient (Farrell and Morris
1999). For public choice theories, ‘Three specic characteristics of public
bureaucracy are believed to lead to a lack of efciency and effectiveness:
the monopolistic structure of public service markets, the absence of valid
indicators of organizational performance, and the large size of many
government agencies’ (Boyne 1999b: 43).
There is an ideological debate between two schools, on the one hand
following Weber’s argument in Economy and Society, and conrmed by
Polanyi (1944), that bureaucracy is a tool for (capitalist) growth, and on
the other hand the ‘Smithian view’, that government is the enemy of
that growth (Evans and Rauch 1999: 749).
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There is a practical debate that analyses, for example, health and
education (i.e., UK GPs, head-teachers and social workers) which
states that, ‘Market-based reforms were intended to undermine key
characteristics associated with bureaucracy’ (Farrell and Morris 1999:
35). However, that debate concludes that, ‘Public services are not
“beyond bureaucracy”‘ (Farrell and Morris 1999: 36).
On top of the transitions and the debate, there is the observation
that, ‘Basic political and legal issues of responsible management in a
postmodern era are inadequately dened and addressed’ (Lynn 2001:
155). That should make us consider the question of what is ‘beyond
Weber’, even when bureaucracies could be necessary, but not sufcient
to combine stable service delivery with chronic crises governance in a
context of required innovations.
A range of new models has been proposed, specically the Neo
Weberian State (NWS) model based on hierarchy, New Public Manage-
ment (NPM) based on market and New Public Governance (NPG) based
on networks (Pollitt and Bouckaert 2017). This article focuses on NWS,
and its design and potential as an answer to future governance needs.
4. Constructing the NWS ‘ideal type’ model ‘beyond Weber’
A crucial debate is whether public administration makes the modern
state or whether the state makes public administration (Stillmann 1997).
In any case, designing NWS is about ‘institutions’ and ‘institutional
design’, even when some scholars observe a crisis of administrative
sciences (Bull 2012). ‘In this mode, like NPM and NPG, NWS serves
as an omega (Pollitt and Bouckaert 2011: 119). This means, according
to Stivers ‘that an alternative is worth imagining—not a return to the
previous version, which dened governance as a statecraft on the
part of government administrators, but a model built on assumptions
that a shared reality already exists, one that envisions the state as the
outgrowth of mutual promising, and politics as talk that brings different
people together around mutual concerns’ (Stivers 2008: 111-12).
Moving ‘beyond Weber’ obviously raises the question of the
direction of ‘neo’. Changing bureaucracies is certainly part of the
‘modernisation’ of systems. According to Riggs, the dynamics of
industrialisation, democratisation and nationalism as expressions of
‘modernity’ have implications for dynamic changes of bureaucracy
and public administration; for example the New Public Administration
movement ‘sought to democratize bureaucracy by inducing ofcials to
be more responsive to the clienteles they affected and had to work with’
(Riggs 1997: 349; see also the debates of Minnowbrook I). Rethinking
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© Max Weber Studies 2023.
bureaucracies implied a range of hypothesised (underlying) dynamics
that have been modelled over time, based on life cycles, dialectics or
evolutions (Kaufman 1981: 8).
A starting position, in a set of core claims, in Pollitt and Bouckaert
(2004) was that the three dimensions of the Weberian space (see Figure
1) changed their nature. Two spaces could be dened. There is an actor
space with three dimensions: the state with its public sector; businesses
with the private-for-prot sector; and society with its not-for-prot
sector. There is a driver space (see Figure 2) with three vectors which
trigger and drive these actors to action within and between their spheres
using a range of mechanisms: hierarchy (with HTM or hierarchy-type-
mechanisms), markets (with MTM or market-type-mechanisms) and
networks (with NTM or network-type-mechanisms). Vectors adjust their
content to a dual actor space and driver space. The driver space denes
a consolidated HMN governance space for the three actors. Weber’s
rationalisation then turns into a combined logic of consequences and
appropriateness.
Hierarchy remains the most common coordination mechanism:
‘Authority exercised through a disciplined hierarchy of impartial and
professional ofcials’ (Pollitt and Bouckaert 2017: 22). Another core claim
was the ‘rule of law’ and of the ‘state’: ‘To modernize the traditional state
apparatus so that it becomes more professional, more efcient and more
responsive to citizens. Businesslike methods may have a subsidiary
role in this, but the state remains a distinctive actor with its own rules,
methods and culture’ (Pollitt and Bouckaert 2017: 22).
NWS ‘has its strength in reminding us what states can do and how
important democratic politics is as a guiding and monitoring force. It
accepts that there are particular contexts where the state must coerce
its citizens and where public order must be sustained, even at some
price in terms of individual liberties. It places public service ethics
closer to the centre of attention and avoids the simplistic assumption
that everyone is a self-interested utility maximizer. On the other hand,
the NWS perspective is much less clear about how the state should deal
with some of the other powerful players in the policy process—big
corporations, intergovernmental organizations and international non-
governmental organizations or organizations running “data clouds”.
Furthermore, it tends to assume that public ofcials will, either always
or usually, prove pliable to sensible, modernizing reforms’ (Pollitt and
Bouckaert 2017: 214).
A crucial component of systems is the ‘locus’ of activities, as a division
of ‘labour’ for organizing and delivering services. In general there are
three main actors with different purposes and different dynamics (Fig. 2).
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The State with its public sector as its administration is driven by
budget al.locations and nanced by mostly taxes. The private-for-
prot business sector with its private companies is driven by income
from market transactions. The not-for-prot, or non-prot, or non-
governmental sector with its civil society organizations as NGOs is
driven by subsidies and donations. It is important to map these three
actors for at least three reasons.
First, even when the consolidated wealth of a country is generated
by all three actors together, the clusters and volumes of activities
may differ signicantly. In several policy elds all three actors have a
complementary role in policy cycles and delivery of services.
Second, ‘locus’ and ‘focus’ are connected. Since the interaction
of responsibility-accountability will be different, the way to focus
on which results and which values will be different. General interest
is different from individual or group interests. The way to govern or
administrate also will differ: business administration differs from public
administration, which differs from not-for-prot management. This
may be emphasized by legal frames: public law differs from private law,
even in countries which have ‘common law’ systems. Some countries
allow for a differentiated locus of services, with a related differentiated
focus, e.g., for hospitals, schools, or security services which could be
public, private-for-prot, or private-not-for-prot.
Third, for this reason of connecting ‘locus’ and ‘focus’, shifts of
activities between these three actors are pushing for reforms. Shifts
between actors are common: from ‘public’ to ‘private’ (privatization) or
vice-versa (nationalization); from ‘public’ to society (co-production) or
vice-versa; from business to society and vice-versa.
Figure 2: Three actors: State, Business, and Civil Society
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Weber’s context was a ‘night-watchman’ State and this shifted after
the Second World War to a Welfare State, which then evolved into
minimal state models. NWS implies a signicant role of the State and its
public sector in the shaping and delivering policies and services.
The fundamental core claim of NWS is not (only) its State share in
GDP, but its predominantly hierarchy driven nature of the system.
This is different from predominantly market-driven, or network-driven
systems.
An ‘ideal type model’ driven by ‘hierarchy’ relies on laws, norms
and standards for guidance, control and steering (Figure 3). The State,
its government and administration (bureaucracy) are responding to
the rule of law to be a ‘State of Law’ and to legitimize its democratic
authority and power. Theoretical foundations are provided by theories
of the ‘State of Law’, and of Weberian bureaucratic systems. Currently
NWS builds upon these theories, rationalities, and logics, to go ‘beyond
Weber’. NWS is not (just) following a logic of Weberian ‘rationalization’,
but both the logics of consequences (results), and of appropriateness
(inclusion, equity, values within the Rule of Law) (March and Olson
2009, 2011). Both logics do not just guide the functioning of ‘hierarchy’
itself within the State and its public sector, but also, they guide how
hierarchy-type-mechanisms are used for handling for-prot and not-
for-prot actors, and their ‘markets’ (M) and ‘networks’ (N) in its meta-
governance of NWS.
An ‘ideal type model’ driven by ‘market’ relies on principles of
exchange and competition for its guidance, control and steering (Figure
4). The ‘invisible hand’ drives supply and demand, shaped by price
mechanisms, and based on self-interest as prot and loss. Government
is the guardian of these markets by regulating bargaining, information,
and power. Theoretical foundations are provided by neo-institutional
economics. Currently, NPM (new public management) is shaping a
market-driven governance space within the private-for-prot sector,
but also by using market-type-mechanisms within and between the
public sector and the not-for-prot sector.
An ‘ideal type model’ driven by ‘network’ relies on principles
of cooperation and solidarity for its guidance, control and steering
(Figure 5). Shared values, common problem analyses, consensus,
loyalty, reciprocity, informality and reputation are driving this system.
Government becomes an enabler and participant of these networks
by supporting mutual cooperation, co-production, partnerships and
network trust. Theoretical foundations are network theories. NPG
(New Public Governance) is shaping a network-driven governance
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space within the not-for-prot sector, but also by using network-type-
mechanisms within and between the public sector and the private-for-
prot sector.
From bureaucracy (Bürokratie) to hierarchy
According to du Gay (2005: 1, 2-3) ‘bureaucracy… has proven remarkably
resilient… bureaucratic forms of organization have played, and continue
to play, a vital and productive role in ordering existence in a number of
domains—public and private, governmental and voluntary.’ However,
bureaucracy is not just an instrumental and organizational expression
of hierarchy as a system driver. Bureaucracy, as hierarchy, shifts from
instrument to institution (Olson 1997, 2006).
A ‘renewed concern with hierarchical forms of management’ (du
Gay 2005: 2) has ‘upgraded a classical focus on bureaucracy’. This
upgrading could also happen through ‘bending’ bureaucracy, which is
‘not the same as transcending it’ (Newman 2005: 206): ‘Rather than a
shift to network governance, many practitioners experience themselves
as undergoing a resurgence of bureaucratic modes of (hierarchical)
governing’ (Newman 2005: 207). This also includes a reference to the
‘bureau’ as a unit of governance (Goodsell 2005).
This working paper will not develop the transformation of ‘economy’
(Wirtschaft) to for-prot business with market, nor the transition from
‘community’ (Gemeinschaft) to ‘society’ (Gesellschaft) and not-for-prot
with ‘network’.
Hierarchy versus market
According to Williamson, in line with economic neo-institutionalist
transaction cost, it is necessary to provide an economic appreciation for
alternative modes of governance, even for an administration such as the
State Department and its possible privatisation (Williamson 1999: 307-
Figure 3: NWS as an H-dominated and driven HMN governance space
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308). Williamson concludes that, ‘There is an efciency place for public
bureaucracy, but that all modes of governance (markets, hybrids, rms,
regulation), of which public bureaucracy is one, need to be kept in their
place’ (Williamson 1999: 306).
Recognising that ‘politics and economics are different,’ Williamson
answers the question, ‘Can a private bureaucracy, with or without
support of regulation, replicate the attributes of public bureaucracies?’
by stating that, ‘Replication of a public bureau by a private rm, with or
without the support of regulation, is impossible’ (Williamson 1999: 311).
The interaction between hierarchies and markets is about ‘why some
services are provided by government, but also how the efcient mix of
public services changes over time’ (MacLeod 1999: 345). That is linked
to an ‘optimal mix between government and markets as a problem in
dynamic transaction cost economics’ (MacLeod 1999: 345). However,
even when reforms are aimed at a shift from hierarchy to markets,
‘the supposed “transformation” of market structures in the public
sector seems to have been exaggerated’ (Boyne 1999b: 45). There are
four reasons: ‘Some services have continued to operate largely through
hierarchy rather than contracts… allocation of central government
resources to local agencies has continued to reect estimates of service
need… the link between new “structures” and changes in “conduct”
in the public sector seems to have been weakened by bureaucratic
resistance… the new market arrangements have involved little direct
consumer choice between alternative suppliers’ (Boyne 1999b: 45).
Hierarchy versus network
There is a theoretical school that claims that a post-bureaucratic system
leads to a networked system (Klijn and Koppenjan 2015). This shift is
supposed to be the result of a systemic tendency away from hierarchy
to networks, in combination with a de-bureaucratisation and de-
regulation policy. This combined tendency and policy was a reaction
to an increasingly perceived ‘iron cage’ which needed to be dismantled:
‘The “iron cage” became less a matter of technical expertise and
economic efciency and much more an issue of cultural legitimation
and political stabilization’ (Reed 2015: 124). Reed continues to state:
‘Post-bureaucratic/network theory tries to convince us that we have
reached a period in human history and development where the “variable
geometry” of network organizing is strong and powerful enough to
displace, marginalize, and eventually replace the “xed geometry” of
bureaucratic organization’ (Reed 2015: 133).
As a result, combining H with N results in a ‘networked bureaucratic
world’ where “public administration is now less hierarchical and insular
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and is increasingly networked’ (O’Toole 1997: 443). One of the reasons
for broadening the HN reection is to put H in a context of effective
democratic governance. According to O’Toole, ‘The main issue… is
how, not whether, democratic ideals can be woven more tightly into
the fabric of administration’ (O’Toole 1997: 444) especially since, ‘public
administrators may be well positioned to help facilitate the horizontal
development of network arrays while they also encourage within these
arrays a public-interested character’ (O’Toole 1997: 457).
NWS as HMN: A whole-of-government (WoG) approach in a whole-of-
society (WoS) space
One of the crucial points of attention for effective policies and service
delivery is co-ordination (Bouckaert et al. 2010). Shifting from managing
single organisations to governing clusters of organisations, which
deliver outputs to realise shared outcomes, to realise common policies,
is becoming a necessity to realise, for example the 17 Sustainable
Development Goals (UN World Public Sector Report 2018; UN CEPA
2018), as well as to ght major crises such as the Covid-19 pandemic or
upcoming crises (Bouckaert et al. 2021).
This has pushed for a vertical consolidation with a whole-of-
government perspective (WoG), which integrates levels of government
from central (and European) to local government. It also pushes for
horizontal consolidation, partnerships and cooperation with a whole-of-
society (WoS) perspective, which connects public sector organisations
with private sector organisations, NGOs and citizen groups. According
to Putnam, a civic community stimulates market-based economic
developments as well as effective government: ‘This history suggests
that both states and markets operate more efciently in civic settings’
(Putnam 1993: 181).
Within a NWS setting, the public sector takes the lead by ensuring
meta-governance of hierarchies, markets and networks, and by
including this WoG approach within a WoS approach following both
the logic of consequences and the logic of appropriateness.
5. Exploring the dynamics of the HMN Space of NWS
Reform in the public sector does not consist of one iteration where a
‘solution’ is solving a ‘problem’. It is a complex set of measures in a
dynamic sequence of interactions between problems and solutions,
which may generate new problems.
First, a solution may not be the answer to the question to be solved.
In some cases, the features of the solution do not cover the failures of the
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problem. In some cases, this is a combined result of not analysing and
evaluating a problem sufciently, along with copy-pasting solutions
offered by others in different conditions. Second, even when the solution
is an answer to the problem, the solution may not be well-implemented.
This is the case where, for example, deregulation sometimes became
so extreme that functional market conditions were disturbed. Also,
marketisation did not always follow the conditions of the output
specicity of a specic policy eld. Third, even when solutions answer
problems and are well-implemented, in some cases these solutions
became objectives in themselves and turned into a belief system, which
shifted to an ideological principle, as in, ‘The market is always right’.
One could read the reform shifts from H to M, from M to N with M,
and from MN back to H, as such a dynamic sequence of interactions
between problems and solutions.
The general reform narrative, almost like a syllogism, is:
(1) H, as bureaucracy is dysfunctional and negative (see King and
Stivers 1998; Stivers 2008), therefore there is a need for a shift to
M, since M is functional and performing, however, M failures are
emerging, therefore there is a need to shift and/or add
(2) N as a ‘third way’, however, N seems not to be a panacea, therefore,
especially in periods of crises, there is a need to shift back to
(3) H, even when M and N stay partly on board.
(1) From H to M
Yes, since markets (or quasi-markets or deregulated markets) solve
all the failures of H and bureaucracies. Competition drives to make
efciency gains and lower costs, based on information which is available
and framed by minimal-cost-contracting (Williamson 1985). This
happens in an ‘anti-government era ‘ (King and Stivers 1998, chapter 1
and chapter 12).
But ultimately markets are not a panacea. Some production functions
are too complex and have too high output specicities, which complicates
monitoring. This triggers problems of co-ordination between supply or
providers, and demand or purchasers.
One of the complicating elements is that for some public services
there is a disconnection between the different roles taken by citizens as
customers, such as decide, pay, use and benet (for example kindergartens
or prisons), which are not compatible with a ‘competitive’ playing eld.
However, markets and quasi-markets, which are using adversarial
contracts, have some problems which may turn into failures, based on
the conditions for functional markets and/or quasi-markets, such as
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sufcient competition for pushing prices downwards, sufcient levels
of transparency of information for providers and purchasers, and
sufciently low costs for contracting and co-ordination. It is clear that in
sectors such as health or social care this is not the case (see Kirkpatrick
1999 for local government in the UK; see Aulich 1999 for local government
in Australia).
This is due to a range of reasons such as, for example, rather small
numbers of providers and complex production functions, because of the
specicities of the services provided.
(2) Therefore: From M to N
Yes, networks are using obligational contracts which are much more
t for purpose in contexts which need more open-ended arrangements
based on goodwill and shared values: ‘This is based on the assumption
that many of the costs associated with markets could be reduced if
purchasers and providers were able to collaborate more effectively’
(Kirkpatrick 1999: 9). A preference for networks is also derived from
an assumption that these mechanisms work well in the corporate sector
(Pollitt 1993: 7) and travel well to the public sector: ‘A common view
is that arm’s length contractual relationships are less appropriate than
more collaborative approaches to working.. [T]he most appropriate
governance structure in future will be some intermediate form of quasi-
market (embedded in social networks)’ (Kirkpatrick 1999: 9).
But networks generate problems: ‘The study of networks raises issues
of equivalent importance to the study of bureaucracy and democratic
accountability… Accountability can no longer be specic to an
institution’ (Rhodes 1996: 667; see also Stivers 2008: 111). This criticism
is shared by Stivers: ‘The connotation of governance has expanded to
include a panoply of nonprot and business organizations while the
image of the public “manager” has narrowed to dealmaker and contract
monitor’ (Stivers 2008: 5). Networks in combination with markets, and
a minimal state, redene governance in a critical way.
(3) Therefore: From H to M and N, and back to H?
Yes, ‘Literature on quasi-markets tends to over-exaggerate the
advantages of networks and ignore the potential benets of ‘traditional’
hierarchy’ (Kirkpatrick 1999: 12).
Boyne (1999b) concludes for the UK’s New Labour reforms that the
combined effort of upsizing rather than downsizing, insourcing rather
than outsourcing, and re-leveling rather than abolishing ‘amount to a
shift away from markets and contracts and towards bureaucracy and
hierarchy’ (Boyne 1999b: 48). He adds that ‘Shifts from one organizational
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form to another are likely to be difcult, partly because of professional
and managerial resistance to change’ (Boyne 1999a: 2).
In studying compulsory competitive tendering (CCT) to make local
government in Victoria, Australia, more ‘business-like’ and market-
oriented, Aulich (1999) observes new processes (but with compliance
orientation), client-provider split (but generating uncertainty and
tensions), strategic management (but in a pragmatic way) and also
organisational capture by senior bureaucrats. Aulich concludes that
CCT and its push to more market ‘have not reshaped councils as post-
bureaucratic organizations at this stage’ (Aulich 1999: 43).
The concepts of ‘bureaucracy’ and ‘post-bureaucracy’ also trigger
some controversy. According to Höp, ‘If “Weberian bureaucracy” is
equated in the old way with hierarchy, elements of bureaucracy are
bound to be found in any organization. It will also be easy enough
to identify non-bureaucratic (i.e. non-hierarchical) elements… But if
bureaucracy is inherently exible, for example, and is compatible with
all manner of different arrangements, then what have been diagnosed
as ‘post-bureaucratic’ arrangements must appear as merely variants
within bureaucracy… Given this point of reference, the advent of
“post-bureaucracy” would require either the complete disappearance
of hierarchies, which is inconceivable, or the identication of some
arrangements as inherently incompatible with bureaucracy’ (Höp
2006: 19).
Dynamics of change between H, M and N could also have a range of drivers
In some cases there are clear ideological choices against H. There is a ‘failure
in much of this literature to evaluate all possible alternatives to markets.
This means that far less emphasis is placed on the possibility of a return to
hierarchy as a future governance structure for public services’ (Kirkpatrick
1999: 10). This theoretical bias is related to ‘Labour’s “modernization”
agenda for public service [and] is based upon the assumption that a “third
way” is possible. By denition this excludes other alternatives, such as
hierarchy, from the equation’ (Kirkpatrick 1999: 12).
There is also a way to understand the dynamics in the NWS space with
H, M and N through contingency theory and pragmatism. The choice between
H, M and N should be a matter of ‘practicality’ instead of ‘ideological
conviction’ (Rhodes 1996: 653): ‘To markets and hierarchies, we can now
add networks. None of these structures for authoritatively allocating
resources and exercising control and co-ordination is intrinsically “good”
or “bad”. The choice is not necessarily or inevitably a matter of ideological
conviction but of practicality: that is, under what conditions does each
governing structure work effectively’ (Rhodes 1996: 653).
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A third approach, linked to historical neo-institutionalism, especially
path dependency, could state that ‘It is unlikely that any government will
be able to re-establish older forms of hierarchical control’ (Kirkpatrick
1999: 12).
Remaining windows of opportunity for H
Even when institutional economics recognises the strengths of H as
bureaucracy (Ouchi 1980), it is accepted that ‘Bureaucracy remains the
prime example of hierarchy or co-ordination by administrative order
and, for all the recent changes, it is still a major way of delivering services’
(Rhodes 1996: 653).
There are also new pro-bureaucracy schools in organisational theory
which emphasise the ‘more secure, bureaucratic contracts of employment
and how these can help to foster employee loyalty and exibility’
(Kirkpatrick 1999: 12).
Currently, crises governance, whether it is the terrorism threats since
9/11 (2001), the global nancial and banking crisis (2008), the Japanese
Fukushima disaster (2011) or the Covid-19 pandemic (2020–2022),
demonstrate that only or predominantly M, or only or predominantly
N, would not have managed or handled these crises. The state is back
and neo-liberal obsessions with the market are losing momentum.
Also, as well as routine service delivery and crises governance,
mechanisms to trigger innovation ultimately—and effectively—seem to
come from the state, with its public sector and its hierarchy (Mazzucato
2013, 2018, 2021).
In general, Olson ‘questions the fashionable ideas that bureaucratic
organisation is obsolescent and that there has been a paradigmatic
shift from (Weberian) bureaucracy to market organisation or network
organisation’ (Olson 2006: 2, especially footnote 1).
Typology of dynamics between H, M and N
Shifting to new systems and moving between ‘pure’ ideal systems (and
their quasi-versions) could follow a range of patterns.
There could be a sequential dynamic: from bureaucracy and H to M to
N and back to H. This logical try-out could be seen as a chronological
sequence. However, in applying this to the NHS, Exworthy et al.
conclude: ‘The supposition of paradigm shifts is too simplistic: the three
organisational forms always co-existed, and continue to do so’ (Exworthy
et al. 1999: 15).
This brings us to simultaneous dynamics, which combine different
intensities of H, M and N, as Olson shows for the EU: ‘The European
Union also illustrates that market building and network building do not
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exclude bureaucratic organization… Public administration is organized
on the basis of authority as well as competition and cooperation’ (Olson
2006: 14,18).
This brings us to hybridization, blending and quasi- or pseudo models
(sub infra) and the empirical question of converging dynamics, which is
still a pending debate: ‘The inevitability and convergence hypothesis is
not supported by empirical observations’ (Olson 2006: 13). However,
Pollitt (2007) observes convergence and divergence in the European
reform scene.
6. NWS as Hmn, not HMN
According to Exworthy et al., ‘The types do not represent a two-
dimensional continuum, with markets and hierarchy occupying
opposite ends of a linear spectrum in the middle. They are better viewed
in orthogonal or three-dimensional terms” (Exworthy et al. 1999: 20).
Figure 3 provides a three-dimensional space where initially H, M and
N are analytically equal and separate system drivers. However, the
question is about the leading driver and the proportions in a HMN-mix
of drivers which create governance spaces for and between the three
actors (gure 2) of the public sector, the private sector, and the not-
for-prot sector. When M would be a dominant vector, in size and by
dominating the two other vectors, the ideal type model can be labeled
NPM, as in Figure 4.
Figure 4: NPM as an M-dominated and driven HMN governance space
In its essence, NPM is driven by market mechanisms to deliver services.
The NPM ideal type ultimately results in a ‘market state’ where citizens
are reduced to customers. As customers they are subject to supply and
demand of goods and services. The customer-provider split ensures
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this interaction. Where full market competition is not possible, quasi-
markets are designed, even resulting in public-public or public-private
competition. The legitimacy of this model is based on its assumed
efcient performance. This results in a shift from ‘traditional forms of
governance through state hierarchies’ (Newman 2005: 193) to markets
and networks with deregulation, co-production and partnerships.
When N would be the dominant and driving vector, in size and by
dominating the two other vectors, the ideal type model can be labeled
NPG, as in Figure 5. In its essence, NPG is driven by networks with
shared values and objectives (Kostakis 2011). This NPG ideal type
model ultimately results in a ‘network state’ with consensual network
members where mutual trust is a bonding principle to deliver services.
The legitimacy is based on shared values and a culture of co-design, co-
decide, co-produce and co-evaluate.
In looking at the HMN space from N as a ‘commons’ perspective,
Palumbo and Scott state that, ‘As a set of managerial practices, the
commons are the precipitate of the successful cooperative strategies…
based on a larger motivational base than that underlying hierarchies
and markets… A non-conventional model of bureaucracy could employ
this social capital in several ways. First, it could use the commons to
open new democratic spaces and thus deepen the legitimacy of the
political system. Second, it could rely on them to redene the political
articulation of the modern state so as to strengthen collective identities.
Third, it could integrate the commons in a revised system of social checks
and balances which would increase accountability while reducing the
costs of government. In short, a non-conventional model of bureaucracy
views the commons as a pivotal medium for bringing about a multi-
level form of governance’ (Palumbo and Scott 2005: 302).
Figure 5: NPG as an N-dominated and driven HMN governance space
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Hierarchy as the ever-present vector in HMN
When H would be the dominant vector, in size and by dominating
the two other vectors, the ideal type model can be labeled NWS, as in
Figure 2.
There are many reasons, and also empirical evidence, to conrm
that H ultimately dominates and should/could guarantee functioning
markets and networks. For networks, Palumbo and Scott state: ‘What,
if anything, justies state action and public bureaucracy?.. Since the
community connected to a global common is the nation state as a
whole, or several national communities, only state agencies or interstate
organizations seem to have the decision-making power to raise the
resources and expertise needed to run the commons properly and
effectively’ (Palumbo and Scott 2005: 298). Not only is H able to ensure
N, but it can also protect N against M: ‘For us, public bureaucracy nds
a further justication in protecting the commons from enclosure by the
market and the corrosive activity of free-riders. Public bureaucracies
can bring this goal about not by replacing network with hierarchies,
but by empowering local communities with the decision-making power
needed to deter free-riding and foster social cooperation’ (Palumbo and
Scott 2005: 299). This is conrmed by Stivers who states ‘the question of
whether markets and networks can be counted on to keep the kind of
order citizens expect even from the minimal state’ (Stivers 2008: 110).
This is in line with an argument that H has the capacity to ensure
co-ordination and meta-governance of H, M and N (Meuleman 2018;
Bouckaert, Peters and Verhoest 2022) within a WoG/WoS framework
(see also Christensen and Laegreid 2007). This is also in line with the
‘imperative of cross-sector working’ between the three actors (public,
private-for-prot, civil society not-for-prot) to ensure service delivery
(Butler and Gilchrist 2016).
Different H for different models
It could be observed that the nature of H changes according to the
contextual space of NWS, NPM or NPG. H in NWS is based on law-
based authority. H in NPM is related to the hierarchy of a ‘principle’ to
its ‘agents’ in its markets. H in NPG is most probably more informal H
in its networks.
‘Some of the biggest NPM reforms (such as the introduction of a
quasi-market within the UK NHS from 1989) were implemented by
a erce use of hierarchical authority, beating down opposition and
criticism. Hierarchical authority has also often been used to make NPG
partnerships or NPM contracting out mandatory’ (Pollitt and Bouckaert
2017: 114).
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According to Diefenbach and Sillince, ‘hierarchical order is quite
persistent’ and ‘hierarchy is much more widespread than thought’
(Diefenbach and Sillince 2011: 1515). They conclude that. ‘Whenever
formal hierarchy decreases, informal hierarchy increases… people
apply the dominant principle(s) of formal hierarchal ordering also to
the informal ordering of social structures and processes’ (Diefenbach
and Sillince 2011: 1530).
NWS: upgrading H with democracy
Weber was aware that a technocratic and rational vision on bureaucracy
could lead to its dangers of (expert) dominance and insulation. That is
why a democratic control was needed, based on a distinction between
politician and civil servant.
What are the checks and balances in NWS? Is H being balanced by
MN. Is MN balanced by H? Is H balanced by democratic mechanisms? In
line with the historical Friedrich/Finer debate where Friedrich relied on
the internal professional ethics of civil servants to ensure mechanisms of
accountability, Finer relied on democratic mechanisms of accountability
between the public sector with its government and parliament. From this
point of view, it should be taken into account that ‘dissatisfaction with
bureaucratic performance spreads, and the capacity of representative
institutions to monitor and inspire their bureaucracies has become
increasingly problematic’ (Riggs 1997: 350). Stivers puts clearly that
‘responsiveness begins with listening (…), democratically minded
public administrators may want to pay attention to their own listening
abilities in order to be able better to pay attention—to respond—to the
public’ (Stivers 2001: 232-33).
According to Olson, ‘Democracy is a distinct political order that
provides a distinct historical-institutional context for governance and
design’ (Olson 1997: 206). This implies that hierarchies in democracies
will be different from hierarchies in non-democratic systems.
The academic disconnection, in many countries, of political science
and public administration, has also triggered a biased critical thinking
of how bureaucracy as a hierarchy should interact with politics and
democratic institutions. Differences in politico-administrative eco-
systems impact in different ways on how to reconcile bureaucracies
in democracies. For example, according to Meier’s thought-provoking
analysis, the US needs ‘more bureaucracy and less democracy’ (Meier
1997)—at least it did at the end of the 1990s.
However, the logic could also be reversed. According to Cho et al., ‘It
is likely that the level of democracy within a particular national context
will also inuence the way administrative features associated with that
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state’s bureaucracy function, such as those associated with the WB
[Weberian bureaucracy]… in more democratically developed contexts,
it may be better for bureaucracy to be less insulated than in developing
contexts’ (Cho et al. 2013: 131). As Savage states, ‘Formal associations
remain crucial forms which are essential for a democratic polity with an
active civil society’ (Savage 2005: 311).
There could be a paradoxical tension between bureaucracy, and
therefore H, and democracy. On the one hand there is a Weberian
bureaucracy as a closed ‘iron cage’, which, following its strengthening
instrumental and technocratic rational scientic drive could become
disconnected and self-contained. On the other hand, democracy builds
upon and needs bureaucratic administrations: ‘Institutions, ideas, and
values are woven into the complex fabric that constitutes democratic
governance’ (Lynn 2001: 145).
Emphasising only a strong state may result in a biased focus on
reforms. For this reason, it is necessary ‘to include the aspects of civil
society and participation in the discussion. In that sense, it could be
argued that the NWS presupposes a viable democracy next to the
Weberian bureaucracy’ (Drechsel and Kattel 2008/2009: 97).
As a result, within NWS, the embeddedness of democracy in H
ensures a dynamic and open vision of NWS beyond a pure instrumental
drive through rationalization (Stivers 2001). In line with Waldo, Stivers
agrees that two forces in tension, efciency and democracy, dene
public administration as an intellectual enterprise. For that reason,
constructing public administration, as a way of making administrative
sciences and democracy work together, should not be done at ‘too low
a plane’ (Stivers quoting Waldo, Stivers 2000: 134). As Olson states:
‘A better theoretical understanding of how key features of democratic
institutions inuence the relative importance of design in institutional
change, requires ideas beyond those portraying design as a question
of nding the most cost-effective tool for achieving immediate policy
benets’ (Olson 1997: 224-225). March and Olson summarize this by
saying: ‘The justication for democratic governance and democratic
change lies ultimately not in a logic of consequences but in a logic
of appropriateness’ (March and Olson 1995: 251). Therefore NWS
design should therefore be following both logics of consequences and
appropriateness in a consolidated and mutually reinforcing way.
Weber’s instrumental vision of bureaucracy underscores its
superiority because of its procedural rationality. However, Weber’s
‘iron cage’ image states that, ‘Humanity is condemned to accept
bureaucracy’s human costs because modern society cannot do without
its technical benets’ (Adler 2012: 247). For that reason, NWS should
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be an open and democratic model in combination with elements of
markets and networks.
Since bureaucracy is a ‘cornerstone of the modern state and of repre-
sentative democratic governmental regimes’ (du Gay 2020: 78), it could
protect against political shifts towards anti-democratic or illiberal ver-
sions of democracy (Hajnal 2020). However, a question is whether that
is an adequate answer to and endorsement of a ‘deep state’. Is NWS
an effective tool against ‘deconstructing the administrative state’ (Kettl
2017) ?
7. NWS: from ideal type to reality?
‘We believe that what we see in the continental European states is a
distinctive reform model, one which we earlier labelled the neo-
Weberian state (NWS)’ (Pollitt and Bouckaert 2017: 121).
NWS: H with MN, H is necessary and indispensable, but not sufcient
To move from an ideal type to reality, NWS needs to combine H with
M and N, as Olson also conrms: ‘Bureaucratic organization is part
of a repertoire of overlapping, supplementary, and competing forms
coexisting in contemporary democracies, and so are market organization
and network organization’ (Olson 2006: 18).
However, this NWS reality implies some essential features, even
when there are signicant variations between (continental European)
countries. These fundamental core premises of the NWS ideal type are:
▪ A democratic state as a frame for governance and decision-making;
▪ The ‘rule of law’ as the supreme principle, which results in
‘hierarchy’ as a dominant organising driver, which also leads to an
open, accessible, participatory, affordable, transparent, sound and
trustworthy ‘bureaucracy’ and public sector for all citizens;
▪ A responsible, accountable, and signicant H, which also pro-
actively directs M and N, following not just logics of consequences
(for its performance), but also logics of appropriateness (which
explicitly includes equity and inclusion). This includes pro-
active interactions and (hierarchical) use of market and network
mechanisms from a whole of government point of view, for a
whole of society perspective with private for-prot, civil society
not-for-prot and public sector actors.
This should result in a functional combination of (i) guaranteed and
inclusive routine service delivery, combined (ii) with effective handling
of chronic crises of governance and fueled by (iii) constant innovations
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for government and society. NWS is responsible and accountable for
these three major systemic missions. In this context, there is space for
improvement and upgrading of the Weberian system to NWS, to adjust
to circumstances and to generate the capacity to solve or cope with
major societal problems.
In line with NPM and NPG, there is a narrative of hollowing out the
state (Frederickson and Frederickson 2006; Stivers 2008) to international
and global levels, to markets, and to society at large. It is also stated that,
‘The more a government is oriented towards policy outcomes, rather
than organisational outputs, the less it is able to exercise control through
hierarchical channels owing down through bureaucratic organisations’
(Newman 2005: 194). However, with NWS this does not need to be the case
when a functional H is also directing functionality of partnerships with M
and N, following both logics of consequences and appropriateness.
As Reed concludes, ‘Instead of the “xed geometry” characteristic
of bureaucratic organisational forms dened by extended hierarchies,
bloated technocracies, and intransigent autarkies, the process of
hybridization—in which elements of markets, hierarchies, communities,
and networks are loosely combined—may produce a situation in
which far more complex regimes of coordination and control will be
required to hold them together in some way or another. But these “neo-
bureaucracies” are unlikely to exhibit the fully developed variable
geometry of ‘heterarchy’… because they require and secure a far higher
degree of continuity and stability’ (Reed 2005: 134).
If or when it is true that networks (and network theories) and markets
(and market theories) are too thin to keep the system effectively together,
and if a NWS logic and philosophy does not allow for experimenting
with the basic and fundamental infrastructure of governance systems
such as the state and its administration, there is a need to recognise what
Reed said: ‘Amongst all the hype about the virtual, post-bureaucratic,
or networked organization, there is a very real need to re-assert the
fundamental technical, political, and ethical virtues of Weberian-style
bureaucratic organization that is in danger of being washed away in
a naïve and disingenuous technological romanticism and historical
determinism’ (Reed 2015: 136). This conrms Selznick’s conclusion: ‘If
there is a post-bureaucratic world, it will not be one in which bureaucracy
is eliminated… Rather the new, non-bureaucratic forms will be essential
leaven in the bureaucratic dough’ (Selznick 1992: 288).
Empirical evidence of NWS
Is NWS European (Drechsler 2005; Drechsler and Kattel 2008/9; Ferrera
2020) and is it within the European Union (Drechsler 2009, Trondal
2012)? One could observe that NPM could only develop, initially and
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substantially, in Anglo-Saxon countries which have a ‘common law’
base, which more easily leads to a ‘common management’ application.
This kind of geographical correlation, which is referring to systemic
path-dependency, could explain this reality, in the same way NWS
seems to develop more easily in countries which have an ‘administrative
law’ tradition, which shapes the conditions for specic managerial
instruments and even for digital reforms. This kind of geographical
correlation refers to a path-dependency of the Weberian, but also of
Napoleonic, systems (Ongaro 2009).
NWS in Western Europe
In Germany, the local government new steering model (NSM) was a
‘real-time’ experiment of applying NPM-inspired reforms to transform
its ‘Weberian’ bureaucracy (Kuhlmann et al. 2008/2009). After about ten
years of implementation an evaluation concludes that a ‘comprehensive
“paradigm shift” from the Weberian bureaucracy to a managerial
NSM administration has not occurred’ (Kuhlman et al. 2008/2009: 48).
Even when ‘“old” methods of steering (legal rules and hierarchy) are
being weakened before the “new” managerial ones,’ Kuhlmann et al.
conclude that NWS ‘has not been put into practice so far… Whether a
neo-Weberian mixture of legalist and managerial elements will nally
work still remains to be seen’ (Kuhlmann et al. 2008-2009: 48).
For the Northern European part, based on the COCOPS survey (see
also Greve et al. 2016), according to Greve and Ejersbo, ‘the overall
development of Denmark can be described as development towards
a neo-Weberian state in the digital era’ (Greve and Ejersbo 2016: 127).
However, in a subsequent analysis of Nordic countries in general, and
the Danish case in particular, Byrkjeot et al. state that, ‘The idea of
NWS appears at rst sight to suit that situation. There are many signs
that Denmark, along with the other Nordic countries, is moving away
from focusing mainly on management and markets that were associated
with NPM or the purely networked ideal that characterizes some of the
network governance/NPG thinking’ (Byrkjeot, du Gay and Greve
2018: 1000), even when they point to ‘some contradictions that lure in
the emerging NWS concept’ (ibid.: 1007). The ‘northern variant of the
NWS foresaw a citizens’ state, with extensive participation facilitated
by a modernized system of public law that would guarantee rights and
duties. Proponents of the central European variant of NWS favoured
a professional state—modern, efcient, and exible, yet still uniquely
identied with the “higher purposes” of the general interest’ (Pollitt
and Bouckaert 2004: 100).
In the Portuguese case, the NWS seems to t the Weberian charac-
teristics which are still identiable in a more modernised administration
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(Mendes 2006). Ongaro compares the trajectories of reform of France,
Greece, Portugal and Spain. He concludes that Napoleonic countries are
between global paradigms and the neo-Weberian state (Ongaro 2009).
This is conrmed in Italy, where efforts to shift to NPM ‘albeit mitigated
by a neo-Weberian state (NWS) approach’ (Cavatorto and La Spina 2020:
44).
In summarising the reform paradigms in European central
governments, based on the COCOPS survey, Andrews et al. suggest
that, ‘Multiple administrative reforms did indeed occur across Europe
between 2008 and 2013, but that they were largely of the neo-Weberian/
NPG form, especially reforms centred on improvements in transparency,
collaboration and e-government’ (Andrews et al. 2016: 275).
NWS and post-soviet states in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE)
The emergence of ‘Weber’ has been essential for the post-soviet states of
Central and Eastern Europe (Drechsler 2005). Even when ‘CEE countries
have never systematically followed the NWS model, however, this is
the closest to how the PAs in most NMSs (GB: New Member States) have
naturally evolved (…) At the same time with the NWS, other new post-
post-NPM paradigms, or better “paradigmettes” (…) arose’ (Randma
and Drechsler 2017: 601).
In the Hungarian case, Jenei states that ‘without a functioning
Weberian democratic system, without regulative and monitoring power
of the state, the initial steps of “Public Management Reforms” result
in uncertainties and deviations in the legal state and even strengthen
corruption’ (Jenei 2008/2009: 65). There was a sequence of rst realising
the ‘rule of law’, as part of realising the acquis communautaire to join the
EU and then to introduce public management reforms. In the Hungarian
case, a ‘Neo-Weberian state became a requirement… in which govern-
mental actions are based on the rule of law, in which private enterprises
are involved in quality competition in service delivery, and in which civil
society organisations have full involvement in public policy-making,
from decision making to service provision’ (Jenei 2008–2009: 65). About a
decade later, Hajnal and Rosta, in comparing analytically the Hungarian
t with the three ideal-typical reforms (NPM, NWS, and NPG) conclude
that even with an ofcial rhetoric to denounce NPM “there are important
NPM-like features of Hungarian SGRs [GB: Sub-national governance
reforms]; and although reforms are touted as promoting the NWS, they
show signicant deviations from the NWS blueprint” (Hajnal and Rosta
2019: 422).
Also, for the Estonian case it is accepted that it is desirable to initially
‘pursue the more stable options, that is, the “Weberian” elements of the
NWS framework’ (Randma 2008-2009: 72). Meanwhile, there is a ‘better
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suitability of the NWS than conventional Weberian bureaucracy’ for the
Estonian reforms (Randma 2008/2009: 79).
For the Czech Republic, Potucek concludes that the NWS and its three
interacting regulators (state, market and civil society) are compatible,
complementary and not contradictory (Potucek 2008/2009: 90-92).
How well does NWS travel outside Europe?
In the US, Dunn and Miller (2007) criticize both NPM, and ‘a relatively
new European critique of NPM which its authors call the Neo-Weberian
state (NWS)’ (Dunn and Miller 2007: 345). Even with the eminent
exception of Waldo’s ‘administrative state’ as a political theory of
American public administration (1948), ‘(N)ot many American scholars
until recently have attempted to study the state, or even dare mention
state in a book’ (Stillman 1997: 332). And Stillman continues to comment
on European administrative sciences: ‘Reason of state, (…) continues to
be prominent in the continental lexicon of Public Administration. (…)
the method of administrative logic is therefore largely deductive, not
inductive. The centrality of the state, its historic evolution, and a positive
law tradition that led to state autonomy all serve to dene administrative
sciences as a top-down enterprise with clear rst principles from which
to deduce correct approaches for thinking about Public Administration’
(Stillman 1997: 336).
Assuming that global crises require new types of interventionism,
Durant expresses the hope ‘to show the promise of a neo-Weberian
perspective for advancing administrative reform theory in the United
States’ (Durant 2011: 271).
There are not too many cases analysed. In Latin America, Ramos and
Milanesi studied the case of Uruguay: ‘While in some areas of the state
apparatus managerialist-type reforms of agencication and exibility
may be happening, in others, the trend will be towards neo-Weberian
models of strengthening of central control’ (Ramos and Milanesi
2020: 273). But they also add: ‘Unfortunately, the NWS has not been
sufciently theorized across the region yet’ (ibid.: 274).
A study on the Moroccan healthcare system concludes: ‘Even
supposing that NPM could offer a coherent paradigm, the imbalanced
consideration of external pressures and incentives, and of the exigencies
specic to developing countries, could well lead to the systematic
failure of public sector reform… We therefore propose a rediscovery of
bureaucracy, notably through the Neo-Weberian State model’ (Errami
and Cargnello 2018: 310).
Even when recent circumstances have changed signicantly in Hong
Kong, Brewer et al. observe in a discussion on administrative ethics
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that the system ‘evolved from a classic Weberian to a neo-Weberian
bureaucracy’ (Brewer et al. 2014: 908).
In their overview of Indonesian state reform, Gaus et al. conclude that
‘(T)he traces of NWS in this reform are evident in the attempts made
by the Indonesian government to modernize the existing Weberian
rational bureaucracy embedded in the patrimonial bureaucracy (…)
It is accordingly within the NWS model of reform, where there is a
changing role between the state and bureaucracy, between the state and
professionals’ (Gaus et al. 2017: 667-668).
It seems that NWS is only carefully, if at all, travelling outside
continental Europe: ‘the conception of the NWS is also less applicable
in political systems that never achieved a fully Weberian state’ (Peters
2017: 611).This is also conrmed by Solli and Leysens who state that
Africa should look for “an African ideal-type of the state, which is
different from the Eurocentric neo-Weberian ideal-type” (Solli and
Leysens 2011: 295).
NWS, blends and hybrids, or quasi H, quasi M and quasi N
‘The empirical map, in fact, is a pretty messy one, and shows every sign
of remaining so. In reality, these ideal-type models are translated into
blends and hybrids, sometimes depending on the policy eld, and in
many cases with mixtures within a country’ (Pollitt and Bouckaert 2017:
214)
HMN ‘are not found in their pure form. All are treated here as
ideal types’ (Rhodes 1997: 46). In his ‘stylized comparison of forms of
economic organisation’ (i.e., market, hierarchy and network), Powell
speaks of ‘mixing of forms’ (Powell 1991: 269). In discussing the ‘ideal
types (or the poles of the continuum)’, i.e., hierarchy and market,
Bradach and Eccles state that ‘transactions are rarely governed solely by
market, hierarchy or trust, these mechanisms do serve as the building
blocks for the complex social structures so common in organisational
life’ (Bradach and Eccles 1991: 277-78). Also, according to Thompson
hierarchy, market, and network ‘are partly separated but also partly
overlapping’ (Thompson 2003: 51).
That implies that in reality ‘quasi’ could be hybrids and/or blends,
where ‘hybrid’ is a variation (weakening) of a pure ideal model and
‘blend’ is a combination of two or three models: ‘In modern, pluralistic
societies with a variety of criteria of success and different causal
understandings, it is, however, unlikely that public administration can
be organized on the basis of one principle alone’ (Olson 2006: 16).
For quasi H there are hybrids where the ‘centre of government’ is or
has been weakened (OECD 2018). For policy coordination there are H
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blends where H co-exists with M and N for policy design (Bouckaert,
Peters and Verhoest 2022).
For quasi M there are M blends: ‘The NHS quasi-market exhibited
a mix of private sector ideas and practices with public sector funding
and regulation’ (Exworthy et al. 1999: 18). Drechsler refers to ‘pseudo-
markets’ (Drechsler 2005: 96). As du Gay states: ‘Simple contrasts
between markets and hierarchies prove insufcient in capturing the
major innovation in the art of governance that this mechanism represents
[internal markets]… What we have here then is neither a traditional
bureaucracy nor a free market but a governmentally constituted quasi-
market’ (du Gay 2000: 100, 101).
For quasi N there is shifting from ‘old’ professional networks to
‘new’ networks which are ‘more inclusive, embracing private, voluntary
and informal links with governance’ (Exworthy et al. 1999: 19). This
hybridity and diversity is also shown by McMullin who ‘challenges the
thesis that co-production is most compatible with the model of NPG,
demonstrating the variety of co-production activities’ in Lyon (France)
with a NWS-context, in Shefeld (England) with a NPM-context, and in
Montréal (Québec) with NPG-context (McMullin 2021: 5).
This HMN mix could take a range of options in reality. Three thinkable
approaches of blending as ‘differentiated’ governance systems could be:
▪ A juxtaposition of HMN;
▪ A combined HMN: as ‘water and oil’ (Rhodes 1997: 47) or as
marbled cake;
▪ Combined hybrids of HMN as the result of a ‘chemical reaction’
(Exworthy 1999: 20): ‘Elements may react in different ways under
different circumstances.’
To conclude how NWS appears as hybrid and blend in reality, it is useful
to realise that, on the one hand, NWS is not just a Weberian system plus
some other elements (of NPM and/or NPG): ‘Careful reading of the
“neo” elements will show that they do not add up to the familiar NPM
recipe of disaggregation plus competition plus incentivization’ (Pollitt
and Bouckaert 2011: 119). On the other hand, ‘The organisational mix
in the differentiated polity… it may be difcult to “pick and mix” the
best features of the different forms to achieve the best overall policy’
(Exworthy et al. 1999: 20).
This also results in combined models. Greve and Ejersbo (2016) refer to
the NWS in a digital model for Denmark. Campomori and Casula (2021)
refer to ‘the possible co-existence of the paradigms that are arising in the
last decades to reinvigorate the public sector and to remedy the problems
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with NPM… the NPG paradigm, while safeguarding the principle of
pro-active participation of citizens in the production of social and welfare
policies, can work in combination with other post-NPM paradigms, and
in particular with the NWS’ (Campomori and Casula 2021: 12).
In conclusion: ‘As such they [the three models] can serve as guiding
heuristics or, beyond that, as visions. They can stimulate debates and
provide frameworks for the analysis of specic reforms. What it is
evident they do not do, however, is to provide a neat empirical map of
where our 12 countries have come from, are now, or appear to be going’
(Pollitt and Bouckaert 2017: 213-214).
8. Is NWS a sustainable and resilient (ideal type) model?
The question of sustainability and resilience of an ideal type model is
theoretical, practical and also normative (or ideological).
In 2004, Pollitt and I were aware that using the label neo-Weberian
state may have surprised some continental experts. ‘Among German
scholars, for example, the modernisers have sometimes characterized
themselves as anti-Weberian or, at least, as moving away from the Welt
à la Max Weber. We would not disagree with their contention that many
of their reforms could be seen as diluting or adding new features to the
original Weberian ideal type. Nor would we deny that the conservatives
who opposed these modernisers could be seen as wanting to hang on
to the old systems and the old values—as defenders of the Weberian
heritage. Yet, looked at from the outside, what is striking in comparison
with the core NPM states is how far the underlying assumptions of a
positive state, a distinctive public service, and a particular legal order
survived as a foundation beneath the various packages of modernizing
reforms. What was going on, it seems, was the modernization of the
Weberian tradition, not its outright rejection: a process of addition,
not demolition (even if some of the additions tted on the foundations
rather awkwardly)’ (Pollitt and Bouckaert 2004: 100).
By the 2011 edition, Eastern European scholars began to debate how
far the NWS could serve as a model for the reconstruction of their post-
Communist administrations (Drechsler and Kattel 2008-2009). In any
case, NWS does not show a neat pattern of implementation. Certainly,
with its hybrid and blended variants as modernisation reforms,
‘the pattern is very rough and approximate, for both political and
organisational reasons’ (Pollitt and Bouckaert 2004: 100).
Politically, governments change and may hold different visions of
the future, so that, following elections, certain types of reform are de-
emphasised and other types are given greater salience. A second set
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of political reasons for ‘untidiness’ is to be found among the pressures
represented by external socio-economic forces and by political demands.
This may result in conicting objectives, for example between savings,
performance improvement and pressure for accountability. Also, from
an organisational point of view, different governments have different
capacities for reform.
‘The trajectories and rhetorics were signicantly different as
between, rst, the Anglo-Australasian-American core NPM enthusiasts;
second, the early and participatory modernizers in northern Europe
(NWS, rst variant); and third, the somewhat later, more managerially
oriented modernizers in central Europe and the EU Commission (NWS,
second variant)’ (Pollitt and Bouckaert 2004: 102). Even if a particular
government were able to craft and implement a somehow ‘model
pure’ reform, that would not mean that the public sector then became
an equally pure example of NPM, NWS or NPG. That is because no
reform could conceivably touch every aspect of the modern state
simultaneously.
It is tempting to see a dialectic pattern beyond the Weberian state
model. Shifting from anti-thesis (NPM and NPG) to synthesis (NWS) is
not saying NWS is ‘Weber’ plus NPM, it is ‘Weber’ reacting, processing,
transforming, reshaping some NPM and NPG instruments to make it
compatible with the democratic authority of its H-driven State of Law.
In any case, models express different principles of organisation and
different views of the preferable relationship between the state, the
market sector and civil society (Pollitt and Bouckaert 2017: 213).
From a normative point of view, NWS is protecting the ‘polis’ and
the ‘administrative state’. And NWS helps to prevent ‘deconstructing
the administrative state’. A hierarchy-driven bureaucracy in a
democracy will be different from a hierarchy-driven bureaucracy
in a non-democratic system since democracy ‘provides a distinct
historical-institutional context for governance and design’ (Olson 1997:
206). Whereas a classical Weberian system, even with its tendency to
shift toward more rationalization, is more static in nature, NWS is,
in essence, like democracy, ‘an open-ended project and a “theme for
development”‘ since ‘democracies live with tensions and contradictions
between institutions, principles and ordering ideas’ (Olson 1997: 206).
This is also in line with Lynn stating that ‘structures and processes of the
administrative state constitute an appropriate framework for achieving
balance between administrative capacity and popular control on behalf
of public purposes dened by electoral and judicial institutions, which
are constitutionally authorized means for the expression of the public
will’ (Lynn 2001: 154).
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NWS addresses upcoming debates and frames governance not with-
out but with democracy, governance not without but with government,
and governance not based on exclusion but on inclusion, three choices
which are not guaranteed in systems based solely on markets (NPM)
and/or solely on networks (NPG).
Building on Mazzucato’s ‘myths that impede progress’ (2021: 25-56)
and in line with her derived principles for a new political economy, exible
and dynamic hierarchies should drive and shape markets and networks
(as partnerships and open participation) to create shared and inclusive
societal values dened as outcomes. The eight Millenium Objectives
(2000–2015) and the subsequent 17 Sustainable Development Goals (2015–
2030) are these whole of society outcomes which a NWS should ensure
with its whole of government approach, even and especially beyond 2030.
We claim and hypothesise that NWS, much better and even contrary
to NPM (market-driven) and NPG (network-driven), will ensure the
three core functions of a whole of government strategy within a whole
of society context: performing, inclusive and equitable service delivery,
resilient crises governance, and effective innovation for government
and society.
Performing, inclusive and equitable service delivery: how to organise service
delivery in an economic, efcient, effective, inclusive and equitable way
is a substantial research question. Debates on (where to organise) core
functions for government (Sekera 2020), on contracting in and out, and on
partnerships and cross-sector delivery (Gilchrist 2016; Ronalds 2016) are
crucial elements in reform strategies. Dening optimal combinations of
HMN is also different for different policy elds and should take output
specicity into account. Market states have shifted from empowering
citizens to empowering customers in a supply and demand setting by
organising a provider/customer split. A crucial question remains how
blends and hybrids of combined HMN, and under what conditions, will
deliver performing, inclusive, and equitable service delivery. Signicant
NWS hierarchies, which are also driving markets and networks, should
certainly also be considered.
Resilient crises governance: Past crises, whether in terrorism, nance,
natural disasters, ecology, health or migration, could not be solved by
only market-based or only network-based systems. States and centres of
government, as hierarchies, are necessary, and take the lead in handling
crises and guiding markets and networks in a synergetic way (for
Covid-19: see Kuhlmann et al. 2021). This implies that NWS hierarchies
are signicant, and driving markets and networks.
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Effective innovation for and from government for society: One of the emerging
innovations is about digital government and society. There is a rm
need to have legal frames for markets and networks to combine digital
performance with digital appropriateness (privacy, transparency…).
The European Commission, for example, drives the Connecting Europe
Facility for Innovative and Secure Connectivity and the European
Alliance for Industrial Data, Edge and Cloud. The digital strategy and
the 2030 Digital Compass for the Commission and the EU is to be ‘user-
centric’, ‘data-driven’ and ‘agile’ (European Commission 2018 2021; see
also Drechsler 2009). Also, to ght the Covid-19 pandemic, government
sponsored and pushed research allowed the market to respond and
produce the vaccines (Mazzucato 2021). The same rationale applies to
‘roadmapping for SDGs’ (Miedzinski, Mazzucato and Ekins 2019). This
implies that NWS hierarchies are signicant, and driving markets and
networks.
9. NWS: criticism and remaining questions for a research agenda
NWS evolved from an empirical observation to an ideal type, with
a theoretical framing, and even as a possible normative reform
programme. This is being debated from different angles.
In the context of international affairs studies, there has been a re-
reading of Weber to re-conceptualise state-building by thinking in terms
from neo-Weberian to post-Weberian approaches to state, legitimacy
and state-building (Lottholz and Lemay-Hébert 2016: 1467).
From a critical theory perspective, Dunn and Miller comment on
NPM and NWS as ‘a commitment to a kind of instrumental rationality
that has made it difcult for both to understand the contexts of meaning
surrounding administrative reform’ (Dunn and Miller 2007: 346).
From a ‘Weber’ point of view, Torbing et al. state that, ‘NWS appears
to present a supercial characterization of a bureaucratic governance
model that fails to do justice to Weber’s complex thinking and
argumentation as well as failing to appreciate the role of administrative
statesmanship in shaping public governance and administration’ and
‘overlooks Weber’s critical description of bureaucracy as an “iron cage”‘
(Torbing et al. 2020: 85).
From an empirical point of view, since most countries have been
inuenced by both marketisation, managerialism and networks, ‘few
states can be characterized as “pure NWS” states’ (Torng et al. 2020:
85), even if, ‘The idea of NWS appears at rst sight to suit that situation’
(Byrkjeot et al. 2018: 1000). Obviously, since NWS, just like NPM and
NPG are pure types, as ideal types they will and cannot appear in reality.
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Distinguishing NWS from NPM and NPG (see Figures 1, 2, and 3)
should prove that these models have very different theoretical identities
and that NWS is not really a ‘middle-of-the-road-argument, attempting
to position itself as a pragmatic alternative to the NPM markets and
managerialism and the NPG networks and co-creation processes.
In a rather eclectic gesture, it tries to build parts of both governance
paradigms into the NWS framework to produce the image of a more
effective and friendlier state’ (Torng et al. 2020: 85).
From a theoretical point of view, Byrkjeot, du Gay and Greve, also
based on an analysis of the Danish case, suggest talking about ‘degrees
of Weberianism rather than to distinguish between states that are (neo-)
Weberian and those who are not’ (Byrkjeot et al. 2018: 991). However,
comparative studies clearly show that some countries, at some periods
in time, are not following an NWS trajectory.
For Olson, ‘Bureaucratic theory connotes a set of theoretical ideas
and hypotheses concerning the relations between organisational
characteristics and administrative mentality, behavior, performance,
and change.’ However, Olson follows and quotes Merton in stating
that, ‘It would be premature to refer to “the theory of bureaucracy”, as
though there existed a single, well-dened conceptual scheme adequate
for understanding this form of organisation’ (Olson 2006: 3 and footnote
3, quoting Merton et al. 1952: 17). The same may apply to NWS, with its
theory and its functioning in reality following H as a driving principle
in line with the logics of consequences and of appropriateness.
Obviously remaining questions (see also Lynn 2008-2009) are about
how to dene a functional mix of HMN in NWS; how to explain
differences between (European) countries; and how to map and
operationalise the process of transformation.
It is part of the research agenda to study how H-driven organisations
and systems are consolidated and institutionalised as NWS in an HMN
space. According to Selznick, to institutionalise is ‘to infuse with value
beyond the technical requirements of the task at hand’ (Selznick 1992:
233). The combined logics of consequences and appropriateness, in a
democratic and rule of law-based system, is dening NWS.
According to Constas, ‘Only if a bureaucracy is rooted in a legal-
rational order can it remain entirely a technical instrument and, hence,
a responsible bureaucracy’ (Constas 1958: 409). However, it could be
questioned whether that is the case when these bureaucracies are not
part of a democratic system. This closed and instrumental approach to
bureaucracy results in an ‘iron cage’ which is potentially dysfunctional
and even threatening for an open society. Therefore, following the need
to upgrade ‘bureaucracy’ from a rational tool and instrument to an
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institution as well (Olson 2006: 19), there is a need to consider ‘hierarchy’
as an institution. Hence, NWS is in line with (neo-) institutional theories
with ‘hierarchy’ as a driving institutional mechanism and ‘bureaucracy’
as an institutional instrument. This institutional context refers to
‘democracy’, ‘rule of law’ and ‘state of law’.
10. In conclusion
Max Weber’s scientic contribution to understanding changes in
society was impacting many twentieth century debates, even when his
publications and their translations have not always generated linear
and straightforward concepts and models (Lichtblau, 2022). Weber’s
denitions, methods, and understanding of ‘rationality’, ‘singularity’
of ‘causality’, ‘logics’, and even ‘ideal types’ have been discussed,
interpreted, and criticized (Whimster and Lash 1987, Whimster 2008,
Bruun and Whimster 2012).
Weber’s ‘bureaucracy’ theory has evolved into a Weberian theory
of ‘bureaucracy’ and ultimately in a Weberian model of public
administration, and even in a Weberian State model, as an ideal type
model. However, theoretical, ideological and practical reactions were
triggered as a consequence of these Weberian practices and models.
Reactions have been threefold:
▪ keeping ‘Weber’ by its ‘believers’ by moving to new degrees of
Weberianism;
▪ blaming and criticizing Weber by demonstrating all practical dys-
functions of bureaucracies and theorizing alternative models such
as e.g., public choice theories;
▪ going ‘beyond Weber’ by keeping a Weberian base, however, by
moving beyond and above Weber, which is the essence of this
contribution and its Neo-Weberian State (NWS) ideal type model.
Neo-Weberian approaches have been used in an ideological and phi-
losophical sense to oppose e.g., Marxist approaches in State concepts,
but also for policy elds such as international relations or education.
In this contribution, NWS is developed in the context of a broad
spectrum of public sector reform or even State reform, as shifts for
‘Whole of Government’, as part of societal transitions or ‘Whole of
Society’ shifts.
Following dynamics of so-called ‘Big Government’ and so-called
expansive Welfare States, the pendulum was swinging to ‘small is beautiful
government’ with races to the bottom for taxing levels in an international
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competition. Since the end of the 1970s, starting in the UK, with prime
minister Margaret Thatcher, and in the US with president Ronald Reagan,
the New Zealand model of New Public Management (NPM) gained
momentum. NPM was based on economic neo-institutionalist theories
with transactions between principles and agents and put into practice. It
was a combination of a minimal State combined with a market logic as
an ultimate driver of the entire system (see Figure 2 and Figure 3). The
minimal State and its minimal government and administration applied
market-type-mechanisms not only between organizations, but also
within organizations, within the public sector, and between the public
sector and other actors (private for prot, and private not-for-prot). In
its most radical or purest form it resulted in an (almost) ‘Hollow State’
(Frederickson and Frederickson 2006) and in a systematic application
of ‘compulsory competitive tendering’ for (almost) all activities in the
public sphere. As such, NPM moved from an economic neo-institutional
theory to a practice and to an ideal type model, and that pure model was
then generalized in practice as a normative reform model. In 2015 the
OECD taking stock publication framed it as ‘the way forward’, and in the
Francophone version as ‘the way to follow’.
NPG, the network driven ideal type model also has fragments and
realities, however, even when academically and ideologically strongly
promoted it never became a generalized practice as such but it certainly
became a strong additional or complementary model to combine with
models driven by hierarchy or markets.
NWS fragments of reality became visible in European OECD coun-
tries who were noticing that copy-pasting NPM methods and techniques
were not (always) very compatible with Weberian State of Law country
frameworks. Historical neo-institutionalism with its path-dependency
complicated the integration in a compatible way.
NWS keeps a signicant share of a public sector and has ‘hierarchy’
as its main driver within the public sector, but also for guiding its
meta-governance between the public sector and the private prot and
not-for prot sector. NWS keeps several key elements of the Weberian
State model such as the role of the State which is democratic (direct
and representative) and which is subject to the ‘rule of law’. Suitably
modernized administrative law preserves basic principles for citizen-
state relations, including equality before the law, privacy, legal security,
and a solid availability for legal scrutiny of state actions. Central is also
the preservation of the idea and practice of ‘public service’ with its
distinctive status, culture, and even terms and conditions.
The ‘Neo’-part of NWS includes a shift from an internal orientation
towards bureaucratic rule-following towards an external orientation
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towards meeting citizens’ needs and wishes. The primary route to
achieving this is not the employment of market mechanisms (although
they may occasionally come in handy) but the creation of a professional
culture of quality and service. Also, there is a supplementation (not
replacement) of the role of representative democracy by a range of
devices for consultation with, and the direct representation of, citizens’
views (this aspect being more visible in the northern European states
and Germany at the local level than in Belgium, France, or Italy). In the
management of resources within government, there is a modernization
of the relevant laws to encourage a greater orientation on the achievement
of results, rather than merely the correct following of procedures. This is
expressed partly in a shift in the balance from ex-ante to ex-post controls,
but not a complete abandonment of the former. It may also take the
form of a degree of performance management in a context of taking
responsibility and being accounting for the performance of a system
which is about results and about appropriateness. Also, it includes
a professionalization of the public service, so that the ‘bureaucrat’
becomes not simply an expert in the law relevant to his or her sphere of
activity, but also a professional manager, oriented to meeting the needs
of his/her citizen/users (Pollitt and Bouckaert 2011: 118-19).
NWS is an ‘ideal type model’ which means that there are signicant
empirical modules and fragments in reality which can be assembled
and consolidated into a coherent and consistent model that one can
‘think’ as a functioning model. This pure model leverages reality since
it becomes a normative model which drives reform programmes. NWS
has the capacity to become a normative model since it is assumed to
be much more capable than NPM and NPG to ensure and combine
sustainable and resilient performance with equity and inclusion. This
applies simultaneously to ‘service delivery’, to ‘crises governance’, and
to ‘innovation’. For this reason NWS as a ‘pure’ ideal type seems to turn
into a reality, and moves to a desirable model of governance and reform
which becomes necessary from a Whole of Society perspective for the
future.
Note
This article is based on the UCL/IIPP Working Paper 2022/6 which was
presented at the UC London IIPP seminar on NWS on 14 January 2022.
The author wants to thank the panelists (Wolfgang Drechsler, Camilla
Stivers, Nadia Monira Mohamed Taib and Sam Whimster) for their
comments and their discussion.
Bouckaert The neo-Weberian state 51
© Max Weber Studies 2023.
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