Managerialism and Social Welfare: A Challenge to Public Administration
Author(s)
Reed, Christine M.
Abstract
We move inexorably toward a “managerial state” based on devolution of central government authority and privatization of essential public functions. John Clarke and Janet Newman, authors of a recent study of welfare reform in Great Britain, use the term “managerial state” to denote the sense in which administrative change is embedded in a larger set of political, economic, and social forces that produce institutional redesign and radically different relationships between citizens and their government. By examining the contradictions and tensions contained within these larger forces, Clarke and Newman point beyond the current–and seemingly inevitable–changes at the institutional level to a future when the state must address the unresolved social tensions. The Managerial State reminds us of what is at stake for citizens, particularly those members of our communities who exist at the margins of the new global economy. If the managerial state is unstable, as the authors argue, then the future of the reinventing government movement is also uncertain, contrary to its proponents’ statements that a successful state is a “well managed” state.
