Policy alienation and public professionals

Nowadays, many public professionals have difficulties identifying with governmental policies. Many resist to implement these policies, and some demonstrate against them. In this chapter we show that although New Public Management is indeed an important factor influencing identification problems of public professionals, we need to consider other factors too. Being more specific, one especially needs to look at the degree of professionalism of the policy implementers. In this way, this chapter has theoretical and practical value. It is theoretically important as we do not privilege, but position NPM. Newman already noted that NPM can not be held responsible for everything, but this has not yet been examined thoroughly on the level of actual policy implementation (at ‘street levels’), where professionals interact with citizens. It is of practical value as a lack of identification with policies might demotivate professionals and hinder high-quality case treatment.

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