Subjects:

Constitutional and Administrative Law, Reference

Contents:

Theories of the Modern State

Law and Governance: An Overview

New Public Management: A Worldview

Networks and Civil Society

Policy Implementation and Ministerial Responsibility

Contracting Out and Privatisation

Regulation and Markets

Competition Policy and Customers

Reinventing Public Law and the Constitution

Conclusions.

Governance is a much wider concept than government and administration as traditionally understood. The tasks facing the public sector have altered with the development of New Public Management (NPM),the purchaser/provider divide, the move to 'best value', regardless of the delivery mechanism, contracting out, partnerships, devolved politics and globalisation. What this book argues is that the ancient underlying principles of public law are as crucial as they ever were. They simply need to be experimentally updated to address the changing face of 'governance', with all its ramifications. The place of law needs to be reviewed in the light of the changing nature of the modern state, and in particular as government gives way to governance. This book seeks to describe the challenges and to point up possible directions in which we might move.