The Art of the State Culture, Rhetoric, and Public Management

by Hood, Christopher

• ISBN13: 9780198297659
• ISBN10: 0198297653
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-03-30
• Publisher: Clarendon Press

Summary

Why does public managementDSthe art of the stateDSso often go wrong, producing failure and fiasco instead of public service? What are the different ways in which control or regulation can be applied to government? Why do we find contradictory recipes for the improvement of public services? Arethe forces of modernity set to produce worldwide convergence in ways of organizing government? This important new study aims to explore such questions, central to current debates over public management. Combining contemporary and historical experience, it employs grid/group cultural theory as anorganizing frame and method of exploration. Using examples from different places and eras, the study seeks to identify the recurring variety of ideas about how to organize public services. And contrary to widespread claims that modernization will bring a new global uniformity, it argues thatvariety is unlikely to disappear from doctrine and practice in public management.

Table of Contents

List of Figures	xii
List of Tables	xiii
PART I: INTRODUCTORY
Public Management: Seven Propositions	3	(20)
Public Management: Three Conventional Assumptions	3	(3)
What This Book Argues	6	(1)
Grid/Group Cultural Theory and Public Management	7	(5)
Putting Cultural Theory to Work in Analysing Public Management	12	(2)
Combining Cultural and Historical Perspectives	14	(3)
Modernity and Convergence in Cultural and Historical Perspective	17	(3)
The Stretchability and Centrality of the Cultural-Theory Frame	20	(1)
The Plan of the Book	21	(2)
Calamity, Conspiracy, and Chaos in Public Management	23	(26)
Responses to Public-Management Disasters	24	(3)
Four Types of Failure and Collapse	27	(1)
Private Gain from Public Office	28	(7)
Fiascos Resulting from Excessive Trust in Authority and Expertise	35	(5)
Unresolved Conflict and Internecine Strife	40	(3)
Apathy and Inertia: Lack of Planning, Initiative, and Foresight	43	(2)
Accounting for Failure in Public Management	45	(4)
Control and Regulation in Public Management	49	(24)
`Bossism': Oversight and Review as an Approach to Control	51	(4)
`Choicism': Control by Competition	55	(5)
`Groupism': Control by Mutuality	60	(4)
`Chancism': Control by Contrived Randomness	64	(4)
Ringing the Changes: Hybrids, Variants, and Alternatives	68	(5)
PART II: CLASSIC AND RECURRING IDEAS IN PUBLIC MANAGEMENT
Doing Public Management the Hierarchist Way	73	(25)
What Hierarchists Believe	73	(3)
`The Daddy of them All': Confucian Public Management	76	(6)
The European State-Builders: Cameralism and `Policey Science'	82	(8)
Progressivism and Fabianism: `Servants of the New Reorganization'	90	(6)
Conclusion	96	(2)
Doing Public Management the Individualist Way	98	(22)
What Individualists Believe About Public Management	98	(3)
Individualist Approaches, Old and New	101	(2)
Recurring Themes in Individualist Public Management	103	(15)
Conclusion	118	(2)
Doing Public Management the Egalitarian Way	120	(25)
What Egalitarians Believe	120	(8)
The Managerial Critique of Egalitarianism	128	(4)
Varieties of Egalitarianism	132	(10)
Conclusion	142	(3)
Doing Public Management the Fatalist Way?	145	(26)
Beyond Markets, Hierarchies, and Solidarity: A Fatalist World of Public Management?	145	(5)
Fatalism as a Greek Chorus in Public Management	150	(7)
Fatalism as a Recipe for Good Public Management: Lotteries as an Organizational Way of Life	157	(8)
Conclusion	165	(6)
PART III: RHETORIC, MODERNITY, AND SCIENCE IN PUBLIC MANAGEMENT
Public Management, Rhetoric, and Culture	171	(23)
Do Ideas Develop Cumulatively in Public Management?	171	(2)
The Rhetorical Dimension of Public Management	173	(4)
Rhetoric and Culture in Public Management	177	(12)
Better than the Devil You Know? Reaction and Change in Public Management	189	(3)
Conclusion	192	(2)
Contemporary Public Management: A New Global Paradigm?	194	(28)
Modern, Global, Inevitable? The Claim of a New Paradigm in Public Management	194	(4)
Public-Management Modernization as Deep Change	198	(2)
Public-Management Modernization as Irreversible Change	200	(1)
Public-Management Modernization as Convergent Change	201	(5)
Public-Management Modernization as Beneficent Change	206	(2)
Modernization---or `Fatal Remedies'?	208	(11)
Conclusion	219	(3)
Taking Stock: The State of the Art of the State	222	(20)
Public Management and Cultural Theory: Just Another Superficial Fad?	222	(4)
The `Nursery Toys' Objection: Too Simple for Sophisticated Analysis?	226	(4)
The `Soft Science' Objection: A Limited and Ambiguous Theory?	230	(3)
The `Wrong Tool' Objection: Is Cultural Theory Relevant for the What-to-Do Questions of Management?	233	(7)
Conclusion	240	(2)
Bibliography	242	(17)
Index	259