Research Catalog

Title

The state under stress : can the hollow state be good government? / by C.D. Foster and F.J. Plowden.

Author

Foster, Christopher D.

Publication

Bristol, Penn : Open University Press, 1996.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

Plowden, F. J. (Francis J.), 1945-

Description

xiii, 274 p. : ill.; 24 cm.

Summary

This is a comprehensive account of the changes that have taken place in British government in recent years - since 1979 but, more especially, since 1988. It argues that (and explains why) there has been a general decline in competence and ability to deliver good government. Ministers are increasingly overloaded, their long-standing relationships with civil servants have altered and the power of Parliament has declined. And the machinery of government has been transformed, at one level, by changes in the use of Cabinet and at another by privatization, contractorization and the creation of executive agencies. Any new government will find government transformed to a point where most memories of how it used to work in the 1970s are irrelevant. The State Under Stress argues that, while the clock cannot be turned back, urgent reforms are needed if democracy is not to be further undermined.

Series Statement

Public policy and management

Uniform Title

Public policy and management.

Subject

• 1979-1997
• Government productivity > Great Britain
• Privatization > Great Britain
• Decentralization in government > Great Britain
• Great Britain > Politics and government > 1979-1997

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

1. The causes of fiscal crisis -- 2. The politics of fiscal crisis -- 3. New public management examined -- 4. Separating provision from production -- 5. Complete separation: social objectives and regulation of privatization -- 6. Impermanent separation: contractorization -- 7. Decentralization: empowering local communities -- 8. The agency: incomplete separation -- 9. Ministers and agencies: separation as metaphor? -- 10. The role of ministers -- 11. What future for politics? -- 12. Conclusion.

ISBN

• 0335197140 (hardbound)
• 0335197132 (pbk.)

LCCN

^^^96021865^

OCLC

• 34705088
• SCSB-11570634

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library