This paper examines the Motability scheme which enables disabled people to obtain cars on a leasing basis in the UK. The scheme is centred around Motability, a charity, which has an arms-length relationship with a government department, and a close relationship with a non-profit making private...

With the goal of extending the New Public Management perspective by focusing on the play of vested interests and power, our study examines the active agency of a single company contracting with local and state governments to implement a Tax Incremental Financing (TIF) programme. Extending beyond...

This research locates the use of public private partnerships (PPP) within the new public management (NPM) reforms that have swept the Australian public sector. Empirical evidence from policy documents and a case study of a failed public hospital project in Victoria are used to illustrate...

Using a neo-institutional lens, this paper analyses the formation and evolution of the procedures, norms and conventions – both official and unofficial – of the French approach to managing sport. In the 1960s and 1970s, a centralising model for the public service was hegemonic,...

The public value of history, culture and heritage interacts in complex ways with the private ownership of so many of the facilities which give substance to these matters. This article begins by reflecting on the processes involved in seeking to associate government, community and the market in...

This article reviews the establishment and use of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in Ireland. It notes the many difficulties experienced in obtaining a precise view of the composition of the Irish public sector and comments on ambivalent (and therefore often destructive) attitudes to the control...

In recent years, the local government sector in European countries has undergone important changes involving, among other things, the externalisation of local public service provision through various forms of corporatisation, public-public collaboration, public-private partnerships and...

The reported turnaround of the Indian Railways (IR) has attracted wide notice. This article locates the enterprise within the broader Indian public sector and explores the factors that led to the turnaround from a low performing organisation to a high performing one. The case study method is...

This article recognises that the Mexican financial crisis of 1982 marked a turning point in the country's development. The crisis followed a period of steady economic growth. Since then, the entrepreneurial state has been under steady attack by members of a new business elite, who are direct...

Recent studies of the effectiveness of privatisation programmes in the water and sanitation sector have highlighted the diversity of experiences, especially with respect to the distributional consequences of reforms. This study of water and sanitation privatisation programmes in the city and...