The New Labour team elected in 1997 was largely won over to the rather vague thesies of ‘new public management’ inspired by public choice economics. This resulted in the application of the principles of rational choice and classical microeconomics to public management, sometimes by transferring the recipes of private management to public management. Blair and Brown clearly under- stood that a redefinition of the rules of political action (in the direction of the regulatory state) went hand in hand with an increase in controls. While part of the traditional bureaucracy was dismantled and subjected to market mechanisms, the core executive gained in independence. The new government did not intend to reconsider the framework of public management left by the Conservatives. The inheritance was adopted, mobilized and consolidated by New Labour, whose action can be characterized as follows:
• indicators for good public management extend- ing beyond performance were developed for the precise piloting of public action
• according to the social model of neoclassical economists, individuals respond to stimulation
• the delivery of public policy combined public and private partners in flexible ways
• priority was given to delivery and the definition of objectives
• Power was centralized in order to initiate reforms, monitor delivery, and make government action coherent
• the inspiration for reforms no longer derived from the senior civil service, but from think-tanks, experts, consultants, academics, and foreign experience (essentially the USA).
New Labour systematized a way of steer- ing government on the basis of performance objectives, league tables, and strict financial control. These developments revealed their credence in the magical powers of synthetic