‘Accountability’: An Ever‐Expanding Concept?

The scope and meaning of 'accountability' has been extended in a number of directions well beyond its core sense of being called to account for one's actions. It has been applied to internal aspects of official behaviour, beyond the external focus implied by being called to account; to institutions that control official behaviour other than through calling officials to account; to means of making officials responsive to public wishes other than through calling them to account; and to democratic dialogue between citizens where no one is being called to account. In each case the extension is readily intelligible because it is into an area of activity closely relevant to the practice of core accountability. However, in each case the extension of meaning may be challenged as weakening the importance of external scrutiny     

PUBLIC POLICY NETWORKS AND ‘WICKED PROBLEMS’: A NASCENT SOLUTION?

The last two decades have seen a shift in public services organizations from hierarchies to networks. Network forms are seen as particularly suited to handling ‘wicked problems'. We make an assessment of the nature and impact of this shift. Using recent evidence from the United Kingdom (UK) National Health Service (NHS), we explore the nature and functioning of eight different public policy networks. We are also interested in whether there has been a radical transition – or not – from hierarchical to network forms.     

EXIT AND VOICE IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT RECONSIDERED: A ‘CHOICE REVOLUTION’?

Market‐based public management reform has introduced customer choice among competing providers of public services. Choice entails exit, an option which Albert Hirschman famously reserved for the market, while voice is the key mode of communication in political life. Based on elite and mass surveys, the article studies how exit is perceived by citizens and local political and administrative leaders in Norway and Sweden, and how the two strategic options relate to each other. Citizens are more positive towards customer choice and exit than are leaders, albeit with some variation across different public service sectors. Political and administrative leaders are positive towards customer choice models as a strategy to empower clients but more critical in terms of the potential loss of accountability and control that contracting out services may entail.     

‘What Counts is What Works’? Constructing Evaluations Of Market Mechanisms

This paper draws on a study of the introduction of market testing in the UK civil service to explore ways in which managers involved in the implementation of the new policy constructed evaluations of its impact. It is structured around three arguments. The first concerns the problems of evaluating 'what works' in the multi-stakeholder, multi-goal context of public management. The research highlights a range of overlapping and sometimes conflicting evaluation criteria across different organizational and occupational groupings. The second argument explores the difficulties of evaluation in the context of shifting policy objectives and the dynamic nature of institutional change. The research shows how the practitioners involved shaped and reshaped their construction of events over time as unanticipated benefits and disbenefits became evident. It also suggests ways in which they responded to the changing policy context, constructing new rules and norms of action over time. The third argument concerns the different levels of analysis underpinning managers' constructions of 'efficiency' and 'effectiveness', and how these constructions were deployed as strategies of legitimation in shaping the process of institutional change.     

TAKING THE ‘HIGH ROAD’: DOES PUBLIC SERVICE MOTIVATION ALTER ETHICAL DECISION MAKING PROCESSES?

Although public administration scholars have long been interested in promoting administrative ethics, recent lapses in judgment by government employees make the study of ethics even more pressing. Yet, we know relatively little about how public values and publicly oriented motives influence the ethical obligations employees reference when confronting organizational problems. We employ Perry's (2000) process model of public service motivation to connect public values, public service motivation, and employees' understanding of their ethical obligations. Using data collected from over 1,400 managers in United States municipal governments, we present findings that suggest that public service motivation appears to be positively correlated with ethical obligations rooted in virtue and integrity, or high road ethics, for less professionalized employees. Further, broader constellations of public values encourage increased application of high road ethics for the same employees, but only to the extent that they foster public service motivation.     

TAMING THE ‘AWKWARD STATE’? THE CHANGING FACE OF EUROPEAN POLICY‐MAKING UNDER BLAIR

This paper analyses the important changes to the European Union (EU) policy-making process within the UK core executive introduced by the Blair government between 1997 and 2007. Employing a strategic-relational network framework, it sets out to map the changing face of policy-making within the Whitehall EU network, and to evaluate and explain the impact of adaptation. The article argues that Labour's reform strategy has been double-edged: day-to-day coordination of EU policy has become increasingly informal, ad hoc and delegated downwards to departmental players while the role of the centre has been greatly strengthened in order to provide more effective strategic direction and political leadership. Despite these seemingly coherent reforms, however, many critical features of the process have been potentially detrimental to the projection of a more constructive European policy.     

WHAT IS GOVERNANCE IN THE ‘PUBLIC INTEREST’? THE CASE OF THE 1995 PROPERTY FORUM IN POST‐CONFLICT NICARAGUA

‘Public interest' (synonymous here with ‘common good’ and ‘public good’) is a central concept in public administration. In an important, basic sense, we evaluate the effectiveness of governments in terms of whether their policies are detrimental to, or benefit, public interest. However there are problems operationalizing public interest: it seems a concept that is simultaneously indispensable yet vague. While difficulties operationalizing public interest are widely understood, a further problem is insufficiently acknowledged. This is that many features underpinning public interest (a tradition of citizenship, stable government, a rule of law, basic infrastructures) are taken for granted in established democracies. However, in other contexts we cannot assume these. Examining what public interest means in developing countries can be useful to identify these taken for granted assumptions, and to re‐examine this ubiquitous and enduring concept. We do this through a case study of land rights reform in post conflict Nicaragua.     

Multilevel governance and problem‐solving: Towards a dynamic theory of multilevel policy‐making?

In this article, we suggest that the governance of problems shapes the institutional dynamics of multilevel governance (MLG) polities. MLG arrangements—processes and institutions that enable policy‐making across different jurisdictional levels wherein both public authorities and non‐state actors are involved—can or cannot succeed in solving policy problems and at the same time they could create new problems. We argue that the problem‐solving capacity and problem‐generating potential of multilevel arrangements can result in further, downwards, upwards or sideways delegation of political authority, which in turn reconfigure the multilevel architecture of the political system following either centripetal or centrifugal tendencies. We illustrate our point with a stylized account of the dynamics of MLG in the European Union (EU) since the early 1990s. We conclude with some remarks about developing a more general theory of multilevel policy‐making.     

Mutual dependence or state dominance? Large private suppliers and the British state 2010–15

As public outsourcing has grown, the need to understand government's relations with supply side actors has become more important for public administration scholars. The article analyses the role of a small group of large contractors in the British outsourcing system during Britain's Coalition government. These ‘public service conglomerates’ have thus far received little attention in the public administration literature. The article compares two approaches for understanding the role of these corporations and analyses why the corporations faced sometimes severe disruption during the Coalition period in the form of multiple contract problems, conflict with ministers and financial problems. Over the period, the corporations became the objects of policy debate, and what had appeared to be a stable set of arrangements started to fracture. The case shows the value of analysing the political and organizational foundations of contracting arrangements.     

Democracy@internet.asia? The challenges to the emancipatory potential of the net: Lessons from China and Malaysia

It is a commonly held view that, given the unique characteristics of the internet, it provides real opportunities for democratisation and political transformation, especially in societies where freedom of speech and expression is constrained by government controls. This article challenges this assumption by examining the impact of the internet in Asia with specific reference to China and Malaysia. In particular the article argues that to understand the impact of the internet on developing economies it is essential to examine the political economy of the internet-locally, regionally and globally. While the net may provide a new medium for dissent and opposition, its impact is offset by two principal factors. First, the existence of a marked digital divide between North and South (as well as the discrepancies that exist within specific countries in terms of gender, education and wealth) and second, by growing commercialisation.     

What Drives Machinery of Government Change? Australia,Canada and the United Kingdom, 1950–1997

Machinery of government arrangements attract a diverse and detailed literature, but surprisingly little comparative research. This article provides a graphically presented indication of functional changes in the architecture of national government in Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom between 1950 and 1997. An analysis finds interesting national differences, with sharp changes in practice in Australia and Canada, but more gradual incremental adjustment in the United Kingdom. The correlation between parties and machinery change is weak for Canada and the United Kingdom, but all countries demonstrate stronger links between elections, new prime ministers and machinery of government changes. Further, all tend to oscillate between many specialist departments and fewer, broader agencies
The explanation for such machinery change, we argue, is found in the political, policy and administrative calculations made by prime ministers in Westminster-style parliamentary systems     

Are You Being Served? The Responsiveness of Public Administration to Citizens’ Demands: An Empirical Examination in Israel

Research in public administration (PA) is preoccupied with questions of efficiency and effectiveness which are aimed at improving public sector performance. According to the new public management approach, addressing this prominent challenge must rely upon a comprehensive understanding of citizens'/clients' perceptions of public sector operation and the extent to which public organizations are aware of public needs. This paper suggests a theoretical grounding and empirical examin-ation of the relationship between citizens' demands and PA's responsiveness. Parti-cipants in the study were 281 residents of a large Israeli city who reported their feelings, attitudes, and perceptions of local government activities in a variety of fields. Results indicate that perceptions of PA's responsiveness are affected by both policy and cultural factors (for example business or social orientation of the public authority, entrepreneurship and initiation of changes, ethics, organizational politics) and by the quality of the human resource system and of public servants (for example quality of leadership and management, quality of employees, general stress when contacting public officials). Implications of the study are discussed in light of the ongoing debate regarding the need for a more responsive and efficient new public management and the difficulties it faces in western societies.