Dismantling Democratic States

Extract

Dismantling Democratic States, Ezra Suleiman, Princeton and Oxford, Princeton University Press, 2003, pp. 327.

At the heart of this comparative text is a fundamental critique of the substitution of the norms of the market place for those of collective public interest. As citizens are transformed into ubiquitous consumers, so the reinvention of government raises profound questions about the public domain and its role. To this extent, the New Public Management (NPM) is a vehicle for a deeper ideological program, differentiating it from earlier reform endeavours. However, Suleiman contends it is a global movement very much constrained by cultural contexts. The reluctance of countries such as France or Japan to implement far-reaching reforms reflects deeply embedded socio-cultural and political values that underpin the public sphere, unlike prevalent values in the United States.