NPM Is Dead, Long Live NPM

Over the past decades, New Public Management (NPM) has been widely criticised for weakening the institutional role of the state and empowering economic elites and private actors, raising concerns about the erosion of cohesion and state capacity. Crises such as the pandemic, climate change, migration, and the rise of populism revealed that NPM reforms must either evolve or lose legitimacy. Reformers must respond by restoring the principles of the rule of law, democratic institutions, and sound public management practices. Technology, and especially Artificial Intelligence (AI), can support this renewal. This chapter reinterprets NPM as NPM 2.0, highlighting tools and techniques that integrate empirical and theoretical knowledge while adapting to the specific identities and needs of each administrative system. It concludes that the endurance of NPM's second generation depends on embedding technological innovation within constitutional safeguards, transforming digitalisation into a means of rebuilding state capacity.