Public Management: Policy making, ethics and accountability in public management

Book excerpt: Since the 1980s, the public sector has been undergoing major changes throughout the Western industrialized world, the transitional economies of central and Eastern Europe, Latin America and South East Asia. The main thrust of these changes has been to bring public sector management practices closer to those of the private sector. This raises the question of how far public and private sector management are comparable. This set examines the relationships between public sector and private sector management in terms of both classical management theory and the new public management that emerged in the 1980s and 1990s. While the collection concentrates on articles from the last 20 years, some historical pieces are also included. The four volumes are arranged along the following lines: volume 1 - for and against the public sector; volume 2 - managing the plural state; volume 3 - broadening the public management perspective; and volume 4 - from policy to practice in public services.