How can one make state administrative systems interesting, embody an abstract public ethos and give heroism to homogeneity? The discipline of literature and bureaucracy dismisses Weber's 'neurocrat'. Milton, Trollope and Hare are case studies on implementing the 'what if' visions literature explored during a period of great change in public service

Autorentext

CERI SULLIVAN was a chartered accountant for NGOs and parastatal organisations, in Britain and across sub-Saharan Africa. She is currently a Professor of English literature in north Wales, researching the ways in which sustainable governance draws on the rhetoric of the public sphere, in imaginative representations in and of government institutions.

Inhalt
Introduction: Weber, Bureaucracy, and Creativity Weber and the Office Creative Bureaucracy The 1650s: Milton and the Beginning of Civil Service The Commonwealth's Public Service From Personal Servant to Public Servant Milton as Latin Secretary Hell, Heaven, and the Ideal Bureaucracy The 1850s: Trollope and the Height of Civil Service Ambitions Impetus for Reform A Literary Civil Service Combining Writing and Civil Service Novelists are also Public Servants Trollope Writes about Civil Service The Present: Hare and Shrinking Government Provision New Public Management National Theatre Service to or by the People? Hare's Plays on Public Services Coda: Bureaucratic Creativity