New public management also came from the left: The case of Swedish primary and secondary education

New Public Management (NPM) reforms have emerged in the public administration systems of many Western countries in recent decades. The dominant view in international research on NPM is that these reforms are the product of neo-liberal ideas. In this article, I set out to nuance this view by studying the political ideas that paved the way for NPM in the Swedish school system. I analyze political books and articles on teaching and education and find that both Left and Right views on education are congruent with the central aspects of NPM as it is commonly defined and operationalized. This finding casts the ideological basis for NPM reforms in a new light, at least in the context of the Swedish school system.