ABSTRACT
The ‘globalization of reform’ is a common phrase used to describe many dimensions of contemporary state restructuring and public sector reform. Much attention has been paid to convergent forms and trends such as NPM or the ‘new governance’ (Salamon 2002) while, in the case of regulatory reform, theorists have identified a constellation of trends under the label of the ‘regulatory state’ (or even ‘postregulatory state’ (Scott 2004)). But the convergence proposition is not uncontested: an alternative view is sanguine about the convergence of national regimes on global models, stressing not only the common themes but the continuing – if not deepening – variety in processes and outcomes (Common 2001; Pollitt 2001; Hood 1998, 194221). Thus, NPM is not the only administrative reform paradigm that has attracted the attention of reform advocates and governments in recent decades (Peters 1996) and even where it is taken up it results in numerous transformations (Christensen and Lægreid 2001b).
