Citation

6 P, Peck E. Public Admin. 2004; 82(1): 83-108.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2004, Royal Institute of Public Administration)

DOI

10.1111/j.0033-3298.2004.00384.x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Five accounts of New Labour's style of public management reform can be identified in the recent academic literature. Although each has merits, none is wholly convincing. After a discussion of their scope and limits, this article offers a distinctive account, grounded in wider social theory, which also synthesizes the most valuable elements in the five mainstream accounts. The article then uses the case of New Labour's reforms of the mental health system to support this account, showing how it exemplifies each of the 15 major strands of reform activity that have together been the hallmark of what in practice New Labour has meant by ‘modernization’. This provides the basis for a critique of the limits and dangers of the New Labour style.