eCite Digital Repository
Reinventing Westminster: how public executives reframe their world
Citation
Rhodes, RAW and Wanna, J and Weller, P, Reinventing Westminster: how public executives reframe their world, Policy and Politics, 36, (4) pp. 461-479. ISSN 0305-5736 (2008) [Refereed Article]
![]() | PDF Not available 140Kb |
Copyright Statement
© Copyright Policy Press 2008
DOI: doi:10.1332/030557308X313705
Abstract
The rise of the new public management in the 1980s led to recurring challenges to the administrative traditions of the public service in Australia, Canada and the UK. This article analyses how the heads of the public service articulate the traditions of 'constitutional bureaucracy' found in Westminster systems of parliamentary government and selectively draws on past understandings to understand present-day changes. We describe traditions under challenge that reshape reforms as reforms reshape them. We conclude that the heads of public services have found 'space' or 'voice' to articulate innovative ways of combining past traditions with new organising principles of governance. In each case, it is not a question of 'in with the new, out with the old', but of 'in with the new alongside key components of the old'. The myths and legends of yore remain germane to the modern public service.
Item Details
Item Type: | Refereed Article |
---|---|
Keywords: | WESTMINSTER SYSTEMS; TRADITION; CIVIL SERVICE; CONSTITUTIONAL BUREAUCRACY |
Research Division: | Human Society |
Research Group: | Political science |
Research Field: | Comparative government and politics |
Objective Division: | Law, Politics and Community Services |
Objective Group: | Government and politics |
Objective Field: | Public services policy advice and analysis |
UTAS Author: | Rhodes, RAW (Professor Rod Rhodes) |
ID Code: | 56168 |
Year Published: | 2008 |
Web of Science® Times Cited: | 17 |
Deposited By: | Government |
Deposited On: | 2009-03-29 |
Last Modified: | 2010-05-14 |
Downloads: | 0 |
Repository Staff Only: item control page