The Managerial State: Power, Politics and Ideology in the Remaking of Social Welfare / Edition 1

by John H. Clarke, Janet E Newman

Overview

This original analysis of the creation of new state forms critically examines the political forces that enabled ‘more and better management' to be presented as a solution to the problems of the welfare state in Britain.

Examining the micro-politics within public service, the authors draw links between politics, policies and organizational power to present an incisive and dynamic account of the restructuring of social welfare. Clarke and Newman expose the tensions and contradictions in the managerial state and trace the emergence of new dilemmas in the provision of public services. They show that these problems are connected to the recurring difficulties in defining ‘the public' that receives these services. In partic

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780803976122
Publisher:	SAGE Publications
Publication date:	05/05/1997
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.41(d)

About the Author

Author/Editor Description: Janet Newman is Senior Lecturer in the School of Public Policy, University of Birmingham. She is co-author of 'The Managerial State' (with J Clarke, SAGE 97), author of 'Shaping Organisational Cultures in Local Government' (96), and co-editor of 'Gender, Culture and Organisational Change (with C Itzin, eds, 95).

Table of Contents

From the Cradle to the Grave
The Crises of the post-War Welfare Settlements
Towards the Managerial State?
A Change for the Better? The Tyranny of Transformation
The Making of Management
Regimes of Power
Incentives, Institutions and Identities
Shaping the Managerial State
Capturing the Customer
The Politics of Representation
Reinventing the Public
An Unstable State?

Editorial Reviews

‘The Managerial State can be situated as part of a critical literature on public sector managerialism to which it makes a valuable contribution...Clarke and Newman have produced a thoughtful and stimulating book. Their focus is on the British experience and this is unfashionable when this is a sine qua non to produce comparative work in social policy. However, they produce the robust justification of this approach; that as different countries have pursued different attempted solutions to economic recession and crisis and these in turn depend upon a specific combinations of national politics and circumstances then a national focus is fully justified. In the view of this reviewer such an emphasis on Britain serves to enhance rather than diminish the value of the book.' Journal of Social Policy

‘A significant contribution to the growing body of work which charts the impact of management theory on welfare organizations in the United Kingdom' - International Social Work

From the Publisher