Office and contracting-out: An analysis

This article investigates whether the phenomenon of ‘office’ might be sensitive to the legal forms within which it might manifest or with which it might come to interact. It does so by considering the fate of office in the context of contracted-out government service delivery. After establishing the jurisprudential foundations for its inquiry, the article outlines and analyses two case studies of contracting-out in which the idea of ‘office’ occupies a central place. The article suggests that these case studies invite the thought that contracting-out and office are inherently at odds: that the former operates to interrupt, displace, reduce, or even negate the operation of the latter as a distinctive mode of agency that arises within relationships of public authority.