Recent emphasis on performance and output measures in public sector reform in the United Kingdom rests on assumptions of purposeful rationality and a view of man as essentially goal seeking. Geoffrey Vickers's conception of public institutions as concerned with the regulation of relationships rather than the pursuit of goals challenges the implicit down-grading of the qualitative aspects of institutions that is associated with this approach to reform. There is a need to qualify individualism by acknowledging dependence on the social context of regulation.
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