NAVIGATING THE POST-NEW PUBLIC MANAGEMENT ERA: Collaborative Governance, Citizen Participation, and Administrative Hybridity in Developing Contexts
This study employs a systematic literature review and bibliometric analysis to argue that in developing contexts, the transition from New Public Management to a post-NPM era requires reframing administrative hybridity as an institutional asset, where authentic citizen participation and collaborative governance emerge only by intentionally bridging state mandates with indigenous relational practices.
Original paper licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). This is an AI-generated explanation of the paper below. It is not written or endorsed by the authors. For technical accuracy, refer to the original paper. Read full disclaimer
For decades, the way governments around the world tried to get things done was guided by a single, powerful idea. This idea, known as New Public Management, treated the state like a giant business. It assumed that if government agencies acted more like private companies—focusing on strict budgets, competition, and treating citizens as customers—they would become faster, cheaper, and more efficient. The logic was that by breaking up large bureaucracies and hiring private contractors to run services, the messy problems of public life could be solved with clear contracts and performance targets. However, as the twenty-first century progressed, this approach began to show its cracks, especially in developing nations. In places where the rule of law is still taking root and communities rely heavily on family ties and local traditions, the rigid, market-driven model often failed. It sometimes made social divisions worse, eroded trust between people and the state, and left many citizens feeling that the government was a distant, cold machine rather than a partner in their daily lives.
This growing frustration has led scholars and practitioners to look for a new way forward, a shift often called the post-New Public Management era. Instead of trying to run the government like a corporation, this new approach asks how different groups can work together to solve problems. It focuses on collaboration, where the government works side-by-side with local communities, religious groups, and civil society organizations. It also emphasizes that citizens are not just customers buying a service, but active partners who help create the solutions they need. The central question for researchers today is how to make this kind of teamwork work in places where the official government rules are weak, and where people have long relied on informal, unwritten customs to manage their lives.
In a recent systematic review published in September 2026, researchers Edio Mariano Piedade Soares and Santino Baros from Universitas Hasanuddin set out to answer exactly this question. They wanted to understand how collaborative governance and citizen participation actually function in developing contexts, where the formal laws of the state often clash with the informal, traditional ways people have lived for generations. To do this, they did not conduct a new survey or interview a single person. Instead, they acted as careful cartographers of existing knowledge. They gathered and analyzed forty-four high-quality, peer-reviewed articles published between 2016 and 2026. These articles covered the complex intersection of government, community action, and the mix of formal and informal systems. Using specialized software to map out the connections between the ideas in these papers, the authors built a clear picture of what works, what fails, and why.
The researchers found that the success of any government effort to work with its people depends entirely on how well it handles "administrative hybridity." This is a term that describes the reality in many developing nations, where two different systems of rules exist at the same time. On one side, there is the formal state, with its written laws, official offices, and bureaucratic procedures. On the other side, there are the informal, local systems based on kinship, tradition, and community customs. For a long time, modernization theories treated this mix as a problem, a sign that the country was not fully developed. The standard view was that the government needed to wipe out the informal systems and replace them with pure, rational bureaucracy. However, this paper argues that this view is wrong. The authors demonstrate that this mix is not a defect to be fixed, but a natural and often useful feature of these societies.
The study reveals that when governments try to impose their own rigid, Western-style rules without acknowledging local traditions, the results are often poor. Collaborative efforts fail because they feel artificial to the people they are meant to help. The research shows that for citizen participation to be real and effective, it must bridge the gap between the state's official mandates and the local, relational practices that people actually trust. For example, in some parts of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, communities have long used traditional assemblies and customary laws to manage resources and resolve disputes. When government programs ignore these existing structures and try to replace them with new, technocratic meetings or digital portals, people often disengage. But when officials intentionally weave these traditional systems into their own plans, something powerful happens. The participation shifts from being a hollow formality, where people just show up to check a box, into a genuine partnership where communities help design and deliver the services they need.
The authors propose three main ideas to explain this dynamic. First, they suggest that the ability of different groups to work together depends directly on how well the government integrates informal networks into its formal structures. If a government agency can work with local elders or community leaders, it gains access to knowledge and trust that it could never build on its own. Second, they argue that deep, meaningful participation only occurs when the system respects local culture. When people see their own traditions reflected in how decisions are made, they move from being passive recipients to active co-creators of public value. Third, the paper warns that this mix of systems is not without risk. If the government does not set clear, fair rules for how these formal and informal groups interact, the system can be hijacked by local elites who use their power to exclude others or take resources for themselves.
The paper concludes that the path forward for developing nations is not to try to erase their history or force them into a single, uniform mold. Instead, the most resilient and effective governments are those that practice a kind of institutional craftsmanship. They learn to navigate the friction between the written law and the unwritten custom, turning that tension into a source of strength. By treating the mix of formal and informal systems as a valuable asset rather than a problem, these governments can build networks that are more adaptable and more trusted by their people. The study offers a roadmap for policymakers to stop trying to copy Western models blindly and start designing systems that resonate with the actual lives of their citizens. It suggests that the future of public administration in the developing world lies in the ability to harmonize the modern state with the enduring power of local community life.
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