New Public Management and the Battle over the Welfare Citizen

This paper argues that employees and managers at the public workplace continually have to handle institutional dilemmas in their day-to-day interactions. The paper shows that several institutional dilemmas are of relevance during for instance collective representative cooperation between management and employee representatives. However, one pronounced dilemma in particular faces welfare professionals today due to new management regimes. On the one hand, increased professionalization seems to offer more independence and control over the work and workplace, while at the same time more theoretical development and standardization also allows for management and the broader public to be able to formulate clear demands and standards controlling the professionals. The latter playing well into New Public Management ideas as they become adopted within the Danish ‘modernization program’ focusing on increasing economic efficiency and accountability within the public welfare production. This dilemma continues to challenge the professionals as the battle over who can legitimately represent the welfare citizens’ needs is intensified. The paper demonstrates how this battle plays out with some variance in two different welfare areas and at two management levels.

The full paper was presented at the SASE conference, Chicago, USA, July 10-12 2014.