Public Sector Reform (PSR) and New Public Management (NPM) have been promoted by Commonwealth Caribbean governments and supported by regional and international agencies as a necessary step to ensure effective, efficient and economical administration; improve governance; and manage globalization. Modernizing the State covers both the theory and practice of PSR and NPM in the region.

It examines examples of policy transfer for the first time in an extended manner, and evaluates their impact on the reform process. Five countries in the region – Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, Saint Lucia, and Trinidad and Tobago – are studied in depth to assess the successes as well as the failures of reform. Particular attention is paid to the importance of the NPM paradigm in influencing and shaping the various reform initiatives.

This book is one of the few comparative attempts to study the evolution and implementation of PSR and the only one to focus exclusively on the Caribbean in the important period of the 1990s onward. Free of jargon, it will appeal to graduate and undergraduate students in addition to academics and consultancy firms, bilateral development agencies and intergovernmental agencies.