There is presented and shortly evaluated in the article the basic development of public administration in Central and Eastern European countries by indicating the most important stages of modernization in the light of prevailing theoretical paradigms. The authors identify three main stages – traditional public administration, New Public Management and New Public Governance, which are sometimes interrelated or contradicting to each other at the same time. New Public Governance is the most wanted and admired paradigm in Central and Eastern Europe, especially because of its social attractiveness and sensitivity, but it is still lacking more certain methods and tools to be implemented in practice. New Public Management, because of its capitalist entrepreneurship spirit, only partially changed public administration model. It was not an excellent model of reform, that’s why it is possible to point to NPM as socially irresponsible reform of the public sector. At the same time the principles of New Public Governance are orientated not only to the participation of citizens and citizens’ groups, but also to the development of social welfare, social quality, social responsibility and social justice. These are the values, which are most necessary to overcome the side effects of modernization. It is possible to draw a conclusion about this article, that by developing and presenting the more progressive principles and values of NPG, such as openness, transparency, social justice, social quality, absence of corruption and more active non-governmental organisations, Central and Eastern European countries could achieve more stable democratic development, as well as elimination or minimization of the negative impact of New Public Management for various spheres of public sector’s reforms.