This book discusses the effects on public management of the recent financial, economic and fiscal crisis and the austerity policies that emerged in its wake. It is primarily aimed at a readership with special interest in austerity policies and public-sector changes and reforms.
The book offers an international perspective with special attention to Eastern, Southern, Western, Northern and Central Europe, analysing the country cases of Estonia, Italy, Ireland, Denmark and Germany.
The principal themes to be addressed are crisis responses, cutbacks and budgetary reform and the impact they have had on public management changes and reforms.
More specifically, Part I presents the research questions, reviews the literature and introduces the case countries. Part II examines the crisis responses and the cutback initiatives in the case countries, while Part III investigates budgetary reform. Finally, the book provides a comparative cross-country analysis and conclusion. This book is a result of the SPARK project, SPARK being an abbreviation of the Danish words for economize (spare) and crisis (krise). We are grateful to the SPARK members and network for comments on the ideas presented in the book as well as on the drafts to the introductory and concluding chapters. Special thanks to Søren Kjær Foged, Gunnar Gjelstrup and Caroline Howard Grøn. We are also grateful to colleagues at the Department for Political Science and Public Management at The University of Southern Denmark, who took the time to comment on a draft of the concluding chapter. Furthermore, our two former colleagues who are now professors at Copenhagen Business School, Carsten Greve and Lotte Jensen, took the time to read, comment and discuss an early version of the manuscript at an international seminar assembling the chapter authors held at the Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen, in June 2016. Our warm thanks also go to them. Finally, we are grateful to the Velux Foundation for the generous financial support they
provided to the SPARK project. Without this support, the book project would not have been possible.
Eva Moll Ghin, Hanne Foss Hansen and Mads Bøge Kristiansen
Copenhagen 15 December 2016