Summary:

There is a tendency in former trail-blazing NPM countries, like some Anglo-Saxon ones, that they, during the last years have started another wave of reforms that is modifying some central NPM features, without nescessarly transforming the public apparatus. These post-NPM reforms are mainly labelled whole-of-government reforms. This paper starts out with exploring and discussing why these reforms are developing, attending to negative effects and implications of NPM, and a broader reason connected to an increasingly insecure and threatening world. This reform approach is then discussed, exploring what is really meant by whole-of-government reforms. The paper then deals with how we teoretically may interpret the whole-of-government reforms, based on structural, cultural and myth perspectives, and discusses the empirical variations of these reform within and between countries. Fourth, we discuss the dynamics of these reforms, particularly focusing on whether this is a consistent and homogeneous reform package, and what type of tensions and conflicts that ecentually could be connected to it. We finish by discussing some lessons learned from the post-NPM reform movement.