This important new study, by a leading scholar in the field, offers a fresh perspective on public management. In contrast to the widespread claim of the `modernization gurus' that a new era of global convergence is dawning in public management, it uses cultural theory to show why ideas about how to manage government are inherently plural and contradictory, and likely to remain so.
Part I. INTRODUCTORY 1. Public Management: Seven Propostions 2. Calamity, Conspiracy, and Chaos in Public Management 3. Control and Regulation in Public Management Part II. CLASSIC AND RECURRING IDEAS IN PUBLIC MANAGEMENT 4. Doing Public Management the Hierarchist Way 5. Doing Public Management the Individualist Way 6. Doing Public Management the Egalitarian Way 7. Doing Public Management the Fatalist Way? Part III. RHETORIC, MODERNITY, AND SCIENCE IN PUBLIC MANAGEMENT 8. Public Management, Rhetoric, and Culture 9. Contemporary Public Management: A New Global Paradigm? 10. Taking Stock: The State of the Art of the State