CHANGING DEVELOPMENTS IN NPM

Global developments have meant that nations increasingly compete on a variety of levels.[1] The OECD Report on Regulatory Reform, vol. I and II. OECD, Paris, 1997. [Google Scholar]The basis of competition between nations is not only in terms of market share, but also in the scale, shape and role of their public sectors and the regulatory regimes that are emerging within them. Since the early 1980s there has been growth in industrialised economies and increasing attempts across a large number of different jurisdictions to scale down and reform the large public sectors characteristic of the old Soviet bloc countries and to a lesser extent ‘welfarist’ social democratic regimes.     

CHANGING PATIERNS OF BUDGETING IN ENGLISH LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Worsening financial circumstances have prompted local authorities to review the appropriateness of traditional budgetary arrangements. Using Wildavsky's concept of incremental budgeting as a guiding framework this paper examines how and why authorities have altered their budgetary processes. Results indicate that underlying incrementalism is the assumption of growth, although certain aspects of incrementalism are more affected than others by declining revenues.     

THE CHANGING ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF LOCAL AUTHORITY CHIEF OFFICERS

This article argues that recent political change in Britain has brought about a crisis of adjustment for local government chief officers in their relationship with the elected members. Key aspects of this political change are the break-up of the post-war political consensus and the passing of the earlier period of growth. As the ideological distance between the two main parties has widened and the end of growth has intensified conflicts, the professional stance of neutrality towards partisan politics has become more difficult to sustain. So for chief officers the crisis of adjustment has taken the form of a search for new ways of work with the politicians as the earlier, relatively harmonious relationship has passed into history.
Against this background of increased politicization, the impact of current changes on the three aspects of the chief officer role is examined: as professional adviser, as departmental manager and as a 'bureaucratic politician'. Finally, some of the changes that have been proposed to ease this crisis for chief officers are discussed.     

REGULATORY REFORM IN BRITAIN: THE CHANGING FACE OF SELF-REGULATION

Self-regulation has been at the centre of a number of public and academic debates in Britain in recent years. This article enquires into the nature of self-regulation and attempts to improve our understanding of it in a number of ways: by attempting to define self-regulation; by assessing certain trends and developments in self-regulatory systems; by trying to explain these trends and developments; and by outlining the implications of self-regulation for policy making and public accountability. The main conclusion reached is that, from a public administration perspective at least, concern should not centre upon whether or not self-regulation is increasing or decreasing. Instead, the main focus should be upon the ability of such systems to respond to pressures for reform and provide effective regulation within a broad framework of public accountability.     

THE CHANGING STATE OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT: RESTRUCTURING FOR THE 1990s

In the recent past, local government has largely been analysed as if its very existence were in danger from centrally inspired legislative reforms and financial controls. Such a starting point may make it more difficult to assess the changes which are taking place and which are likely to dominate in the 1990s. Three other possibilities are considered here. The first, is the notion of an 'enabling' authority; the second, the possibility of a shift towards post-Fordist local government; and the third, the possibility of more corporatist or neo-corporatist forms of politics at local level. It is suggested that the third is the most helpful approach for understanding the likely direction of change in the 1990s, and argued that changes within local government have to be understood in the context of wider restructuring of the UK state.     

PETTY BUREAUCRACY AND WOOLLYMINDED LIBERALISM? THE CHANGING ETHOS OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT OFFICERS

Most discussions of the public service ethos ( pse ) have offered polemical accounts of how recent reforms have eroded the distinguishing values of public servants without ever defining this ethos or considering its relationship to other aspects of the public sector. This article considers the deeper and more structural implications of the pse by characterizing it as a political institution that shares the features of'new institutionalism'. It concentrates upon the pse as it manifests itself in local government and uses case studies of four authorities to analyse the extent to which external changes are altering the fundamental values of the ethos. In using the'new institutionalist'perspective it argues that the pse , a vital institution of the UK polity, has been resistant to external pressures for change. Hence, to be successful, public sector reform must take into account the interdependent relationship between the pse and other political institutions.     

SINGLE ISSUE LOCAL AUTHORITY ASSOCIATIONS: A NEW SPECIES FOR A CHANGING ENVIRONMENT

The purpose of this article is to explore the emergence of single issue local authority associations as a response to the changing nature of the central-local government policy community in the past decade. The main theme of the article is that a gap has been created by the restructuring of local governance that neither individual local authorities nor the broad local authority associations are equipped to fill. Hence, new single issue local authority associations such as the Coalfield Communities Campaign , have been formed. They are necessitated by the unwillingness of broad local authority associations to preoccupy themselves with sectional and possibly divisive single issues and the inability of individual local authorities to command sufficient power within the policy community. As such they may well represent a fundamental change in the policy network, though it remains to be seen whether or not they will have a long-term role.     

THE CHANGING TERRITORIAL OPERATING CODE OF THE UNITED KINGDOM: EVIDENCE FROM NORTHERN IRELAND

This article investigates the UK's changing territorial operating code. The core theme discussed is that recent trends are captured by the Dual Polity thesis but that the model is undesirable as a medium for territorial management. The contention is that, whilst the conditions which sustained the old Dual Polity of 1920-70 as a credible territorial operating code had disappeared by 1979, the subsequent command code of the Thatcher era failed to subdue the Periphery or deliver stability and acquiesence in territorial management which the Centre craved. In response, the consequent upheavals of the 1980s encourage the Centre to fashion a new territorial code, approximating to the old Dual Polity. However, unlike its 1930 forbear, this recreated Dual Polity involves a sharply attenuated role for local government, leaving a system of sub-central governance heavily populated with quangos and joint boards comparable to a new magistracy and demonstrating the worst aspects of Britain's own emerging democratic deficit. The article employs evidence from Northern Ireland as a model of the new Dual Polity in extremis , arguing that fresh thinking is required in policy-making. The Centre has been willing to countenance innovative new structures for the management of its most intractable territorial problem (Northern Ireland). The article concludes that a similarly novel approach is required for the UK, based on a recognition of the inapplicability of outmoded forms of territorial management, the inescapable consequences of the UK's membership of the European Union, a reassessment of the role of each tier of government, and one which embraces the concept of subsidiarity.     

SYMPOSIUM ON CHANGING MODES OF GOVERNANCE IN PUBLIC SECTOR ORGANIZATIONS: ACTION AND RHETORIC

This symposium grew out of the sub‐theme, ‘New Modes of Governance in Public Sector Organizations’, of the European Group for Organizational Studies (EGOS) Conference held in Ljubljana in July 2004. Our aim was to provide a forum to discuss the policy and practice and the space between in public sector management and governance within Europe.     

CHANGING THE DECISION SPACE: EUROPEAN POLICY INFLUENCES ON ENERGY POLICY AND SYSTEMS CHANGE IN SWEDEN

The EU takes a growing interest in governing the energy sector in its member states. Competing with national institutions, policies and organizational structures, it is however not clear whether the EU exerts a strong influence compared to other factors, and if there is such an influence, the mechanisms are not well understood. This paper examines strategic reorientation towards electricity investment in the Swedish energy sector, a ‘frontrunner case’ of Europeanization, and discusses how this change can be attributed to EU policy change, national policy change and organizational field developments respectively. It finds that EU energy policy influence has been notable, and that governance mechanisms that shape beliefs and expectations are strongly at play. However, despite growing EU clout on energy policy, field level and national policy change remain key drivers of the changing decision space in the examined time period.     

CHANGING AGENDAS AND POLICY COMMUNITIES: AGRICULTURAL ISSUES IN THE 1930s AND THE 1980s

Pluralists have argued that the political agenda is relatively open. If a group or party apply enough pressure then new issues should have access to the political arena. However, the theories of policy communities and the third dimension of power suggest that issues can be kept off the political agenda. Agriculture seems to provide an example where for forty years new issues did not emerge. Yet in the 1930s and 1980s pressures to change the agricultural agenda have existed. This raises the problem of how, if the agenda is controlled, new issues are debated. Traditionally, agenda change has been explained through the activities of pressure groups but this paper argues that this view is inadequate where a policy community exists. Therefore it suggests that agendas change when structural factors change perceptions and the dominant beliefs of the policy-makers no longer match reality.     

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.     

CHANGING NATIONAL RULES: THEORY AND EVIDENCE FROM THE NETHERLANDS (1960–2004)

This paper will empirically analyse the evolution of national rule changes for the domain of post‐war Dutch higher education. We focus on rule changes because in the life cycle of rules – births, changes and repeals – change is the most common event. Our theoretical framework is mainly based on the organizational ecology and top management demography literatures. We will be integrating these perspectives, adapting them to our research context. In so doing, we focus on rule density, a minister’s demographic characteristics (such as age and tenure) and cabinet features (for example, power and turnover) as deteminants of rule changes. The empirical results provide significant support for the majority of our theoretical predictions. Overall, the results suggest that the ecological processes are the most robust, followed by the characteristics of ministers and the features of cabinets.     

ADAPTIVE AND MALADAPTIVE RESPONSES OF MANAGERS TO CHANGING ENVIRONMENTS: A STUDY OF AUSTRALIAN PUBLIC SECTOR SENIOR EXECUTIVES

This paper examines data collected from senior executives in two Australian government agencies to identify patterns of adaptive and maladaptive responses to change in public sector environments. The conceptual categories of passive maladaptive, active maladaptive and active adaptive responses are all supported by the interview data, with half of the executives expressing predominantly active adaptive responses to external change and uncertainty and half displaying various kinds of passive and active maladaptive responses. The implications of the findings for managers as agents of organizational learning and adaptation in public sector environments are discussed.