The impact of decentralization on health workforce development in Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea decentralized a wide range of health functions to provincial governments between 1977 and 1983. The national Department of Health (DOH) was given no role in provincial budget and staffing decisions, and the national health budget was fragmented into the health components of provincial budgets. The impact of decentralization on health workforce development was particularly severe and largely unforeseen. Many difficulties were inherent in the manner in which decentralization regulations structured power relationships. Others arose as a result of the administrative confusion and inflamed relationships that accompanied the forceful transfer of power from a very reluctant national DOH to the provinces. Even though policy formulation and planning were retained as national functions, decentralization hampered their effective execution. Human resource data bases deteriorated, responsibility for planning became confused, and the ability of the DOH to implement its planning decisions was compromised. In reality, health workforce planning was carried out by the Departments of Finance and Planning, and Personnel Management through the annual budgetary process of provincial financial limits and staff ceilings, without any attempt to assess health service needs, either in the country as a whole or between the provinces. Decentralization brought a need for new management skills, and it complicated administrative relationships between training institutions and the provinces. The Papua New Guinea experience has shown that in a decentralized health service, there is a great potential for conflict between national goals and the aspirations of individual provinces. To achieve an equitable, appropriate and effective staffing of services, standards must be formulated as the basis for planning and conflict resolution. Effective linkages between central government departments and between the national and provincial health authorities must be developed, and management and technical skills of health managers improved.     

Managing for inclusion: balancing control and participation

Participation and control are both necessary in a democracy. In the two main models of public management, control trumps participation. The traditional model, Managing for Process, relies on centralized authority over process and emphasizes rules and regulations. The newer model, Managing for Results, permits decentralized control over process but relies on centralized control of results. We propose a third model, Managing for Inclusion, which has the potential to balance participation and control. Our model permits decentralized control over both process and results and requires centralized control over the implementation of participation. The tools of empowerment, teamwork, and continuous improvement take on new meanings in this model. We show how management tools such as training and rewarding can implement participation and control the process of inclusion.     

Decentralization,provincial policy making and the law in Papua New Guinea

Shortly after independence in 1975 Papua New Guinea decided to decentralize political power by creating nineteen provincial governments, complete with legislatures and executives. The division of powers between the two levels of government was set down in the Organic Law on Provincial Government and subsequent delegations of power by the National Executive Council (cabinet). The ability of provincial governments to fulfil the role in policy making set out for them depends on a number of political, financial and legal factors at both the national and provincial levels. A close examination of the legal base of provincial policy making reveals a number of shortcomings and incoherencies in the legal arrangements which pose obstacles to the realization of effective decentralized policy making. There are several possible approaches to resolving these problems, but the most appropriate one requires co-ordination between the National Government and provincial governments in replacing delegated powers with provincial legislation.     

论中国政策执行模式的特征——以“十一五”期间成功关停小火电为例

如何认识和评价中国政策执行模式是当前中国政府和政策研究中的重要问题。在这一问题上,既有的研究提出了若干有代表性的观点,这些观点之间存在着"集中式的政策执行模式"和"分散式的政策执行模式"的分歧。本文通过对"十一五"期间成功关停小火电政策执行过程的考察,揭示了中国政策执行模式的三个典型特征:"层级加压+重点主抓型"体制架构;自上而下的政策执行过程;"恰当的政策+高层的决心"构成政策执行到底的充分条件。在此基础上,本文对既有的中国政策执行模式理论提出了修正:如果能够制定出恰当的政策,中国也可以是"诱导型体制";从执行方面看,中国兼有"职责同构"和"职责异构"因素;中国的政策执行模式兼具集中性和分散性,关键是构建政策制定参与机制和政策执行沟通协调机制,以发挥既有模式的优势并有效克服其不足。     

Fiscal Decentralization and Provincial-Level Fiscal Disparities in China: A Sino-U.S. Comparative Perspective

Since China's 1994 fiscal reform, increasing concerns have been voiced about fiscal disparities across the country. Can local governments fairly and effectively fulfill basic public services such as primary education, public health, and social welfare? This essay traces the evolution of intergovernmental relations in China since 1978. The fluctuation of provincial level fiscal distribution over time and the underlying factors behind fiscal inequality, as compared to a decentralized American revenue system, are analyzed. The author, Zhirong Jerry Zhao of the University of Minnesota, argues for additional research on alternative measures of local fiscal capacity.     

Political Decentralization and Technological Innovation: Testing the Innovative Advantages of Decentralized States

Are politically decentralized states better at fostering long‐run technological innovation than centralized states? Societies with decentralized governments are widely seen as agile, competitive, and well structured to adapt to innovation's gale of creative destruction. Meanwhile, centralized states, even when democratic, have come to be viewed as rigid and thus hostile to the risks, costs, and change associated with new technology, or prone to cling too long to foolhardy or outdated technological projects. Therefore government decentralization is often perceived as a necessary institutional foundation for encouraging long‐run technological innovation. However, in this article, I analyze data on international patent activity, scientific publications, and high‐technology exports, and show that there exists little evidence for an aggregate relationship between government structure and technological innovation.     

Market-oriented approaches to capacity building in Africa

Following a brief review of recent criticism of technical cooperation as an instrument for capacity building in sub-Saharan Africa, this article examines current strategies for addressing the professional staff retention problem within African governments, and for making the market for technical cooperation more effective by allowing greater substitution of national experts for expatriate experts in project design and implementation. In order to strengthen and effectively use scarce local expertise, while avoiding its diversion to donor-financed projects, the article proposes capacity-building strategies aimed at the development of national or regional markets for development analysis and management expertise in sub-Saharan Africa.     

The Government Centralization-Decentralization Debate in Metropolitan Areas

The extent of centralized or decentralized government has been an issue in America's governing system since the Revolutionary War. The major issues debated at the Constitutional Convention revolved around the amount of authority the national government should possess in relation to the states. The centralization-decentralization issue is still a matter of contention, but a major focus of the debate has shifted to the metropolitan area. Despite the differences in time and levels of governments, many of the same arguments made during the constitutional debates are similar to the arguments made for and against government reform in metropolitan areas today. The author reconsiders the centralization-decentralization issues debated at the Constitutional Convention and the ratification fight in the context of the current debate in metropolitan areas. Theoretical support for this exercise is provided by the international relations model. An application of the issues debated and resolved by the colonists to the current debate on the extent of centralized government in metropolitan areas would favor the establishment of metropolitan government.     

Natural Resources and Canadian Federalism: Decentralization, Recurring Conflict, and Resolution

Canada has an unusual degree of decentralized authority overnatural resources. A recurring challenge of resource policyhas been to balance interrelated powers—of managementand taxation provincial governments and of trade and taxationby the federal government—when there is divergence inthe goals of the two governments. Constitutional amendment in1982 and federal-provincial negotiations in the 1970s and 1980sconfirmed the need for accommodation. The result was to strengthenthe decentralization of management, yet to recognize the legitimacyof the interests of both orders government. Especially withthe emergence of new types of interests in the resource sector,occasional frictions may be anticipated because of the interrelatednessof powers.     

The Benefits of Human Resource Centralization: Insights from a Survey of Human Resource Directors in a Decentralized State

Texas is unique among American state governments in its approach to human resources because it has no central human resource (HR) or personnel office and no comprehensive set of centrally prescribed HR policies and procedures. Given contemporary calls for HR decentralization, Texas is an excellent case study of the practical implications of a decentralized approach to HR. This article examines findings from a survey of state agency HR directors. The results suggest that respondents do not see the putative benefits of a centralized HR model. However, respondents from small state agencies, those who perceive they do not have requisite HR expertise, and those with lower levels of educational attainment hold significantly different opinions about the benefits of centralized HR.     

Institutional Fragmentation, Institutional Engineering and the Development of Elderlycare and Childcare in Sweden

This article seeks to identify institutional causes behind policy-specific retrenchments in the Swedish welfare state. During the austerity period of the 1980s and 1990s, the Swedish welfare state simultaneously experienced retrenchments in some fields and stability or expansion in others. Elderlycare is an example of tremendous retrenchment and childcare one of continuous expansion. A comparison of both fields suggests that the divergent trends might be related to different policy-specific levels of institutional fragmentation in the implementation process. In elderlycare, implementation was strongly fragmented between the central and local government level, with the central government providing only weak overarching regulation and the local governments enjoying considerable local implementation discretion. As a consequence, in this field, local governments had enough discretion to impose local retrenchment measures in order to adapt to the conditions of austerity. In childcare, a similar development did not take place because in this field the municipal implementation autonomy was severely circumscribed by strong central state regulations. It is probable that the different institutional preconditions in both fields have been shaped intentionally by means of governmental institutional engineering. The decentralized decision-making structure in elderlycare might have allowed the central government to induce blame-avoidant retrenchments on the local government level.     

Heavy Traffic: Trucking Deregulation, Federalism, and Canadian-U.S. Trade

Trucking deregulation, in the interest of competition and efficiency,removes rate controls and grants free entry to the market. Whenthe United States deregulated trucking in 1980, it opened theinterstate market to Canadian carriers. Heavy volumes of tradeby trucking between the two countries make entry conditionsan important bilateral issue. Deregulatory symmetry betweenthe two countries would produce a de facto regime of free tradein trucking services. In 1987 the Canadian federal governmentadopted deregulatory measures similar to those of the UnitedStates, but with more complex and problematic results. The reasons,broadly characteristic of the evolution of Canadian federalism,lie in the ability of the provinces to thwart federal initiatives.Trucking regulation is under provincial control, and to achievea practical effect, the federal government depends upon theprovinces to bring their practices into accord with its policy.Because of differing provincial views about deregulation andpressures from Canadian truckers for continued protection fromAmerican competition, much diversity and contention have delayedand compromised the federal governments purpose. Regulatoryreciprocity is also a question of the provinces and states,with a mixture of strict and easy entry policies complicatingthe achievement of bilateral balance and equity. The largerimplications of deregulation and transborder trucking for Canadalie in the ability of a decentralized federal system to pursuenecessary initiatives coherently.     

Implementing decentralization programmes in Asia: A comparative analysis

Decentralization in development planning and administration is being attempted in novel ways as governments seek to generate economic growth and at the same time achieve greater social equity. Little has been done to assess comparatively the nature and effectiveness of these experiments. This article is based on a selection of eight case studies, each set in a different Asian country, where an innovative approach to decentralization has been adopted by the central government in order to achieve development aims. The stimulus to innovate is considered, the different forms of decentralization compared and a tentative comparative evaluation is made of the effectiveness of decentralizing development planning and implementation. What the analysis shows is that despite diversity in the objectives and differences in the forms decentralized programmes took there were common problems centring on administrative capability. This, the author argues, has important implications for governments and international agencies.     

Unconditional Intergovernmental Transfers to Finance Decentralization in Albania

The Government of Albania embarked on a comprehensive program to decentralize decision‐making powers with the passage of the Law on Organization and Functioning of Local Governments in 2000. A centerpiece of the policies undertaken to implement that legislation was an unconditional transfer program which, using a formula‐based allocation mechanism, transferred substantial financial resources to the local communes and municipalities beginning in 2002. This paper describes that system and its evolution. It illustrates how the transfer was designed to take into account the transition from a centralized system to a decentralized arrangement for provision of local public services and how the formula has undergone some “fine‐tuning” while retaining its simplicity. Analysis of the outcomes reveals how it has achieved its mandated objective of equalizing resources across local governments; however, it does so while running the risk of substantially discouraging local governments from mobilizing resources of their own.     

Governance choice on a serial network

This paper analyzes governance choice in a two-level federation in providing road infrastructure across jurisdictions. Two models are proposed to predict the choice of centralized or decentralized spending structure on a serial road network shared by two districts. While the first model considers simple Pigouvian behavior of governments, the second explicitly models political forces at both a local and central level. Both models led to the conclusions that the spending structure is chosen based on a satisfactory comprise between benefits and costs associated with alternative decision-making processes, and that governance choice may spontaneously shift as the infrastructure improves temporally.     

Multi-Sphere Governance in South Africa: An Interim Assessment

After considerable debate about whether a democratic South Africashould be constituted on federal lines, the 1996 Constitutionadopted three "distinctive, interdependent and interrelated"spheres of government. "Co-operative government" followed theGerman model, emphasizing concurrency, provincial delivery ofnational policies, and provincial representation at the center.Implementing this model, with new institutions, actors, andprocesses, has proved difficult because the governing partystrongly favors a relatively centralized polity, and becauseprovinces and local governments have weak political, administrative,and fiscal capacities. The analysis concludes that while thenew system has become fairly well established in a short time,its long-term success in promoting the values of democratization,effective governance, and conflict management remains uncertain.     

Overspending in Public Organizations: Does Strategic Management Matter?

ABSTRACT

In the wake of the financial crash, many governments across the globe are seeking to curb expenditure in public sector organizations. To assess the extent to which public organizations can make strategic choices that might result in lower expenditure, we explore the relationship between strategic management and overspending in English local governments. The effects of strategic stances and actions on overspending are tested using multivariate statistical techniques. The empirical results show that an innovative strategic stance results in overspending as does a commitment to the development of new services, while a reactive strategic stance and decentralized decision making are associated with lower levels of overspending. Our analysis provides support for arguments that public organizations can make strategic choices that result in tighter control of their budgets.     

Public Sector Governance Reform and the Motivation of Street-Level Bureaucrats in Developing Countries

This article draws on health sector reform in Honduras to examine the mechanisms through which governance reforms shape the behavior of street-level bureaucrats. It combines insights from behavioral public administration with original data from lab-in-the-field workshops conducted with more than 200 bureaucrats to assess the relationship between decentralization and motivation. Findings show strong evidence that motivation, measured as self-sacrifice, is higher among bureaucrats in decentralized municipalities compared with bureaucrats in comparable centrally administered municipalities. Increased motivation is most pronounced in decentralized systems led by nongovernmental organizations compared with those led by municipal governments or associations. Additionally, the evidence suggests that higher motivation is related to changes in the composition of staff rather than socialization or changes among existing staff. Overall, this research helps move beyond indiscriminate calls for decentralization by highlighting the interplay between reform design and bureaucratic behavior, as well as the limitations of governance reforms in motivating more experienced bureaucrats.     

Administrative (de)centralization,performance equity,and outcome achievement in rural contexts: An empirical study of U.S. child welfare systems

Whether public services are better delivered through centralized or decentralized administrative systems is one of the most enduring debates in public administration. This article contributes to the debate with a study of program outcome achievement in U.S. child welfare services. We examine whether centralized state‐administered or decentralized county‐administered systems are more successful at realizing desired outcomes, which exhibit greater performance equity, and which are more successful at securing program outcomes in rural settings. Using a coarsened exact matching approach to quasi‐experimental research, we find that centralized child welfare systems exhibit greater success at achieving desired outcomes—in both rural contexts and overall. No discernible difference is found in centralized and decentralized systems' performance equity; outcome disparities exist under both structures. The study thus lends credence to centralization arguments, but at the same time cautions that centralized administration is not a structural panacea.     

Who has turned the project management lights on? A comparative analysis of transportation and information technology in US state governments

We provide a comparative analysis of capital project management for major transportation and information technology (IT) acquisitions in US state governments, focusing on the use of earned value management (EVM). Results indicate that most states have adopted basic reforms, such as establishing project management offices and developing guidelines based on industry standards. However, fewer have implemented reforms with more teeth to them, such as centralized oversight and EVM. We find that states with greater spending are more likely to use EVM but that it is more commonly prescribed for IT than transportation.