It’s a bit eccentric, I know, to upload
a book about the experience of pubic admin reform at a time when the British
government and society is stuck in a crisis second in British history only to
the second world war. Courtesy of the UK Parliament’s live television channel,
I was able to tune in every now and then to this week’s parliamentary debate
but was, for most of the time, engaged in updating the little E-book on “Reforming
the State” (which I had uploaded in April last year) to take account of the
additional posts on the subject.
I started blogging in 2008 with a website which is still active – publicadminreform - clearly signalling that I wanted to use it to reach out to others. Sadly that has not happened…but it has not stopped me from continuing to “talk to myself” on this blog and from trying to produce a book which does justice to the thoughts and experiences I’ve had in about 10 countries over the past 50 years….
So please have a look at How did Administrative Reform get to be so Sexy?
I’m now running with the title "How
did Administrative Reform get to be so Sexy?" – and I perhaps owe my readers some
explanation of why I continue to be so fixated about the issue…
Quite simply I feel that the writing on
the subject falls into one of two categories – it’s produced either by academics (who reify and obfuscate) or by
think-tankers (who simplify and
exaggerate). It’s very difficult to find material written by practitioners – or,
even better, by those who straddle boundaries of discipline, nation or role
I came to full adult consciousness in
the 1960s, getting my first taste of political power in 1968 and of political
responsibility and innovation in 1971 when I became Chairman of a Scottish Social
Work Committee.
“Reform” was very much in the air –
although no one could then have imagined what
an industry public administrative reform would become. Indeed, in those
days, the only management author you could find in the bookstores was Peter
Drucker. And the only books about reform were American….
The opening pages of How
did Administrative Reform get to be so Sexy? try to convey a sense of what
it was like to be an early pioneer of organisational change in the country. My
position in academia encouraged me to develop a habit of publishing “think-pieces”
often in the form of pamphlets in a Local
Government Research Unit which I established in 1970 at Paisley College of
Technology – this
1977 article gives a good example of the style. The same year I published a
little book about the experience of the new system of Scottish local government and,
for the next decade, various musings on my experience
of running a unique social strategy in the West of Scotland.
In Transit – notes on good governance (1999) were the reflections which resulted from my first decade living and working in the countries of post-communist central Europe. Eight years then followed in three Central Asian countries and strengthened a feeling about the inappropriateness of the approach we “foreign experts” were using in our “technical assistance”.
In Transit – notes on good governance (1999) were the reflections which resulted from my first decade living and working in the countries of post-communist central Europe. Eight years then followed in three Central Asian countries and strengthened a feeling about the inappropriateness of the approach we “foreign experts” were using in our “technical assistance”.
In
2007 I tried to interest people in the NISPace
network in a critique called "Missionaries,
mercenaries or witchdoctors – is admin reform in transition countries a religion,
business or a medicine?" – but to no avail.
I started blogging in 2008 with a website which is still active – publicadminreform - clearly signalling that I wanted to use it to reach out to others. Sadly that has not happened…but it has not stopped me from continuing to “talk to myself” on this blog and from trying to produce a book which does justice to the thoughts and experiences I’ve had in about 10 countries over the past 50 years….
So let me try to summarise why I persevere with this
fixation of mine –
- I’ve occupied different roles (political, academic, consultancy) in different countries and have therefore been able to develop a facility for seeing different sides to the same story
- My knowledge of “the literature” tells me that few authors have bothered to try to explain the stratospheric and continued rise in interest in administrative reform
- New cohorts of politicians, public servants and even academics arrive in the workforce without a good sense of history
- Few authors in this field seem to have an interest in communicating with the public – they focus instead on students or experts in government, academia and think tanks. I know of only two books with a wider appeal
- I’ve occupied different roles (political, academic, consultancy) in different countries and have therefore been able to develop a facility for seeing different sides to the same story
- My knowledge of “the literature” tells me that few authors have bothered to try to explain the stratospheric and continued rise in interest in administrative reform
- New cohorts of politicians, public servants and even academics arrive in the workforce without a good sense of history
- Few authors in this field seem to have an interest in communicating with the public – they focus instead on students or experts in government, academia and think tanks. I know of only two books with a wider appeal
So please have a look at How did Administrative Reform get to be so Sexy?
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