ABSTRACT
Quality management in European Public Administrations has been shifting from a producer point of view to a citizen/customer point of view. The shift towards an increased citizen/customer participation at all the different stages in the policy and management cycle will result in a change in focus and locus of quality management. Public management is being reformed in order to provide better, faster and more services. Deregulation, privatisation and marketisation currently play a considerable role in public management reform. The chapter reviews four different reform trajectories within the European Union. These four reform trajectories are: maintaining, modernising, marketising and minimising. Maintaining implies 'tightening up traditional controls, restricting expenditures, freezing new hirings, running campaigns against waste and corruption and generally "squeezing" the system of administration and law.' Traditionally the policy and management cycle is dominated and controlled by politicians and administrators. Citizens/customers are involved in this policy and management cycle at different stages, such as design, decision, implementation and monitoring, and evaluation.
