Throughout the twentieth century, the role of the state has undergone significant changes. In the West, the demands for social and economic reconstruction after the Second World War led to the emergence of welfare states that assumed responsibility for protecting the relatively poor, equalising opportunities to health and education services, creating state-owned enterprises and managing macro-economic cycles. For the developing countries that became independent in the 1950s and 1960s, this was the model of the state they aimed to follow. During the 1970s there was growing concern over the capabilities of the state and public administrations in developing countries to undertake these responsibilities. The rise of neoliberal thinking and the development of New Public Management approaches in countries like the UK and New Zealand in the 1980s and 1990s led to an emphasis on the role of the market and a bias against public provision and state expansion.