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Contract Regimes and Reflexive Governance: Comparing Employment Service Reforms in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Australia
Author(s) -
Considine Mark
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
public administration
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.313
H-Index - 93
eISSN - 1467-9299
pISSN - 0033-3298
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9299.00221
Subject(s) - reflexivity , bureaucracy , corporate governance , order (exchange) , public service , new public management , service (business) , public administration , political science , economics , public sector , sociology , business , economy , law , finance , social science , politics
Contemporary debates concerning the nature of ‘new governance’ typically focus upon the shifting roles played by bureaucracies, networks and markets in the provision of public services (Kooiman 1993; Ormsby 1988). At the core of these recent changes we find a strong interest in having private agents deliver public services. Sometimes this is expressed as privatization and in other cases a ‘mixed economy’ of public and private participation may be devised (Williamson 1975; Moe 1984). In this study a number of central elements of neo‐liberal public management are brought together in a single focus upon the ‘contract regime’ in order to examine the extent to which single initiatives might combine to produce a recognizable system of governance. Such an institutional form may then be more carefully specified and its impact compared in different governmental systems. Using a four‐country comparison of employment service reform the study shows that distinctions based upon degree of privatization do not adequately explain regime types whereas distinctions based upon ‘compliance‐centred’ or ‘client‐centred’ forms of contracting are more powerful. The type of reflexive interaction between different elements or levels of contracting also explains country differences.