ABSTRACT
The pendulum – so goes the implicit or explicit argument in many of these contributions – is swinging again. States are once again reasserting their pre-eminent roles in service delivery and in the broad steering of their societies, clawing back authorities that under various guises of the New Public Management and privatization had been deleted, delegated, or otherwise diffused to market or social actors. Chapters in this collection have correlated these shifts in practice, across a range of sectors and settings, to shifts in ideology with regard to the role of government. Contributors have mapped some of the strategies being attempted to accomplish these shifts, and the mixed degree of implementation and success they have seen in various countries. Yet this concluding chapter casts a critical light onto several of the assertions made in the above paragraph. Four broad perspectives are explored in so doing. First, we reflect on the metaphorical nature of the accounts underlying the reassertion of the state. Specifically, we explore the meanings embedded in the adoption of a “pendulum” versus “golden mean” metaphor for understanding these shifts. Second, we examine the tensions and ambiguities evident in the chapters, in essence casting doubt on whether we are witnessing a unifying phenomenon of the reassertion of the state. Third, we make some conjectures as to the “terrain ahead”, in terms of the impact of the financial crisis and the broader forces constraining the reassertion to which it is giving great impetus. Finally, we attempt to draw some broader lessons or principles that seem embedded in the collection (despite the ambiguities noted).
