The ‘holy grail’ of governance: Drivers, challenges and opportunities for developing countries

Public management reform has led to the introduction of a variety of changes in government. This chapter develops a synthesized model of public management for developing countries by analyzing contemporary managerial innovations such as governance, new public management, public value management, digital-era governance and the neo-Weberian state, and their appropriateness for the developing world. The synthesized model considers strong state and external orientation as two critical elements of inclusive public management in developing countries. While a strong state can ensure basic administrative infrastructures, external orientation brings together relevant stakeholders in the process of inclusive development in the developing world. Many developing countries are gradually moving toward newer public management regimes essentially to make their governmental operations more efficient. However, designing public management systems (PMS) in complete accordance with Western ideas, norms or maxims can be self-defeating, since developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America have unique traditions, social-cultural characteristics, political styles and economic arrangements.