ABSTRACT
From at least the late 1970s onwards, many Western governments have intro duced new policies to manage public and government services which display an attentiveness to business rationalities. Public services encompassing areas of social intervention, such as medicine, social work, mental health services and prison management, have become subject to what have been variously labelled ‘advanced liberal’ (Rose 1996), ‘new public management’ (Ferlie et al. 1996) or ‘neoliberal’ policies (Lawless 2011). Socially relevant forms of expertise have become embedded in marketized systems ‘governed by the rationalities of competition, accountability and consumer demand’ (Rose 1996: 41). Such poli cies have often been rhetorically framed as a desire to bestow ‘service users’, however construed, with increased ‘choice’ (Griffiths 1988; Ferlie et al. 1996).
