ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the changes that have occurred in public sector management as these boundaries have been increasingly broken down. It examines the traditional model of public administration, outlines new ways of thinking about public management, explores the different pathways to reform adopted by different countries, and examines the implications of these developments for Australia. Under the public administration model, a public employee works in a bureau and these bureaux are organised collectively into a bureaucracy. The central tenet of public choice theory is that human behaviour is dominated by self-interest. Overall, public choice theorists argue that, as far as possible, societies should look to markets rather than state provision to meet their needs. In some countries it is also possible to recognise a sequence of stages in public sector reform, with movement from the traditional administrative state, through the managerialist form to the market state.
