New Public Management (NPM) – a global administrative discourse – has been controversial in its intentions, implications, and outcomes. It has been the focus of lively academic, political, and public debate, and has been subjected to extensive academic scrutiny over the last few decades. However, 'spatial analyses' of its global–national political implications remain underdeveloped. Thus, the purpose of the present thesis is to investigate the spatial politics of NPM as a global hegemonic discourse, by exploring its emergence, evolution, and current role in the dynamics of global capitalism and governance. The work examines the processes, technologies, and techniques through which governable spaces of governance have been constructed by NPM discourse. In terms of methodology, a critical discourse analysis is undertaken here of OECD annual reports from 1978 to 2011, as well as other OECD 'texts' that propagate NPM discourse. In terms of theory, the thesis draws on Foucault's notions of governmentality, disciplinary power, biopolitics, and heterotopia. The thesis concludes that NPM discourse creates a heterotopian textual space. It constructs a transnational governing space that is biopolitically governed through the exercise of specific heterotopic practices. Through the deployment of NPM discourse, neoliberal subjects have been constructed, and neoliberal governmentality has become transnational. This has transpired because NPM discourse operates as an interplay between heterotopias of deviation and heterotopias of compensation. Using a set of textual practices of compensation and deviation, NPM (re)constructs a utopia of neoliberalism, where NPM deviates and compensates not only national governments and their populations but also individual public organisations at the national and transnational levels. Through such deviation and compensation strategies, neoliberalism is perpetually (re)produced as an ideal type. To this end, various institutional technologies and techniques of differentiation, surveillance, and compensation/normalisation are deployed.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:690599 |
| Date | January 2016 |
| Creators | Elshihry, Manal Elsayed |
| Publisher | University of Aberdeen |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://digitool.abdn.ac.uk:80/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=230145 |
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