Introduction

Since the Fulton Committee's report in 1968 there has been a constant stream of initiatives from Labour and Conservative governments aimed at strengthening central government and reforming the civil service. Many now belong to the dustbin of history, their labels redolent of times past. Who now remembers or cares about CPRS, MINIS, FMI, the ‘3Es’, Next Steps agencies, and citizens' charters? A sceptic might remark that nothing persists except the persistent drive for reform.

Even against this backcloth of frenetic activity, one word captures the Blair government's handling of the central machinery of government – hyperactive. However understood, whatever the results, nobody can deny there has been much activity. This chapter tells three stories of central change: the centralisation story, which claims the changes sought to increase the power of the Prime Minister at the expense of cabinet and the departments; the management story, which claims the attempt to reform the civil service foundered on Blair's lack of policymaking and management skills; and the governance story, which argues the Prime Minister is locked into webs of dependence that undermined his initiatives. Finally, we essay an overall assessment.

The centralisation story

The trend to executive centralisation is seen by many commentators as widespread in parliamentary government. For example, Poguntke and Webb argue that executive presidentialism occurs when there is a shift of ‘political power resources and autonomy to the benefit of individual leaders’ and ‘a concomitant loss of power and autonomy of collective actors like cabinets’.

Introduction

The twentieth century both opened and closed with a bang: the belle époque before 1914 and the “roaring nineties” (Stiglitz, 2003) just past. It was only after the First World War that people looked back at the 1895–1914 period with nostalgia as a “beautiful era” of spreading prosperity, peaceful technical progress, low inflation, and modest financial instability. The 1990s, on the contrary, were seen as the “best of times” (Johnson, 2001) by many of those who lived through the decade – at least, those in the United States. Will future historians confirm this view? If the twentieth century is any guide, much will depend on how the twenty-first century unfolds. If peace again prevails, if productivity growth continues apace at the economic center and spreads to the periphery, if means are found to govern the international economy in ways that make the costs of globalization socially acceptable, then the 1990s may well be remembered as a moment in human history when the foundations were laid for a long period of sustainable growth. If, on the other hand, social, political, and economic instability prevails, as it did after the First World War, then people may indeed look back at the 1990s as “the best of times,” creating the myth of another belle époque. Posterity will magnify the virtues of the last decade in the twentieth century and ignore its shortcomings.

In the process of producing this volume the editors incurred numerous debts, which we can only partially repay with an expression of our gratitude here. The original versions of these papers were presented at the joint Duke–University of North Carolina conference on “Understanding the 1990s: the long-run perspective” held at the Terry Sanford Center on the Duke University campus in Durham, North Carolina, from 26–27 March 2004. This conference would not have been possible without the untiring efforts of Peggy East at Duke University. We would also like to thank Nancy Kocher at the University of North Carolina, and members of the program committee Peter Coclanis, Robert Keohane, Thomas Mroz, and Thomas Nechyba. Generous funding was provided by the Dickson Fund for the Study of Economics in History at the University of North Carolina Economics and History Departments, the Kenan Fund of the University of North Carolina Department of History, the Duke University Economics Department, the Duke Center for International Studies, and the European Studies Center. These contributions are greatly appreciated. We would also like to thank the discussants and participants for their valuable remarks, which led to lively discussion and debate at the conference and – ultimately – to better chapters in this volume. Among those deserving special thanks are Andrea Boltho, Michael Bordo, Paul David, Thomas Geragthy, Christopher Hanes, Richard Sylla, Ignazio Visco, John Wallis, and Barrie Wigmore.