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"Public Management: A Research Overview provides a structured survey of the state of the art of public management research. Looking at the enduring themes of bureaucracy, autonomy, markets and collaboration, each chapter introduces key foundational studies before reviewing contemporary research. Although originally intended to maximise efficiency, work on bureaucracy points to the problems of red tape, contested accountabilities, performance management, merit and public service motivation. Autonomy research asks whether reforms intended to free subservient agencies from red tape and political interference have delivered the goods. Are autonomous service managers more focused on the needs of citizen-consumers and more entrepreneurial in their appetite for innovation? Marketisation reforms take a further step away from bureaucratic forms of control by exposing public services to market forces of one form or another. Competitive contracting and privatisation put public services into real markets while quasi-markets and yardstick competition try to recreate these pressures without private ownership. Perhaps reacting to the fragmentation unleashed by unbundling and marketisation, collaboration promises to deliver improvement through voluntary processes of negotiation and exchange. Vertical forms of collaboration between different levels of government, or between governments and citizens, promise a better match between policies and problems. Lateral collaboration between agencies working at the same level are intended to tackle the so-called wicked issues that fall between jurisdictions or else to share services and unlock economies of scale. The book concludes by considering the new challenges facing public management from global warming to the rise of populism and affective polarisation. Drawing on evidence from across the world, the book will speak to all those studying and practising public management"--

Nudge presumes that decision-making is guided by intuitive biases and heavily influenced by the environment in which choices are made. However, critics argue that in place of the quick thinking envisaged by nudge behaviour change reflects deeper and broader thought processes. One of these patterns of thinking – fatalism – has been identified across health and allied disciplines as key to explaining the reason why many people ignore authoritative advice. Insights drawn from a critical review of the fatalism literature explain why nudges sometimes fail. While a fatalist mindset seems to make some of us more susceptible to nudges, it prompts others to respond to nudges in surprising and dysfunctional ways.

New institutional theory suggests that radical organizational change is guided by a logic of appropriateness in which organizations change their structures and processes in response to changes in prevailing notions of how best to organize. Contingency theories suggests, by contrast, that organizations pursue a logic of consequentiality, trying to maximize performance by adjusting structures and processes in response to relatively tangible things like the demand for services and the state of technology. Increasingly, commentators acknowledge the importance of both logics, but how do the two fit together? This paper considers this question through an analysis of 15 cases of radical change observed in four English local authorities. While much of the existing literature seeks to theorize the circumstances in which different logics will predominate, the cases considered here suggest a need to acknowledge the intermingling of logics. Adapted from the source document.

That England has a hierarchical relationship between central and local government is a staple of postwar constitutional commentary. By using cultural theory's five modes of organisation—namely, hierarchies, markets, networks, autonomism, and fatalism—to analyse 109 interviews conducted with politicians and managers in nine local authorities I question the adequacy of this characterisation. While many of those interviewed did indeed describe the operation of a very hierarchical system, others pointed to the excesses of network and market forms of organisation. Others, still, seemed to think that local authorities enjoyed altogether too much autonomy in certain areas.

In vogue with the international currents of public management, the United Kingdom's New Labour government sees the outsourcing, or externalisation, of public service delivery as a key instrument of performance improvement. Evidence suggests, however, that a significant proportion of local authorities are reluctant to externalise. On the basis of fifty interviews in six case-study authorities, the author identifies five reasons for a reluctance to externalise. He further considers the degree of theoretical support for this reluctance, concluding that gaps in our knowledge—critical to 'make or buy' decisions—make it impossible to determine whether a reluctance to externalise is well founded or not.

English
As the UK's Labour government prepares a new strategy for sustainable waste management, this article considers the efficacy of the previous Conservative government's endeavours. Confusion over the relative merits of reclamation, incineration and landfill has diverted attention from the key priority of minimising waste and increasing recycling. This article considers the muddled aspirations of the Conservative government's policy; its reliance on indirect policy instruments; the capacity of local authorities to respond to these aspirations; and the suggestibility of the greater waste management system. Sustainability may require more sweeping a reconfiguration of the waste management system than has hitherto been considered.

Examines policy initiatives of the Conservative government, focusing on role of local authorities in the mid-1990s; Great Britain. Summaries in French and Spanish.