Citizens, Charters and Public Service Reform in France and Britain

In: Government & opposition: an international journal of comparative politics, Band 35, Heft 2, S. 152-169

Abstract

Compares GB's Citizen's Charter (1991) & France's Charte des services publics ([Public Services Charter] 1992). Both charters were part of recent efforts to reform state-citizen relations on the basis of renewed principles of public service. In spite of similarities in public management reform rhetoric, it is argued that there is increasing divergence in the philosophy & practice of public service charterism in the two nations, & these differences reflect regimes that incorporate different ideals of citizenship. Various conceptualizations of public service reform are examined, along with economic rationalist & postbureaucratic models of public management & the principles reiterated in the two charters. The agenda in both GB & France involved seeking new organizational capabilities to augment traditional administrative values, as well as ways to bolster administrative ethics & redefine equality. The ability of normative beliefs to hamper or enhance policy change is applied to political conceptions of citizenship in France & GB, showing that similarities in their reform agendas hide different ongoing patterns of reform discourse & practice. J. Lindroth