ABSTRACT
Vice-President Al Gore's promise to 'reinvent government', proclaimed with a great fanfare in the first year of the Clinton administration, produced only a nationwide yawn. (The similar promise made in the Republicans' 'Contract with America', last year, initially met with no better response.) There has been no lack of publicity about the Gore initiative since. Press release after press release has announced the reinvention of yet another agency or programme; big conferences, one chaired by the President himself, have been convened, and any number of TV appearances made. Of all the domestic programmes of the Clinton administration, this is the one in which there actually have been results and not just speeches. Yet neither the public nor the media have shown much interest. And last November's elections were hardly a vote of confidence in the administration's performance at reinventing government.
