Memory and Institutional Amnesia in Government

Abstract

Government bureaucracies are meant to hold knowledge of the past so that they can speak truth to power and prevent history from repeating in problematic ways. This book, however, shows that bureaucracies in Westminster systems suffer from institutional amnesia, which means that they cannot always recall or use knowledge of the past. Through an international comparison of the public services of Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom the book sheds light on what causes this amnesia, the variety of effects that it produces, and the treatments that might help address the problems that it creates. The analysis shows that we need to reconceptualize institutional amnesia to better understand how governments lose memory through the socio-cultural, relational, and meaning-making dimensions of public administration.