NATIONALIZED INDUSTRIES AS ORGANIZED INTERESTS

The nationalized industries are usually regarded as bodies to be 'controlled' in some way by governments; but they have now developed sufficient autonomy to be able to exert influence on their own behalf within the political system. The emergence of the Nationalized Industries Chairman's Group is one aspect of their activity; the separate industries are also more outspoken in their own concerns. These developments deserve some consideration on both political and economic grounds. In the end the justification lies in their need to compete politically with other industrial interest groups. In the contemporary polity no one else will act for them, and so their leaders have a right, and perhaps a duty, to sustain their industries by 'pressure-group' tactics. Clearly the industries can be seen as 'state corporatist' bodies in the usual conceptualizations, but the development of political autonomy could contribute to a more open structure of the public sector.     

THE COSTS AND RETURNS OF THE PRIVATIZATION OF NATIONALIZED INDUSTRIES

The sale of public sector industry has become a central plank of UK public policy. This paper concentrates upon the most contentious area of the opportunity cost of share sales. The nature of these costs is related to the revealed objectives of the policy, and the extent to which they differ from expected costs is identified. The nature of the benefits forecast for privatization is explod and questions posed concerning the balance of costs and benefits in current policy. Particular attention is paid to the distribution of returns on the share issues in privatized businesses and parallels are drawn with issues in the private sector.     

AUDITING THE EFFICIENCY OF NATIONALIZED INDUSTRIES: ENTER THE MONOPOLIES A MERGERS COMMISSION

For over thirty years, there have been no arrangements for the systematic audit of the efficiency and effectiveness of British nationalized industries. In November 1981, the Government announced their intention to introduce such audits on a regular, programmed basis and assigned the responsibility to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. Using two of the Commission's reports, this essay contests the opinion that efficiency audits, as distinct from effectiveness audits, require pre-determined performance criteria. But whilst recognizing both the advance in Whitehall thinking represented by the new arrangements and the quality of the audits so far completed by the Commission, the essay questions the decision to assign this function to the Commission, rather than the Comptroller and Auditor General, and expresses doubts about the extent to which the new arrangements will contribute to proper parliamentary control and accountability in the case of public enterprises.     

THE IMPACT OF PUBLIC MANAGEMENT REFORMS ON STUDENT PERFORMANCE IN DANISH SCHOOLS

Many resources have been invested in reforming the public sectors of most countries in the world during the last 20 years. Greater focus on evaluation and performance is one of the most central aspects of these reforms, but despite much academic research virtually no systematic evaluations of the outcome of the reforms themselves are found. This paper presents a study of the effect of performance management reforms of Danish public schools on the achievements of more than 80,000 lower secondary students. The study finds no or very small effects on performance measured as average exam scores, but highly significant effects on inequity in the sense that students with low socioeconomic status perform worse at reforming schools than at similar non‐reforming schools. These results, as well as the methodological challenges involved in estimating reform impact, emphasize the need for more empirical scrutiny of what effects the reforms have.     

TOWARDS STANDARDS FOR THE PUBLICATION OF PERFORMANCE INDICATORS IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR: THE CASE OF SCHOOLS

Since the 1990s, the media and public authorities in many developed countries have published data on the quality of public services such as schools, hospitals and police. In the education sector the publication of performance indicators and league tables generated considerable debate. In this article, the policy context of this development in the education sector is analysed in conjunction with the problems associated with the public reporting of school performance indicators. This is followed by a discussion of the need for an accepted set of publication standards. The aim of this article is to initiate a debate about whether international consensus can be reached on the content of such a set of standards, and whether a particular set of standards, developed in the Dutch context, is applicable in and relevant to other countries. These Dutch standards have been applied to a variety of English, American and Dutch publications. The results of the analysis suggest that if the Dutch standards were applied, school performance publications could be significantly improved.     

PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT AND CITIZEN SATISFACTION WITH THE GOVERNMENT: EVIDENCE FROM CHINESE MUNICIPALITIES

Despite the fact that performance management has been ubiquitously adopted in the public sector across the world today, there is limited and inconclusive evidence that it improves citizen satisfaction with the government. In this article, we use survey data and multilevel modelling to analyse the effects of multiple performance management components on citizens' perceptions of government performance across 19 major cities in China. The results reveal that performance management does have a positive impact on citizen satisfaction. In addition, citizen participation, performance feedback and accountability, and information openness are positively associated with citizen satisfaction along various performance dimensions in different magnitudes. While we should take account of and mitigate its unintended consequences, our results suggest that it is still promising for public organizations to implement performance management.     

PUBLIC MANAGEMENT AND POLITICS: SENIOR BUREAUCRATS IN FRANCE

Why is new public management reform so difficult to implement in France? In order to answer this question, this article examines the changes that have affected the higher civil service since the late 1970s. Decision‐making networks have been considerably politicized, and public policies are now largely devised by ministerial cabinets staffs. Simultaneously, the tasks of career senior civil servants are increasingly technical and specialized. The management reforms undertaken since 2002 by an economically liberal government might have offered senior bureaucrats the opportunity to regain a more active professional role, but the reforms run counter to their political culture, since the large majority of them still share a leftwing political ideology. Reformers seem to have no other choice than to change the institutional system in order to resolve this contradiction.     

ISSUE NETWORKS AND THE RESTRUCTURING OF THE BRITISH AND WEST GERMAN COAL INDUSTRIES IN THE 1980s

This article uses policy network theory to examine comparatively the politics of the British and West German coal industries in the 1980s. It considers the reasons why policy in Britain was directed at restructuring and in West Germany at preserving the industry's existing structure. It focuses on the dynamics of network stability and change, and the growing importance of the international dimension in domestic policy making, a factor overlooked by network theory. The article contrasts the Thatcher and Kohl governments which, though both avowedly committed to free-markets, pursued very different policies in the coal industry. The article concludes with a brief assessment of network theory.     

MARKETS OR POLITICS? THE DETERMINANTS OF LABOUR RELATIONS IN A NATIONALIZED INDUSTRY

This article examines 'market' and 'political' explanations for the nature of nationalized industry labour relations, using British Rail as a case study. The market perspective suggests that market insulation generated 'cosy' industrial relations since it allowed managers to acquiesce in restrictive practices. More robust labour management recently is the result of greater exposure to market forces. This explanation is rejected because BR was exposed to competitive pressures before the Thatcher era, and because there is no simple relationship between market forces and managerial actions. Instead political uncertainty is the primary determinant of the state of industrial relations. In the 1970s British Rail management and unions formed a 'tacit alliance' to limit the potential damage of government interventions. This alliance has broken down in the 1980s not primarily because of market pressures but because government interventions have become more explicitly concerned with industrial relations.     

MANAGING SOCIAL CAPITAL AND DIVERSITY FOR PERFORMANCE IN PUBLIC ORGANIZATIONS

Managers concerned with the performance of their organizations will exploit available social, administrative, and human capital resources. However, extant theory and mixed empirical evidence leave the effect of social capital on performance unclear. The gains from these norms of reciprocity, participation, networking, and trust may disproportionately benefit only some of their clients, leading to disparities in outcomes among diverse clienteles. We argue that in such contexts, management will put in place policies to counter these disparities. Indeed, our empirical evidence from the management of public education supports the expectation that an institutional commitment to diversity successfully mitigates the uneven effects of social capital on organizational performance. This finding carries important implications for public management and equity in public policy outcomes and may be of particular relevance to management of outcomes relying on co‐production.     

BETTER REGULATION IN EUROPE: BETWEEN PUBLIC MANAGEMENT AND REGULATORY REFORM

Can the European regulatory state be managed? The European Union (EU) and its member states have looked at better regulation as a possible answer to this difficult question. This emerging public policy presents challenges to scholars of public management and administrative reforms, but also opportunities. In this conceptual article, we start from the problems created by the value‐laden discourse used by policy‐makers in this area, and provide a definition and a framework that are suitable for empirical/explanatory research. We then show how public administration scholars could usefully bring better regulation into their research agendas. To be more specific, we situate better regulation in the context of the academic debates on the New Public Management, the political control of bureaucracies, evidence‐based policy, and the regulatory state in Europe.     

URBAN MANAGEMENT AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT AS NEW INSTITUTIONS IN THE NEW UKRAINE

Local government and modern urban management techniques will play a key role in the transition of Ukraine's institutions from a communist to a free economy and society. This paper provides a historic context for this transition, discusses the problems encountered in building urban management capacities and local government institutions, and explores what it will take to achieve real change.

The paper places the problems of revitalization and rebuilding of these Ukrainian institutions in historical perspective, with special attention to inherited patterns of Soviet administrative culture. The Sovietization of urban planning and administration, and living standards and the creation of nomenklature (the main governmental “human resource”), are analyzed as the starting point for rebuilding Ukraine's local governments. The paper traces the main sources and consequences of “continuous institutional crisis,” such as distrust, corruption, and deterioration of the capabilities of the Ukrainian state. Also examined are the current effects of economic globalization on the development of local and urban governments.

Following a review of Ukrainian “path dependence” and recent difficulties in institutional building, the paper outlines the most important tasks for future development and an agenda for Ukraine's “institutional entrepreneurs.” The paper emphasizes that it is vital to create a professional, rule-based bureaucracy and merit-based municipal civil service.     

PERFORMANCE, EVALUATION AND THE NHS: A CASE STUDY IN CONCEPTUAL PERPLEXITY AND ORGANIZATIONAL COMPLEXITY

This paper adopts a comparative perspective towards the analysis of performance evaluation in the National Health Service. The NHS, it is argued, is best seen as an organization which is not unique but which ranks high on a number of dimensions: uncertainty about the relationship between inputs and outputs; heterogeneity of activities and aims; the ambiguity of the available information. These factors help to explain why performance evaluation in the NHS is both conceptually and organizationally problematic, and fragmented and professionalized in practice. By looking at the same factors in other organizations, it may be possible to start constructing a framework for examining the problems of performance evaluation in different settings.     

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.     

PRIME MINISTERIAL RHETORIC AND RECESSION POLITICS: MEANING MAKING IN ECONOMIC CRISIS MANAGEMENT

Triggered by the collapse of the US mortgage market, the global financial crisis (GFC) of 2007–08 hit most of the Western world hard and fast, presenting governments and citizens with a set of stark, undeniable and immediate realities. This article examines the attempts of three prime ministers “Gordon Brown in the UK, Brian Cowen in Ireland and Kevin Rudd in Australia to meet the key leadership challenge set up by the GFC: to publicly assess, explain and account for the GFC and the accompanying economic turbulence and uncertainty as financial markets went from boom to bust. By focussing on meaning making we examine how the leaders responded to the public expectation to explain: How bad is the situation? How did it occur? Who or what is to be held responsible? What needs to be done to cope with it? Using both qualitative and quantitative methods we compare the rhetorical impacts of these leaders.