Charters are official commitments to quality and reform. Belgium introduced its Charter of the User of Public Services in 1993. The federal administration’s Copernicus reform began in 1999 and had a strong external outlook. It therefore may be considered as a second User Charter. In this...

From an anthropological point of view there are four fundamental ways of living on earth, which can be related to “four basic cultural types: hunting and gathering, herding livestock, village farming, and modern civilization (…). Culture can be defined as the relationship of a society to the...

Originating in the Anglo-American world, the 'New Public Management' (NPM) paradigm appears to have swept over various Continental-European countries, producing convergence of administrative reform. This text explains how the ambiguous concept of NPM is crafted and shaped differently in various...