THE ENTERPRISE FORMULA,NEW PUBLIC MANAGEMENT AND THE ITALIAN HEALTH CARE SYSTEM: REMEDY OR CONTAGION?

Health care services represent an extraordinary experimental ground for introducing wider political and institutional transformations of the state. The adoption of entrepreneurialism into European health care systems has strengthened technocratic decision making over traditional mechanisms of political control. In Italy, in the midst of a severe legitimacy crisis affecting the administrative and political systems at the beginning of the 1990s, New Public Management ideas seemed ‘the’ remedy against the pathological politicization of distributive politics. Much hope has been placed since in a new and ascending group of general managers, entrusted with the ambitious mission of running health care services more efficiently and with the unenviable expectation of resuscitating public trust in welfare institutions. By analysing the 1992 Amato government’s landmark health care reform in its substantive changes, this paper explores the last decade’s main reform trajectories of Italian health care reforms that irreversibly transformed its institutional arrangements and organizational structure, namely the enterprise formula and the regionalization of the health care sector. The paper suggests that the political turmoil of 1992–94 served as catalyst for radical policy change and argues that the single most important explanation for the enactment of New Public Management‐type reforms rests in a new executive reinterpretation of its legislative prerogatives and function.     

ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM – GENERAL PRINCIPLES AND THE AUSTRALIAN EXPERIENCE

Failure to understand the political nature of administrative reform and to develop a political strategy to overcome resistance lies behind the failure of many reform attempts. The prerequisites of reform include political will, time, resources, an ongoing institution promoting change, and a strategy which concentrates on the implementation stage when resistance is strongest. Such a strategy must use the principal levers of change, including legislation, which directly affect administrative behaviour. In Australia in the 1970s administrative reform proceeded only slowly with the exception of changes in some States and the introduction of a new body of Federal administrative law. A better reform strategy in the past two years has resulted in extensive legislative change at the Federal level including greater ministerial control over certain senior appointments, open public competition for the top one per cent of civil service jobs, affirmative action and industrial democracy. There has thus been a further shift towards a unique Australian model of public administration.     

POLITICAL DISCOURSE AND PATH SHAPING IN PUBLIC POLICY: COMPARING PENSION REFORMS IN GREECE AND ITALY

Which factors account for successful policy reform and what role does discourse play in the process? This article examines this empirical puzzle with reference to the issue of Greek reform failure. A matched comparison with Italy in the area of pensions reveals the salience of path shaping and the use of political discourse in narrowing down reform options and facilitating change. The Greek case of limited public information, incoherent preparation of the problem, and inner‐circle decision‐making, is contrasted with the Italian government's information‐sharing and consensus‐building campaign for the establishment of a pro‐reformist discourse. Findings confirm the salience of institutional conditions but suggest that pure institutionalist accounts premised on rational choice thinking and the power of veto players should be complemented with more agency‐driven accounts of public policy.     

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.     

Between Slow and Comprehensive Reformers: Comparing Government’s Funding Policies of Universities in Three European Countries

This article analyzes implications of political–administrative systems for public reforms in funding of higher education. A national comparison of government funding policies of universities in France, Norway, and England since the 1980s serves as the basis for analysis. The author challenges the common classification of political–administrative regimes where frequently early and comprehensive reformers become the benchmark of what characterizes a reform. The author shows how specific path-dependent mechanisms can be added to explain processes of change in countries associated with opportunities to prevent change (France), but also for countries that have been linked to comprehensive reform (England) as well as incremental reform (Norway).     

THE FRENCH STATE AND ITS TERRITORIAL CHALLENGES

This article focuses upon the territorial challenges to the French state. There is a genuine policy puzzle in terms of how to join up separate agencies of the state that is far from unique to France. Introducing new evidence based on interviews with high ranking officials, politicians and representatives of territorial policy communities in 2010, the main body of the article focuses upon the two main territorial reforms of the Sarkozy presidency, the reform of the territorial state, and the local government reform. These cases reveal an original attempt to craft a political discourse based on public sector productivity and state puissance. The article explores the tension between synoptic models of reform, focused on the expectation of rapid and quantifiable macro‐level change that suits the short‐term returns of the political cycle; and institutionalized processes of meso‐level implementation, with different timescales, logics of appropriateness and configurations of actors.     

REFORM OF INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS IN AUSTRALIA: THE POLITICS OF FEDERALISM AND THE NON-POLITICS OF MANAGERIALISM

A remarkable process of reform of intergovernmental arrangements was initiated in Australia in 1990 designed, according to its proponents, 'to improve our national efficiency and international competitiveness and to improve the delivery and quality of services governments provide'. Unlike previous 'new federalisms' in Australia (and elsewhere) the reform process on this occasion was neither totally unilateral, nor top-down in design and implementation. Rather, while reflecting the commonwealth (federal) government's frustrations at the limits imposed by the federal system on its political power and administrative capacity, the process intentionally was cooperative, incorporating all state and temtory government leaders, and including representatives of local government. In the context of a review of the origins, nature and objectives of the reform initiative, this article points both to the valuable innovations embodied in its processes, and to the risks of reduced political access and citizen participation created by its attempts to apply 'single-government' managerialist principles to the redesign of intergovernmental arrangements in federal systems. Political and bureaucratic objectives, combined with a lack of adequate appreciation of federal principles, led, in our view, to an attempt to supplant participatory politics with relatively less accessible and responsive managerial structures.     

Administrative reform in modern Iran: an historical analysis

This article discusses administrative reforms in modern Iran in an historical context. Beginning in the mid-19th century, administrative reform became a concern of national policy-makers. A number of reforms have been attempted by the three political systems/regimes of Qajar, Pahlavi, and the Islamic Republic. Additionally, several administrative reforms were carried out, though short-lived, by certain revolutionary and popular governments in Iran. Efforts toward administrative reform are reviewed with an assessment of the positive and negative consequences or implications for the development of public administration in modern Iran. It is also argued that most of the dictated administrative reforms have failed in Iran, and that a culturally sensitive attempt at administrative reform has had a much greater chance to succeed than the traditional top-down approaches. Iran's revolutionary experiences tend to empirically support the validity of the former approach. Finally, further research is suggested on recent administrative reforms in post-revolutionary Iran.     

ADMINISTRATIVE PROFESSIONALS AND THE DIFFUSION OF INNOVATIONS: THE CASE OF CITIZEN SERVICE CENTRES

This article examines how administrative professionals affect the diffusion of one‐stop shops in the form of integrated citizen service centres (CSC) in a Danish local government setting. CSCs are an example of a new organizational form: functionally integrated small units (FISUs). The diffusion of the CSCs among municipalities is used to analyse how administrative professionals act as drivers in the process of organizational level innovation. Furthermore, it is examined how institutional, political and economic characteristics of municipalities influence the likelihood of adoption. The findings highlight that a high concentration of administrative professionals indeed make the adoption of CSCs more likely. Additionally, the findings confirm three commonly stated hypotheses from the diffusion of innovations literature, namely that need based demands, wealth and the regional supply of CSC increase the likelihood of its adoption.     

HABERMAS’ MODELS OF DECISIONISM,TECHNOCRACY AND PRAGMATISM IN TIMES OF GOVERNANCE: THE RELATIONSHIP OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION,POLITICS AND SCIENCE IN THE ALCOHOL PREVENTION POLICIES OF THE SWISS MEMBER STATES

This article assesses the effects different constellations of science, administration and the political sphere display on the policy process in the field of alcohol prevention policy in the Swiss member states. First, it is argued that Habermas’ models of Decisionism, Technocracy, and Pragmatism can be interpreted as distinct modes of governance that take place in today’s policy‐making and implementation. Second, as for the effects of these different constellations of science, administration and politics, the findings from a written survey of the Swiss cantons reported here imply that a broad and adequate policy design is found in cantons with an alcohol prevention policy that is dominated by administrative actors. Output performance proves to be comparatively higher in cantons with a high influence either of scientific actors or of political actors. In an overall comparison, a combined model of administrative dominance with strong affiliation to the scientific community is shown to prevail against the other models considered.     

THE DYNAMICS OF DEVOLUTION PROCESSES IN LEGALISTIC COUNTRIES: ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE IN THE ITALIAN PUBLIC SECTOR

The devolution of authority from central to regional and local governments is a widespread trend in many countries. Differences in the outcomes of devolution reforms are often significant, between countries as well as within a country. The work reported in this paper assumes that the dynamics of the implementation process and the way it is affected by the national tradition of governance and by the features of the politico‐administrative system is important in explaining such differentiation. The paper investigates devolution in Italy and proposes explanations for the substantial differentiation of outcomes that can be observed. The case of devolution in agriculture in Lombardy, investigated in depth in the article, is striking for the magnitude and rapidity of change as well as for the way the reallocation of the workforce to the lower levels of government has occurred. This case study provides the basis for some theorizations about the dynamics of devolution processes in countries that have a legalistic administrative tradition, especially those nations which have a ‘Napoleonic’ administrative tradition.     

Putting power into practice: Administrative and political capacity building in the European Parliament's Committee for International Trade

As the formal powers of the European Parliament have increased with successive treaty changes, its committees' administrations have seen a parallel growth. We argue that such administrative capacity is necessary but not sufficient for acting on formal treaty powers. Administrative capacity has to be combined with political capacity in order to muster policy impact in European Union decision‐making. By differentiating between intra‐institutional administrative and inter‐institutional political capacity, we offer a fine‐grained conceptualization of policy capacity while broadening the theoretical and empirical understanding of the European Parliament's administration as an organizational structure of formal and informal working practices, intra‐institutional coordination and inter‐institutional relations. Based on expert interviews, document analysis and participant observation, the case of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership illustrates how societal politicization of a specific policy issue triggered the European Parliament to exploit the latent potential of its post‐Lisbon administrative capacity by transforming it into a more readily deployable political capacity.     

Current challenges of the mexican state and of mexican public administration

This article deals with the problems that the Mexican government will need to face in order to go on with the reform of the state. The cycle of such a reform (privatization, liberalization and democratization) is already closing down. While ending this process, however, Mexico also started to see an increasing number of demands calling for administrative reform and, above all, the federalization of government and public administration. This is what the author calls the strategic agenda of the Mexican government.

In order to implement the administrative reform, the author favors enhancing the accountability of the Mexican government, by increasing public participation in the policy and decision making processes. With regard to the federalization of government and public administration, Aguilar proposes the implementation of policy tools never used in Mexico, such as fiscal federalism (categorical and block grants, for instance), together with new constitutional, political and administrative arrangements.     

RESTRUCTURING WEBERIAN BUREAUCRACY: COMPARING MANAGERIAL REFORMS IN EUROPE AND THE UNITED STATES

In much of the international public administration literature, New Public Management (NPM) already appears to be bogged down in a quagmire of critical revisions and assessments. Although some criticisms are well founded, there can be no doubt that NPM represents a trend which has considerably affected public‐sector decision‐making worldwide. This article takes the examples of the Southern European bureaucracies, where NPM‐inspired reforms were introduced later than in the English‐speaking world, but have nevertheless played a decisive role in the political agenda of both socialist and conservative governments. The paper presents the results of a comparative study of administrative reforms in five European countries as well as the USA during the 1980s and 1990s. The comparison is based on three specific dimensions (central bureaucracies’ formal structure; civil service organization; administrative processes), enabling us to systematically measure and compare the progress of the various countries subsequent to the cycle of managerial reforms.     

THE CITIZEN AND THE ADMINISTRATION IN FRANCE — THE CONSEIL DETAT VERSUS OMBUDSMAN DEBATE REVISITED

The purpose of this article is to reappraise, in the light of recent French experience with the 'Ombudsman', the prevailing orthodoxy, shared by élite opinion in both France and Britain in the 1960s' that the Ombudsman and a system of administrative courts applying 'droit administratif' (a body of autonomous rules separate from private law), were mutually exclusive modes of securing redress for citizens aggrieved by administrative action. The thesis is advanced that in the contemporary welfare state, irrespective of particular political, administrative and legal traditions, a system of administrative law and an Ombudsman are complementary not competitive institutions.     

Reshaping the Democratic State: Swedish Experiences in a Comparative Perspective

In the international discourse concerning recent administrative reform developments there is a dominant overall interpretation propagated by a dominant story-teller: the public management programme (PUMA) of the OECD. This article takes issue with this story, arguing that instead of a singular pattern of adaptation there have been and there are several different reform trajectories in Western-style democracies, largely predicated on historically determined patterns of state-society relations and significant variations in political cultures. A detailed comparative analysis of the case of Sweden is here used to illustrate the prevalence of a pattern of 'structured pluralism' and the fruitfulness of a historical-institutionalist approach to the comparative study of administrative reform.     

Tipping the scales: The causes and consequences of administrative spending

The public administration literature once devoted great effort to identify the determinants of administrative intensity in organizations. While this literature has received some renewed attention, there remain questions about what aspects of organizational environments generate growth in administrative intensity, particularly as related to political oversight and external accountability mechanisms. This article aims to expand current theory on the determinants of administrative personnel and costs using data on four‐year public universities in the United States from 1998 to 2011, as this setting has received considerable criticism for perceived administrative bloat. Findings suggest that which political party is in control substantially influences both administrative costs and total personnel. These administrative levels, in turn, have a curvilinear relationship with student outcomes.     

Culture Governance: Governing Self‐Reflexive Modernity

Political and administrative analysis is today said to be taking a narrative turn: to learning by telling and listening to the different stories that constitute political life. However, this new approach to studying the decentring of politics and policy as multiple discursive practices carries a new grand narrative too. A new connection between political authority and political community is taking shape outside the spheres of modern government and representative democracy. Political authority is becoming increasingly both communicative and interactive in order for it to be able to meet complexity with complexity. It is employed for reforming institutions by opening them towards the culture and by tying them to the political attributes and capacities of self‐reflexive individuals and to the transformation and self‐transformation of their conduct. I call this development culture governance. Culture governance is about how political authority must increasingly operate through capacities for self‐and co‐governance and therefore needs to act upon, reform, and utilize individual and collective conduct so that it might be amenable to its rule (Bang 2003; Dean 2003). Culture governance represents a new kind of top‐down steering; it is neither hierarchical nor bureaucratic but empowering and self‐disciplining. It manifests itself as various forms of joined‐up government and network governance and proclaims itself to be genuinely democratic and dialogical. This I shall show by a study of local Danish politics and policy in Copenhagen. Culture governance, I shall argue, constitutes a formidable challenge and threat to democracy, in attempting to colonize the whole field of public reason, everyday political engagement, democratic deliberation, and so on, by its own systems logic of success, effectiveness or influence. It seeks to take charge of the working of the more spontaneous, less programmed and more lowly organized politics of the ordinary in political communities, thus undermining the very idea of a non‐strategic public reasoning as founding the practices of freedoms.     

CULTURE IN ACTION: THE ‘ROTTERDAM APPROACH’ AS MODERNIZATION THROUGH TRADITION

This article discusses the relation between administrative culture and the capacity to act. It analyses how the Dutch city of Rotterdam radically altered its safety and ‘livability’ approaches in the face of new challenges, and how the city used its cultural make‐up and traditions in doing so. This takes its importance from that fact that local governments are almost continuously confronted with the need to reform policies and methods in the face of challenges such as individualism, cultural diversity, and safety problems. The notion of culture or administrative culture is often invoked to explain why innovations have been unsuccessful. We will argue that this line of argumentation hinges on wrong assumptions about the influence of culture on action. Culture is conceptualized as too static and homogeneous, and too much focused on cognitive aspects. By proposing an alternative, action‐oriented concept of culture, we will argue that administrative culture can be a source of innovation.