There has been a resurgence of interest in values in recent public administration research, based on two distinct arguments. For different reasons, neither approach is likely to secure a robust normative basis for public endeavours. These reasons are assessed, using an alternative body of theory rooted in contemporary social theory that we term, 'new pragmatism'. New pragmatic ideas are deployed to critique the divorce of values from facts; the abstraction of values from concrete situations; the anthropocentric foundation to social choice; the poorly developed understanding of the process of governance, with its inherent pluralism; and the seeming reluctance to articulate principles of political discourse.This article provides a multi-faceted critique of current thinking on the value of public actions and the desired attributes of public servants. It uses the insights of a body of social theory inspired by Science and Technology Studies to launch this critique. One body of theory is therefore used in a constructive criticism of the propositions of another. The object of the critique is a rapidly growing but internally complex body of research into public values and their mode of production. The argument begins with a brief résumé of the recent turn to values in public administration research and the many reasons for that. Two distinct strands in thinking on public values and their production are then briefly described. The argument proceeds to question the universal qualities of public values as proposed by leading theorists in this field and explores the continuing instabilities posed to values by facts. It is contended that this basic instability is only poorly addressed by multiplying the numbers of these public values to ensure that diverse situations are addressed. The value constellations that result from this are then beset by internal contradiction. The conception of those public situations is itself incomplete, since it excludes non-human entities like machines or information systems. These problems are most evident when values are mobilized to understand public decision systems, as Moore's (1995Moore's ( , 2000 influential Strategic Triangle seeks to do. Three significant problems with this Strategic Triangle are discussed and a conceptual alternative is outlined, which emphasizes the organizing centrality of evaluative principles in social debates about the work of governments. The discussion opens with an assessment of the extent of a purported turn to values in public administration thinking. THE TURN TO VALUESPublic administration research appears to be witnessing a 'turn to values'. There are two distinct strands to this turn, however, which are more than semantic: work on public values (in the plural);

This paper examines the ‘ideological grip’ of personalization. It does so empirically, tracking the trajectory of personalization through austerity budgeting in one English local authority. In this case, personalization continued to signify hope and liberation even though the most draconian cuts in the Council’s history effectively rendered personalization a practical impossibility. This requires critical theorization. Two bodies of theory are interrogated. First Boltanski’s sociology of critique, and, in particular, his notion of managerial domination illuminate the way in which change imperatives and crises come to cement ideological formations. Here it is argued that the articulation of personalization with transformation lends itself to managerial domination. It is further argued, though, that while institutional actors may be able to manipulate the symbolic to evade, what Boltanski terms, deconstructionist critique, this cannot entirely explain the hold of this particular discourse. Here, the Lacanian concept of enjoyment is deployed to interrogate its extra-symbolic function and fantasmatic form. Finally, the paper explores the political implications of such affective attachment and, in particular, the guarantee that personalization offers in a period of welfare state decline.

The establishment of the Greater London Authority (GLA) in 2000 brought a new form of politics to London and new powers to formulate strategic policy. Through an investigation of the access of business interests in the formulation of London's strategic agenda, this article illuminates one aspect of the pressures on city government. It uses the urban regime approach as a framework for analysing the co-operation between the Mayor and business interests in shaping strategic priorities. Although there was a surrounding rhetoric that pointed towards a greater consensus-seeking approach, the business sector was very active in maintaining its privileged access. Strategic priorities were established in the GLA's first year and were then subsequently embodied in the London Plan. Our analysis is based on a detailed examination of this agenda-setting period using material from meetings, written reports and interviews with key actors.

Extra-care housing has been an important and growing element of housing and care for older people in the United Kingdom since the s. Previous studies have examined specific features and programmes within extra-care locations, but few have studied how residents negotiate social life and identity. Those that have, have noted that while extra care brings many health-related and social benefits, extra-care communities can also be difficult affective terrain. Given that many residents are now 'ageing in place' in extra care, it is timely to revisit these questions of identity and affect. Here we draw on the qualitative element of a three-year, mixed-method study of  extra-care villages and schemes run by the ExtraCare Charitable Trust. We follow Alemàn in regarding residents' ambivalent accounts of life in ExtraCare as important windows on the way in which liminal residents negotiate the dialectics of dependence and independence. However, we suggest that the dialectic of interest here is that of the third and fourth age, as described by Gilleard and Higgs. We set that dialectic within a post-structuralist/ Lacanian framework in order to examine the different modes of enjoyment that liminal residents procure in ExtraCare's third age public spaces and ideals, and suggest that their complaints can be read in three ways: as statements about altered material conditions; as inter-subjective bolstering of group identity; and as fantasmatic support for liminal identities. Finally, we examine the implications that this latter psycho-social reading of residents' complaints has for enhancing and supporting residents' wellbeing.

. The possibilities and limits of political contestation in times of 'urban austerity'. Urban Studies 54 (9) , pp.