THE CONCEPT OF PUBLIC MANAGEMENT AND THE AUSTRALIAN STATE IN THE 1980s

Abstract: The adoption of the discourse of management by Australian public services in the 1980s can be seen as a cultural revolution. Results‐oriented management, subordinated to economic considerations, is the dominant approach. The upper levels of the public services have been remodelled in the form of a technically‐oriented elite recruited on merit, defined in terms of higher education credentials, drawing a technical intelligentsia, or “new class”, into public employment. Although “people and process” approaches, espoused in particular by women, find a place in the new culture, they are subordinated to the demands of scientific management. While the technical intelligentsia is resistant to traditional forms of bureaucratic authority and open to rational debate and new ideas, its members are not well equipped to take account of the substantive concerns of public policy and service provision. The distinctiveness of public management is submerged by inappropriate private sector models, and issues tend to be reduced to economic ones. The paradox that this culture has risen to prominence under Labor governments is explored and the developments are placed in the context of contemporary demands placed on the Australian state by private capital.