When reforms become permanent: in search of evaluation lost

Abstract

For three decades now, all OECD countries have adopted vast programs of public administration reform and modernization inspired by the New Public Management doctrine. True to their inspiration, one of their major of these constitutive policies was to put all ongoing public policies, old and new, under scrutiny in order to measure their utility and performance. However and paradoxically enough, none of those policies made itself the object of a clear evaluation in terms of mid and long-term costs and benefits. This article is a step toward a critical assessment of the various hidden costs generated by these reform policies in OECD countries. After stating their common persuasion, it ascertains the inevitable diversity of national situations, for uncovering eventually the logics active behind all these administrative reforms, animated by the quest for a new cohesion and a renewed legitimacy of the contemporary post-modern states.