Dr Amanda Smullen
Research interests
Agencies and semi-autonomous bodies, in particular their formal and informal institutional dimensions.
Institutions, multi-level governance and coordination
Political/policy argumentation and rhetoric
Health and mental health care reform and policy
Biography
Amanda is an expert on public administration, and in particular 'arms-length' bodies. Her work has focused upon both the formal and informal dimensions of public agencies or other public administration, including as these pertain to the institutionalization of public sector bodies, their autonomy or accountability. She has also studied the spread of public management reform ideas and the way these have been adopted and translated to different national political contexts and institutions. She is committed to both the comparative research of public management reform, as well as examining the transnational context wherein reform ideas are diffused, exchanged or enforced. Theories of argumentation, of institutions and professionals have been prominent in her work. Empirical areas of research have included agency reform, performance measurement, accrual accounting and more recently management reforms in mental healthcare.
Researcher's projects
- Calibrating Public Sector Accountability
- Temporality and Australian Public Administration
- Multi-level governance and agencies
Publications
- A. Smullen. (2012). 'Institutionalizing professional conflict through financial instruments: The case of DBCs in Dutch mental healthcare'. In M. Noordegraaf & B. Steijn (Eds.), Professionals under pressure. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
- Smullen, A. (2010). Cultural change or cultural paradox:the continuities and discontinuities in Dutch official agency talk. Critical Policy Studies, vol. 4 (2), Taylor & Francis.
- Smullen, A. (2010). Translating agency reform through durable rhetorical styles: comparing official agency talk across consensus and adversarial contexts. Public Administration, Vol 88:4, pp.943-959
- Smullen, A. (2010). Translating agency reform. Rhetoric and culture in comparative perspective. Palgrave Macmillan.
- Pollitt, C., Talbot, C., Caulfield, J., & Smullen, A. (2004). Agency: how governments get things done through semi-autonomous bodies. London:Palgrave.
- Smullen, A. (2003). Lost in translation? Shifting interpretations of the concept of â??Agencyâ??: The Dutch case. In C. Pollitt & C. Talbot (eds.), Unbundled Government: A critical analysis of the global trend to Agencies, Quangos and Contractualisation (pp184-202). New York: Taylor and Francis.
