ABSTRACT
Historical legacies in the structures, practices, and values of public administration and management from 1660 to the 1970s notwithstanding, something “new” unquestionably began coming into the picture both in the United States and in Europe. Economic crises, fiscal scarcity, demographic change, immigration, and the resultant concerns with the financial appetite of the welfare state gave impetus to public policies emphasizing government retrenchment and efficiency. Public-management-cum-private-management came to be viewed by neo-liberal reformers, if not by citizens at large, as a means, even as a panacea, for achieving more frugal, more efficient, and, as a hoped-for consequence, more effective and politically popular governments.1
