Is there evidence for the emergence of ‘two-track’ public services, where the wealthiest, best informed and most assertive customers get the best quality service? In this paper, we use public opinion data of citizen complaint behavior from 2000 and 2004 towards services of general interest...

New Public Management has been around for a quarter of a century in European public sectors, yet despite the movement’s emphasis on indicators and evidence, there have been surprisingly few encompassing evaluations. In this paper, we provide an overview of academic evaluation and impact...

The transfer of responsibilities from central to local government has often been justified on the grounds of efficiency and democracy under the principle of subsidiarity. The existing models for mapping local government power in Europe, however, are often insufficiently detailed to allow...

The degree to which different social groups get along is a key indicator of the cohesiveness of a society. This study examines perceptions of social cohesion amongst Europeans and explains variations in those perceptions by considering the separate and combined effects of economic strain and...

Policy responses to the global financial crisis can be divided into pro- and counter-cyclical approaches. The former advocates reducing public spending in times of financial constraints. The latter approach advocates public spending to boost the economy. Using public opinion (N=23,652) data from...

Competing values complicate debates on the reform of public services. Attention for competition and efficiency is balanced by concerns for equity and universality in service delivery. These potential value conflicts are best visible in the reform of services of general interest. Despite debates...

Purpose of this paper: A number of studies and indicators have ranked European countries in terms of the performance of their public sectors. This paper demonstrates there are important conceptual problems with such rankings and comparisons.Design/methodology/approach: Using the existing...