Suchergebnisse

For at least fifty years and from uncertain beginnings, management has steadily advanced to become a dominant feature across the public sector. Management is necessary and, when purposefully and judiciously applied, can be efficacious. But it lacks the constitutional bearings of the traditional public administration that it has in large measure displaced. And, in the absence of the "sudden death" market discipline of the private sector, from which many of its practices have been imported, management has often become the self-serving entity described in this article as managerialism. Specified here in "ideal type" terms, managerialism is not so much the product of a conspiracy, rather that of a conjunction of factors, often lending plausibility to the need for more management. This article identifies some of these factors and their ill effects on the public sector.

By examining issues concerning the role and nature of the state together with the character of public bureaucracy, this article shows that, as a practical activity, public administration retains a distinct identity. Notwithstanding the many changes that have taken place in the public sector during recent years, programmes of study in the subject still have much to offer. Such programmes should reassert their place within the social sciences. Their virtues should be proclaimed with confidence, while resisting misplaced calls for more narrowly focused vocationalism.