Creating Citizen-Consumers Changing Publics and Changing Public Services [Paperback]

Political, popular and academic debates have swirled around the notion of citizen as a consumer of public services, with public service reform increasingly geared towards a consumer society. This innovative book draws on original research with those people in the front-line of the reforms -staff, managers and users of public services - to explore their responses to this turn to consumerism. Focusing on health, policing and social care, it vividly brings to life the contentious and troubled relationships between government, services and users.

Creating Citizen Consumers explores a range of theoretical, political, policy and practice issues that arise in the shift towards consumerism.It draws on recent controversies about choice in public services to bring them in line with the experiences and expectations of a consumer society. It offers a fresh and challenging use of popular understandings of the relationships between people and services to argue for a model of publicness based on interdependence, respect and partnership rather than choice.Introduction
Changing Times
Perspectives on the Citizen-Consumer
Public Service Reform
The Rise of the Citizen-Consumer
Delivery Problems? Consumerism and Institutional Variation
Unstable Encounters
Users, Staff and Services
Managing Consumerism
From Policy to Practice
Sites of Strain
Consumerism and Public Services
What's in a Name? In Search of the Citizen-Consumer
Beyond the Citizen-Consumer