Governance as Public Management

1
Governance as Public Managementand Vice Versa

• Fred Thompson
• AGSM 653
• January 28, 2002

2
Course Content

• 1.Issues
• 2.Globalization
• 3.Governance
• 4.Linkages
• 5.Values

3
Issues

• Connectivity Impossibility of isolation
• Communications, travel
• Social, economic interactions
• Greater vulnerability of individuals to things
  happening far away
• People more aware of far off events injustice,
  brutality
• Communication - CNN, internet - quickly breaks
  down boundaries

4
Issues (cont.)

• Greater power in non-governmental hands
• Super-empowered individuals/NGOs
• Multinational corporations
• Criminal networks
• Organized crime as multinational organizations
• Cross-border threats
• War
• Terrorism
• Disease
• AIDS, TB, Mad cow disease, the coming pandemic
• Pollution
• Global warming
• Breakdown of local norms

5
Issues (cont.)

• Expectations that the state will address the
  adverse consequences of connectedness
• (Preserve its benefits but avoid its costs)

6
Connectedness Globalization

• Not hypothetical emerging reality
• Not an option inescapable trend
• Puzzles Face of globalization Governance
  issues Implications for economies, citizens

7
Benefits and Costs of Globalization

• Benefits
• Faster economic growth
• Better living standards
• Democratization
• Free interchange of ideas, values new
  opportunities
• Costs
• Greater risk/variance in outcomes
• Greater income inequality
• Social dislocation
• Marketplace doesn't always advance social
  objectives

8
Governance

• Government v. governance
• Government institutional roles, powers
• Governance how public work gets done
• Weak states constitute great threats to in a
  highly connected world
• Unable to manage problems on behalf of their
  people - their problems can get lose
• Threat of corruption
• Home to organized crime/terrorist groups

9
Governance (cont.)

• More governmental work involves
• Multi-national organizations
• Non-governmental partners in services
• Non-governmental players in politics
• Globalization paradox
• Multilateral system allowed globalization to
  flourish
• Globalization has rendered multilateral system
  obsolete
• National institutions were created for a
  nation-based worldnot a global world

10
Linkages and Values

• Linkages Complicated forces in loose formation
• Domestic and international
• Economics and politics
• Management and analysis
• Modernity v. traditional values
• Democratic states v. state weakness
• Private v. state power
• Multinational organizations v. national
  sovereignty

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The Standard Questions

• Security a central purpose of government
• Multinational strategies for foreign policy,
  national security response
• Implications for national autonomy
• Can nation-states act alone?
• Can they act together without sacrificing
  national values?
• Balancing
• Public with private power
• National autonomy with multinational support
• Liberty with security

12
From Governance to Public Management

• Making democratic states strong

13
From Governance to Public Management

• Democracy popular control over bureaucratic
  institutions
• Big issues to solve
• Coordination how to tie complex, interrelated
  elements together
• Errors Detecting, Correcting, Defining
  tolerance . . . for errors
• People Defining needed skills, Recruiting,
  training, retaining workers, Developing career
  civil service, Defining relationship with
  political leaders
• Accountability To whom? For what? How?

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Bureaucracy as instrument

• Bureaucracy tool to build capacity thru Search
  one best way
• Administration rules, SOPs in search of
  organizational efficiency
• Process budget, personnel, procurement
• Structure organize, reorganize
• Hierarchy
• Basic organizational shape
• Defines shape of command
• Authority
• Glue to hold bureaucracy together
• Define roles empowering, limiting

15
Critique of bureaucracy

• N?Inflexible
• N?Inefficient
• N?Unresponsive
• N?Inequitable

16
Response impulse for reform

• Near-universal global reforms
• Determine size of government
• Privatization
• Improve government efficiency
• Market-driven strategies
• Increase responsiveness
• Citizen-based reforms

17
New Zealand as a model
Comparison of New Zealand
and American Reform Efforts  

• Narrow focus
• Performance
• Accountability through competition
• Decentralization of control
• Unified financial system

 
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Narrow Focus

• Identify responsibilities clearly
• Focus on outputs
• Competition among elements
• Apply to policy and service delivery

19
Performance

• Specify goals
• Development measurement system
• Financial
• Non-financial
• Focus on outputs
• Agencies have control over outputs

20
Accountability through competition

• Competitive tendering
• No presumption that services ought to be provide
  by private versus public agencies
• Explicit written contracts
• Provide incentives
• Hire agency chief executives through contracts,
  limited terms, compensation

21
Decentralization of control

• Match authority with accountability
• Sweep away central control agency rules to give
  chief executives autonomy
• Civil service
• Purchasing

22
Unified financial system

• Transparency
• Government
• Owner of assets
• Purchaser of services
• Accrual accounting

23
Issues

• Outputs versus outcomes
• Outputs managers can control
• Outcomes what elected officials, citizens care
  about
• Markets
• Are there real markets to price services?
• Public service
• If its not in the contract, its not my job

24
Issues, contd

• Exit option
• Do contracts provide one?
• Discretion
• Are improvements due to discretion rather than
  formal contracts, incentives
• Contracting is costly

25
Should others copy NZ reforms?

• Need real, competitive public sector
• Developing nations often build on informal
  systems
• Informal systems often introduce corruption,
  inefficiencies
• Need public sector where employees have
  internalized rules
• Informality rules
• Discretion for front-line operators without
  engaging in transformation gt problems!