Eva Moll Sørensen, Hanne Foss Hansen, and Mads Bøge Kristiansen, eds., Public Management in Times of Austerity (New York and London: Routledge, 2017). 282 pp. $120.00 (hardcover), ISBN: 9781138680531

• Published date: 01 September 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12982
• Author: Paolo Belardinelli
• Date: 01 September 2018

Book Reviews 809

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 78, Iss. 5, pp. 809–811. © 2018 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.12982.

Ever since the outbreak of the global financial

crisis in 2008, European countries have been

facing a period of rebuilding circumstances.

Particularly since 2010, in the face of the crisis of

sovereign debt, European governments have been

committed to decreasing their respective fiscal deficits

with the declared aim of restoring their financial

credibility—even more so in the case of the so-called

PIIGS countries (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece,

and Spain). Building on the cases of Germany, Italy,

Denmark, Ireland, and Estonia, Public Management

in Times of Austerity tells us how public management

practices have changed under these circumstances.

Austerity is clearly a hot and timely topic, and it has

been the object of discussion within a wide range of

environments, from academics to talk shows. Austerity

can mean different things depending on the context

of the discussion, but here austerity can be defined

as a course of government policy and a political and

psychological climate that makes the problem of

scarcity more salient and compelling on the side of

public expenditure.

In investigating the consequences of austerity for

public management, the book, edited by Eva Moll

Sørensen, Hanne Foss Hansen, and Mads Bøge

Kristiansen, addresses three main research questions:

(1) What is the character of the changes to public

management that are taking place under present-day

austerity? (2) Does austerity lead to path-breaking

and/or path-dependent change? (3) Why are different

and/or similar patterns of change observed in different

countries?

While using case studies may not be the most suitable

methodology to infer general rules, the topic, as is

argued by the editors, is such that many hard-to-

operationalize variables interact in complex ways.

In addition, the choice of these five cases guarantees

widely varying economic and institutional conditions,

from Ireland, so deeply hit by the crisis that was subject

to the Troika’s control, to Germany, which experienced

austerity several years before the last European crisis

by which it was barely affected. Therefore, each case,

written by recognized national experts, tells a specific

story with an important lesson. Nonetheless, common

patterns can be identified regarding the first two

research questions, while the third forces the reader to

not forget each country’s specifics.

In answering these questions, the contributors focus

on specific key components of public management:

financial management, personnel management,

organizational restructuring, and performance

measurement.

The character of change observed in financial

management is consistent with predictions made

by the literature, namely that economic crises will

lead to the concentration of power and decision

making (Aucoin 1990; Boin et al. 2016). Indeed,

centralization and formalization of decision making

on aggregate spending and top-down budgeting

processes can be observed in all cases. In terms of

cutback management, for example, all of the countries

initially chose to react to the crisis with across-the-

board cuts imposed by “budget guardians” within

the executive government, that is, the Ministry of

Finance (and the Department of Public Expenditure

and Reform in Ireland’s case). Detailed decisions on

how to allocate these across-the-board cuts at the

organizational level, however, were mandated to lower

organizations that often opted to implement them

as targeted cuts even though they were subject to

stronger central monitoring.

This approach of combining centralization in

the planning phase and decentralization in the

implementation phase, confirmed also by budget

reforms aimed at strengthening the role of central

government in controlling public expenditure

aggregates, seems to be consistent with the “let

managers manage” imperative by New Public

Management. Nevertheless, managerial discretion

remains weakly implemented in Italy and seems to

Eva Moll Sørensen, Hanne Foss Hansen, and Mads Bøge

Kristiansen, eds., Public Management in Times of Austerity

(New York and London: Routledge, 2017). 282 pp.

$120.00 (hardcover), ISBN: 9781138680531

Reviewed by: Paolo Belardinelli

Bocconi University, Italy

Book Reviews

Galia Cohen, Editor

Paolo Belardinelli is a PhD candidate

at Bocconi University, Italy. His research

focuses on behavioral public policy and

administration.

E-mail: paolo.belardinelli@unibocconi.it