The ideal follow-up to the editors' previous book, New Public Management: The Transformation of Ideas and Practice, this new volume draws on the previous knowledge both theoretically and empirically to examine and debate the post-new public management reform development in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Australia and New Zealand.

Contents: Preface; Introduction - theoretical approach and research questions, Tom Christensen and Per Lÿgreid; Still fragmented government or reassertion of the centre?, Tom Christensen, Amund Lie and Per Lÿgreid; Reform design and performance in Australia and New Zealand, John Halligan; Types of state organisations: arguments, doctrines and changes beyond new public management, Paul G. Roness; Convergence and standardization in telecommunications regulation: trajectories of change and reform in the Asian Pacific regulatory state, Martin Painter; Organizing immigration - a comparison of New Zealand and Norway , Tom Christensen, Per Lÿgreid and Richard Norman; Central banking reform across the world: only by night are all cats grey, Martin Marcussen; Quests for transparency: signs of a new institutional era in the health care field, Maria Blomgren and Kirstin Sahlin-Andersson; Public-private partnerships: a comparative perspective on Victoria and Denmark, Carsten Greve and Graeme Hodge; (The difficult art of) outsourcing welfare services: experiences from Sweden and New Zealand, Anders Forssell and Lars Norén; New public management and the ghost of Max Weber: exorcised or still haunting?, Robert Gregory; Bibliography; Index.