GOVERNANCE FROM THE BOTTOM UP: COMPLEXITY AND DIVERGENCE IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE

This symposium article examines how the threefold governance framework of the symposium actually works across multiple policy sectors and multiple politically systems. It undertakes a comparative survey of governance‐related developments across three policy sectors: environment, education/higher education and forests. To control for differentiation in political structures, the article studies the policy sectors with respect to three political systems Canada, England and Germany, taking into account the role of the European Union, the federal systems and international actors. This broad macro comparative focus enables the authors to make one of the first empirical efforts to assess the presence and sweep of governance arrangements across both policy sectors and states; and to assess the degree of convergence around particular governance practices.     

Regional Governance in Unitary States: Lessons from the Netherlands in Comparative Perspective

There is a growing need for regional governance in Western European countries. Unitary states and nations like the Netherlands, France and England do not (yet) have fully fledged, general purpose intermediate governments that can fulfil this need. This article reviews the institutional arrangements for regional governance in the countries mentioned. The existing arrangements turn out to have a great deal in common and show comparable flaws. Drawing on experience from France and the Netherlands, and against the background of the debate on elected Regional Assemblies in England, the article reflects on the need for an autonomous regional government and the requirements it has to meet.     

Governance,federalism and organizing institutions to manage complex problems

In managing complex policy problems in the federal system, state and local governments are organized into different arrangements for translating policy goals into policy outcomes. Air quality management is used as a test case to understand these variations and their impact on policy outcomes. With data from Clean Air Act implementation plans and a survey of state and local air quality managers, five separate institutional designs are identified: (1) central agencies; (2) top-down; (3) donor–recipient; (4) regional agencies; and (5) emergent governance. Findings indicate that some arrangements (donor–recipient and emergent governance) result in notably better air quality than others (central agencies, top-down). Specifically, when designed to allow bargaining between state and local officials, intergovernmental management is still the most effective approach to complex policy problems; but, in absence of this, conventional federalism arrangements are less effective than public agencies self-organizing around shared policy goals.     

REGIONAL GOVERNANCE IN ENGLAND: A CHANGING ROLE FOR THE GOVERNMENT’S REGIONAL OFFICES?

Debates about the appropriate territorial scales of government to meet the challenges of economic, political and social change have gained momentum in Western Europe in recent years. In the UK, political mobilization has transformed constitutional arrangements in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. By contrast, in the English regions, a less radical approach has been adopted, but the outcome has been a strengthening of the institutions of regional governance. A key feature has been the enhanced responsibilities of the Government Offices for the Regions, which have been encouraged to build on their traditional administrative functions and adopt a more strategic role. This article explores the Offices’ contribution to regional and local governance. Our central argument is that although increasingly expected to act as a bridgehead between national and sub‐national government and a focus for regional policy coordination, their potential role in filling the missing gap in English regional governance has not yet been fully grasped.     

NEW GOVERNANCE ARRANGEMENTS AT THE INTERSECTION OF CLIMATE CHANGE AND FOREST POLICY: INSTITUTIONAL,POLITICAL AND REGULATORY DIMENSIONS

This article investigates emerging governance arrangements at the intersection between forest management and climate policy. The authors deploy the symposium's three‐dimensional framework to describe and evaluate developments within two distinct policy sectors (forestry/climate change adaptation and mitigation) at several levels of governance (bi‐national, national, and sub‐national) to explore the nature and operation of the emerging governance arrangements, and assessing and measuring change within these arrangements over time. Drawing on four contemporary case studies from the US and Canada, New Zealand, British Columbia and Alaska, the authors discern little evidence of a generalized, linear trend from ‘government to governance’. Instead, they conclude, across institutional, political and regulatory dimensions of governance, a more variegated and diverse picture emerges. Their analysis also lends support for the Trubek and Trubek (2007) hypothesis that emerging governance arrangements typically interact with extant ones through modalities of rivalry, complementarity and transformation.     

Metropolitan challenges and reform pressures across Europe – the perspectives of city mayors

Metropolitan governance arrangements and their policy purposes have been a matter of debate among researchers and practitioners around the globe. While we may trace three broad schools of metropolitan governance – reform school, public choice theory and new regionalism – with each still having its proponents, we are interested to learn whether there are assumptions on metropolitan governance that have today become general knowledge among urban political elites. By investigating the attitudes and perceptions of city mayors across Europe, we show that functional multipurpose governance bodies are indeed more generally associated with equitable service distribution, whereas the preconditions for cost-efficiency and sustainable development are more equivocally placed at different modes of governance. Moreover, we show that a perceived general lack of problem-solving capacities does not automatically translate into pressures for metropolitan reform, but it is only in combination with a general disaffection with the governance structures currently in place.     

SUPRANATIONAL GOVERNANCE OR NATIONAL BUSINESS‐AS‐USUAL? THE NATIONAL ADMINISTRATION OF EU STRUCTURAL FUNDS IN THE NETHERLANDS AND DENMARK

The partnership principle in EU cohesion policy was introduced in order to involve subnational authorities and interest organizations in policy formulation and implementation. In this article we examine how the member states have reacted to this call for a new way of making public policy. We argue that the multi‐level governance literature and the critics of the multi‐level governance framework have not examined implementation structures properly, but have focused on regional influence. We conduct a comparative analysis of the Dutch and Danish implementations of the European Social Fund and the European Regional Development Fund. Our findings show that when examining implementation structures it becomes clear that member states are in full control of the re‐allocation of EU funds. They show that Denmark and The Netherlands have been able to absorb EU cohesion policy within already existing national implementation structures of labour market policies and regional development. One central theoretical implication of our study is that the focus of studies of any fundamental re‐allocation of power resources in cohesion studies should comprise the entire network of implementation rather than the strategies of its individual component actors.     

PRESCRIPTIONS FOR REGIONAL ECONOMIC DILEMMAS: UNDERSTANDING THE ROLE OF THINK TANKS IN THE GOVERNANCE OF REGIONAL POLICY

The aim of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of the role of think tanks in the governance of regional policy. The paper critically reviews a series of reports by United Kingdom (UK) based think tanks, published between 2002 and 2008, a period of interest on the part of national government in the most appropriate configuration of subnational governance. Policy transfer and the role of ideas in regional policy provide the framework for analysis. The interpretation of the findings suggests that the think tanks considered are largely products of national policy debate and party politics in the United Kingdom, despite efforts to devolve power. This is surprising given debates about the influence of European Union regional funding on UK regional policy, seen as a prime example of multi‐level governance.     

COOPERATIVE INTERACTIONS AMONG FRIENDS AND FOES OPERATING WITHIN COLLABORATIVE GOVERNANCE ARRANGEMENTS

Perhaps nowhere is the inclination to interact with friends over foes more apparent than in the realms of politics and policy, and public managers increasingly operate within collaborative governance arrangements that are highly politicized. To further the existing knowledge on policy‐based interactions, this article examines factors that lead to cooperative interactions between foes. The Advocacy Coalition Framework, Resource Dependence Theory, and Policy Analytical Capacity are utilized to examine effects of resources and beliefs on interactions of climate policy supporters and opponents within Colorado. Despite the contentious nature of climate policy, a majority of individuals interacted equally with friends and foes, with opponents more likely to interact with foes. Extreme beliefs made individuals more likely to interact with friends, while resources had mixed effects. These findings offer an improved understanding of cooperative interactions between foes, which may help public managers operating within collaborative governance arrangements to promote greater cooperation and understanding.     

SYMPOSIUM OVERVIEW: CONCEPTUALIZING NEW GOVERNANCE ARRANGEMENTS

This symposium, ‘Conceptualizing New Governance Arrangements', takes up the challenge of refining governance theory to better integrate work in several disciplines, most notably politics, public administration and law. To this end, we argue for a theoretical framework that profiles three key dimensions of governance: institutional, political and regulatory. This framework, in our view, offers new insights into the nature and operation of various governance arrangements, and offers the potential to assess and measure change within such arrangements over time. After describing our methodology for selecting and analysing the case studies profiled in the symposium, we introduce each of the articles that apply our three‐dimensional governance framework. These articles employ the framework to consider a variety of contemporary governance scenarios that vary widely by sector (environmental, climate change, forestry and education policy) and level of analysis (sub‐national, national, and bi‐national).     

WHAT’S MEASURED IS WHAT MATTERS: TARGETS AND GAMING IN THE ENGLISH PUBLIC HEALTH CARE SYSTEM

In the 2000s, governments in the UK, particularly in England, developed a system of governance of public services that combined targets with an element of terror. This has obvious parallels with the Soviet regime, which was initially successful but then collapsed. Assumptions underlying governance by targets represent synecdoche (taking a part to stand for a whole); and that problems of measurement and gaming do not matter. We examine the robustness of the regime of targets and terror to these assumptions using evidence from the English public health service on reported successes, problems of measurement, and gaming. Given this account, we consider the adequacy of current audit arrangements and ways of developing governance by targets in order to counter the problems we have identified.     

NEGLECTED FACES OF EUROPEANIZATION: THE DIFFERENTIAL IMPACT OF THE EU ON THE DISMANTLING AND EXPANSION OF DOMESTIC POLICIES

The objective of this article is to clarify the extent and the conditions under which the European Union (EU) induces changes in the policy arrangements of its member states. For an accurate measurement of our dependent variable, we distinguish between EU-induced policy expansion and EU-induced policy dismantling. We argue that the extent to which European requirements lead to an expansion or dismantling of national policy arrangements is crucially affected by the respective governance logic underlying the regulatory activities at the European level, that is: (1) compliance with EU rules; (2) competition between national administrative systems to achieve EU requirements; and (3) communication between regulatory agents across national levels arranged in an EU legal or institutional framework. To illustrate our theoretical argument, we develop hypotheses on the likelihood and direction of national policy change under these three modes of governance, in addition, providing empirical examples from different policy areas.     

Towards developing new partnerships in public services: users as consumers, citizens and/or co-producers in health and social care in England and Sweden

The causes and effects of marketization of public services have been analysed extensively in the literature, but there is relatively little research on how those policies impact on the development of new forms of governance, and the role of users in these new arrangements. This study reviews examples of competition, freedom of choice and personalized care in health and social services in England and Sweden, in order to examine the type of relationships emerging between the user/consumer vis-à-vis market driven providers and various agencies of the state under the marketized welfare. The article focuses on the possible roles users might assume in new hybrid arrangements between markets, collaborations and steering. A user typology: namely, that of a consumer, citizen, co-producer and responsibilized agent in various governance arrangements, is then suggested. The article concludes by arguing that pro-market policies instead of meeting the alleged needs of post-modern users for individualized public services are likely to promote a new type of highly volatile and fragile partnerships, and create a new subordinated user who has no choice but to ‘choose’ services they have little control over.     

In Search of Regional Governance in East Asia: Processes and Outcomes

Abstract

This article employs the concept of ‘regional governance’ to analyze both the processes and outcomes of the emerging regional institutional arrangements in East Asia. It argues that while ASEAN has played a significant role in creating and sustaining the ‘processes’ of wider East Asian regional governance efforts, the level of achievement in translating these processes into tangible ‘outcomes’ remains severely constrained by great power rivalry, especially between Japan and China. By focusing on the areas of trade and finance, this article argues that the varying levels of outcomes between these two issue areas can be explained primarily by the degree of convergence between Japanese and Chinese interests. In particular, while Japan and China have a shared interest in contributing to the promotion of regional financial stability, they strongly disagree over the appropriate form and contours of a trade governance system.     

Discretion drift in primary care commissioning in England: Towards a conceptualization of hybrid accountability obligations

In the context of welfare delivery, hybrid organizations mix public and ‘new’ market, social, and professional types of mechanisms and rationales. This article contributes to our understanding of accountability within hybrid organizations by highlighting how accountability obligations can become hybrid, simultaneously formal and informal. Instead of seeing accountability as hybrid only in the sense of the coexistence of types of organizational mechanisms and structures (i.e., the prevalence of both state and market types), we examine accountability arrangements governing a hybrid model—primary care commissioning in England—and interrogate the relationships between accountability actors and their accountability forums. We conceptualize ‘hybrid accountability obligations’ as a state whereby the nature of obligation underpinning accountability relationships is both formal-informal and vertical-horizontal concurrently. The article concludes by highlighting the consequences of this kind of hybridity, namely how it extended discretion from welfare delivery to the domain of welfare governance.     

Elected Mayors: Leading Locally?

The directly elected executive mayor was introduced to England a decade ago. Drawing inspiration from European and American experience, the elected mayor appealed to both New Labour and Conservative commentators in offering a solution to perceived problems of local leadership. There was a shared view that governance of local areas was failing and that elected mayors were the answer. The first local referendums were held in 2001. Most have continued to reject the idea of the elected mayor. During 2012, the coalition government initiated 10 further mayoral referendums in England’s largest cities but only one, Bristol, opted for an elected mayor. Overall, there is no evidence of widespread public support, yet the prospect of more mayors – with enhanced powers – remains firmly on the policy agenda.

Drawing from a decade of research, this paper considers reasons for the persistence of the mayoral experiment, the importance of local factors in the few areas where mayors hold office and the link to current policy debates. Using the authors’ analytical leadership grid, this paper links the governmental, governance and allegiance roles of mayors to the problematic nature of local leadership. It then draws tentative conclusions about the strange case of the elected mayor in England.     

New Unionism? Teacher Unions,Social Partnership and School Governance in England and Wales

Abstract

In the post-war period teacher unions in England and Wales have experienced considerable turbulence regarding their participation in the structures of system governance. Participation in governance had traditionally been conducted through the processes of collective bargaining until the abolition of national negotiating rights in 1987. After an extended period of exclusion from governance networks this situation was reversed in 2003 following the establishment of a ‘social partnership’ between employers and education unions. This article draws on data from the Economic and Social Research Council funded project ‘Workforce remodelling, teacher trade unions and school-based industrial relations’ to assess the significance of the social partnership for system governance. It combines empirical data from England and Wales with research frameworks drawing on teacher union research in the USA to contrast social partnership with collective bargaining and to assess whether social partnership working represented a genuinely new approach to governance and, in turn, a form of ‘new unionism’.     

Governing multi-level governance: comparing domain dynamics in German Land-local relationships and prisons

While the notion of governance has received considerable scholarly attention, much less is known about change, and its sources, across modes of governance within respective policy domains. This article explores these neglected issues in two policy domains characterized by multi-level governance characteristics: Land (state)-local relationships in the domain of building administration and relationships governing the prisons domain in Germany. It does so in three steps. First, the article explores governance and considers endogenous and exogenous sources of change. Second, it discusses the institutional arrangements in the two domains and analyses modes of governance and their change. Third, the article compares the different dynamics of change and links these findings to wider debates regarding change across and within modes of governance. The analysis of the two domains suggests that 'hunting around' effects (i.e. permanent instability) are less prominent than suggested by cultural theory, while external pressures for change are filtered by the preferences of the actors within the respective domains.     

Regional Public Sector Organizations: A broader taxonomic classification to cross-pollinate empirical research

The present scholarship on cross-boundary organizations of local governments often splinters its focus and investigates narrow species of organizations with specific powers or unique policy domains. However, many organizations share common governance structures and mechanisms. Investigating these commonalities from a broader perspective permits stronger cross-pollination of knowledge and sharpens generalizable theories of governance and administration. In this article, I first provide easily and unambiguously measurable criteria capturing a genus I term Regional Public Sector Organizations (RPSOs). These criteria rely on a rescaled common definition of International Governmental Organizations (IGOs). In the United States, this broad genus includes many species of public authorities, regional councils, and policy-specific organizations. Terminology may differ in other nations, but the underlying idea sustains. The second contribution is five research questions largely inspired by IGO scholarship. Considering the parallels of RPSOs to IGOs can chart a rigorous, empirical path toward more coherent theoretical conversations on regional governance.     

Formalized Policy Entrepreneurship as a Governance Tool for Policy Integration

Policy entrepreneurs and their role for policy change, policy integration and cross-cutting governance has been thoroughly investigated. Here, focus is on a previously neglected aspect of policy entrepreneurship: the tendency to employ public bureaucrats with formal positions to act as policy entrepreneurs for policy integration. Based on 34 interviews with these actors in the Swedish local and regional government, three versions of this formalized policy entrepreneurship are identified: Informal compensation for formal vertical flaws, Making others do things and Integration in the vertical formal organization. These versions of formalized policy entrepreneurship brings a deeper understanding to the development of governance for policy integration, and also to the policy entrepreneurial role in the political-administrative organization.