New Public Management: The Transformation of Ideas and Practice

by Tom Christensen (Editor)

Chapters examine the dynamics of new public management, or comprehensive civil-service reform, in Norway, Sweden, New Zealand, and Australia. The work challenges a commonly held thesis of globalization which holds that new public management is quickly spreading around the world and is generating a convergence among civil-service systems. Instead, the authors (10 international academics in the fields of organization, government, and political science) argue that administrative reforms are generated by a complex mixture of environmental pressure, polity features, and historical and institutional contexts, and that transformation implies substantial divergence as well as organizational variety and heterogeneity. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

353 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 2001