FROM PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION TO PUBLIC MANAGEMENT: REASSESSING A REVOLUTION?

Changes to the study of public administration tend to follow those in the practice of the administration of government. The recent shift to public management is characterized and assessed both as a practice and a field of study. The result has been less a revolution in paradigm than the emergence of a vision of government which competes with but does not supplant traditional public administration.     

The Professionalization of Public Accounting: A Social Dilemma Perspective

This study uses a social dilemma model of auditing and a model of cooperative regulatory enforcement to provide a framework within which the evolution of self-regulation in the U.S. accounting profession is studied. From a social dilemma perspective, individual public accounting firms are best off, in a single period sense, by providing a low quality audit product, which is defined in terms of the degree of auditor acquiescence to managers' accounting method discretion. However, firms' collective welfare is maximized by high quality auditing. The cooperative regulatory model employed is premised on the existence of a plausible government threat of punishments and invasive regulations, which motivates self-regulation in an industry. We argue that prior to enactment of the securities acts, public accounting firms faced a social dilemma in which there were limited incentives for high quality auditing either voluntarily or through the establishment of self-regulation. The securities acts provided a plausible threat to which the accounting industry responded by implementing self-regulation in order to avoid invasive and costly government regulation. After the emergence of the accounting profession, there occurred a long period of cooperative regulation with the SEC. Management discretion over accounting methods increased during this time period and audit quality correspondingly decreased, suggesting possible inefficient capture of the SEC. Evidence of an evolution towards a tripartite form of regulation appeared in the 1970s when the SEC and public accounting began to be critically reviewed by Congress. From this time to the present, new regulatory threats have motivated a series of self-regulatory responses by public accounting to improve audit quality.     

Veteran Care in the United Kingdom and the Sustainability of the ‘Military Covenant’

This article assesses how veteran care can be placed at the centre of our understanding of the modern Military Covenant and located as a key issue in contemporary civil–military relations and public policy. Healthcare and welfare provision have become primary manifestations of how the British state fulfils its duty of care towards military personnel. The article aims to present an overview of current provision for veterans of Britain's modern wars and draw conclusions regarding the state's ability to provide short and long‐term healthcare and welfare requirements to veterans as part of the Covenant under the rubric of ‘Big Society’‐inspired policy shifts engendered by the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition government.     

TRANSITION OR TRANSFORMATION? -ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY UNDER THATCHER

The degree of fundamental change or continuity in environmental policy under the Thatcher governments since 1979 is explored in terms of three functional areas of policy-making. The impact of Thatcherite ideology has been strongest in the development function. Deregulation has weakened the role of strategic land use planning. A strong central state allied to a free market has enabled primacy to be given to the promotion of private sector development. Compromise has been characteristic of the conservation function where the Government has had to arbitrate between its farming and rural preservationist constituencies at a time when the rural economy has shifted from an emphasis on food production to the problem of surplus. International concerns about transboundary pollution and EEC environmental directives have constrained the Government's freedom of action in the ecological function of policy. Overall, environmental policy shows a mixture of transformation where ideology is strong and pragmatism where political and structural constraints ensure the longer term continuity of policy.