Managing Public Accountability: How Public Managers Manage Public Accountability

Accountability is of growing importance in contemporary governance. The academic literature on public accountability is fraught with concerned analyses, suggesting that accountability is a problematic issue for public managers. This article investigates how public managers experience accountability and how they cope with accountability. The analysis highlights a number of ways in which public managers do indeed “suffer” from accountability, although, conversely, most of the respondents were able to identify strategic coping mechanisms with which apparently problematic accountability requirements can be converted into practically useful procedures.     

Performance pledges–power to the consumer or a quagmire in public service legitimation?

One of the latest initiatives in Hong Kong's public sector reform is the launch of “performance pledges” in 1992, which have essentially been modelled on citizen's charters in the United Kingdom. While the stated aims of performance pledges, citizen's charters, or similar initiatives, are to raise the standard of public services and to make such services answer better to the needs of ordinary people, hence “empowering” the public service consumers, this latest consumerist trend in public management has more far-reaching implications, both in terms of the organization as well as the legitimation of public service provision. This article examines such implications, with specific reference to the Hong Kong situation, and argues that the outcome of the development seems to point to the empowerment of public managers rather than the consumers as the official rhetoric would imply.     

Independent Budget Offices and the Politics–Administration Dichotomy

The discipline of public administration has long grappled with the issue of how much involvement by public managers is warranted in the political sphere. Legislative Budget Offices (LBOs) provide an intriguing case study in this regard. This article examines the contributions of three works that successfully encapsulate the difficulties, as well as the merits, of an institution constituted of public managers (economists) wresting political control from politicians (executives and legislators) to create value for the public. The review article thus shows why the experiences of Legislative Budget Offices can serve as informative accounts for scholars of public administration.     

Entrepreneurship and Participation in Public Management Reforms at the Local Level

This article seeks to discuss who the policy entrepreneurs are and who participates in the policy-making process of public management reforms at the local level. In order to answer the research questions, a multi-unit and multi-case research study was carried out in three municipal governments: Barcelona, Boston and Turin. The subjects of the study were 15 innovations in management implemented between 1992 and 2007. The first conclusion is that politicians predominantly take the entrepreneurial role in introducing innovations in public management, regardless of the technicality of the innovation. As far as political participation is concerned, public management reforms are still dealt with as in-house matters, even when public managers want to be recognised as promoting the positive values of political participation.     

Mainstreaming of Racist Anti-Roma Discourses in the Media in Hungary

The article focuses on the rise and spread of racist language in public debate in Hungary. It investigates how radical right discourses—that is, the relegitimating of the racist idea of “Gypsy crime”—have been transmitted by the mainstream media thus contributing to the decline of a short-lived political correctness in Hungary. The analysis explores how racism has become more and more accepted and how the mainstream has embraced the radical right's propositions, turning them into a “digestible” rhetoric while “breaking the taboos” of antiracism.     

Politics of Risk-Taking: Welfare State Reform in Advanced Democracies,by Barbara Vis

This article considers the impacts on the public regulation of private business of three key transformations in public management: “towards more targeting of resources” (through more risk-based regulation); “towards a stronger service ethos” (through more customer-centricity); and “towards increased integration” (through more joined-up regulatory organization). Empirical evidence is presented from a program of research focusing on local authority regulation of the businesses sector in England and Wales. The article concludes by reflecting on how such transformations, which are of wide international significance, might be viewed, particularly from a public interest perspective.     

Organizational Citizenship Levels of Physicians in Public Hospitals

The aim of this study is to define organizational citizenship levels of physicians working in public hospitals. The population of the study consists of the physicians employed in the hospitals run by the Ministry of Health in Istanbul. The Organizational Citizenship Level Scale was used for the collection of data. It was found that the participants’ organizational citizenship levels were the highest in the “conscience” subsection and the lowest in the “praising the organization” subsection. Findings of this study provide clear information for the decision-makers and hospital managers in developing working conditions of physicians in public hospitals.     

Accountability by Professionalism or Managerialism? Exploring Attitudes Among Swedish and Norwegian Local Government Leaders

Most developed countries continue to experience problems with malfeasance and corruption, making accountability a fundamental concern of the public government. Still, the mechanisms which ensure accountability are not given. This article explores two different and apparently conflicting principles of accountability in public organizations: “Professionalism” based on values and internalized incentive structures and “Managerialism” based on externalized incentives and hierarchy. The empirical analysis is based on a comparative survey among local government leaders in Sweden and Norway. The analysis shows that both professionalism and managerialism are regarded as important means for accountability and tend to be understood as complementary more than competing principles.     

CONSUMERISM AND THE PUBLIC SECTOR: HOW WELL DOES THE COAT FIT?

Consumerism attempts to redress the imbalance of power that exists between those who produce goods and services, and those for whom they are provided. To achieve this end, five basic principles have been evolved which seek to improve consumers' access, choice, information, redress and representation. The article examines the relevance of these principles to services provided by local government and the health service. Its conclusion – that they are useful but not necessarily enough – is perhaps surprising, given the author's concern to place consumers' interests centre stage in discussions about what public services are for, and how they should be run. The article then considers whether the messages of consumerism are reaching their mark, and finally points to those issues which managers of public services – both politicians and professionals – must face if consumerism is to leave a legacy of real value.     

Public Value in Politics: A Legislative Budget Office Approach

We use Legislative Budget Offices (LBOs) as both a lens and a test of “public value in politics,” a facet of Moore’s original framework that remains its most contested. We identify two public value roles for LBOs: (1) as a normative-advisory institution, and (2) as a mechanistic-costing one. Through Moore’s Strategic Triangle, we contrast the higher public value contribution of the advisory role, as manifested in the United States, with the costings role as manifested in Canada. Our findings suggest that LBOs enhance both democracy and efficiency and thus show how “public value in politics” can be achieved.     

Political Entrepreneurs and Public Administration Reform: The Case of the Local Authorities' Unification Reform in Israel

This article examines a specific institutional change in Israel. In 2003 the Israeli Knesset implemented the local authority unification plan, an unprecedented reform in the structure of local authorities in Israel. This article is about a local government reorganization taking place in a unique political culture. This article tries to integrate the role of political entrepreneurs within an Institutionalist and “learning” perspectives to offer an explanation to a local government structure, thus politicians influence and are influenced by a wide range of institutional norms and practices in a complex process of design and determination of institutional change.     

State Dilemmas in the Provision of Alternative Care for Children: Relative Efficacy of Public Sector and Independent Sector Foster Placements

The population of children around the world who require alternative care outside of the natural family is staggeringly large. This presents fundamental dilemmas and challenges for every nation. This article notes how the United Kingdom's (UK's) response has evolved from that of a non-interventionist state to one that claims an interest in “Every Child”. Attention is drawn to the way in which the State's “Third Way: What matters is what works” ideology has led to radical reform of public sector services and the widespread sub-contracting of alternative care for children to the independent sector.

The article presents rare data on the relative performance of children in public sector as opposed to costly independent foster care. Contrary to expectations the data reveal minimal differences between the two groups. The data offer no justification, on the grounds of efficacy, for the use of independent sector provision as opposed to public sector provision.     

Patriotic history and anti-LGBT rhetoric in Zimbabwean politics

Over the past 20 years, President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and his political party, Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), have relied heavily on political rhetoric that demonizes lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons. In this paper, it is argued that the anti-LGBT political rhetoric in Zimbabwe is part of a larger program known as “patriotic history,” which emphasizes a particular kind of Zimbabwean identity to legitimize the continued rule of Mugabe and ZANU-PF. The value of combining patriotic history and political homophobia emerges out of the unique political and economic context which Mugabe’s regime found itself unable to adequately address. To illustrate how and why this has happened, the paper focuses on two key incidents: the 1995 Zimbabwe International Book Fair, and the public conversation over writing a new constitution between 2010 and 2013.     

Government and Corruption: Scylla and Charybdis

Using public sector employment and corruption perception data for 72 countries across the world, this article demonstrates that despite common notion countries with “smaller” governments do not tend to have lower corruption. Under general assumptions, one can demonstrate that there is an optimal size of public sector employment corresponding to the highest capital intensity. The model has several implications: lower optimal sizes of governments for labor intensive countries and higher sizes for capital intensive ones, possibility to reduce corruption paying a cost of suboptimal output, and a higher “price” of an oversized government for labor intensive countries.     

Innovating Public Service Delivery in Transitional Countries: The Case of One Stop Shops in Kazakhstan

This article analyses the implementation of managerial ideas in Kazakhstan using the case of a combined public service delivery called “One Stop Shops”. Several public services are provided in a single building rather than different government offices in a business-like style of service delivery and in a modern physical environment. The service integration policy is an attempt of Kazakhstani government to improve the quality of public services and reduce corruption. Some positive progress in improving the accessibility of public services has been noted. However, as this article argues, the country-specific model of “alternative-access” service delivery was not able to implement in-depth changes in the work of the public sector and improve service quality. Implementation of the managerial ideas has been limited and constrained by the institutional framework and culture prevailing in the Kazakhstani bureaucracy. The main conclusion is that the governments of transitional countries need to critically analyze the pros and cons of the new policies and reflect on their cultures before making further steps to adopt Western managerial initiatives.     

Teaching public management: the case for (and against) cases

This article calls for an increased and more rigorous use of the case method in public administration education. Cases yield generalizations, cases help students take ownership of knowledge, and cases can further repetition of behavioral characteristics important to students such as empathy and self-confidence.

The gradual expansion of public policy training into the area of public management has brought with it a marked increase in the use of cases and case teaching. Executive training programs, an ever more common feature of publicpolicy schools, rely even more heavily on case. Despite their prevalence and popularity, cases and case teaching have come in for considerable criticism. Social scientists in particular fault them for being atheoretical and, hence, lacking in intellectual rigor. Contemporary cases are also faulted for implicitly endorsing an “activist” or “heroic” view of public management. Whereas cases from the 1940s and 1950s portrayed a functional view of public managers, recent cases portray managers as people who actively shape their legal mandates and use administrative systems to promote political objectives--a questionable image to convey to students training for public service.⁽¹⁾

The first half of the paper describes in some detail a seminar, “Ethics and Public Management,” conducted at the Kennedy School by Mark Moore, Mark Lilla, and the author.     

Self-Care in Public and Community Sector Workplaces

Key aspects of modern public service and community workplaces associated with significant levels of distress are identified. This includes the transformation of public sector and community agencies under the aegis of new public management (NPM). Using a child protection case study, it is argued that NPM ethos generates stressful workplaces and “uncomfortable knowledge” adding pressure to a system already in crisis. It is also argued that while there is value in self-care practices like debriefing, “boundary maintenance,” and “work-life balance,” one critical aspect of self-care associated with the virtue ethics tradition is missing. This gap in the literature and practice needs attention.     

Public–Private Partnership (PPP) as an Interdependent Form (I-Form) Organization

As “public–private partnership” (PPP) is becoming a popular model among states, the debate concerning how to make it more successful is accelerating. Based on insights from contemporary organization theory (OT), the present article suggests that instead of taking PPP as “partnership” between private and public sector partners, it is rather more beneficial to construe it as inter-dependent form (I-Form) organization. Subsequently, it identifies three types of interdependencies, faced by PPP-based I-Form organizations, and furnishes a model—comprising of initial and external conditions, and interplay of internal factors—that could enable smooth functioning and performance of I-Form organization.     

Political board’s contribution to strategic management: a case study

This study examines the support, control and strategic functions of an executive hospital political board from the perspective of how institutionalised internal procedures influence board functions. Board members and leading hospital managers were interviewed about politicians’ ways of working, managers’ preparation of decision issues and board work under the presidency model. The politicians strengthened the decision-making processes by requesting additional supporting documents, and by defending the hospital from public criticism. However, the board exercises weak strategic and control functions; it absorbs the responsibilities of the hospital managers and the upper political levels as it reaffirms its executive authority. Nonetheless, the study suggests that abolishing or replacing the board with a non-political board may not improve organisational governance. The study gives insights in politicians’ contribution to strategic public management, an aspect lacking in existing literature.