STREET‐LEVEL BUREAUCRACY AND PUBLIC ACCOUNTABILITY

The concept of ‘street‐level bureaucracy’ was coined by Michael Lipsky (1980) as the common denominator for what would become a scholarly theme. Since then his stress on the relative autonomy of professionals has been complemented by the insight that they are working in a micro‐network of relations, in varying contexts. The conception of ‘governance’ adds a particular aspect to this: the multi‐dimensional character of a policy system as a nested sequence of decisions. Combining these views casts a different perspective on the ways street‐level bureaucrats are held accountable. In this article some axiomatic assumptions are drawn from the existing literature on the theme of street‐level bureaucracy and on the conception of governance. Acknowledging variety, and arguing for contextualized research, this results in a rethinking of the issue of accountability at the street level.     

MANAGING GOVERNMENT-THIRD SECTOR COLLABORATION: ACCOUNTABILITY,AMBIGUITY, AND POLITICS

Recent years have witnessed increased revelations by watchdog agents of mismanagement and abuse in third sector organizations that collaborate with government resulting in a decline in public trust and signs of a portending legitimacy crisis. Strengthening accountability mechanisms seems an obvious response to this trend. Yet, Israeli attempts to improve accountability of government-third sector collaborations have largely failed. Politics of accountability theory provides an explanation as to why. The findings demonstrate that political, bureaucratic and third sector stakeholders have a mutual interest in maintaining a cloak of ambiguity over government-third sector collaborations. The effects of four alternative accountability types on accountability, ambiguity, flexibility and politics are examined in an attempt to identify feasible and effective accountability strategies. There is no one ideal accountability type for all situations. Attention to the pitfalls of each accountability type may alert accountability decision-makers to appropriate combinations of accountability types for particular circumstances. However, the actual choice of accountability types has more to do with the politics of accountability than with scientific analysis of what is most appropriate.     

APPLICATIONS OF PRINCIPAL-AGENT MODELS TO GOVERNMENT CONTRACTING AND ACCOUNTABILITY DECISION MAKING

ABSTRACT

This paper surveys literature from Economics, Accounting, and Management to address theoretical issues in Public Administration regarding government provided services in order to contribute to a formal connection between principal-agent models in these disciplines and public policy administration decision-making. In particular, it addresses the question: What theoretical properties of the services themselves might guide (a) the choice of producer of the services (government or outsourcing firm/contractor), and (b) the accountability imposed for the work produced. It is found that a theoretical framework of principal-agent models that includes the decision of whether to contract out can be useful as a first step in systematically formulating the government's decision for a variety of goods/services. This provides an alterative to the identification of key decision properties “from the ground up” for each good or service the government provides.     

TRANSFORMING NEW ZEALAND'S PUBLIC SECTOR: LABOUR'S QUEST FOR IMPROVED EFFICIENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY

Since its election in July 1984 the fourth Labour government in New Zealand has embarked upon the most radical and systematic reorganization of the state sector since the creation of a unified, non-partisan, career-oriented service in 1912. The reforms include the commercialization of many of the goods and services provided by state agencies, the turning of public trading enterprises into corporations, major administrative changes and the overhauling of state pay-fixing arrangements. This article examines the theoretical assumptions underpinning Labour's strategy and assesses the extent to which the new arrangements are likely to achieve their intended purpose of improving the efficiency, flexibility and accountability of the public sector.     

ARE ICTs IMPROVING TRANSPARENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY IN THE EU REGIONAL AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS? AN EMPIRICAL STUDY

This paper conducts an empirical study about the effect of e‐government on transparency, openness and, hence, accountability in 15 countries of the EU. Thus the effects examined cover over 84 per cent of EU population. The population also represents the different types of public administration styles that exist in Western developed countries. The paper compares the development and sophistication of 318 government web sites at sub‐national level and tests the impact of contextual and organizational factors. The study refers to regional and local governments since they play a key role both in the national pattern of government and in administering welfare policies. Benchmarking studies of e‐government are undertaken regularly by consultancy firms. Most of this literature focuses on central and federal governments in terms of examining trends in digital government. However, little research has been conducted from a comparative perspective on analysing the movement of EU countries to digital government at a sub‐national level.     

THE FIGHT OVER DANISH NATURE: EXPLAINING POLICY NETWORK CHANGE AND POLICY CHANGE

The policy network approach is widely recognized for its ability to describe different networks. Adding the concepts ‘policy image’ and ‘cleavage in the party system’ makes it possible to explain policy network change as well as policy change. This argument is supported by a comparison of the Danish decision in 1960 to straighten Denmark's largest river, the Skjern River, to gain farmland, and the 1987 decision to restore the river and recreate the wild nature of the river valley. The fight over Danish nature has historically been a fight between a land reclamation network and a nature protection network – two networks trying to promote different policy images. Coupled with a new (environmental) cleavage in the party system, new policy images connected to the Skjern River decisions led to radical policy changes.     

COMPETING TRADITIONS OF GOVERNANCE AND DILEMMAS OF ADMINISTRATIVE ACCOUNTABILITY: THE CASE OF DENMARK

This article offers a study of the changing role of the state in Denmark under the condition of the overall transformation from government to governance with particular emphasis on the corresponding transition from process accountability to performance accountability. It is argued that although new modes of governance have been introduced, and new interpretations of accountability have been proliferated, neither conventional modes of governance nor older interpretations of accountability disappear. Thus, what we see is a co-existence of competing traditions of governance and different and sometimes contradictory interpretations of administrative accountability, which create potential dilemmas and contradictions for the individual civil servant. Employing an interpretative approach to governance and public administration, the article analyses the constitution of competing traditions of governance and interpretations of accountability, and the way in which these competing traditions and interpretations lead to accountability dilemmas for the individual civil servant.     

POLITICAL ACCOUNTABILITY AND PERFORMANCE AUDIT: THE CASE OF THE AUDITOR GENERAL IN NORWAY

Performance audit is widely used in public administration, but, at present, little empirical evidence exists on its usefulness and contribution to accountability. Based on survey data from 353 civil servants in Norway, this article analyzes the auditees' perceptions of the audit. Performance audit was seen as useful by a majority of the auditees. If auditees agreed to audit criteria and assessments, were allowed to influence the process, had favourable opinions of the reports, and believed that the State Audit Institution contributed to accountability and improvement, then they regarded it as useful. Reports used for accountability purposes were not perceived as less useful. The auditees' administrative level, the use of the report to further interests, and attention from politicians, the media, and the Parliament impacted on the accountability dimension. These results indicate that performance audit can influence civil servants, but the influence is contingent on how the audited civil servants perceive the performance audit.     

THE PRINCIPLE OF VOLUNTARY AGREEMENT

There may be many perfectly good reasons, of a purely pragmatic sort, for policy-making by voluntary agreement between regulators and those whose conduct is to be regulated. Pragmatism aside, however, policy-makers characteristically claim that that strategy is also morally superior to legislative compulsion. That claim is incorrect. Voluntary agreement, as it is presently procured, does nothing to enhance the moral legitimacy of the policies thereby promulgated. Anything a government is morally entitled to do with voluntary agreement of that sort, it would be morally equally entitled to do without it.     

BUILDING SOCIETIES: A QUESTION OF ACCOUNTABILITY?

The investment and mortgage policies and practices of the British building societies affect individuals, neighbourhoods and the economy. Their activities have been subject to serious criticisms. Building societies, however, are scarcely accountable to their members, despite their position as'mutual' organizations; nor are they politically accountable to the electors through the government. The British building societies present a public interest problem. This article questions whether and how they ought to be made accountable for their actions in order to ensure that they further the public interest.     

DOES PUBLIC ACCOUNTABILITY WORK? AN ASSESSMENT TOOL

In recent years, there has been a drive to strengthen existing public accountability arrangements and to design new ones. This prompts the question whether accountability arrangements actually work. In the existing literature, both accountability ‘deficits’ and ‘overloads’ are alleged to exist. However, owing to the lack of a cogent yardstick, the debate tends to be impressionistic and event‐driven. In this article we develop an instrument for systematically assessing public accountability arrangements, drawing on three different normative perspectives. In the democratic perspective, accountability arrangements should effectively link government actions to the ‘democratic chain of delegation’. In the constitutional perspective, it is essential that accountability arrangements prevent or uncover abuses of public authority. In the learning perspective, accountability is a tool to make governments effective in delivering on their promises. We demonstrate the use of our multicriteria assessment tool in an analysis of a new accountability arrangement: the boards of oversight of agencies.     

EXPLAINING THE WILLINGNESS OF PUBLIC PROFESSIONALS TO IMPLEMENT PUBLIC POLICIES: CONTENT,CONTEXT, AND PERSONALITY CHARACTERISTICS

The willingness of public professionals to implement policy programmes is important for achieving policy performance. However, few scholars have developed and tested systematic frameworks to analyze this issue. In this study, we address this by building and testing an appropriate framework. The aims have been: (1) to build a three‐factor model (policy content, organizational context, and personality characteristics) for explaining willingness to implement policies; and (2) to quantitatively test the model through a survey of Dutch professionals. The results show that policy content is the most important factor in explaining willingness. Nevertheless, organizational context and the personality characteristics of implementers also have a significant effect and should be considered when studying the attitudes of professionals towards policies. This research helps in understanding the willingness or resistance of professionals when it comes to implementing policies.     

EXPLAINING UNINTENDED AND UNEXPECTED CONSEQUENCES OF POLICY DECISIONS: COMPARING THREE BRITISH GOVERNMENTS, 1959–74

The vulnerability of policymaking to unintended and unanticipated consequences has been documented since Thucydides. Yet we still lack integrated conceptual and explanatory accounts of their variety and aetiology. Adequate consideration of putatively unintended and unanticipated consequences requires evidence about policymakers' prior intentions and anticipations, the factors affecting their cognition, and the forces bearing upon responses to attempted execution of policies. This study uses archival evidence about three post‐war British governments to examine hypotheses derived from neo‐Durkheimian institutional theory. It compares relationships between policymakers' informal social organization and their biases in framing anticipations and intentions in three policy fields. It shows that, contrary to widely made claims about a ‘law’ of unintended consequences, neither unintended nor unexpected consequences are random, but reflect basic patterns in variation and aetiology which the neo‐Durkheimian theory explains well.     

EXPLAINING THE PRIVATIZATION BOOM: PUBLIC CHOICE VERSUS RADICAL APPROACHES

Public choice theories of bureaucracy, especially the budget maximization thesis, have been influential in stimulating the drive towards privatization in Britain and the USA. But these accounts are strangely silent about why changes in state agency practices have come about under'new right' governments. They apparently attribute the scope of change entirely to'virtuous' political direction overcoming previously inherent features of bureaucratic behaviour and democratic politics.
By contrast, a radical reconstruction of instrumental models of bureaucracy explains the privatization boom in terms of the primacy of bureau-shaping motivations in the welfare functions of policy-level bureaucrats. Privatization is seen as a development of earlier strategies (such as the separation of control and line agencies, the creation of'dual state' structures, and automation) by which the class interests of senior bureaucrats have been advanced at the expense of rank and file state workers and service recipients. An examination of divergences in the internal and social costs of public agency functions explains why legislators and policy-level bureaucrats (especially in control agencies) push ahead with the'inappropriate' privatization of public service delivery systems where overall social welfare is reduced.     

BY VOLUNTARY AGREEMENT: THE POLITICS OF INSTRUMENT SELECTION

There are many ways in which policies can be sanctioned, and legislation is only one of a number of alternatives. This article examines one such alternative: voluntary agreements. After outlining the major characteristics of this policy instrument there is an examination of the various factors which appear to influence their selection in favour of legislation. This is followed by an attempt to trace a pattern of policy succession by examining three particular cases where there has been a change in the principal policy instrument. Finally, the discussion as a whole is set in the context of the executive domination of Parliament. The implications of the use of non-statutory instruments, such as voluntary agreements, for this relationship are noted.