This paper put together an analytical platform for discussing and analyzing administrative reforms in terms of democracy. First, we present the fundamental positions of democratic theory represented by output-democracy and input-democracy. These two positions are used to classify different types of reform. A second more exploratory theoretical approach on democracy and reforms is a transformative one, which looks at a mixture of external features, domestic administrative culture and polity features to understand variations in the democratic aspects of public sector reforms. Central issues are whether these reforms can be seen as alternatives or whether they supplement each other in terms of layering or sedimentation processes. Third, we use these two theoretical approaches to describe and explain the democratic features of NPM and post-NPM-reforms. We take a broad overview of such reforms and make an in-depth analysis of a new administrative policy report – White Paper – from the Norwegian centre–left-government