Theoretical Developments in Public Administration: Implications for the Study of Federalism

The perspective of public administration potentially carries great relevance for the development of theory concerning federal systems. However, the impact of each specialty on the other has often been uneven. Reasons for this state of affairs are explored. Some recent and current research on public administration is highlighted for its implications regarding the study of federalism.     

Emerging Roles of School District Administrators: Implications for Planning, Budgeting, and Management

School district administrators are defining new roles for themselves, adding to their more traditional role. The traditional role is characteristic of purely "public sector" managers, whereas the emerging roles are more characteristic of purely "private sector" managers (both the for-profit and not-for-profit private sectors). A primary cause of the development of the new role is that school administrators are beginning to pursue revenue-generating opportunities via private sector models due to the limits of the public sector model. The traditional role, the new role, and the implications of their mutual presence in school districts are examined in this paper.     

Water quality modeling for environmental management: Lessons from the policy sciences

Models are used in many policy arenas to predict the future consequences of current decisions. A model is typically viewed as a rational, objective means of processing complex information to predict future conditions. With respect to socioeconomic modeling, policy scientists have found that models frequently do not live up to these promises – they often incorporate the modelers' biases, are difficult for decision makers to use, and do a poor job of point predictions. While awareness of these characteristics of socioeconomic models has increased, less attention has been paid to such factors in environmental modeling. This paper explores the implications of policy scientists' observations about socioeconomic models for the use of water quality models environmental decision making. For example, the relatively simple task of modeling for an estuarine waste load allocation decision incorporates judgment in model choice, calibration, and use. More complex watershed models involve even more choices that have implications for decision making. Thus, environmental models are not strictly technical inputs to the policy process. Model users, regulators, and the public should be aware of the judgments and uncertainties involved in surface water quality modeling so that model results are used appropriately in the decision-making process.     

Responsibility to Be Enthusiastic? Public Servants and the Public Face of “Promiscuous Partisanship”

Contemporary public service leaders are no longer the anonymous mandarins of Westminster folklore. Whether giving public speeches to outside organizations or communicating directly with the media, senior public servants are emerging from anonymity to become public actors in their own right. This article undertakes a comparative study across four Westminster jurisdictions—Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom—to examine the formal rules and guidelines that apply to public servants when making public statements in their official capacity. Drawing on the late Peter Aucoin's notion of “promiscuous partisanship,” the article argues that public servants are expected to demonstrate a new level of enthusiasm when explaining or justifying government policy to the public. This has implications for the extent to which nonpartisanship can continue to effectively function within Westminster systems.     

Beyond Engagement and Participation: User and Community Coproduction of Public Services

In recent years, there has been a radical reinterpretation of the role of policy making and service delivery in the public domain. Policy making is no longer seen as a purely top-down process but rather as a negotiation among many interacting policy systems. Similarly, services are no longer simply delivered by professional and managerial staff in public agencies but are coproduced by users and their communities. This article presents a conceptual framework for understanding the emerging role of user and community coproduction and presents several case studies that illustrate how different forms of coproduction have played out in practice. Traditional conceptions of service planning and management are now outdated and need to be revised to account for coproduction as an integrating mechanism and an incentive for resource mobilization—a potential that is still greatly underestimated. However, coproduction in the context of multipurpose, multistakeholder networks raises important public governance issues that have implications for public services reform.     

Development problems and planning in a resource-poor Pacific country: The case of Tuvalu

Tuvalu is an independent microstate and this account of its economic circumstances and prospects provides the context for discussion of administrative problems. The paper outlines the economic structure of the country and examines its economic resources and their potential; demographic trends are given attention, and the country's heavy dependence on foreign aid is explained. These features carry implications for the forms of public administration and development planning, and Tuvalu's current development plan and aspects of its public administration are discussed with this in mind. The article serves as a case study of the economy of a micro state and implications for administration in such a state.     

Personnel Reform in the States: A Look at Progress Fifteen Years after the Winter Commission

Trends in states’ civil service reforms since the Winter Commission’s report was published in 1993 are described and evaluated in the context of its recommendations. The authors argue that the commission’s reform agenda relies on a public service bargain that requires public employees, elected officials, and other stakeholders to respect, trust, and support each other’s efforts to serve the public interest. Its recommendations for modernizing state and local personnel systems are discussed and related to the “reinvention” and New Public Management initiatives of the past 20 years. Many of these ideas have been adopted by state governments, but there is no single reform model that has been followed across the states. Some states, such as Georgia and Florida, have engaged in radical reforms that include replacing traditional merit systems with at‐will employment models. The general pattern involves decentralization, deregulation, and limitation of employee protections. While many of the management‐oriented changes advocated by the Winter Commission are staples of states’ civil service reforms, its emphasis on a “trust and lead” strategy based on public service values, partnership, and leadership in the public interest has not received much attention. In general, objective evaluations of states’ reforms are needed to determine whether their purposes are being achieved.     

The public sector growth and state autonomy in Western Europe: The changing role and scope of the state in Ireland since 1950

The expansion of the state in advanced industrial societies since 1945 has stimulated studies of the determinants of public sector growth, the nature of state intervention and the capacity for the state to act in a quasi‐autonomous way. The last also provides a means for distinguishing between alternative models of state action. In this article the issues of state expansion and state autonomy are used as the basis for examining the growth of the public sector and shifting activities of the state in Ireland since 1950. It is argued that a state‐centred model best accounts for the behaviour of the Irish state.     

Management Strategies and Budgetary Politics

The study of public sector budgeting, particularly at the state level, has been dominated by incremental models of decision making. As a result, the budget has not always been viewed as an effective management tool for governors and other senior state officials. However, there are several critical issues which state leaders repeatedly face and for which the budget is the principal instrument for implementing decisions. This article identifies four key issues for the strategic management of state government and relates alternative approaches to each issue to the nature of budgetary politics. The first section raises the issues in the form of four questions. The next sections present alternative answers and discuss their political implications. Where appropriate, examples from the state of New York are included.     

A Future for Public Sector Appeal Systems Under New Managerialism?

This article examines the fate of public sector appeal systems under the managerialist reform agenda. Is new managerialism wedded to a particular shape of appeal system? Is it wedded to the dismantling of this traditionally distinctive feature of public sector employment in Australia? To explore these questions, this article examines the roles which public sector appeal systems play in human resource management and their implications for public sector reform. It then compares traditional appeal rights and processes with those currently operating in the state, Commonwealth and Northern Territory public services. The article also discusses the implications of the dramatic changes in some jurisdictions, including Victoria and Western Australia, for the effectiveness of appeal processes, and human resource management in the public sector.     

The governance of the European patent system: effective and legitimate?

Abstract

This article argues that effectiveness and legitimacy are two inseparable issues for the success of economic governance systems. Moving beyond the conventional market failure and state failure approaches, the article develops the notion of network governance success, a notion that looks at the formal and informal dimensions of interactions in economic systems. This is further developed into an analytical framework which is then used in the assessment of the structural features of the current European patent system, one of the most advanced, complex, and contested economic systems in Europe. The conclusions elaborate on the normative implications regarding the current weaknesses of the European patent system, and examine the general theoretical implications of the findings, particularly looking at the effectiveness and legitimacy of technically complex governance systems.     

Sector Switching from a Business to a Government Job: Fast‐Track Career or Fast Track to Nowhere?

This paper examines the career consequences for public managers of having had full-time private sector work experience. We find positive career outcomes for public managers with private sector experience: Individuals with such experience are more likely to have been recently promoted relative to peers and to supervise somewhat greater number of employees, especially if their most recent job was in the private sector. While experience in the private sector enhances such career outcomes, the length of such experience diminishes them. The authors conclude by identifying three career scenarios emerging from the models and discussing the managerial and theoretical implications of "sector-switching careers."     

Introduction: Changing Public Sector Industrial Relations in the Australian State

During the last two decades, governments have restructured their public services. Public administration has been largely replaced by public management, reflecting a more market oriented approach. In line with this pattern of change, the Australia public services at both state and Commonwealth levels, since the early 1980s, have undergone significant change. The aim of this symposium is to explore the dimensions, detail and impact of these developments, tracing the implications of public service reorganisation and operations for public sector industrial relations. The contributions therefore focus on government policies, management and industrial relations and implications for collective organisation and action. Changes in five states and one territory are considered as well as those at the Commonwealth level.     

New Governance, the Internet, and Country Code Top-Level Domains in Europe

Much academic work on governance in recent years has explored responses that states have made to sectors of the economy, usually historically well rooted nationally, that have been subject to globalizing pressures. Less work exists on responses that are being made to new parts of the economy emerging outside the nation state with inherently global characteristics. The Internet—and specifically its naming and addressing system—provides an example of how the state has aimed to assert public interest governance authority in a system initially absent of its influence. This article explores the nature and consequences of this activity in the process contributing to the study of the Internet and governance. Working within the limitations but also the opportunities created by policy norms developed at the global level, the article finds that the state has been instrumental in the development of novel public–private governance systems for Internet country code Top-Level Domains.     

New Labour and the Public Sector in Britain

In Britain, New Labour has a distinctive public philosophy that contains an ideal often found in the socialist tradition—that is, citizens attaining moral personhood within and through the community. Old Labour generally sought to realize such an ideal in a universal welfare state characterized by a command form of service delivery. New Labour has responded to dilemmas, akin to those highlighted by the New Right, by transforming this model of the public sector. It conceives of the state as an enabler acting in partnership with citizens and other organizations, delivering services through networks characterized by relationships of trust. We explore this distinctive public philosophy through its ethical vision and then its implications for welfare reform and the delivery of public services.     

EXPORTING AMERICAN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT PRACTICE TO RUSSIA

The failure of US initiatives to build local/regional economic development capacity in Russia following the fall of Communism has been partly blamed on national factors, Russian culture, and American consultants. Much of the failure, however, probably resulted because American approaches to economic development—‐highly successful in other contexts—could not work during Russia's transition from a command economy to its current state. Such things as promoting entrepreneurship, developing public‐private partnerships, creating a market economy, accessing start‐up capital, attracting foreign investment, overcoming bureaucratic corruption and high taxation, working within the rule of law, and negating organized crime either should not have been done, or could not have been done, leaving many of our programs ineffective. We ask whether the Russian deviations from the U.S. model have any implications for the current situation facing state and local development policy in the U.S.     

Coalitions and Conservation: Conditional Impacts of Coalitions on Ballot Measures for Open Space

Social scientists have long debated the impact of interest group coalitions on public policies. While views on coalition impacts range from dominance to impotence, an emerging perspective suggests that coalitions have impacts under certain conditions. In this paper, we join and expand that perspective by arguing that coalitions have a conditional impact on public policies through ballot measures. Specifically, we argue that coalitions will have greater impact on ballot measure outcomes in non‐presidential election years, when the stakes involved are high, and when the goals of the measure are diverse. We test these hypotheses with analyses of a dataset of over 2,400 ballot measures on spending for open space at the state and local level between 1988 and 2014. We find strong support for our hypotheses. The findings have implications for scholarly debates on interest groups and coalitions, for the role of ballot measures in American public policy, and for assessments of open space and conservation in American society.     

Approaches to the Merit Principle in Queensland Public Service Recruitment 1859–2000. From rich and dumb to gender discrimination to politicisation?

The traditional career service model of public employment was ostensibly based on the merit principle, designed to ensure employment on what you knew rather than who you knew, and to remove patronage. However, the image of public servants is often poor, and many are perceived as having little real merit. This article reviews approaches to merit in the Queensland state public service. It finds that, in earlier times, the merit principle was often enshrined in primary and subordinate legislation, but was subsequently moderated by social values including gender and class discrimination, and by circumstances such as wars. This had implications for the skill levels and quality of public employees, and therefore for public policy and public services. In recent decades, the merit principle has been subjected to extensive redefinition and has been subordinated to the desire for greater political control of public services, and pursuit of ‘responsiveness’.     

Program Strategy and Coalition Building as Facets of New Public Management

This paper explores two issues: first, the strategic and coalition-building tasks that may be routinely associated with New Public Management (NPM); and second, the implications of acknowledging these tasks for the conception of public management. NPM focuses on performance. It invites managers to accept responsibility for whole programs or systems (Kettle, 1997; Dunleavy, 1994; Ridley, 1996; Hood, 1995). This directs attention to basic program frameworks (that is, program strategy), as well as to operations. It involves the purposes of programs. It involves routine attention to such factors as the effectiveness of outcomes, the identification of alternative program configurations, the implications of emerging issues and needs, and the mobilisation of authority for change. In practice, this authority derives both from program stakeholders, as well as from ministers and the broader political system.     

The consolidation of adjustment: Implications for public administration

The governments of most developing countries have been subject to pressures, especially through structural adjustment programmes, to reduce the direct role of the state in the supply of services. New forms of service supply are emerging, in which government has only an indirect role as enabler and regulator of other actors; but there has been little practical guidance on how these ‘new’ roles are to be performed in the specific context of developing countries. The danger is then of the adoption of inappropriate practices from more advanced countries. The argument of this article is that governments face several difficulties in managing the ‘post-adjusted state’: the inheritance of social and political strains, and of reforms made abruptly under pressure; the complexity of identifying the appropriate role of the state for particular services under particular circumstances; the technical difficulty of managing new administrative roles; and the contradiction, particularly in respect of systems of accountability, between the new and the old requirements on public administration.