HOW THE REINVENTING GOVERNMENT MOVEMENT IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION WAS EXPORTED FROM THE U.S. TO OTHER COUNTRIES

Abstract

From an academic point of view, Reinventing Government (RG) is a weak book. But the judgment of the academic community leaves with an interesting problem:How can we account for the relative influence that RG ideas have acquired over public management practices and for the enthusiasm with which those ideas have often been received by bureaucratic reformers in many countries? To answer this question, the article develops an analysis that proceeds in two stages. In the first section, I show how RG ideas gained ascendancy in political circles because they altered the terms of discourse about government management and made new kinds of coalitions possible. The second part looks at the structure of the global management consulting industry to show how the consultants who advised the Clinton administration were able to rely on already existing international network of American-based consulting organizations through which they could preach their Reinvention gospel around the globe. The American domination of the world management consulting market; coupled with the growing use by states of external consulting services as a source of advice on management issues, allowed consultants to carry RG ideas into the heart of the policy process.

ACKNOWLDEGMENTS

This article is based on a paper which won the Herbert Kaufman Award for the best paper in Public Administration presented at the annual conference of the American Political Science Association in Boston in 1998. I am indebted to David Osborne, Ted Gaebler and other interviewees for their assistance in preparing this paper. I am alone responsible for any errors or omissions. This article was written while I was a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University. The hospitality of the CES and the financial support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada are gratefully acknowledged.