Public relations for public affairs

The term ‘public affairs’ has now become a much‐discussed topic in continental Europe's political and economic circles, including Germany and Austria. The problem is that few people really understand just what the term means. Many people have the impression that ‘public affairs’ is another way of describing lobbying. Others perceive it as classic public relations. In Europe many decision makers of the business world lack the specific knowledge of policy making; however, until now just a few such executives have taken advantage of the real opportunities opened up by using the services of professional public affairs consulting. Communications companies in Europe are now offering public affairs consulting as part of their services, with increasing success. The first task to make public affairs better known in Europe therefore must be public relations for public affairs. Copyright © 2001 Henry Stewart Publications     

Demand for masters of public policy in public service

This piece was written to assist those who lead schools of public policy and administration in evaluating their pedagogies and examining their curricula. The perspectives contained in this piece reflect those of the author, who has spent the last 35 years practicing and leading public policy research and analysis in the Congressional Research Service (CRS)—the public policy agency created by the U.S. Congress for its exclusive use. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of CRS or the Congress.     

新公共管理视域下的基本公共服务均等化

基本公共服务均等化是当前的热点问题,也是全面建设小康社会、促进社会协调发展的重要制约因素。本文从新公共管理的视角分析基本公共服务均等化的内在意蕴,剖析当前基本公共服务均等化实现过程中的困点,并在此基础上,对我国基本公共服务均等化实现路径做一些探讨性的研究。     

The specificity of public service reform

Despite universal recognition of the decline of public services and the need for reforms, considerable divergence of views exists on the strategy and sequencing of reform for individual countries according to their capacities and level of development. This article reflects on the general contours of public service reform, emphasising past experience, the need to be pragmatic rather than idealistic, the mudding of the waters by the New Public Management movement, the complications of structural adjustment programmes of international financial institutions and the damage resulting from the imposition of universal solutions unfitted and unsuitable to local circumstances. Reform needs political and bureaucratic champions, careful preparation, patience and necessary investment, and capacity to neutralise opposition. Ultimately, one has to allow for a shifting combination of history, culture, politics, economics, sociology, ideology and values in each country. This analysis is applied to the possibility of reforming the public service of India, the second most populous country in the world, and the lessons to be gleaned for developing and implementing the strategy. The article then concludes with an outline of some universal problems facing public service reformers all around the globe such as corruption, the future role of government, shape of the civil service, reversing its erosion and addressing issues of fragmentation, compensation and diversity. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The political economy of voluntary public service

We characterize the voluntary public service policy that minimizes the expected cost of delivering a public service (e.g., jury or military service). We then examine whether a majority rule voting procedure will implement the voluntary public service policy (VPS) whenever it entails lower expected cost than mandatory public service (MPS). We find that majority rule often favors MPS in the sense that majority rule implements MPS when VPS would secure the requisite public service at lower expected cost.

     

Managing public affairs through storytelling

Storytelling has recently been discovered as an important tool for gaining the support of those external constituencies the organisation critically depends upon. This paper explores the narrative approach to public affairs by reporting an in‐depth case study of the storytelling practices of representatives of the global foods industry and environmental activist groups during the recent introduction of genetically modified food crops. The analysis reveals that these parties use competing versions of what are essentially the same narratives to gain the support of regulators and the public at large in the various market and non‐market arenas in which these groups compete. Copyright © 2002 Henry Stewart Publications.     

Deteriorating public and private sector relations in Central America

The Central American countries are divided by profound political differences. Yet surprising similarities exist in the changing relations between the public and private sectors. Throughout the region, public and private sectors lock into a vicious circle. The inability of the state to provide order and social harmony creates disincentives for the private sector to invest or even to continue existing levels of production. The government responds by increasing its responsibilities at the expense of the private sector. In doing so it assumes risks the private sector refuses, but further alienates the private sector nonetheless.     

Paradoxes of public-sector managerialism,old public management and public service bargains

This chapter considers three paradoxes or apparent contradictions in contemporary public management reform–paradoxes of globalization or internationalization, malade imaginaire (or successful failure) paradoxes, and paradoxes of half-hearted managerialism. It suggests that these three paradoxes can be explained by a comparative historical institutionalism linked to a motive-and-opportunity analysis of what makes some public service systems more susceptible to reform than others. It further argues that such explanations can be usefully linked together by exploring public service reform from the perspective of ‘public service bargains’ or PSBs (that is, explicit or implicit bargains between public servants and other actors in the society). Accordingly, it seeks to account for the three paradoxes of public management reform by looking at the effect of different PSB starting-points on reform experience, and at the way politician calculations over institutional arrangements could account for PSB shifts in some circumstances but not others.     

The public service ethos and the role of the British civil service

The last Conservative administration invested much time and effort in reforming the structure and organisation of the Civil Service. Yet it left untouched the core principles which underpinned Whitehall, often referred to as the public service ethos. In this article, we argue that this ethos has been defended by both conservative and liberal opinion as something fundamentally good. Yet, in reality, the public service ethos is a power/knowledge system which legitimises the rule of a particular elite by presenting public service as a worthy occupation and, thereby, authorising a system of power which is relatively closed and secretive. This accounts for why it has been in the interests of both the last Conservative administration and the present Labour government to ensure the ethos remains intact.     

Managing the impersonal in a personalized public service

What happens when an apparently personalized small public service enters the information highway? How does it integrate the new frame of mind implied in the impersonal, open approach to information? The practical implications of implementing information technology as a means to use information strategically in the Maltese public service, with its apparently paradoxical administrative style, prompted the pilot study in early 2000 upon which this article is based. Using a simplified empirical approach, the study tested the hypothesis that small scale could affect the way leaders deal with the impersonal, such as information resource management. Although limited in scope, the results of the study support a qualified conclusion that small scale, through its link with personalization and associated informal mechanisms, does affect the way top managers in the public service deal with the impersonal, at least in the short and medium term. To what extent it does so, or the space for change, are subjects for further research. The article concludes with suggestions for further investigation into this topic, both in its narrow and wider applications. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Productivity growth and funding of public service broadcasting

In this paper we demonstrate how standard techniques for measuring productivity growth can be applied to the broadcasting sector to provide a benchmark for reasonable efficiency savings which public finance officials might expect public service broadcasting (PSB) to achieve. Using establishment level data from the UK, we produce estimates of productivity growth amongst commercial broadcasters between 1999 and 2003, which provide some evidence that improvements to PSB can reasonably be expected to be funded by efficiency savings rather than solely by increases in public funding.     

Enhancing public participation through narrative analysis

Effective public participation requires methods of policy analysis that can accommodate the discourse of the participants' opinions, preferences and values. This requires analytic methods that retain and convey the social and cultural contexts of the discourse of culturally diverse communities. Narrative policy analysis can incorporate cultural and social diversity within the process of analysing and presenting public preferences. Labov's evaluation model is used as a basis for describing how narrative analysis can be used to identify and present public preferences within a participation process. The value of this approach is demonstrated with reference to a participation process conducted on environmental quality.     

政府公共关系的科学化与专业化探析——基于“新公共管理”的视角

政府公共关系是政府实施公共管理的一项重要职能。随着政府治理和新公共管理实践的发展，迫切需要重新发掘政府公共关系的价值，促进其科学化和专业化。对于处在社会转型和逐步融入国际社会的发展中国家来说，是否具备科学化和专业化的政府公共关系职能，已经成为衡量政府治理能力现代化的重要指标。适时提出政府公共关系的科学化和专业化，是深入贯彻落实科学发展观，提高政府治理效能、转变政府职能、促进公民政治参与、构建和谐社会的需要，也是“新公共管理”实践发展的必然要求。     

New directions for public service reform in developing countries

This paper argues that recent developments in practice and theory provide a more promising basis for public service reform in developing countries than we have had since at least the turn of the century. There have been significant instances of large‐scale reform success, such as Nepal's Public Service Commission and Malaysia's delivery unit, Pemandu, and also “pockets of effectiveness” in individual agencies in many countries. They contribute to a more fruitful and diverse repertoire of reform approaches than generally realized. Policymakers can draw on all those instances and types of reform, together with relevant rich country experiences, as they improvise and tailor responses to their always unique reform problems. Proceeding in this way helps reformers to expand the “reform space” available within the political economy. Donors can help reformers if they facilitate reform in the spirit of the Busan Partnership rather than impose their preferred models. In short, the new direction which this paper identifies can be stated as creative problem solving by local actors facilitated by sympathetic donors, building on examples of reform success and drawing on a repertoire of poor and rich country reform approaches.     

Aspects of change in the Canadian federal public service

This article is divided into two parts. The first part looks at some significant changes that have taken place in Canada's federal public service over the last two or three years. These changes include the introduction of new management techniques, new organizational structures and new approaches to governance. The second part deals with my own organization, Consulting and Audit Canada, including the rationale for our existence, the kind of work we do and the issues we face. Both parts raise issues that are pertinent to the subject of public sector versus private sector, in the context of service delivery. (© 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.)