In this new work, two leading political scientists reassess the shifting fortunes of the Whitehall model of governance - and find it wanting.
As we prepare to enter the twenty-first century, it has become clear that the model now has much less currency abroad as well as in the UK. The neo-liberal assaults of Thatcherism and the political drift of the Major years has meant that whereas, previously, 'Whitehall' symbolized a synergy between the political leadership and the permanent bureaucracy, it now evokes images of executive disarray and the subservience of career civil servants to...