WOMEN’S MOVEMENTS AND NEW PUBLIC MANAGEMENT: HIGHER EDUCATION IN SWEDEN AND ENGLAND

This article considers change in academe in Sweden and England, focusing on gender equity and the new public management reforms. In drawing on social movement theory, it is argued that public sector agendas in these countries have been affected by the influences of their respective women’s movements as well as by the new public management. The article explores these developments through the experiences of a group of employees whose voices are heard infrequently in the literature, those in middle‐level academic positions in universities who are responsible for delivering change. It is argued that the rational, hierarchical, masculine discourses of the new public management offer challenges to women’s movement supporters, whose influences and responses are examined. It is contended that the use of social movement theory, as a vehicle through which to conceptualize change, offers a number of insights. These are: the contribution made to gender equity by women who are not self‐defined feminists or strongly committed to equal opportunities, known as femocrats; the contribution made by some supportive men to gender equity; and the potential for future collective opposition to the new public management from women’s movements.     

Citizen participation and the redistribution of public goods

This study investigates whether citizen participation in public budgeting resulted in increased redistributive outcomes when compared with bureaucratic decision‐making. We focused on a specific budget item (i.e., the installation of surveillance cameras for crime prevention) and examined whether participatory budgeting yielded larger budget allocations to low‐income neighbourhoods. Results indicate that such participatory budgeting results in larger budget allocations for low‐income neighbourhoods when compared with allocations produced by bureaucratic budgeting practices. The results also indicate that budgets allocated through citizen participation may be no more or even less effective for advancing public goals. These findings suggest a potential trade‐off between equity and public service effectiveness. Citizen participation improves budget equity, but may be less effective for achieving public goals than bureaucratic decision‐making. To explain this, we offer the ‘social pressure hypothesis’, which posits that social pressure during public‐forum discussions can influence participating citizens to make redistributive decisions.     

NEW MODES OF GOVERNANCE IN ITALY AND THE NETHERLANDS: THE CASE OF ACTIVATION POLICIES

This article discusses the growing importance of operational reforms in the context of welfare state transformation processes, and the role that principles of new governance play in shaping these reforms. It focuses specifically on one social policy area considered crucial in reforming welfare states: the provision of activation services that aim at increasing the employability and labour‐market participation of people dependent on benefits or social assistance. The article argues that besides the reforms of the programmatic aspects of social policies and social services (formal policy reforms), reforms of the way in which policies and services are organized, administered and delivered (operational policy reforms) have received increasing attention as a ’second strand’ of welfare state reforms. It illustrates this by analysing and comparing reforms of the provision of activation services in two European countries: Italy and The Netherlands. The article not only reveals the growing emphasis in both countries on operational policy reforms which are to an important degree inspired by principles of new governance, but also shows significant similarities and differences in their concrete manifestations, which could be interpreted as pointing out processes of ‘path‐dependent convergence’.     

Reforming Budget ritual and Budget practice: The Case of Performance Management Implementation in Virginia

Abstract

Virginia is accepted as one of the leading examples of performance-based reform among US states. This article reports on some of the key factors that have helped to ensure that these reforms have established performance as a basis for both budget ritual and budget practice. Virginia's strong record of implementation is explained as the result of a consistent legislative basis for reform, effective reform leadership by a core agency, the integration of results-oriented activities into all facets of the financial management process, a focus on high levels of citizen engagement, and an emphasis on ensuring that performance management systems are tailored to be useful.     

The impact of tax structures on deficits: tax elasticity and fiscal illusion in sixteen oecd countries

This paper represents the first systematic attempt to link revenue structure to deficits cross-nationally. Recent analyses of the causes of increased budget deficits in the industrialized countries have focused on the factors that influence government spending, ignoring the possibility that chronic deficits might also be caused by shortfalls in revenue. In this research, using data from sixteen OECD countries during the period 1959-1990, we test hypotheses regarding the linkage between a country's revenue structure and its experience with deficits. We find evidence that countries heavily dependent on direct taxes had more difficulty keeping spending and revenues in line, particularly during times of high unemployment. We find no evidence, however, of a “fiscal illusion” impact on deficits.     

Mid-year appropriations in georgia: allocating the “surplus”

Utilizing appropriations data, this article analyzes the mid-year budget amendment process in Georgia. Economic factors are found to account for a sustained pattern of budget expansion from one year to the next between 1977 and 1986. Revenue estimating practices are found to contribute to mid-year increases in state agency appropriations. Patterns of agency success in the mid-year budget amendment are found to be associated with success in the previous mid-year amendment. The article concludes that legislators, the executive, and executive branch agencies have come to regard the mid-year budget amendment as a regular part of the state's budgetary process.     

PUBLIC MANAGEMENT REFORM IN THE UK AND ITS CONSEQUENCES FOR PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATION: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

It is often assumed in the literature on public management reforms that radical changes in values, work and organization have occurred or are under way. In this paper our aim is to raise questions about this account. Focusing on three services in the UK, each dominated by organized professions – health care, housing, and social services – significant variations in the effectiveness of reforms are noted. The available research also suggests that these outcomes have been inversely proportional to the efforts expended on introducing new management practices. The most radical changes have been in housing, where, paradoxically, successive UK governments focused least attention. By contrast, in health and social services, management restructuring has been less effective, despite the greater resources devoted to it. This variation is attributed to professional values and institutions, against which reforms were directed, and the extent to which different groups became locked either into strategies of resistance or accommodation.     

The Real Mexican Terrorists: A Group Profile of the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR)

Although the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR) has committed more terrorist attacks than the Zapatista National Revolutionary Army (EZLN), it has typically not received the media attention that the EZLN attracts. With the exception of their violent uprising in 1994, the EZLN has focused more on political dialogue, whereas the Marxist inspired EPR has primarily relied on terrorism to highlight social inequities in the state of Guerrero. The EZLN is older and larger, but unlike the EPR, it has refrained from conducting terrorist attacks since its initial uprising.     

An Evaluation Framework for Budget Reforms: A Guide for Assessing Public Budget Systems and Selecting Budget Process Reforms

While new tax proposals are evaluated with reference to formal evaluation criteria, no such standards exist for evaluating budget proposals. We propose an analytic framework to assess budgets across a series of dimensions, including whether it instills aggregate fiscal discipline, facilitates strategic prioritization of expenditures, and encourages effective and efficient use of budgeted resources, offering fiscal stability. The process also may be transparent, timely, and support public awareness and participation. We use this framework to evaluate the US budget, considering both areas of systematic inefficiency, while reviewing the history of budget reforms. We examine recent, frequently offered proposals that target specific budget process goals, considering how each affects all the budgeting goals, including interactions. We consider how a potential reform, aimed at addressing the failure to accomplish one normative goal, may impacts other goals, sometimes to the point of undermining overall progress.     

PATIENT CHOICE IN HEALTHCARE IN ENGLAND AND SWEDEN: FROM QUASI‐MARKET AND BACK TO MARKET? A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF FAILURE IN UNLEARNING

This paper compares elements of choice introduced under the market orientated reforms in health systems in the UK and Sweden in the 1990s, and the recent patient choice policy in both countries. It reviews empirical evidence on the impact of choice on users and services under these reforms to examine whether, and how far, these past developments have informed the current choice reforms. The paper asserts that the reappearance of issues and solutions in patient choice policy in the English NHS and in Sweden signifies limited learning from their own past and cross‐national experience, resulting in blurred and mutually exclusive policy agendas. The study argues that this absence of learning happens because of the seeming inability of governments and policy‐makers to unlearn effectively their preconceived ideas and schemas, pointing out the limitations of social learning theory in understanding health policy development.     

Strategic competence and agency: individuals overcoming barriers to change in South African higher education

Social relations, institutional arrangements and cultures bequeathed by South Africa’s system of apartheid continue be felt in the present despite the country’s formal transition to democracy 25 years ago. Race, class and gender inequities continue to structure South African society in ways that have proven intransigent to change, leading to growing frustration and widespread public dissatisfaction expressed in multiple arenas including worker strikes, service delivery and university student protests. While it is clear that social structures inherited from the past are difficult to change, it is also the case that change does happen. In this paper, we discuss the findings of a hermeneutic phenomenological study with 10 academics at one historically White university in South Africa, who have been agents of change within their particular context. We show how participants engaged in struggles to counter resistance to their efforts. In doing so they demonstrate what we call ‘strategic competence’ – the ability to act in ways that not only draw on personal resources but recognise the resources, contradictions and opportunities offered within the existing limitations of the social structure. Strategic competence thus emerges as a central feature of agency, enabling individuals to stretch the boundaries of what is possible.     

Reshaping Public Administration: The Spanish Experience Compared to the UK

This paper analyses the nature and extent of the policies of modernizing Spanish public administration. Successive Spanish governments have been involved in modernizing public administration with the stress on customer focus, improving service delivery and implementing quality awards, service charts and information technologies.
As a basis for assessing the reforms, we compare Spanish New Public Management (NPM) developments with the initiatives undertaken in the UK. The paper evaluates the usage of NPM concepts in the Spanish and UK experiences and cultural differences based on public and common law traditions respectively, locating these reforms in a comparative context. We focus on why similar concepts and initiatives could provide such different results in each country and how the cultural and institutional features produce differences in the way that NPM postulates are defined, implemented, monitored and evaluated. The answer is probably rooted in the context in which the initiatives have been developing.     

What Works and Why? Lessons from Public Management Reform in Malaysia

This article examines the Malaysian experience with public management reform to verify arguments about various reform models. Drawing on empirical data, it investigates reforms that have worked and those that have had limited impacts on public service improvements. It identifies critical success factors that determine reform outcomes and concludes that for reforms to succeed a combined top–down and bottom–up approach is crucial. It argues that while diagnostic and problem-oriented reforms have a better chance of being successful, the value of best-practice reforms should not be discounted. The cumulative impact of such reforms can be significant, as the Malaysian case demonstrates.     

The Politics of Administrative Reforms in Ghana: Perspectives from Path Dependency and Punctuated Equilibrium Theories

Since 1957, various Ghanaian governments have made, and continue to make, attempts to reform the administrative state for development. In spite of this, not much seems to have been achieved over the years. Why has the passion of successive governments for reforming the administrative system failed to yield the desired outcomes? What is the nexus between regime turnover and frequent administrative reforms? Where do we want to go, and what will take us there or at least close to our intended destination? What approach is likely to maximize the chances of success and minimize those of failure? We argue that administrative reforms in Ghana have been consistently undermined by the discontinuity of reform initiatives undertaken by successive governments; the inability to have a “national agenda for development”; continuous reliance on expatriates as consultants and advisers; over-reliance on multinational institutions for financial support; and by the absence of a “developmental state.”     

Territorial reforms in Europe: effects on administrative performance and democratic participation

Territorial reform is the most radical and contested reorganisation of local government. A sound evaluation of the outcome of such reforms is hence an important step to ensure the legitimation of any decision on the subject. However, in our view the discourse on the subject appears to be one sided, focusing primarily on overall fiscal effects scrutinised by economists. The contribution of this paper is hence threefold: Firstly, we provide an overview off territorial reforms in Europe, with a special focus on Eastern Germany as a promising case for cross-country comparisons. Secondly, we provide an overview of the analytical classifications of these reforms and context factors to be considered in their evaluation. And thirdly, we analyse the literature on qualitative performance effects of these reforms. The results show that territorial reforms have a significant positive impact on functional performance, while the effects on participation and integration are indeed ambivalent. In doing so, we provide substantial arguments for a broader, more inclusive discussion on the success of territorial reforms.     

Patron-Client Politics and Its Implications for Good Governance in Bangladesh

Currently, good governance is a major concern of all politicians, administrators, academics, the international donor agencies and even common people. It is now increasingly being realized that without good governance, developing countries have little chance to progress. While its importance cannot be over-emphasized, many developing countries are facing difficulties in implementing the good governance agenda. Therefore, the factors constraining the good governance initiatives have to be carefully identified and analyzed. This paper identifies patron-client politics as a critical factor in the analysis of good governance initiatives in Bangladesh. In this paper, it is argued that patron-client politics is very much entrenched in Bangladesh and it has had a constraining effect on the institutionalization of good governance initiatives.     

HRM Reform in Decentralised Local Government: Empirical Perspectives on Recruitment and Selection in the Philippines and Thailand

Over the recent decades decentralisation has been an influential process for public sector reform. Like many countries in Southeast Asia, the Philippines and Thailand have experienced a transitional period of decentralisation since the 1990s, but its corresponding results are considered to be poor, allowing for an increase in corruption associated with local elites and other interested parties. This article addresses the problem by focusing on Human Resource Management (HRM), with an emphasis on recruitment and selection in decentralised local governments, as there exists limited research in this area. Despite similar outlook of decentralisation reforms in these countries, the comparative analysis will illustrate differences in HRM policy arrangements between the central and local government, which reflect on the roots and backgrounds of the reform initiatives in each country. Moreover, empirical case observations at the local level from four case cities will present positive HRM practices, as well as the negative ones. Such evidence cannot be explained by contemporary theories on decentralisation, most of which doubt feasibility of the reform in developing countries.     

Monitoring,Money and Migrants: Countering Post-Accession Backsliding in Bulgaria and Romania

Using cross-national governance indicators and evidence from a recent Bulgarian survey, this essay examines political reforms in Bulgaria and Romania since EU accession and, in particular, the ‘backsliding’ hypothesis—that these countries have abandoned or reversed the reforms they introduced in order to qualify for membership of the European Union. It finds no systematic evidence either that these countries have been backsliding or that their trajectories differ significantly from their first-wave Central and East European neighbours, though governance reforms have slowed after accession. The second part of the essay focuses on the mechanisms responsible for the lack of significant backsliding, emphasising the role of continued conditionality through the safeguard clauses, EU funding and increasing linkage between new and old EU members, including opportunities for East Europeans to work and travel in Western Europe.     

Sequencing,resistance and forced innovation: a longer view of china's financial reforms

Gradualist in nature, China's economic reform has been criticized as being wrongly sequenced. Serious problems of inertia and delayed changes, particularly in the macroeconomic and financial spheres have built up since 1979. To rectify the situation, the Chinese government launched in 1994 major reform initiatives covering taxation, central and commercial banking, and the foreign exchange system. This paper looks at the historical background to these financial reforms from the perspective of sequencing and examines the factors behind their partial and uneven successes.