Not steering but drowning: Policy catastrophes and the regulatory state

Political Quarterly

Volumn 72, Issue 4, 2001, Pages 414-427

  Moran, Michael ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0035486048     PISSN: 00323179     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/1467-923X.00421     Document Type: Article

References (21)

1. 1 D. Osborne and T. Gaebler, Reinventing Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit is Transforming the Public Sector, Reading, Mass., Addison-Wesley, 1992, p. 35.
2. 2 Stevie Smith, 'Not waving but drowning', in Selected Poems, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1978, p. 167.
3. 3 G. Neave, 'On the Cultivation of Quality, Efficiency and Enterprise: An Overview of Recent Trends in Higher Education in Western Europe, 1986-88', European Journal of Education, 1988, pp. 7-23, has - despite its ostensibly narrow range - been extraordinarily prescient in its account of the new evaluative state.
4. 4 C. Hood, C. Scott, O. James, G. Jones and T. Travers, Regulation inside Government: Waste-watchers, Quality Policy and Sleazebusters, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1999.
5. 5 M. Power, The Audit Society: Rituals of Verification, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1995.
6. 6 P. Dunleavy, 'Policy Disasters: Explaining the UK's Record', Public Policy and Administration, 1995, pp. 52-70.
7. 7 M. Bovens and Paul 'tHart, Understanding Policy Fiascoes, London, Transaction, 1996, pp. 1-19.
8. 8 P. Hall, Great Planning Disasters, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1981, pp. 138-51.
9. 9 This paragraph relies on Michael Heseltine, Life in the Jungle: My Autobiography, London, Hodder & Stoughton, 2000, pp. 509-14.
10. 10 Both the account and quotations come from National Audit Office, The Millennium Dome: Report by the Comptroller and Auditor General, HC936, 1999-2000, accessed at .
11. 11 I have pieced this together from the NAO report and three journalistic accounts: J. Rentoul, Tony Blair, London, Little, Brown, 2001, pp. 555-9; P. Routledge, Mandy: The Unauthorised biography of Peter Mandelson, London, Simon & Schuster, 1999, pp. 182-6; and D. Macintyre, Mandelson and the Making of New Labour, London, HarperCollins, 2000, pp. 398-403.
12. 11 I have pieced this together from the NAO report and three journalistic accounts: J. Rentoul, Tony Blair, London, Little, Brown, 2001, pp. 555-9; P. Routledge, Mandy: The Unauthorised biography of Peter Mandelson, London, Simon & Schuster, 1999, pp. 182-6; and D. Macintyre, Mandelson and the Making of New Labour, London, HarperCollins, 2000, pp. 398-403.
13. 11 I have pieced this together from the NAO report and three journalistic accounts: J. Rentoul, Tony Blair, London, Little, Brown, 2001, pp. 555-9; P. Routledge, Mandy: The Unauthorised biography of Peter Mandelson, London, Simon & Schuster, 1999, pp. 182-6; and D. Macintyre, Mandelson and the Making of New Labour, London, HarperCollins, 2000, pp. 398-403.
14. 12 This detail, and other parts of the account of privatisation, are taken from F. Terry, 'The Nemesis of Privatization: Railway Policy in Retrospect', Public Money and Management, 2001, pp. 4-6.
15. 13 'Regulator's Foreword', in Office of Rail Regulator, Operational Plan, 2000-2001, accessed at , 18 June 2000.
16. 14 The Flotation of Railtrack, HC25, 1998-9.
17. 15 D. Butler, A. Adonis and T. Travers, Failure in British Government: The Politics of the Poll Tax, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1994; the quotations are, in turn, from pp. 6, 44, 287, 303.
18. 16 The history and the idea of 'esoteric polities' in the City are from M. Moran, The Politics of Banking, 2nd edn, London, Macmillan, 1986.
19. 17 The account is based on Report of the Board of Banking Supervision into the Circumstances of the Collapse of Barings, 18 July 1995, accessed at , 27 April 2001. The quotations are from paras 13.10 and 13.58.
20. 18 There are in all 16 volumes of the official report. The most accessible source is at (accessed 27 April 2001). Volume 7 deals with medicines and cosmetics. The quotations in the text of this article are all taken from Volume 1, Findings and Conclusions. For ease of reference, paragraph references are given at the site of quotation in the text.
21. 19 M. Smith, The Politics of Agricultural Support in Britain, Aldershot, Dartmouth, 1990.