The art of the state: culture, rhetoric, and public management

Bringing a new conceptual framework and valuable historical perspective to various approaches to public management, this study uses cultural theory to show why ideas about how to manage government are inherently plural and contradictory.

This important new study, by a leading scholar in the field, offers a fresh perspective on public management. In contrast to the widespread claim of the 'modernization gurus' that a new era of global convergence is dawning in public management, it uses cultural theory to show why ideas about how to manage government are inherently plural and contradictory and likely to remain so.