Description
Book SynopsisChallenging the traditional orthodoxies of public management, this timely and comprehensive book adopts a lively and critical approach to key questions of public policy and management.
With state-of-the-art contributions from leading international scholars, Public Management in the Postmodern Era explores a public sector that has moved irreversibly beyond the familiar territory of New Public Management and the exhausted tenets of modernization. Within a global environment where the old explanations and solutions have failed, the book advances a postmodern analysis. It argues strongly its original case that postmodern perspectives are of immediate relevance to issues of practice as well as to enduring problems of theory.
The ambitious remit of the book will be of direct value to practitioners, scholars, academic researchers and students in politics, public policy and public management. With an international scope, the book will appeal to a worldwide audience.
Trade Review‘A highly challenging set of essays on sense-making in a public sector world that previously contained a dearth of relevant theory. Moving beyond the orthodoxies of policy and management, this work advances the critical position that post modernism must be relevant to practice by building from the narratives of empowered practitioners faced with finding solutions that go beyond traditional boundaries.’ -- Robert Agranoff, Indiana University, Bloomington, US and Instituto Universitario Ortega y Gasset, Madrid, Spain
Table of ContentsContents: Preface PART I: CONCEPTUALISING AND THEORISING 1. Public Management in the Postmodern Era: An Introduction John Fenwick and Janice McMillan 2. Modernism Redux: Po-Mo Problems and Hi-Mo Public Policy Wayne Parsons 3. Democracy Without a Centre: Towards a Politics of Difference Paul H.A. Frissen 4. Understanding Policy Transfer in the Competition State Mark Evans PART II: APPLICATIONS AND ACTORS 5. Professions and Professionalism Andrew Massey 6. Working Life in the Public Organisation David Farnham 7. Still the Century of Bureaucracy? The Roles of Public Servants B. Guy Peters PART III: RESOLUTION AND SENSE-MAKING 8. Everyday Makers and Expert Citizens: Active Participants in the Search for a New Governance Henrik P. Bang 9. Public Policy and Management in Postmodern Times John Fenwick and Janice McMillan Index