TOP‐DOWN AND BOTTOM‐UP: INSTITUTIONAL EFFECTS ON DEBT AND GRANTS AT THE ENGLISH AND GERMAN LOCAL LEVEL

This article investigates the impact of institutional factors on the relationship between grant funding and local debt in England and Germany. Using a panel dataset covering the period 2005–12, the research identifies a positive relationship between grants and local debt. The positive relationship between grants and debt is reduced due to the impact of political and administrative variables. The findings demonstrate three shortcomings of the current literature. First, in contrast to the dominant portrayal of German local administration as predominantly legalistic, partisan dynamics affect the allocation of grants to the German local level. Second, institutional variables operate differently depending upon grant type, providing a rationale against the scholarly practice of using aggregate grants. Third, grant mechanisms provide a promising key to unlock institutional dynamics in systems of multilevel governance, but only when scholars integrate institutional differences more explicitly in their research design than hitherto accounted for by political economy.     

INTER‐MUNICIPAL COOPERATION AND COSTS: EXPECTATIONS AND EVIDENCE

Austerity and fiscal crisis make the search for cost‐saving reforms in local government more critical. While cost savings from privatization have frequently proven ephemeral, inter‐municipal cooperation has been a relatively understudied reform. We analyse the literature on cost savings under cooperation and find that savings are dependent on (1) the cost structure of public services, particularly those related to scale and density economies and externalities, (2) the structure of local government (size, metropolitan location, powers granted by the nation or regional state), and (3) the governance framework at the local/regional level where cooperation varies from informal to formal. European studies give more emphasis to cost savings, while US studies focus on coordination concerns arising from the higher degree of devolution in the US local government system.     

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.     

INFORMATION‐SHARING AND CONFIDENTIALITY IN SOCIAL POLICY: REGULATING MULTI‐AGENCY WORKING

In recent years, there has been growing concern in the UK that local services aimed at risky or vulnerable people are ineffective, because of agencies’ persistent failure to share information about their clients. Despite considerable national policy effort to encourage better information‐sharing, previous research indicates that there are many cases where information is still not shared when it should be, or where it is shared when it should not be, with potentially devastating results. This article uses data from the largest empirical study of local information‐sharing yet undertaken to examine four policy sectors where multi‐agency working has come to the fore. It shows that variations in their information‐sharing and confidentiality practices can be explained by neo‐Durkheimian institutional theory and uses insights from this theory to argue that current policy tools, which emphasize formal regulation, are unlikely to lead to consistent and acceptable outcomes, not least because of unresolved conflicts in values and aims.     

A THEORY OF CULTURE‐SWITCHING: LEADERSHIP AND RED‐TAPE DURING HURRICANE KATRINA

This article draws upon studies of organizational culture and sense‐making to develop a theory of culture‐switching. Culture‐switching occurs when organizational actors shift emphasis from one existing organizational cultural assumption to another to reshape organizational action. The concept is demonstrated in a case study of the Hurricane Katrina response by the US Department of Defense (DOD). A slow initial DOD response arose because of self‐imposed red‐tape designed to limit engagement in crisis response, reflecting a cultural assumption of the need to maintain autonomy. DOD leaders altered the nature of the response by committing to another widely‐shared cultural assumption: a ‘can‐do’ approach to achieving difficult goals regardless of obstacles. The case illustrates how different organizational cultural assumptions interact with red tape to foster either inertia or a proactive response.     

AT THE INTERFACE BETWEEN THEORY AND PRACTICE – POLICY TRANSFER AND LESSON‐DRAWING

AT THE INTERFACE BETWEEN THEORY AND PRACTICE – POLICY TRANSFER AND LESSON‐DRAWING
Learning From Comparative Public Policy: a Practical Guide
Richard Rose
Routledge 2004, 147 pp., £16.99 (pb) ISBN: 0415317428     

NEW PUBLIC MANAGEMENT VALUES AND PERSON‐ORGANIZATION FIT: A SOCIO‐PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACH AND EMPIRICAL EXAMINATION AMONG PUBLIC SECTOR PERSONNEL

This paper takes a socio‐psychological approach to NPM and its value‐based theory in public administration. We develop a model for the study of NPM values based on the idea of Person‐Organization Fit (POF) and examine it empirically. Findings, based on a survey of 205 Israeli local governance personnel, revealed that the POF of several core NPM values (that is, responsiveness, transparency, innovativeness, and achievement orientations) was positively related with job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and service climate, as reported by these public personnel. The findings suggest that, beyond modern strategies and effective policies for the public sector, lies an essential quest for NPM value‐fit with public personnel. Consequently, the study advocates a better theoretical and practical understanding of the socio‐psychological interfaces, such as POF, in public administration. Implications and directions for future studies are discussed, both in the context of public administration research and in the generic field of organizational behaviour theory and practice. The detailed results of the factor analyses are available directly from the authors.     

COLLABORATIVE CAPACITY AND STRATEGIES IN AREA‐BASED INITIATIVES

Despite considerable evaluator investment in examining partnership activity in UK public policy initiatives, little attention has been paid to the role of strategy in supporting the generation and harnessing of the resources necessary to collaborate effectively. This paper focuses on one of the first New Labour initiatives – Health Action Zones (HAZ) – and draws on national evaluation findings to delineate local strategies, assess their application in practice and reflect on their contribution to collaborative action. The paper argues that even within nationally constrained policy initiatives there is sufficient flexibility for local actors to select strategies to steer collaborative effort, but these strategies are informed by their operating context and are liable to change in response to experience and changes in context. In addition, the evaluation findings suggest that effective strategies are those which harness collaborative capacity across a range of dimensions. The paper concludes by identifying implications for theory, policy and evaluation.     

SCALE AND POLICY IMPACT IN PARTICIPATORY‐DELIBERATIVE DEMOCRACY: LESSONS FROM A MULTI‐LEVEL PROCESS

This article addresses two interrelated critiques of participatory‐deliberative democratic institutions: that they are beset by problems of scale and that they achieve weak policy impact. This article tests these criticisms through the case of the UK Sustainable Communities Act (SCA), a multi‐level process that is relatively strongly institutionalized. The evidence lends qualified support to these critiques. The article differentiates between contextual factors, related to the attempt to institutionalize participatory‐deliberative processes within existing socioeconomic and political structures, and design factors to do with institutional and process design. The case of the SCA calls for caution about the claim that multi‐level participatory‐deliberative processes can overcome problems of scale and policy impact, but the question remains open. The article ends by suggesting that expectations of direct policy impact might be too high. Rather than determinants of policy, multi‐level participatory‐deliberative processes might function best as agenda‐setters.     

EXPERTISE AND POLICY‐MAKING: LEGAL PROFESSIONALS IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Professional influence in policy‐making is generally believed to rest on professionals successfully laying claim to access to expertise – knowledge, understanding or experience – not available to others, above all politicians. On the basis of a 2005 survey of nearly 800 lawyers serving in local authorities in England and Wales, this article explores the relationship between specialization and political influence. Lawyers who shape policy use conventional routes for political influence, establish contacts with political officeholders, tend to identify less with the profession at large and are less likely to see themselves as specialists in any field of law. This means that the relationship between expertise and political power is complex and that the notion that professionals use their expertise to shape policy should be treated with some caution.