Yearly Workshop with the PP Platform’s Australian Partner Whitlam Institute on the Impact of Neoliberalism on Public Service

During the Summer, members of the CBS Public-Private Platform visited Australia. The trip had several purposes, one of the key elements was a two-day workshop, which the Platform co-hosted with its strategic partner, the Whitlam Institute at Western Sydney University. The 2016 workshop took place from 8th to 10th of August and was the fourth in an ongoing series. This year’s theme was “Economic rationalism in Canberra twenty-five years on: the impact of neo-liberalism on public service”.

The aim of the workshop was to generate a deeper understanding of the conceptual and practical impact of neoliberal doctrine on public services, and especially on the idea and practice of public office holding. At the workshop  topics such as the changing nature of administrative reforms, the replacement of public administration by public management, and the idea of public value were all discussed.

The Platform was strongly represented with presentations from its two Academic Directors Paul du Gay and Carsten Greve. Paul du Gay presented the paper ‘Whatever happened to Administrative Statesmanship?’ and Carsten Greve presented his paper: ‘Why Politics of Public-Private Partnerships Reinforced Economic Rationalism during Twenty-five Years. Furthermore, the PP Platform members Assistant Professor Thomas Lopdrup-Hjorth and Assistant Professor Anne Roelsgaard-Obling both from the Department of Organization, CBS, presented their paper ‘Obscuring contemporary problems of political-administrative responsibility? Codification and the ethics of office in the Danish central administration’. Other participants included Jonathan Boston (Public Policy, Victoria University of Wellington), Margaret Wilson (Law, University of Waikato), Michael Pusey (School of Social Sciences and International Studies, UNSW), Mark Considine (Faculty of Arts, University of Melbourne) and Bob Debus (former ALP federal and stateminister).