Change for the Better?

"clear ideas" Renee Magritte (1958)
 

I'm just finalising my latest book which bears this title and, as subtitle, "a life in reform"

It's a mix of genres - but most decidedly, as Magritte himself might have put it, "this is not a text"! 

Although it's not quite finished, I've put it up on the list of Ebooks you will find in the top-right column when you scroll down. BUT IT HAS A NEW NAME - "The Search for Democracy"!

Warning to Reader

• People do not normally read a book about reform with any expectation of pleasure

• Such texts will normally figure as required reading in student courses, for example, in public administration reform.

• But this not a textbook on administrative reform….

• It is, rather, the story of an academically-inclined person who got involved, in the late 1960s, in community politics - and quickly rose to a position of strategic influence in Strathclyde Regional Council (Europe’s largest) for 16 years.

• On the basis of the innovative strategies I helped develop in a Regional authority covering half of Scotland, I then found myself working and living for the next 20 years in Central Europe and Central Asia - as a consultant in “institutional development”

• This is the story of how and what I have learned as a result of those endeavours in about a dozen countries

• I’m fed up with books which have unrelieved text – so have tried to liven things up a bit by the use of tables and boxes and the odd diagram

CONTENTS

Preface - in which I recall how a radio series first aroused my interest în organisations; reflect on this book’s origins; and why I think it may be of interest

1. The state of the State is chapter One in which I explain my first encounter with the deficiencies of local administration in 1968. In 1990 many of us were forced to start rethinking the role of the State - privatisation had, in the 1980s, left us wondering how far this development could redefine its role; and the unexpected fall of the Berlin Wall and of communist regimes then had us concocting pathways to capitalism and democracy.

2. Administrative Reform in the new millenium - captures one man’s attempt in 1999 to convey to a foreign audience his understanding of the organisational changes which had taken place în the 30 years from 1970 to the new millennium – particularly în the 1990s

3. Impervious Power – the eastern approaches reflects on the experience of western con-sultan..ts in central Europe and central Asia aș they wrestled with the transition to what their tiny minds assumed to be democracy and free markets.

4. Question Time A little British book about “the attack on the state” provoked me in 2018 into exploring some questions about the huge literature on public management reform (mainly academic) which has developed since the 1990s. include the following -

- How do countries compare internationally in the performance of their public services ?

- Has privatisation lived up to its hype?

- what alternatives are there to state and private provision

- why do governments still spend mega bucks on consultants?

5. The Management Virus The private and public sectors alike seem to have been taken over in recent decades by hordes of managers. How has this happened? How do we stop it? This chapter and its reading list can be viewed here

6. The echoes of Praxis As someone who has straddled the worlds of politics, academia and consultancy, I am disappointed by the sparseness of the practitioner contribution to the literature. By default we are left with academics who interview those în government and sometimes train them and consultants – allthough the former are the more voluble

7.Take Back Control? Which explores the implication of the quotation which adorns the book’s cover and asks how exactly might democracy improve the operation of our public services? Is this just a question of giving local government more power, as some would argue – ie giving a greater voice to the local public through their local representatives having a stronger legal and strategic role? Or does it require a more open and participative process – as many would argue? Or does it perhaps mean a greater say by the workforce in the everyday management of public services? Or a combination of all the above? Hilary Wainwright is amongst the very few who have taken this question seriously – although the Dutch, with the Buurtzog model, are now exploring the question

8. Theories of Change în which I question the compartmentalisation of the subject of change into studies of psychology, technology, organisation and society and offer an annotated bibliography of some 80 books

9. Inconclusion 

Just Words – a sceptic’s glossary (2023 updated version) it’s 60 pages so best read separately (my answer to Ralston Saul’s more voluminous “The Doubter’s Companion” 1994)