Elements of Strategic Planning and Management in Municipal Government: Status after Two Decades

This article focuses on the use of strategic planning and management processes in municipal governments with populations over 25,000. Strategic planning has been used in municipalities for 20 years now, but little is known about how it is used and the results obtained. In particular, we explore whether municipal governments tie other components of the overall strategic management process to their strategic plans. Findings do not show a dramatic expansion in the use of strategic planning, but there is some evidence of growing sophistication, as demonstrated by links to other management and decision-making activities. Managers were enthusiastic about their experiences with strategic planning and largely satisfied with their achievement of goals and objectives. Overall, we find a raising of the bar as far as strategic planning is concerned, but the use of comprehensive strategic management is only beginning to develop in a small number of leading-edge municipalities.     

回顾与建议：政府机构改革三十年

经过近30年6轮的机构改革,今天中国的政府机构与编制设置状况以及政府过程本身都已经发生了巨大的变化.在服务市场经济建设、机构改革思路、公务员规模控制、制度化和改革技术细节等方面取得了显著成绩.同时,机构改革也遗留了大量需要解决的问题,主要表现为中央机构改革没有与地方政府机构改革、党群机构改革、事业单位改革、公务员内部结构调整、政府过程完善和行政区划调整等很好地结合起采.因此,应努力通过适当拉大改革周期、重新确定机构改革目标、加强政府职能分类分层次指导等途径,推动政府机构改革向更具实质的阶段发展.     

Local Government and Governance in Norway: Stretched Accountability in Network Politics

This article is concerned with the democratic quality of network governance in a local context; in particular, the interplay between traditional local government and the emerging network structures. What forms of interplay can be observed between traditional local government and emerging network structures? Of particular interest in this respect is the role of local councillors. As elected representatives, councillors embody the special commitment of authorities towards the public. However, involvement in networks implies a danger of capture, and if network decisions are not open to public scrutiny, democratic control is difficult to achieve even if local councillors are represented. This article therefore discusses networks and accountability: In what ways and to what degree are networks held accountable? Empirically, it explores three local policy networks, all involving the city of Kristiansand. One group of networks – neighbourhood networks – is internally initiated and maintained by the municipality of Kristiansand. Another network is an intermunicipal collaboration involving Kristiansand and five surrounding municipalities. The third network is an example of a public‐private partnership that includes the municipality of Kristiansand, as well as several other actors. The case studies show that the actual presence of local government representatives in networks is not enough to ensure accountability. Lines of popular accountability are stretched, either because the networks are deemed irrelevant by the city councillors, or because networks develop decision‐making styles that shield them from external political control, or because local councillors deliberately deprive themselves of influence over important policy fields.     

In Search of the Government in Local Government: Coalition Agreements and Office Payoffs in Norway

The politics of European local government is often assumed to take place in a rather depoliticised and non-partisan environment. This feature is especially apparent in Norway, where local government institutions are designed to create a high degree of consensus and accommodation. No local cabinet takes office, and therefore no formal roles of a majority government and an opposition are offered. This paper tells a different story, however. Following the 1999 elections many municipalities are now experiencing partisan cooperation based on binding political agreements. In these cases the common practice of proportional distribution of the important political positions is replaced with a 'winner takes all' principle, as only the majority constellation is rewarded with office payoffs. Given that this form of cooperation is the closest analogue to any cabinet formation at the local level, it is clearly of interest to uncover under which conditions it occurs. The empirical analysis therefore uses variation in structural, socioeconomic and political characteristics to predict the local coalition behaviour. The empirical model captures some important determinants in the variation of structural characteristics, and, as expected, explicit and binding coalition agreements are found in the large and central municipalities. Socioeconomic setting is furthermore important, since municipalities with a high degree of financial autonomy and poor policy performance experience this kind of formalised cooperation more frequently. Systematic effects are also found for political characteristics, with electoral volatility, party fragmentation and functional organisation models all increasing the probability of coalition agreements.     

Leadership in Local Government Reform: Strategic Direction v Administrative Compliance

This paper reports on a survey across 26 Victorian local councils which assessed the impact of local government reform – boundary restructuring – compulsory competitive tendering, across-the-board rate cuts and rate capping, on the management and organisation of local government organisations in that state. It highlights the fact that leadership, planning and performance management is essential in responding to these reforms. It also reveals thatsome councils have been able to assist employees to make the shift to an outcomes-oriented deliverer of local services while others have made much less progress and are still focused on the traditional, compliance-oriented culture of local government administration.     

Assessing and Managing Environmental Risk: Connecting Local Government Management with Emergency Management

Ensuring that a community is prepared to deal with a disaster is among the many tasks public managers are charged with addressing. Disaster preparedness and response requires adherence to standard planning practices, yet disasters are typically unpredictable. Dealing with disasters, therefore, requires a blend of traditional management skills and improvisation. Furthermore, like other aspects of administrative leadership, the top administrator must blend initiation and responsiveness in interactions with elected officials and a careful delineation of responsibility in handling actual emergencies. This article discusses how local administrators assess risk and balance preparedness needs within a universe of daily operational needs. Managing environmental risk is also explored from a political and legal context.     

Intellectual Obsolescence and Intellectual Makeovers: Reflections on the Tools of Government after Two Decades

This article reflects on the mixture of ideology, technological change, and interests that have made government instrumentalities central to the analysis of public policy over the two decades since the publication of the author’s Tools of Government in 1983, and distinguishes three main strains of analysis of policy instruments: analytic approaches that count forms of institutions as tools, analytic approaches that focus on the politics of tool selection, and generic approaches that aim to be institution‐ and technology‐free. The article argues first that the three main strains differ over the questions they ask rather than comprising different ways of answering the same question (though it distinguishes competing forms of generic approach); second, that beneath surface obsolescence, the generic policy tools analysis has not become fundamentally outdated over two decades; and third, that changes in technology makes technology‐free analysis all the more necessary as a tool of comparison.     

Government Performance and Political Accountability at Subnational Level: The Electoral Fate of Local Incumbents in Norway

Under which circumstances do voters turn against governing parties for their performance in office? This question forms the basis of the considerable research field often referred to as the ‘VP‐literature’, which seeks to explain support for governments as a function of economic and political outcomes. After thirty years and more than 200 studies the economic part of the VP‐function still remains much better explored than the political part. In addition, focus has almost solely been on the national level so far. The present study therefore sets out to bridge the gap between the VP‐literature and the field of coalition studies to examine the relevance of the VP‐function for local elections. The ambition is to arrive at a more satisfactory understanding of the political part of the model. Results from the two most recent Norwegian local elections, in 1995 and 1999, reveal that the electoral liability associated with office is almost three percentage points. The multivariate analysis then tests systematically under which economic and political conditions local incumbents suffer the most electorally. The rate of unemployment plays an important role in how the voters evaluate the incumbents, since each extra percentage point of unemployment translates into additional loss for the incumbents. The levels of local fees and charges and service coverage are also significant. Political characteristics are furthermore highly relevant, since the numerical status of the government is in fact one of the most important predictors of electoral success, the advantage enjoyed by minority cabinets over majority coalitions amounting to more than three percentage points of the popular vote. Other important political determinants of local electoral performance are one‐party status, national support and ideological closeness.     

服务型政府能力建设新途径：战略管理

战略管理是政府达成目标行为和提高政府能力的一种途径,它克服了政府能力建设传统途径以内部取向、不考虑外部因素、长远目标的缺陷.政府能力是战略管理和服务型政府的契合点.战略管理作为提升政府能力的工具之一,有助于服务型政府实现有效性的目标.战略管理实施一系列的具体步骤理解历史、研究现状、找出议题、制定战略、评估可行性、执行变革,达到对组织能力的变革,是一种新的政府能力建设途径.     

Pandemic Influenza Planning: An Extraordinary Ethical Dilemma for Local Government Officials

The possibility of an influenza pandemic occurring within the next two decades is very real; the role of local governments in comprehensive preparation for this global threat is crucial. The federal government has provided broad guidelines for state and local officials who are ultimately responsible for emergency response and lifesaving services, vaccination and antiviral use, and the provision of other critical support. Much of this influenza pandemic preparedness has occurred under conditions of uncertainty, and these government actions may have unprecedented legal and ethical implications. This study evaluates the pandemic influenza policies of eight large U.S. cities to determine how Department of Health and Human Services recommendations with ethical and legal implications have been addressed. The authors find that several important aspects of these guidelines are vague in many plans, and input from key stakeholders is inadequate.     

Thinking Ahead: Strategic Foresight and Government

The technique of strategic foresight — developing policy based on long-run scenario planning — has much to offer Australian governments. By paying greater attention to identifying emerging issues, and drawing on a broad range of information sources, policies are more likely to prove durable and effective. Drawing on examples from the private sector, and from governments in the UK, USA and Australia, I outline what strategic planning entails, and how it might be implemented.     

Context and Mechanisms in Administrative Reform Processes: Performance Management Within Italian Local Government

ABSTRACT

This article aims to present new research on the politics of public management reform in Napoleonic countries. Drawing on the institutional processualist approach, the empirical analysis tracks and explains the trajectory and outcomes of episodes where performance management has been introduced at the local level in Italy. The comparative case analysis shows that plausible causal explanation of the outcomes of public management reform can occur only if researchers are attentive to the interaction between social mechanisms and contextual features together with their interconnections through time.     

Local Corporatism in Norway*

In several countries changing market conditions and legislation regulating economic activity have led to the emergence of corporalist structures at the local as well as the national level. In Norway these have generated local institutional innovations which have had several important actual and potential consequences, ranging from a growth of neo-mercantilist policies to increased inter-community competition for industrial establishment and aid.     

Planning Models in Sweden and Norway: Nuancing the Picture

This article nuances the picture given in current research of Swedish policy implementation and planning as consistent and predictable, and Norwegian policy implementation and planning as more unpredictable and fragmented. It does so by adding a discussion of the sources of legitimacy in each of the two national settings, arguing that each system has its distinct pros and cons. The Swedish planning system and local plan practices rest more firmly on a hierarchical mode of governance which is strong on operational efficiency, but suffers from a weaker sense of ownership to the plan outcome among private and civil society actors. In the Norwegian planning system and local plan practices, a combination of hierarchical and interactive governance measures, boasts a broader anchorage and resource division among public, private and civil society actors. However, this system experiences a lower operational efficiency due to the willingness to reconsider former decisions in order to find a viable compromise among different stakeholders in local plan processes, as well as stronger fragmentation due to the privatization of Norwegian detail planning. The empirical basis of the article is: a comparison of the two countries' plan legislation in terms of the inclusion of non‐public actors in plan provision and plan formulation; and four case studies of planning processes concerning the future use of an urban green area.