Local public management reforms in Germany

This article, part of a sequence of comparative articles on local government reforms in The Netherlands, Switzerland and Germany, describes and analyses the recent public management reforms at the local level of Germany. After an overview about the constitutional framework of local self government and the reform waves of the last decades, the paper concentrates on the 'new steering model' as the German variant of NPM. The article shows the short history of this reform movement, describes the main elements of the reform concept and explains some of the causes, forces and actors of implementation. It goes on to discuss the present status of implementation, explains several shortcomings of the concept, and presents the – very limited – empirical evidence of achieved results. Finally, the paper draws some conclusions from a comparative view on the similarities and differences of local management reforms in Germany and the two other countries.     

PATIENT CHOICE IN HEALTHCARE IN ENGLAND AND SWEDEN: FROM QUASI‐MARKET AND BACK TO MARKET? A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF FAILURE IN UNLEARNING

This paper compares elements of choice introduced under the market orientated reforms in health systems in the UK and Sweden in the 1990s, and the recent patient choice policy in both countries. It reviews empirical evidence on the impact of choice on users and services under these reforms to examine whether, and how far, these past developments have informed the current choice reforms. The paper asserts that the reappearance of issues and solutions in patient choice policy in the English NHS and in Sweden signifies limited learning from their own past and cross‐national experience, resulting in blurred and mutually exclusive policy agendas. The study argues that this absence of learning happens because of the seeming inability of governments and policy‐makers to unlearn effectively their preconceived ideas and schemas, pointing out the limitations of social learning theory in understanding health policy development.     

Political incrementalism: Political lessons from China's 20 years of reform

The recent crackdown by the Chinese Communist Party government on the efforts of Chinese dissidents to organise the China New Democratic Party has raised a serious question among scholars: why has the Chinese leadership been so reluctant to initiate democratic reforms? But an equally important question is: how has the Chinese political system been able to accommodate drastic socioeconomic changes? Although Chinese leaders from Deng Xiaoping to Jiang Zemin have strongly opposed the Western style of democracy, they have continuously adjusted the country's political system to prevent socioeconomic chaos from occuring, chaos that has troubled many former communist states and Third World countries. This paper explores China's political incrementalism and explains how incremental political reforms have worked. It argues that, although Chinese leaders have so far been successful in accommodating social changes through incrementalism, they are still uncertain about how to cope with increasing social demands for political reform and democratisation.     

Reform Strategies Matter: Explaining the Perplexing Results of Regional Government Reforms in Norway and Denmark

Reforming the public sector often means imposing immediate costs on well-organised interests in return for longer-term, diffuse benefits to voters and taxpayers. Nonetheless, reforms sometimes are carried through. Investigations of this puzzle have followed two approaches: The first is structural and explains reforms as a consequence of the institutional setting in which policymakers operate. The second focuses on human agency. It investigates how reformers search for ways to overcome structural obstacles. This approach has lived a quiet life in recent decades. In this paper, we investigate recent attempts to reform the regional government level in Norway and Denmark. Despite very similar structural settings and political preferences, the reforms failed in Norway, but were successful in Denmark; failure and success being defined by the two governments' intensions. We argue that the explanation lies in the different reform strategies pursued by the central governments in the two countries.     

Integrated Governance: A Pre-Requisite for Sustainable Market-Oriented Development in Bangladesh

Using agriculture input sector as an exemplar, this article assesses Bangladesh's efforts towards a market-oriented development approach. It examines the changing role of the state following the market-based reforms undertaken in this sector and assesses whether the outcomes of the reforms are sustainable. Findings reveal that, although the current move towards a market-oriented approach has led to a shift away from a state-dominated hierarchical structure, it has not been associated with adequate changes in institutional arrangements, safeguards, and regulation. As a result, despite notable achievements of the reforms, the sustainability of these successes is in question. To facilitate participatory, accountable, and sustainable, market-oriented development, the paper proposes an integrated governance model linking state, business, and civil society.     

Managerialism Meets Regime: A Distinctively Singaporean Marriage?

Managerial reforms were once assumed to be apolitical, and hence universally applied to various political settings. This assumption has been widely contested; some argue that managerial reforms are not applicable to countries outside what are termed Western liberal democracies, due to differing political contexts. The case of Singapore offers a counter-argument to these claims—managerial reforms were well-received in the state and its bureaucracy; both of which were vastly different from those of liberal democracies. The article further argues that this was not a coincidence; there seem to be salient reasons why managerial reforms were able to ‘marry’ Singapore's regime. This case study offers insights vis-à-vis a broader question: whether and how managerial reforms can be justified within and received in differing political contexts. It seems imperative to address this question, given the implications for future scholarship and how managerialism is a significant matter of concern to many governments worldwide.     

Local Government Modernization in Germany: Between Incrementalism and Reform Waves

In taking a historical-institutionlist approach, this paper looks at the development of administrative reforms in German local government which, because of the comparatively high degree of political and administrative decentralization of the Federal Republic has played a crucial role in the latter's entire politico-administrative setting and, hence, in its institutional reforms. The paper mainly identifies three stages in the post-war development of administrative reforms. During the 'planning movement' of the late 1960s and early 1970s, Germany's local level government and administration underwent significant and, to a considerable degree, lasting institutional changes. The 1980s were a period of incrementalist adaptation. Since the beginning of the 1990s, conspicuously later than in the Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian countries, but earlier and faster than the federal and the Länder levels, Germany's local government has embarked upon dramatic changes particularly on two scores. First, in a growing number of municipalities and counties, administrative modernization was incorporated under the heading of a 'New Steering Model' (NSM) that largely drew on the dominant international New Public Management (NPM) debate. The dynamics of the ongoing administrative reforms are marked by an 'amalgamation' of NPM/NSM and earlier ('traditional') reform concepts. Secondly, at the same time, the political institutions of local government have under-gone a significant shift as a result of the introduction of direct democratic procedures (direct election of mayors and heads of counties, binding local referenda). The paper argues that it is this co-incidence and co-evolution of administrative and political reforms that make for the peculiarity of Germany's current modernization trajectory, distinguishing it from the Anglo-Saxon and, to a lesser degree, from the Scandinavian modernization paths.     

Party system determinants of electoral reform in post-communist states

The article examines how the structure of party systems, that is, effective number of political actors, electoral volatility, and shares of dominant party votes and seats, affect the initiation and direction of electoral reform in post-communist democracies. Based on a dataset of electoral rule changes in post-communist democracies from 1992 to 2008, we analyze the frequency and direction of reforms over time. The findings reveal that the frequency of reforms declines with successive electoral cycles but not to the degree suggested by theories of institutional inertia. Countries with high levels of voter volatility are more likely to engage in reforms; however, the findings in this article demonstrate that politicians react to volatility by inconsistently choosing between permissive and restrictive responses.     

STATE REGULATORY CAPACITY: EXPERIENCES FROM PUBLIC SECTOR REFORMS IN NORWAY

State regulatory capacity is being threatened by internationalization, commercialization and persistent demand for public services. The article addresses the overarching question of how the state is changing due to recent public sector reforms. By studying changes in the regulation of the health care sector and the food sector in Norway, the article challenges the assumption that recent public sector reforms have necessarily led to a decline of the central state's regulatory strength. The conclusions are that the central state level has in fact been strengthened by regulatory reforms, by transferring authority to the state level and by enhancing the central administration's co‐ordinating and regulating capacity.     

Reshaping Public Administration: The Spanish Experience Compared to the UK

This paper analyses the nature and extent of the policies of modernizing Spanish public administration. Successive Spanish governments have been involved in modernizing public administration with the stress on customer focus, improving service delivery and implementing quality awards, service charts and information technologies.
As a basis for assessing the reforms, we compare Spanish New Public Management (NPM) developments with the initiatives undertaken in the UK. The paper evaluates the usage of NPM concepts in the Spanish and UK experiences and cultural differences based on public and common law traditions respectively, locating these reforms in a comparative context. We focus on why similar concepts and initiatives could provide such different results in each country and how the cultural and institutional features produce differences in the way that NPM postulates are defined, implemented, monitored and evaluated. The answer is probably rooted in the context in which the initiatives have been developing.     

Developments in Policy Analysis and Evaluation in Public Administration

Established in 1948, Israel can be considered a new developing state in transition; on the other hand, it can be viewed as a modern western society and the only strong democracy in a rather unstable region. While the former implies lack of public administration tradition and the need to invest in basic infrastructures, the latter requires, among other responsibilities, the adoption of norms of systematic policy planning and accountability. In Israel, security problems, limited (and loss of) resources, lack of stability and huge waves of immigration have displaced more mundane issues such as administrative reforms and systematic policy planning approaches. From its inception, there was constant criticism of the state's lack of established norms, functions, and skilled practitioners, particularly in policy analysis and evaluation. At first the criticism came from academia (especially Dror 1968, 1971), but in time it crossed lines and was raised by parties and Members of Parliament (the Knesset), and constituted a major issue in the work of different committees concerned with reforms in the public service and in government reorganization. This paper (1) will discuss the main reasons for the shortcomings of Israeli public policy analysis, evaluation and planning, and (2) will present shifts in conceptualization during recent years, with regard to systematic policy making.     

Corruption and reforms: A case of Poland's medical sector

This study focuses on the effects of Poland's reforms in the period 1990–2005 on corruption in the health care system. In the last 15 years Poland has transformed its economy drastically, introducing market-oriented reforms into almost every aspect of its economy. In this study we consider how different reforms changed incentives and mechanisms facilitating corruption in the medical care sector. Our conclusion is that corruption in Poland's medical sector has worsened since the onset of the marketization reforms. We support this conclusion primarily by analyzing changes in incentives for corruption and the number of mechanisms facilitating it. In addition, where available, quantitative data are provided, though we recognize that numerical estimates of corruption are subject to substantial error. We focus on three major forms of corruption: patient payments to secure medical treatment or improve its quality, payments from industry (mostly pharmaceutical and medical equipment producers), and the use by physicians of free public facilities for private patients.     

GOVERNANCE AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT: CHANGES AND CHALLENGES

This paper examines the issue of governance in the process of economic development. The paper first provides a literature review on the various arguments regarding the role of government in promoting economic development and the major issues emphasized in recent government reform projects. The paper then focuses on three major policy changes and reforms that are related to the area of governance and economic development: (1) regulatory reform, (2) privatization policy, and (3) decentralization policy. The paper concludes with discussions about the continuing arguments about the role of government, the increasing importance of local governments, and the contribution of nongovernmental or nonprofit organizations in economic development.     

The Dynamics of Decentralization and Recentralization

Decentralization of authority from central government to sub-national governments is an important part of modern public sector reforms and has been the primary contribution to public sector reform in Denmark and the other Nordic countries. On the assumption that political and administrative actors are authority maximizers, the paper analyses how national and sub-national actors react to these decentralization goals, and the extent to which they are implemented. The analysis points to the importance of both institutional and power variables. It concludes that dynamic change can take place in a public sector which is characterized by strong corporatist and multi-level institutions, such as in Denmark.     

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.     

Fallen heroes: explaining the failure of the Gdansk shipyard,and the successful early reform strategies in Szczecin and Gdynia

In this paper, I examine the causes of failure in the Gdansk shipyard, and alternatively, the determinants of success in Szczecin and Gdynia. I give particular attention to the role of the initial owner of these companies—the Polish government. Why were these three firms treated differently by the government, and how did this affect their approaches to restructuring? I find that in the cases of Szczecin and Gdynia, initial government aid conditionality, combined with pro-active employee support of reforms, produced environments where restructuring had a real chance. In Gdansk, the government and company employees failed to reach agreement on a strategy for initiating reforms. Both feared the potential consequences (economic for the workers and political for the government) of embarking on reforms that were in no way guaranteed to succeed. What emerged was an ongoing stalemate, with company management rejecting a series of reform projects and the government continuing to offer soft credits to keep the unprofitable firm alive. This stalemate, or sub-optimal equilibrium, was linked to the shipyard’s uniquely credible threats of intransigence.     

Citizens versus Parties: Explaining Institutional Change in German Local Government, 1989–2008

Abstract

From 1989 to 2008, local governments in Germany have experienced ‘massive’ institutional change. Local constitutions have been altered in all German states giving citizens more say in local politics, while at the same time reducing local parties' influence. The paper first describes the changes according to two analytical models of local democracy. It then tries to explain the institutional change as a process of diffusion in a federal state. Three questions are answered in the explanatory part: Why did some forerunner states start with the reforms at the beginning of the 1990s and not earlier? Why did the reforms continue in other states although there was no general pressure from above? And why did some states continue with the reforms while others did not? In the first part of the paper the changes are described quantitatively while a qualitative approach is used in the explanatory part. The analyses show that the beginning of the reforms is related to ‘massive political failure’ while further reforms are a result of rational learning by different actors (large parties, small parties, non-governmental actors) depending on different means of reform. Based on these results we forecast a continuation of the reforms in the next years leading to a convergence of citizen-oriented local government all over Germany.     

Resettlement for China's Three Gorges Dam: socio-economic impact and institutional tensions

Large dams have been an important component of infrastructure development in capitalist and communist countries alike. In 1998, changing world attitudes on large dams led to a two-year World Commission on Dams and new global standards may soon insist that future projects pay fair compensation so that resettlement becomes voluntary. Now, 10 years after introduction of economic reforms, China is mobilizing its resources to build the world's largest dam. This fulfils a longstanding ambition to impound the Yangtze River in Central China at the Three Gorges and use the hydropower, improved navigation and flood control to develop the economy.This paper examines the socio-economic impact of Three Gorges Dam on over 1.3 million people to be displaced while China is in transition to a market economy. We consider resettlement in terms of the decision-making structure, property rights and incentives to move, and how the project exacerbates problems created by market reforms, especially rising unemployment and deteriorating public health. We conclude the project is boosting economic expectations while adversely affecting large sections of the population, and this could provoke widespread social unrest and eventual changes in political institutions.     

Something Funny Happened on the Way to Reform Success: The Case of Budget Reform Implementation in Ghana

Abstract

The current article discusses experience with budgeting and financial management reforms in Ghana and is particularly focused on the development of the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) between 1998 and 2002. Evidence shows that this reform began well but faltered after an initial period of progress. A number of factors are referenced in trying to explain why reform implementation was derailed, including reform ownership and political will, organizational integration and organizational incentives, and strategic capacity. All of these factors are commonly presented as influences on reform implementation. The Ghanaian experience provides detail as to how such influences could work.     

PERFECT VICTIMS,PERFECT POLICING? IMPROVING RAPE COMPLAINANTS’ EXPERIENCES OF POLICE INVESTIGATIONS

Despite recent reforms internationally, significant criticism has been levelled at police departments regarding their service delivery to crime victims, and particularly for the disbelieving and insensitive attitudes officers may display towards women reporting rape and sexual assault. Police responses are frequently influenced by negative judgements regarding the victim’s dress, behaviour, and demeanour. These are flawed and ‘imperfect’ women – what right have they to expect ‘perfect’ treatment? This paper approaches this issue from the other end of the lens by considering the positive lessons to be learned from how ‘perfect victims’ were policed. The material presented is based on interviews conducted with 14 of the women attacked by the same serial rapist, supplemented by interviews with police investigators. The paper aims to identify what contributed most to victim satisfaction with police performance, and to present this as evidence of ‘best practice’ to inform future developments in adult sexual assault investigations.