The diffusion of Public Agencies seems to characterise the approach to public management in European countries. Under New Public Management, the role of politics is to provide strategic planning and economic policy target defini-tion, whereas the administration is responsible for the management...

New Public Management calls for a clear division between politics and the administration, where the former undertakes strategic planning and defines economic targets and the latter is responsible for public service management. In this context, the agency theory underlines a risk of incoherence...