Abstract
Since the 1980s, mainly due to perceptions of state failures, economic
crises and fiscal deficits, we have seen changes in the role of the state in
many societies. Both the welfare state and the traditional Weberian model
of bureaucracy have been the focus of such changes (Batley and Larbi 2004).
In the initial phase, or first-generation reforms of rolling-back the state
(Peck and Tickell 2002), the reforms included liberalisation, ‘deregulation’
and privatisation, and, in the later phase, since the 1990s, it involved state
re-regulation (Brenner and Theodore 2007; Peck and Tickell 2002) through
the introduction of measures such as private-sector management approaches,
cost-recovery, efficiency and public–private partnerships (PPPs) (Batley and
Larbi 2004). Nickson (2006: 82) has described these second-generation state
reforms as focused on the four E’s: effectiveness, economic efficiency, equity,
and an enabling environment for private-sector development. These do not
involve a diminished role for the state as much as a new role in terms of what
the state does and how it does it (Batley and Larbi 2004: 2) – what Bakker
(2003) has called re-regulation...