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By elaborating the conceptual framework and methodological guidelines suggested by Michel Foucault, Peter Triantafillou analyzes the ways in which public organizations over the last few decades have become the target of numerous interventions which, for better or for worse, have sought to improve their efficiency and quality. The author exposes how various political and social science theories were adopted in often unpredictable ways in the process of reforming the public sector. By focusing on Britain, France and Denmark, Triantafillou examines changes and developments in the governing of life, labour and learning, showing that across different political regimes, the development of particular forms of freedom played a crucial role in enabling these political interventions. This volume will be of interest to those scholars and students interested in using Foucault's concepts and methodological principles to critically analyze political interventions.

This paper examines the political rationality and governing technology underpinning value-based management (VBM) in the Danish healthcare system. VBM is a neoliberal mode of governing healthcare via competitive pay-for-performance schemes. At the same time, it has somewhat paradoxically cleared a space for criticising such neoliberal schemes. VBM implies an insatiable demand for knowledge that seeks to map the health outcomes and costs of treatment; a demand challenging the neoliberal governmentality that informs it. Management scholars have inspired a new series of reforms that, under the heading of 'value-based management', seeks to link hospital funding to accounts of actual treatment outcomes and costs. Based on the Danish experience, this paper suggests that the shift from a pay-for-performance system based on narrow conceptions of output, such as the number of patients treated, to one measuring actual health outcomes for patients is promising. However, the requirement for extensive knowledge linking health outcomes to full cycle treatments and their costs significantly challenges the adoption of a fair pay-for-performance system. ; This paper examines the political rationality and governing technology underpinning value-based management (VBM) in the Danish healthcare system. VBM is a neoliberal mode of governing healthcare via competitive pay-for-performance schemes. At the same time, it has somewhat paradoxically cleared a space for criticising such neoliberal schemes. VBM implies an insatiable demand for knowledge that seeks to map the health outcomes and costs of treatment; a demand challenging the neoliberal governmentality that informs it. Management scholars have inspired a new series of reforms that, under the heading of 'value-based management', seeks to link hospital funding to accounts of actual treatment outcomes and costs. Based on the Danish experience, this paper suggests that the shift from a pay-for-performance system based on narrow conceptions of output, such as the number of patients treated, to one measuring actual health outcomes for patients is promising. However, the requirement for extensive knowledge linking health outcomes to full cycle treatments and their costs significantly challenges the adoption of a fair pay-for-performance system.

For some time, academics have been discussing possible alternatives to new public managementunder headings such as network governance, collaborative governance, new public governance or,simply, public governance. This article seeks to better understand and critically discuss the rationalitiesof government supporting public governance. It argues that public governance is informed bya specific liberal rationality of government that differs from both classical liberalism and neoliberalism.Moreover, the diagnosis of societal complexity and concern for democratic self-government under-pinning public governance may entail the neglect of structural social problems, such as economicinequality, and the disqualification of other relevant forms of public intervention

Supreme audit institutions (SAIs) are fundamental institutions in liberal democracies as they enable control of the exercise of state power. In order to maintain this function, SAIs must enjoy a high level of independence. Moreover, SAIs are increasingly expected to be also relevant for government and the execution of its policies by way of performance auditing. This article examines how and why the performance auditing of the Danish SAI pursues independence and relevance. It is argued that, in general, the simultaneous pursuit of independence and relevance is highly challenging and amounts to a zero‐sum or, at the very best, a very modest plus‐sum game. More specifically, while the Danish SAI actively pursues both objectives, it has persistently prioritized independence over relevance. This priority seems to be the most effective strategy for the Danish SAI to maintain its legitimacy in a situation where the parliament is characterized by minority governments.

Like the Supreme Audit Institutions of many other OECD countries, the Danish National Audit Office has stepped up its performance auditing of public administrations and agencies in order to ensure that they provide value for money. But how do performance audits contribute to making state institutions change their conduct? Based on the case of the Danish National Audit Office's auditing of the quality of teaching at Danish universities, this paper seeks to show, first, that the quantification and, by the same token, simplification of the practices subjected to performance auditing are key to understand how SAIs render complex activities amenable to assessment. Secondly, the paper seeks to show how the quantification of the quality of university teaching contributed to make academic staff and universities, groups that have a large room of professional autonomy, viewing, assessing and, ultimately, govern their teaching activities differently.