Inversions without end: The OECD and global public management reform

Public sector reform is as old as the innovations of Hammurabi and the Mongols, indeed as old as the state and its administrative machinery. These reform efforts were typically driven by internal pressures or limited borrowings from regional rivals. Catherine the Great’s attempts at administrative reforms in the 18th century were inspired by European and particularly French models. The emergence of a “global” mode of reform – in which reforms were modeled (or imposed) on systems from other civilizations and far removed geographically probably can be dated from the British Empire and the export of its parliamentary and administrative systems, and was starkly displayed in the late 20th century Japanese attempt to modernize after the Meiji restoration (Westney, 1987).