Building the New Managerialist State

In the 1980s and 1990s the world of governance witnessed a far-reaching change from the Weberian model of bureaucracy to the "new managerialism" - a term used to describe the group of ideas imported from business and mainly brought into government by management consultants. Since the mid-1980s, the British, French, and Canadian governments have spent growing sums of money on consulting services and, as a result, policy-makers inside the state have increasingly been exposed to the business management ideas that consultants bring into the public sector Nevertheless, there are major differences in the extent to which reformers in the three countries embraced these ideas in the process of bureaucratic reform. Accordingly, this is a book about policy change and variation. It seeks to explain why the changes produced by the new managerialism have been more radical in some countries than in others. The book shows that the reception given by states to managerialist ideas depends on the openness of policy-making institutions to outside expert knowledge and on the organization, development, and social recognition of management consultancy.

well written ... provides a fascinating history of the management consulting industry ... both accounting and consulting.

Denis Saint-Martin is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Concordia University, Montreal. Previous positions include Assistant Professor, School of Public Administration, Carleton University, Ottawa (1998-9), and Post-Doctoral Fellow, Center for European Studies, Harvard University (1996-8).