I haven’t even attempted to read it, but 250 references sounds about right for a doctoral thesis.

Where these major change programmes launched and sustained during the bad old days of Eddie Fenech Adami and Lawrence Gonzi? The same programmes in the Maltese Public Sector that are being dismantled under the present administration?

The bulk of it – 230 of the 530 pages – is made up of various long interviews with retired senior civil servants. They mostly reminisce about petty office politics, which Mizzi apparently finds very exciting; incidentally Richard Cachia Caruana is portrayed as an agent of change. Frustratingly, the thesis is replete with acronyms but I couldn’t find a list of abbreviations.

In the last chapter, with Mizzi’s own discussion and conclusions, he slips back into jargon gibberish with phrases like programmatic domain, generalisability and policy cycles. I couldn’t understand a word.

There are then 12 pages of bibliography. At an average of around 20 references per page, it adds up to about 250 papers and books. I’m not familiar with this type of study so I don’t know whether this is normal. To me it seems rather excessive.

It requires crossing out. It means nothing.