Introduction

In 2004, Christopher Pollitt and Geert Bouckaert introduced the term "Neo-Weberian State” into the international discussion of public management reform (Pollitt and Bouckaert 2004). According to Pollitt and Bouckaert, "there are continuing broad differences between different groups of countries” (2004: 102) as far as governance is concerned. Their groups are the "maintainers”, the "modernizers”, and the "marketizers”. According to their argument, however, only two groups are of exceptional interest: the core, Anglo-American New Public Management (NPM) marketizers and the continental European modernizers. The reform model of this latter group is what Pollitt and Bouckaert classify as the Neo-Weberian State.

     Applying the Pollitt and Bouckaert criteria for Neo-Weberianism (summarized in the appendix) to American governance, while not recommended by Pollitt and Bouckaert, is nonetheless irresistible to an American participant in the Trans-European Dialogue on the New Weberian State”. While American governance may be "neo” – there have been developments in the American administrative state in recent decades that are to some degree "new and different” – in no meaningful sense is American governance "Weberian” according to the Pollitt-Bouckaert criteria. If the American state is "neo”, though, what does that term modify: neo-what ? I will suggest an answer to this question in what follows as well as argue for its relevance to a trans-European dialogue.

     There are deeper issues, however. Unacknowledged by Pollitt and Bouckaert is the fact that the term "neo-Weberian” has a variety of definitions and applications in the literatures of political science, sociology, and public affairs dating back to the 1960s and 1970s. To classify a state, or an organization, as neo-Weberian, according to this literature, is to imply value judgments on the relationship of such a state or organization to its members un-enumerated by Pollitt and Bouckaert. While the Pollitt and Bouckaert classification implies a positive synthesis of the new and the traditional, neo-Weberianism can also be viewed as having a dark side which, while beneficial for governing elites, is anti-democratic in its consequences.

     In this paper, I will first address a foundational question: Of what value is a dialogue on "the New-Weberian State” ? That is, what intellectual and practical agendas might be advanced by such a dialogue ? That basic question encompasses several more specific questions, which are taken up in turn: What is the value of such classifications ? What is the relationship of such classifications to theories that view nation state institutional evolution as path dependent ? How should the term "neo-Weberian” be defined for purposes of comparative analysis ? If it is neither a marketizer nor a modernizer, how shall the United States be classified, and what insights for comparative analysis are to be gained from such a classification ? The paper will conclude with the argument that taking neo-Weberian analysis to deeper levels can be both intellectually and practically productive.