PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SECTOR MANAGERS OVER 20 YEARS: A TEST OF THE ‘CONVERGENCE THESIS’

This paper sets out to test the ‘convergence thesis’ in respect of managers in the public and private sectors in Britain. New Public Management (NPM) initiatives have had the objective of making managerial behaviour in public sector organizations more similar to that in the private sector. Based on unique national surveys undertaken in 1980, 1990 and 2000, using quite large random samples of fellows and members of the Chartered Management Institute (CMI), comparisons are made to investigate whether ‘convergence’ between public and private sector managers has actually occurred. The patterns are found to be complex and, although there are some signs of convergence, the two sectors continue to exhibit similarities, persistent differences and parallel movements evident in managerial attitudes, behaviour and experiences.     

Blair's Commission for Africa: Problems and Prospects for UK Policy

This article examines the recommendations contained within the Commission for Africa's report Our Common Interest , and asks what they might mean for the UK's Africa policies. After discussing the choice of the Commissioners and summarising the main recommendations made in their report, the article identifies some of the central problems raised but not resolved by the Commission in the relation to issues of security, political economy and governance. The article concludes that the Commission's report raised the profile of an important set of issues but neither resolved them conceptually nor set out a persuasive plan to implement its numerous recommendations. In particular, the Commission did not convincingly explain how neo-patrimonial regimes in Africa could be reformed to ensure that they pursue genuinely national development policies instead of the current strategies that benefit their supporters and weaken their political opponents.     

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND THE INFORMATION POLITY

Within the debates in Britain about changes in contemporary public administration insufficient attention has been focused to date upon the significance of new information and communication technologies. In particular, the operational importance of computer networks to government organizations, and of the information flows supported by them, have hitherto been given scant attention. A primary focus for understanding the current transformation processes in both services and organization occurring in public administration should be upon the role and significance of these new information flows. Informational capabilities are increasing throughout government organization and have considerable implications for the reforging of that set of organizations which comprise British public administration and for the relationships between and within them, as well as for the quality of publicly provided services. The shifts occurring in contemporary public administration can be usefully analysed and understood by reference to the new concept of the 'information polity'.     

Global Banks as Global Sustainability Regulators?: The Equator Principles

Banks might now seem odd candidates for the role of global sustainability regulator. Nonetheless, in limited areas of their operation, where global banks kept risk on their balance sheets and were financially exposed to many types of risk often otherwise treated as “externalities,” banks began to enact policies to encourage what they construe as “sustainable” banking. A small number of these banks have started to extend these principles of responsible action more broadly, across many of their business lines, as conditions of lending to their corporate clients. To this extent, it is possible to talk about (some) global banks as global sustainability regulators. The “law of unintended consequences” as used in the legal literature almost always refers to the unintended negative consequences of a regulation or policy. In this article, however, we discuss a potentially positive unintended consequence of the deregulatory and privatization trend of the 1980s and 1990s that was fueled by neoliberal political commitments: some private banks have taken a leadership role in regulating development. Specifically, these banks are enacting policies that attempt to mitigate the potentially negative social and environmental consequences of infrastructure development in politically unstable or environmentally fragile landscapes. The vehicle for doing this is a voluntary agreement called the Equator Principles (EPs). The article describes and analyzes the EPs and reports the initial results from an interview‐based study of the various EPs stakeholders, including bankers, government officials, lawyers, consultants, and critics from nongovernmental organizations. We address—from the perspective of these stakeholders—such questions as why the participating banks decided to join the EPs, what effects, if any, the EPs are having on development practice, and whether the EPs will ultimately prove to be more than a public relations exercise.