This book examines the links between major contemporary public sector reforms and neoliberal thinking. The key contribution of the book is to enhance our understanding of contemporary neoliberalism as it plays out in the public administration and to provide a critical analysis of generally overlooked aspects of administrative power. The book examines the quest for accountability, credibility and evidence in the public sector. It asks whether this quest may be understood in terms of neoliberal thinking and, if so, how? The book makes the argument that while current administrative reforms are informed by several distinct political rationalities, they evolve above all around a particular form of neoliberalism: constructivist neoliberalism. The book analyses the dangers of the kinds of administrative power seeking to invoke the self-steering capacities of society and administration itself.
Table of Content
1. Introduction
2. Critical approaches to public administration and management
3. Neoliberalism: Epistemological finitude or infinite freedom?
4. Accountability: The reflection and expansion of government?
5. Democratic accountability and the institutionalisation of performance auditing
6. Accreditation: The ultimate technique for governing government?
7. Evidence-based policymaking: Towards epistemological infinitude?
8. A new civil-servant persona?
9. Conclusion
Index
About the author
Mark Haugaard is Lecturer in Political Theory at the National University of Ireland, Galway
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