ABSTRACT
The fanfares of marketization and privatization in health care echo as a common theme through recent welfare state discourse. Since the 1980s, public services such as health care and education have been increasingly invaded by neoliberal conceptualizations of the State, market, and society. This neoliberal sociomaterial context has shaped the rationale of how to frame and govern public policies, with performance indicators being a direct consequence of these conceptualizations. However, what is it that is “performed”? What is “accomplished” or “achieved”? The defi nitions of performance vary and the emphasis has been placed-at different moments-on economy, effi ciency, effectiveness, outputs, quality, outcomes, and social impacts (Freeman 2002: 126). “Consequently, the indicators themselves have also varied widely, in terms of what they purport to measure, their presentation and their intended audiences” (Freeman 2002: 126), as have their justifi cations.
