Emerging Challenges to the Public Capacity in the Era of Evolving Public Administration: Toward Collaborative Public Management

New paradigms of public administration have been introduced in government in order to cure administrative ills around the world. Various trajectories of public sector reforms have been actively introduced in many countries and the benefit of shifting to new paradigms of public administration has been well documented. However, the cost or the consequence of public sector reforms remains understudied. Accordingly, the purpose of this article is to deal with the consequences of the paradigm change of public administration and government reform because the author sees that the public capacity has declined or at least not improved in recent years while a wide range of innovations have been carried out by many governments under the New Public Management and governance perspectives. This article first looks at the evolution of public administration and its implication, followed by a discussion on government reform and its unintended consequences, and governance change in South Korea. Then various issues on new challenges such as the lack of the public capacity, and new tasks such as capacity building and calls for curriculum development, will be elaborated, followed by conclusions.     

Explaining collaboration in consensual and conflictual governance networks

The conditions under which policy beliefs and influential actors shape collaborative behaviour in governance networks are not well understood. This article applies exponential random graph models to network data from Finland and Sweden to investigate how beliefs, reputational power and the role of public authorities structure collaboration ties in the two countries’ climate change governance networks. Results show that only in Finland's conflictual climate policy domain do actors collaborate with those with similar beliefs and with reputational power, while only in Sweden's consensual climate policy domain do public authorities play central impartial coordinating roles. These results indicate that conflict is present in a governance network when beliefs and reputational power determine collaboration and that it is absent when public authorities occupy central roles. They also suggest that relative success in climate policy action is likely to occur when public authorities take on network manager roles.     

The Not So Good,the Bad and the Ugly: Over Twelve Years of PPP in Ireland

Public–private partnerships have been adopted extensively in Ireland for over 12 years. This article analyses the practice of PPP procurement at the level of local government. It adopts economic and governance perspectives on PPP which highlight challenges with procurement under PPP such as complexity, uncertainty, hold-up, transparency and accountability. These perspectives provide a basis for an analysis of three cases of PPP procurement. Two cases from the water services sector illuminate problems arising from the complexity of value for money assessment at the ex ante contracting stage. These cases were also characterised by governance problems stemming from central government's role as policy advocate and steward of public funds. The case of PPP to deliver social housing also demonstrated the challenges of procurement under conditions of economic uncertainty and difficulties with achieving appropriate levels of risk transfer. All three cases demonstrate the value of stakeholder consultation in terms of meeting the governance challenges faced when adopting PPP.     

SOCIO-ECONOMIC CONDITIONS, CENTRAL POLICIES AND LOCAL AUTHORITY STAFFING LEVELS

This paper analyses whether central pressure on local authorities to cut staff has resulted in greater efficiency by concentrating reductions in the more heavily staffed authorities. A measure of staffing levels is derived which takes into account the different socio-economic conditions faced by different authorities. The relationship between this measure and changes in staffing levels since 1980 is then analysed. The statistical results show that staff cuts have not fallen systematically on the more heavily staffed authorities. It is concluded that the indiscriminate impact of central government pressure to reduce staff indicates that a more informed and more selective policy towards public sector employment is required.     

A GENDER ANALYSIS OF WOMEN IN PUBLIC–PRIVATE–VOLUNTARY SECTOR ‘PARTNERSHIPS’

The nature of work and traditional notions of the public sector have been changing with increasing collaborative governance and delivery of public services among public, private and voluntary sector organizations. In the UK, governments at national and devolved levels of government have adopted collaborative governance for service delivery through various networks and partnerships. This article explores collaborative governance from a gender perspective, specifically the perceptions of women in public–private–voluntary sector partnerships. While previous research in this area has explored aspects of collaborative governance such as power, trust, accountability, decision‐making, performance, exchange of information and participation, there is very little research on women within these networks. The article therefore provides a gendered analysis, disaggregating survey data to better understand the dynamics, for women, of collaborative governance and partnerships among public, private and voluntary sector organizations.     

The third sector, user involvement and public service reform: a case study in the co-governance of health service provision

The ‘modernization’ of British public services seeks to broaden public sector governance networks, bringing the views of third sector organizations, the public and service users (among others) to the design, management and delivery of welfare. Building on previous analyses of the contradictions generated by these roles, this paper draws on longitudinal qualitative research to enunciate the challenges faced by one third-sector organization in facilitating service user influence in a UK National Health Service (NHS) pilot programme, alongside other roles in tension with this advocacy function. The analysis highlights limits in the extent to which lateral governance networks pluralize stakeholder involvement. The ‘framing’ of governance may mean that traditional concerns outweigh the views of new stakeholders such as the third sector and service users. Rather than prioritizing wider stakeholders' views in the design and delivery of public services, placing third sector organizations at the centre of governance networks may do more to co-opt these organizations in reproducing predominant priorities.     

Reinventing Governance for Performance in South Asia: Impacts on Citizenship Rights

Abstract

In line with the global trend of “reinventing governance” based on market‐driven policies and structures, South Asian countries have adopted some major reforms in governance during the recent two decades. While this market‐led shift in governance is largely intended to enhance its performance in terms of greater efficiency and quality, there is a tendency to overlook its implications for the rights and entitlements of citizens in these countries. The article examines the basic tenets or features of this transition in governance, encompassing the replacement of public sector by private sector and the transformation of public management based on business principles. The main objective, however, is to examine the critical impacts of this new mode of governance on the political and social rights of citizens in South Asia. The article concludes by stressing the need for paying adequate attention to citizenship rights in pursuing such reforms in governance.     

The Public Sector In An In-Between Time: Searching For New Public Values

A number of new governance structures has been introduced in the Danish public sector. These include contract agencies, user boards, boards of directors, marketization, corporatization, involving voluntary organizations in public services, EU-funded state border crossing co-operation, and Europeanization in many forms. Despite their obvious dissimilarities, these governance structures have one thing in common: they challenge the foundations of the public sector and territorial representative democracy by blurring the distinctions between politics and administration; between public and private; and between national and international. If politicians and voters are deprived of the capacity to make these distinctions, political responsibility is bound to fade away. Also, each new governance structure down-loads degrees of indeterminateness in the public sector since they may interact in unforeseen ways and introduce new actors, roles and practices in the public sector. This may cause the development of a more flexible public sector marked by 'local' appropriateness and adaptability but also by a multitude of inconsistent models and principles. To avoid the latter, a general discourse on values and their institutional requirements and the invention of public 'domains' is needed.     

Whānau Ora and the Collaborative Turn

In the context of the ongoing evolution of the field of public management, this article first explores the two interlinked concepts of collaboration and accountability. It suggests that these are understood and applied in a number of different ways. Using research and semistructured interviews with a number of government officials and nongovernment service providers, the article then explains how these approaches are reflected in a current New Zealand initiative of devolved governance—Whānau Ora. The different, and at times conflicting, perspectives of New Zealand’s formal model of public sector management and that of traditional Māori culture are explained.     

Governance in Public and Private Management

This article analyses the effect of governance in the delivery of public services, and the advantages of collaboration with the private sector in the provision of these public services. The article is not intended to be the conclusions drawn from an empirical study, but rather is based on the experience of a practitioner who has worked as a civil servant in the public sector and as a manager in the private sector. The advantages of private participation are listed, without prejudicing the role of regulator which must be exercised by the public sector.     

Why we need bricoleurs to foster robust governance solutions in turbulent times

The public sector frequently confronts a heightened societal turbulence triggered by an increasing number of unpredictable and disruptive economic, political, and environmental crises. How can the public sector respond to this challenge? This article argues, first, that to continue to provide relevant solutions, public governance must be robust in the sense of adapting and innovating policies, programs, and services in ways that facilitate the achievement of basic public ambitions, functions, and values in the face of challenges, stressors, and threats. Second, to build robust governance, public managers must engage in bricolage and become bricoleurs in order to flexibly combine elements from competing and co-existent public governance paradigms. Doing so necessitates the construction of institutions conducive to bricolage, that is, institutions that are characterized by a high degree of flexibility that allows for experimentation; institutions that foster inclusive deliberation, knowledge sharing and joint learning; and institutions that balance centralization with distributed agency.     

From-Long Term To Short-Term Contracting

One can look at the arrival of New Public Management and the extensive public sector reforms inspired by this theory from many angles. Here we examine the shift from long-term contracting, typical of bureaucracy and traditional enterprises, to short-term contracting, borrowed from private sector governance methods. Short-term contracting has three principal uses in the governance of the public sector: (a) contracting with service providers after a tendering/bidding process; (b) contracting with the CEOs of the incorporated public enterprises; and (c) contracting with executive agencies about what they should deliver. Theoretical analysis, supported by substantial empirical evidence, suggests that short-term contracting eliminates the extensive post-contractual opportunism connected with long-term contracting, but is vulnerable to precontractual opportunism. Short-term contracting is not just another public sector reform fad, but constitutes a new tool for government which increases efficiency when handled with prudence.     

PERFORMING GOVERNANCE: A PARTNERSHIP BOARD DRAMATURGY

This paper explores the governance of complex public sector partnerships through a detailed case study of a Joint Commissioning Partnership Board (JCPB) in the South East of England. It argues that a theoretical and empirical focus on the instrumental roles of boards has resulted in an under‐appreciation of their symbolic purposes, especially in the context of the governance of inter‐organizational relationships. The paper considers the performative dimension of partnership governance, highlighting the role of the symbolic in institutional enactment. Following a brief overview of governance in public sector partnerships, the case study site for the empirical research is introduced. The instrumental and symbolic roles of management boards are considered from a new institutionalist perspective and a dramaturgical analysis of institutional enactment undertaken to explore interplays of the symbolic and instrumental in strategy formation. Some implications for our understanding of the symbolic in partnership governance are discussed.     

CORPORATE GOVERNANCE AND THE PUBLIC SECTOR: SOME ISSUES AND EVIDENCE FROM THE NHS

The 1990s have been marked by a resurgence of interest in questions of corporate governance in both public and private sector settings. The 1990 reorganization of the NHS is taken as an example of a recent attempt to‘reform’arrangements for corporate governance in the public sector based on a board of directors’model. The policy background is reviewed and the salient features of the NHS reorganization outlined. Empirical case study evidence is adduced which enables us to make an assessment of the advantageous and disadvantageous effects of the 1990 reorganization. Some unresolved questions are outlined in the concluding discussion.     

Multiple Voices of Modernization: Some Methodological Implications

This paper systematically examines intra-organizational consensus of perceptions of managerial reform in local government in the UK. The paper questions the role of 'elite surveys' in public sector evaluation research by exploring the extent to which multiple informants agree on the expected impacts of Best Value. Results from a survey of 978 local government officers in 80 local authorities indicate modest levels of consensus. These findings suggest that single respondent surveys are likely to produce unreliable data and misrepresent the impact of public sector policy reforms. Rather than rely on the perceptions of one respondent it is argued that multiple respondent surveys should be employed if rigorous and reliable data are to be used in providing evidence-based policy recommendations for reform in public sector organizations.     

Change dynamics and public management: Challenges and opportunities

With the growth of contemporary technology, communications, and transportation, infused with television, computers, and the information highway, all of us are quickly becoming aware of the linked consequences of change. As traditional boundaries are collapsing around us, there is a growing sensitivity to the need for change, along with the belief that we need to plan for it. As such, strategic planning, competitive positioning, and innovative management systems that involve longer-term perspectives, critical trade-offs, and opportunity-driven forecasting are being fashioned here in the United States, and around the world. To grasp the initiative to shape an organizational context that will ensure a competitive, vibrant, healthy, fiscally rigorous and humane decision making environment for the public sector is the analytical foundation on which this symposium is anchored. Public managers have no option but to respond to American and global events, and the accompanying cultural, economic and political developments with courage, innovations, and strategic perspectives. It is clear that a paradigmatic crisis is occurring in American society and in public administration. Therefore, the harbingers of new paradigms are being created and crafted, which provide “hard” methods of inquiry, “real” cases of success; sound “fiscal” measures of performance; and “clearer” professional/leadership redefinitions of responsibility.     

Governance traditions and narratives of public sector reform in contemporary France

This article explores the basic traditions of governance in contemporary France and the narratives of public sector reform associated with them. It should be stressed right from the outset that this article does not aim to describe the set of public sector reforms that have been implemented in France in the last ten years or so. Instead, the aim is to demonstrate the similarities and differences between the narratives of the left and the right with regard to these reforms and to show how these narratives help to explain the types of reform that have been enacted. The basic argument is that there is a certain commonality to both the left and the right with regard to their narratives of public sector reform. At the same time, though, there are differences of emphasis both within each tradition and between the two main traditions themselves. Except where indicated, all translations are the author's own.     

Performance Management,Evaluation and Learning in ‘Modern’ Local Government

Public sector reforms throughout OECD member states are producing a new model of ‘public governance’ embodying a more modest role for the state and a strong emphasis on performance management. In the UK, the development of performance management in the context of the ‘new public management’ has been primarily ‘top‐down’ with a dominant concern for enhancing control and ‘upwards account‐ability’ rather than promoting learning and improvement. The development of performance management and evaluation in local government in the UK has been conditioned by external pressures, especially reforms imposed by central government, which have encouraged an ‘instrumental–managerial’ focus on performance measurement. The new Labour government's programme of ‘modernizing local government’ places considerable emphasis on performance review and evaluation as a driver of continuous improvement in promoting Best Value. However, recent research has indicated that the capacity for evaluation in local government is uneven and many obstacles to evaluation exist in organizational cultures. Local authorities need to go beyond the development of review systems and processes to ensure that the capacity for evaluation and learning is embedded as an attribute of ‘culture’ in order to achieve the purpose of Best Value.     

Cyberterrorism and Cyber Attacks in the Public Sector: How Public Administration Copes with Digital Threats

Cybersecurity concerns among citizens and public administration officials are considered to be one of the major barriers to e-government implementation. While cyberterrorism is on the rise, the operational state of cybersecurity in the public sector appears as a black box and previous literature has scarcely examined how public authorities perceive and cope with cyber attacks. This study investigates public employees’ attitudes toward cybersecurity in the public sector, as well as the arrangements and measures in place to protect sensitive governmental data and securely manage it for privacy and regulatory compliance. Thus, it contributes to the e-government literature by presenting a comprehensive framework of cybersecurity in the public sector and by providing empirical evidence thereof. Furthermore, it gives an insight into the prevalent attitudes and cybersecurity infrastructure within the realm of public administration. Finally, the article derives research and managerial implications and provides suggestions for future research.     

Democratic Governance: A Genealogy

This essay draws on my book, Democratic Governance (Princeton University Press, 2010), to provide a genealogy of governance and to explore its implications for democracy. My arguments can be quickly stated: governance rose and spread as a consequence of new modernist theories and the public sector reforms that were inspired by these theories; policy actors respond to the challenges of governance by supplementing representative institutions with yet more modernist expertise.