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This paper aims to give an overview of the public management process in France and tries to explain why it is specific as compared to other countries.

The paper is based upon a sociological and comparative methodology. It reports the empirical findings of a European survey.

Management reforms in France are fragmented and do not fit in a general doctrine or a new philosophy of the state. The French managerial reform style is due to the domestication of management tools by Napoleonic structures. Nevertheless, management innovations are used in order to draw new frontiers within public administration between what is the centre and what is the periphery.

The methodology as well as the findings of the paper could be used for a more systematic comparative work in order to understand why and how public management tools fit in national political as well as professional traditions. There is scope for connecting public management research with broader historical and sociological studies of public administration.

The paper shows that both political values and work practices have to be taken into account in order to understand why public sector management reforms are easier in some countries even within the Napoleonic tradition.

Reform of the French civil service, embarked on in 1989, was designed to involve state employees and officials in the process by appealing to their sense of duty and commitment, rather than adopting a top‐down approach and imposing control over them. “Service projects” provided for active participation of state officials in the definition of aims and objectives and organisation of their services. Several thousand individual services were involved. The evidence suggests that, in practice, participation concerned mainly the conditions of work organisation and often failed to involve all levels of the hierarchy. The reforms did not involve the trade unions, although they were consulted. As in the case of quality circles, which the reforms resembled, participation by all agents was not maintained after the first project. The use of “strategic projects” are still under way but the dimension of staff participation has progressively disappeared. The conclusion is that “service projects” are a failed experiment in staff participation and involvement.

This paper aims to outline the contents of the special issue on public management reform in countries in the Napoleonic administrative tradition, discussing alternative explanatory frameworks, and proposing paths for future research.

This article provides reviews of the papers in the special issue.

Some broad sets of factor affecting implementation of public management reform in Napoleonic countries are outlined, schematised in a specific table, and discussed in the light of potential alternative frameworks, like cultural analysis.

Research limitations include the availability of empirical evidence given the width of the phenomenon under investigation (public management reform in five countries). Implications for the development of a broader comparative research agenda on countries in the Napoleonic administrative tradition (and others) are proposed.

The special issue, of which this paper provides an overview, fills a gap in the literature by providing systematic and comparative analysis of public management reform in five under‐investigated countries in the Napoleonic administrative tradition, arguably an important contribution to the widening of the comparative research agenda in public management.

Purpose – This chapter addresses a range of questions about public management reform in ‘Napoleonic’ administrative systems. It starts by addressing the descriptive question about what trajectories of reform occurred, and then explores what has been the fundamental stance toward new public management (NPM) (rejected, imported and implemented, or filtered and translated). I also discuss how reforms have changed the relative power base and role interpretation of the main actors in public management reform, and analyze the strategic approaches employed toward the reform of public management in these countries. Finally, I assess some key strategic alternatives for policy-makers as regards the reform of public management in the face of the long-term effects of the fiscal crisis that has struck these countries since 2010.

Design/Methodology/Approach – This chapter is based on a combination of literature reviews and opinions from the experts in the field who are surveyed – selected experts are all renowned scholars or leading practitioners, knowledgeable of public sector reform in the countries subject to investigation.

Findings – The chapter concludes that NPM-inspired reforms have to some extent been attempted; particularly, the role of tenured officials seems to have changed substantially, especially in their relationship with elected officials. However, NPM doctrines have been mainly filtered and translated into the local politico-administrative dynamics and codes of interpretation, and quite often they have been hollowed out. Particularly, the role of tenured officials seems to have changed substantially, especially in their relationship with elected officials. In terms of strategic approaches, there seems to have been much “maintaining” and some “modernizing,” although with important differences between countries (Italy being an especially difficult case to classify). The fiscal crisis and the changes in European governance might lead to a profoundly different state of affairs in which the interconnection between changes in European Union (EU) governance and public sector reform might become more closely interconnected than they used to be.

Research limitations/Implications – The contribution is mainly speculative, and urges for empirical research to be undertaken, particularly on the issue of the interconnection between changes in EU governance and public sector reform.

Originality/Value – The contribution provides a distinctive and critical perspective on public sector reform in an underinvestigated cluster of countries.

How do top bureaucrats define, in their own words, their professional identity and the norms they work by? Do they define them in line with a Weberian ideal type of the bureaucrat and bureaucratic norms? Or rather by a modernised entrepreneurial ideal type, often associated with New Public Management reforms? Further, what can such self-presentations tell us about professional norms operating in top bureaucrats’ daily work, and about institutional or wider societal logics guiding the non-elected, administrative side of contemporary government? The top officials, the senior civil servants in central ministries, who take part in policy-making and serve the political leadership, have a specific role distinct from that of the politicians and are guided by professional norms. Scholars focusing on this level of top bureaucrats have described their professional norms as being about serving the elected politicians loyally, but also contributing technical and thematic expertise independent of political considerations and ensuring that policy is developed according to legal standards. This chapter investigates how top bureaucrats themselves define those norms and that role – is it in line with an ideal close to Weberian ideal type characteristics, or not?

The purpose of this paper is to measure the dissemination of public management practices in French State administrations and to interpret results in the light of successive reform trends, in order to give an objective evaluation of French public management reform.

The paper is based on a survey on use of management instruments, targeting Heads of Ministry departments (n=298, response rate=80 per cent, use of rigorous sampling techniques). The survey measures actual practices rather than opinions through lists of use of “management instruments”. The method is adapted to evaluate a reform which has mainly been defined in a process of “modernization”.

The findings demonstrate the high level of dissemination of process innovations, even if as observed in many countries, human resource transformation is more challenging than change in quality methods or user's orientation implementation. The survey also points out major disparities between different Ministries and implies that two different models of reform have been progressively implemented during successive periods.

The survey was conducted in 2007.

The survey is the first attempt to measure public management practices in French State administration conducted by the French National Institute for Statistics (INSEE). The present article is one of the few quantitative appraisals of public management produced in Europe.