RHODES, R. A. W

From institutions to Dogma : tradition, eclecticism, and ideology in the study of british public administration - Malden, MA : Blackwell Publishers, nov./dez. 1996

Has British public administration los its sense of coherent indetity? This article describes the major changes of te postwar period. It describes the decline of traditional public administration with its distaste for theory, focus on institutions, and predilection for administrative engineering. The 1970s heralded the era of eclecticism with the british "behavioral revolution" and the advent of organization theory and policy analysis. The 1980s saw these fashions wane under the impact of new right ideology. If rational choice was a minority interest, the new public management suept all before it. But public-administration was an observer, not a participant in the rush to reinvent Withehall. its institutional base also weakened. But all is not doom and gloom in the 1990s. The Economic and Social Research Council invested siginificant research funds in Public Administration and the future lies in our own hands. We must produce better quality research and prove we can contribute to understanding the changing institutions of government