Does Reinvention Need Reinvention? Lessons from Tmncated Managerialism in Britain

Since the 1970s, reformers have pressed innovation in Whitehall management. However, the reinvention efforts by both the Thatcher and Major governments under the banners of public choice and managerialism have led the reform movement to a dead end. Using interviews ranging from 1978 to 1993 and drawing upon the works of public management theorists, this article analyzes the obstacles to reinventing government in the UK. Namely, the politicization of the process coupled with HM Treasuy's stronghold on expenditures has limited managerial discretion and built mistrust of veforms among civil servants. Rather than creating an environment conducive to innovations in public management, the UKs efforts have deepened the divide between policymakers and administrators.     

Missing the Point on Hard and Soft Power?

This article is a critique of two reports of parliamentary inquiries, into intervention and soft power, respectively. Neither report includes any discussion of Britain's involvement in and culpability for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Despite a more radical approach taken by the report on soft power, the article argues that the failure to address recent wars is symptomatic of a deeper and more dangerous inability to face up to profound and dangerous changes taking place in the world.     

Spontaneous Adaptation in Public Management: An Overview

This collection addresses the issue of why it so often proves difficult to foster innovation in public management. Specifically, it focuses its attention on why reform efforts encounter so frequently intractable obstacles stemming from the erosion of the mutual regard among political executives and career officials for the integrity of each others' respective competences in the devising of policies and the crafting and implementation of decisions based upon these.