Building The New Managerialist State

This volume studies how the world of governance has witnessed a transition from the Weberian model of bureaucracy to the new managerialism. It examines the differences in the extent to which France, Canada and Britain have embraced these ideas.

Contemporary public administration research has marginalized the importance of “taking history seriously.” With few exceptions, little recent scholarship in the field has looked longitudinally (rather than cross-sectionally), contextually, and theoretically over extended time periods at “big questions” in public administration. One such “big question” involves the evolution of American administrative reform and its link since the nation’s founding to American state building. This book addresses this gap by analyzing administrative reform in unprecedented empirical and theoretical ways. In taking a multidisciplinary approach, it incorporates recent developments in cognate research fields in the humanities and social sciences that have been mostly ignored in public administration. It thus challenges existing notions of the nature, scope, and power of the American state and, with these, important aspects of today’s conventional wisdom in public administration. Author Robert F. Durant explores the administrative state in a new light as part of a “compensatory state”—driven, shaped, and amplified since the nation’s founding by a corporate–social science nexus of interests. Arguing that this nexus of interests has contributed to citizen estrangement in the United States, he offers a broad empirical and theoretical understanding of the political economy of administrative reform, its role in state building, and its often paradoxical results. Offering a reconsideration of conventional wisdom in public administration, this book is required reading for all students, scholars, or practitioners of public administration, public policy, and politics.

Sheds new light on the use of external public policy consultants from an interdisciplinary and international comparative approach.

Citizens have lost trust in their institutions of public governance. In trying to fix the problem, presidents and prime ministers have misdiagnosed the patient, failing to recognize that government bureaucracies are inseparable from political institutions. As a result, career officials have become adroit at managing the blame game but much less so at embracing change. Donald Savoie looks to the United States, Great Britain, France, and Canada to assess two of the most important challenges confronting governments throughout the Western world: the concentration of political power and the changing role of government bureaucracy. The four countries have distinct institutions shaped by distinct histories, but what they have in common is a professional non-partisan civil service. When presidents and prime ministers decide to expand their personal authority, national institutions must adjust while bureaucracies grow to fill the gap, paradoxically further constricting government efficacy. The side effects are universal – political power is increasingly centralized; Parliament, Congress, and the National Assembly have been weakened; Cabinet has lost standing; political parties have been debased; and civil services have been knocked off their moorings. Reduced responsibility and increased transparency make civil servants slow to take risks and politicians quick to point fingers. Government astutely diagnoses the problem of declining trust in government: presidents and prime ministers have failed to see that efficacy in government is tied to well-performing institutions.

This volume aims to shed light on how public service value is identified, managed, measured and reported. The chapters cover a range of topics, including theoretical reflections, practical case studies and empirical observations aimed at understanding the concept of public value.

This volume offers a comprehensive overview of the many ways in which the policy analysis movement has been conducted, and to what effect, in Canadian governments and, for the first time, in business associations, labour unions, universities, and other non-governmental organizations.

This is a comprehensive, integrated analysis of the wave of management reforms which have swept through many countries including Australia, Belgium, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, the UK, the USA, and the European Commission.

Ebook available in Open Access: oapen.org/search?identifier=1006705 Strategies and priorities for the public sector in Europe The public sector in our society has over the past two decades undergone substantial changes, as has the academic field studying Public Administration (PA). In the next twenty years major shifts are further expected to occur in the way futures are anticipated and different cultures are integrated. Practice will be handled in a relevant way, and more disciplines will be engaging in the field of Public Administration. The prominent scholars contributing to this book put forward research strategies and focus on priorities in the field of Public Administration. The volume will also give guidance on how to redesign teaching programmes in the field. This book will provide useful insights to compare and contrast European PA with PA in Europe, and with developments in other parts of the world. Contributors: Geert Bouckaert (KU Leuven), Werner Jann (University of Potsdam), Jana Bertels (University of Potsdam), Paul Joyce (University of Birmingham), Meelis Kitsing (Estonian Business School, Tallinn), Thurid Hustedt (Hertie School of Governance, Berlin), Tiina Randma-Liiv (Tallinn University of Technology), Martin Burgi (Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich), Philippe Bezès (Science Po Paris; CNRS), Salvador Parrado (Spanish Distance Learning University (UNED), Madrid), Mark Bovens (Utrecht University; WRR), Roel Jennissen (WRR), Godfried Engbersen (Erasmus University Rotterdam), Meike Bokhorst (WRR), Bogdana Neamtu (Babes Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca), Christopher Pollitt (KU Leuven), Edoardo Ongaro (Open University UK, Milton Keynes), Raffaella Saporito (Bocconi University, Milan), Per Laegreid (University of Bergen), Marcel Karré (Erasmus University Rotterdam), Thomas Schillemans (Utrecht University), Martijn Van de Steen (Nederlandse School voor Openbaar Bestuur), Zeger van de Wal (National University of Singapore), Michael Bauer (University of Speyer), Stefan Becker (University of Speyer), Jean-Michel Eymeri-Douzans (Université de Toulouse), Filipe Teles (University of Aveiro), Denita Cepiku (Tor Vergata University of Rome), Marco Meneguzzo (Tor Vergata University of Rome), Külli Sarapuu (Tallinn University of Technology), Leno Saarniit (Tallinn University of Technology), Gyorgy Hajnal (Corvinus University of Budapest; Centre for Social Research of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences).