Creating a Performance Culture? Performance-based Pay in the Australian Public Service

This article provides a critique of the operation of performance-based pay in the Australian public service from 1992 to 1996 and questions proposals for further experimentation with such managerial initiatives. Performance agreements underpinning performance-based pay were unable to measure adequately the performance of senior officers undertaking policy work. Appraisal reviews of these agreements also failed to increase performance feedback between supervisors and senior officers. The process of rating senior officers by supervisors, and the moderation of those ratings by senior agency management, proved to be inherently subjective and considerably increased the prerogatives of public service managers over senior officers. Linking pay to individual performance undermined teamwork and increased friction between those eligible for performance bonuses and junior officers excluded from the scheme. Yet the emphasis on individual employment relationships did not serve to undermine collective values, in particular workforce commitment to unionism.     

Contracting–out social services

Abstract: Despite the enormous share of social services in government spending and the strong incentives on government to rationalize services, the alternative service delivery (asd) literature has given little attention to social–service delivery. In our paper, we review current approaches taken to social–service delivery in Ontario by the Ministry of Community and Social Services (mcss). Although the mcss retains responsibility for the social–services system, it provides social services almost exclusively through private non–profit agencies under purchase of service contracts. Two themes emerge from our examination of these relationships. First, the standard privatization model has limited application to social–services delivery. Contracts are generally not awarded in a competitive fashion, and contract termination discipline is rarely applied. Given the inadequacies of current performance measures for social services, monitoring contract performance is difficult. Second, the success of attempts to shift provision to private non–governmental entities is intimately linked to the effectiveness of accountability mechanisms, especially outcome–based performance measures. Improving performance measurement is therefore an important priority. In addition to advocating further research into the effectiveness of social services, one interesting mcss initiative has been to look to client communities to help monitor the performance of agencies. We conclude that among the different institutional approaches to social–service delivery, contracting with non–profits is the one that currently seem most appropriate. Sommaire: Malgré la part énorme des dépenses gouvernementales consacrée aux services sociaux et malgré les efforts gouvemementaux pour rationaliser les services, les ouvrages publiés sur la prestation de services par des moyens de rechange n'ont consacré que peu d'attention à la prestation des services sociaux. Nous examinons dam cet article les méthodes adoptées pour la prestation des services sociaux en Ontario par le ministére des Services sociaux et communautaires (mssc). Même s'il retient la responsabilité du réseau des services sociaux, le mssc foumit les services sociaux presque exclusivement par I'intermédiaire d'organismes privés à but non lucratif, en vertu de contrats d'achat de services. En examinant ces rapports, nous en dégageons deux thémes. Premiérement, le modéle de privatisation standard ne s'applique que de maniére limitée à la prestation des services sociaux. Les contrats ne sont généralement pas accordés de maniére concurrentielle, et on n'utilise que rarement la résiliation de contrats en tant que mesure disciplinaire. II est difficile de surveiller la qualité d'exécution des contrats, vu l'insuffisance des mesures de rende–ment actuelles concernant les services sociaux. Deuxièmement, le transfert de I'exé–cution aux organismes privés non gouvernementaux ne peut réussir qu'en présence de mécanismes de responsabilisation adéquats, et en particulier de moyens permet–tant de mesurer le rendement en fonction des résultats obtenus. I1 importe donc d'améliorer les moyens de mesure du rendement. Selon le mssc, en plus des recher–ches suppéementaires concernant l'efficacite des services sociaux, il faut faire appel aux groupes de clients pour aider À surveiller le rendement des organismes. En conclusion, parmi les diverses méthodes institutionnelles de prestation des services sociaux, la sous–traitance faisant appel aux secteurs à but non lucratif semble çtre aujourd'hui la plus appropriwaee. [I]t is no exaggeration to say the state and local governments tend not to know what results their social service contracts are buying. Because competition is low, they have little opportunity to test the market to see what alternatives they have. Few resources are spent to look past what contractors themselves report. The political system has few incentives to dig deeper and many more incentives to maintain the status quo— The problems with oversight underline earlier observations: whatever advantages contracting–out for social services might produce, greater efficiency through market–tested competition is not one of them. State and local governments are engaging in the equivalent of a shopping trip while blindfolded, with little effort spent to squeeze the tomatoes or thump the watermelons     

Toward a positive theory of coalition formation and endogenous instrumental choice in global pollution control

The paper analyzes the coalition formation process in a global emission game with asymmetric countries where the number of signatories, the abatement target and the policy instrument are chosen simultaneously. Exemplarily, a uniform emission reduction quota and an effluent charge are considered. Stability is analyzed in a supergame framework by applying the concept of coalition-proofness. The analysis also considers the impact of impatient agents, restricted and simple punishment profiles. Two main results may be mentioned: First, paradoxically, IEAs achieve only little (if signed at all) if the externality problem is distinct. Second, our model helps to explain the frequent appearance of emission quotas in international pollution control despite the recommendations by economists to use market-based instruments like effluent charges.     

Local Context and Democratization in Mexico

While democratization is often seen as a national-level process, we argue that there is important scope for local effects. Through analysis of Mexican public opinion data collected on the eve of that country's historic 2000 elections, we demonstrate that local context greatly affects evaluations of the legitimacy of the system, and these evaluations, in turn, help to shape the willingness of citizens to engage with the system. Citizens are more willing to participate in politics if they think the process is fair, and direct evidence of the fairness of the system is provided by the local political context. This local connection, then, becomes critical in the process of individuals becoming, in Almond and Verba's classic term, "participatory" citizens (1963).     

The effect of membership rules and voting schemes on the success of international climate agreements

We empirically test the role of membership rules and voting schemes for climate change coalitions with the STAbility of COalitions model (STACO). The model comprises twelve world regions and captures long-run effects of greenhouse gas accumulation. We apply three stability concepts that capture the notion of open membership and exclusive membership with majority and unanimity voting. We show that exclusive membership leads to superior outcomes than open membership and that unanimity voting is preferable to majority voting in welfare and environmental terms. Our results suggest restricting membership in future international environmental agreements and they provide a rationale for unanimity voting as applied in many international organizations.     

Informelle transgouvernementale Koordinationsnetzwerke der Ministerialbürokratie der EU-Mitgliedstaaten bei einer Regierungskonferenz

We investigate the informal bilateral transgovernmental relations between equivalent ministries of EU member states during the preparation of the Intergovernmental Conference 1996. Starting point of this analysis is the hypothesis of a growing importance of transnational and transgovernmental relations as a cause and a result of European integration. Whereas these proclaimed tendencies have been extensively researched with regard to economic interdependencies and transnational relations of societal actors, networks of the administrative and bureaucratic elites have been rather neglected. Applying diverse concepts of network analysis, we identify the hitherto latent informal network structures of the governments. The overall configuration can be described as a mixture of a centre-periphery structure and cohesive blocks. The gradual center-periphery structure consists of a “triumvirate” of the powerful member states (Germany — France — Great Britain) and smaller states, and is characterized by a clear north-south dimension. The costs of informal coordination are mainly borne by the large member states as well as by “brokers” (Austria, BeNeLux, Finland, Sweden).     

The Contested Council: Conflict Dimensions of an Intergovernmental EU Institution

Recent research has tried to uncover the political space in which the Council of Ministers of the European Union decides. Rather than the left-right conflict or a cleavage between governments with national and supranational attitudes, this article shows that a redistributive dimension, decisively shapes the interactions in this most important legislative body of the European Union. In contrast to extant studies, we employ ex ante rather than ex post preference data and rely on correspondence analysis as a means to identify the underlying dimensions of contestation. The article concludes with an empirical investigation of how enlargement will affect the emerging political space within the European Union. Our quantitative analysis suggests that the gulf between net-contributors and net-receivers will further deepen.