The Politics of New Public Service Management: Privatisation and Managerialism in Royal Mail

Abstract

In analysing change in the public sector, and in particular the imperatives for change, there has been a tendency amongst some observers to isolate privatisation as a governmental strategy and divorce it from the wider political agenda, ignoring the political contingencies that have characterised this key development. So while the scale of privatisation, and indeed quasi‐privatisation, has been immense, the contradictions in terms of the aims and implementation of privatisation have been apparent (Marsh, 1991). In turn, the strategic and structural origins of such changes are usually ignored in the discussion on new public sector management with the research agenda tending instead to emphasise the problems of implementation with regards to an ideal typical notion of new public sector management.

Citation

Martinez Lucio, M. and Noon, M. (1994), "The Politics of New Public Service Management: Privatisation and Managerialism in Royal Mail", Management Research News, Vol. 17 No. 7/8/9, pp. 30-31. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb028352