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PETTY BUREAUCRACY AND WOOLLYMINDED LIBERALISM? THE CHANGING ETHOS OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT OFFICERS
Author(s) -
PRATCHETT LAWRENCE,
WINGFIELD MELVIN
Publication year - 1996
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/j.1467-9299.1996.tb00888.x
Subject(s) - ethos , bureaucracy , politics , public administration , polity , institution , new institutionalism , public sector , public service , interdependence , public institution , government (linguistics) , classical liberalism , sociology , political science , political economy , liberalism , law , linguistics , philosophy
Most discussions of the public service ethos ( pse ) have offered polemical accounts of how recent reforms have eroded the distinguishing values of public servants without ever defining this ethos or considering its relationship to other aspects of the public sector. This article considers the deeper and more structural implications of the pse by characterizing it as a political institution that shares the features of‘new institutionalism’. It concentrates upon the pse as it manifests itself in local government and uses case studies of four authorities to analyse the extent to which external changes are altering the fundamental values of the ethos. In using the‘new institutionalist’perspective it argues that the pse , a vital institution of the UK polity, has been resistant to external pressures for change. Hence, to be successful, public sector reform must take into account the interdependent relationship between the pse and other political institutions.