In Public Management Reform:A Comparative Analysis,by Christopher Pollitt and Geert Bouckaert(2004),Chapters Two and Thr

1. A Model of Public Management Reform ; Many Houses:Types of Politico-Administrative Regime(Review by Christopher Appiah- Thompson, BA, MPhil) In Public Management Reform:A Comparative Analysis,by Christopher Pollitt and Geert Bouckaert(2004),Chapters Two and Three

2. 1.1 Introduction: Problems and Responses: A model of Public Management Reform • In the introduction to the Chapter Two of their book “Public Management Reform: A Comparative Analysis”, the authors present a model of management reform, by identifying the stimuli that appear to have provoked the wave of management changes. • The authors defined, Public management reform as “consisting of deliberate changes to the structures and processes of public sector organizations with the objective of getting them (in some sense) to run better”, (ibid, p.8). • The authors posit that the construction of a broad model or map is both useful and possible, even though countries may well have combined the various elements in very different ways. More specific theories are needed to “fill in” the map to explain particular topographical features in particular countries and periods. Thus, Chapter Two establishes a common conceptual vocabulary for the discussion of management reform”, (ibid, p.3).

3. 1.2The broad Architecture of the model: Forces at Work

5. The Elite Decision Making at the Centre of the Model(Top-down) • (I)Elite perceptions of what reforms are desirable • (J) Elite perceptions of what reforms are feasible • (I) and (J) Reflects Political life

6. The Socio-economic factors(A) • Box (B) Represents the influence of Global economic forces • Box (C) Represents Socio-demographic change • Box (D) Represents Socio-economic policies

7. The Political System(E) • Box (F) The influx of New management ideas into the public sector • Box (G) Identifies Party political ideas as a further influence on Public management change • Box (H) Represents pressure from citizens • Box (K) Identifies the effect of chance events such as scandals,etc,.

8. The Administrative System(L) • Box (M) Identifies the Content of reform package • Box (N) Identifies the Implementation process • Box (O) represents the achievements that eventually results from the process of reform

9. 2.1 Introduction: Many Houses: Types of Politico-Administrative Regime • Three key features :Structural, Cultural and Functional • 1. The state structure (including the constitution)-this is clearly a structural feature • 2. The nature of executive government at the central level-this is a mixture of structural and functional elements • 3. The way relationships work between political executives (ministers) and top civil servants (mandarins)-a functional element, with strong cultural overtones. • 4. The dominant administrative culture (Legalistic or Public Interest) • 5. The degree of diversity among the main channels through which the ideas come that fuel public management reform-this reflects both cultural and functional elements • These five key features are depicted in tabular form in Table 1.1, below. The authors then attempt to discuss each feature in turn.

10. Table 1.1 Types of Politico-Administrative Regime:Five

11. Below are Tables 1.2 and 1.3 depicting how various indicators of decentralization can be constructed

14. What are the consequences of these distinctions for public management reform? • All other things being equal, the authors confer that reforms in federal states or highly decentralized unitary states are likely to be less broad in scope and less uniform in practice than in unitary, centralized states (ibid).

15. 2.4 The Nature of Executive Government

17. The form of the political executive can affect change at several stages in the process of reform • First, it influences the degree of leverage that can be created to launch a programme of reform. • Second, it may affect the stability of reforms. • Third, there may also be an impact on the sense of “ownership” of reform measures. • The implication of all this for public management reform is that changes-which are highly likely going to disturb the widest range of interests-are less and less feasible the further one moves away from the first category government.

18. 2.5 Mandarin/minister relations • The authors identify two principal dimensions to this variation. • First, there is the question of whether political careers are separate from, or are integrated with, the careers of “mandarins” (the authors citing Pierre, 1995). • Second, there is the extent to which senior civil service positions are themselves politicised, in the sense that most of their occupants are known to have (and have been chosen partly because they have) specific party political sympathies.

19. 2.6 The Philosophy and Culture of Governance: Rechtsstaat or Public Interest? • Two models were identified: • Rechtsstaat model/Legalistic Culture • Anglo Saxon notion of the “Public Interest” Model

20. 2.7 Sources of Policy Advice • The basic proposition here is that the wider the range of customary sources of advice, the more likely it is that new ideas-especially those from outside the public sector-will reach ministers’ ears in persuasive and influential forms. • Sources-from their own political parties, from their mandarins, from management consultants, from academic specialists, from business corporations • The source of a particular reform idea may influence its perceived legitimacy and “ownership”.

21. 2.8 The European Commission: A Special Case • The authors,argue,that the third, fourth and fifth features of the general analysis can be related to the Commission. • The main differences arise with the first and second-state structure and the style of executive government(p.56).

22. 2.9 Traditional Bureaucracy: the ancien regime? • According to the authors, “a good deal of the rhetoric associated with public management reform vividly contrasts the new(=good) with the old(=bad). • The authors, referred to scholars like Osborne, Gaebler(1992,pp.11-12) and an Australian commentator, Hughes(1998,pp.38-9) as being critical of the “traditional bureaucracy” describing the latter as bloated,wasteful,ineffective,sluggish,rigid and bureaucratic, narrowly-focused etc., • On the contrary, the authors indicate that “what one might term the ‘Osborne and Gaebler Story’ is misleadingly neat and over-simple.

23. First, as is clear from the earlier sections of this chapter, for many years there has not been just one type of administrative regime in existence, but several. • Second (by way of extension to the first) even if some parts of some public sectors “fitted” the image of the traditional bureaucracy, others definitely did not. • Third the accounts of traditional bureaucracy given by the Osborne and Gaebler ‘school’ tend to be rather one-sided. They emphasize the negatives (‘rigidity’, ‘centralization’, etc.) but ignore or underplay the positives, such as continuity, honesty and a high commitment to equity in dealing with the citizen-public.

24. 2.10 Concluding remarks • Features of the existing politico-administrative regime are likely to exert a significant influence over both the choice of reforms to be adopted and the feasibility of implementing certain types of reform(desirability and feasibility-boxes I and J in Figure 1.1. • State structures, the nature of the central executive government, relationships between ministers and mandarins, the prevailing administrative culture and the diversity of channels of advice all have effects on which ideas get taken up, and how vigorously and widely these are subsequently implemented(p.60).

25. 3.1 Conclusion: Evaluation and Normative Assessment of the Book Chapters • In my opinion, empirically the authors work is a profound contribution to the field of implementation research in policy science. Moreover, in using the words of James Mahoney to evaluate the authors methodological approach I noticed that the authors used simple but comprehensive nominal(or categorical) comparison, which includes the use of categories that are mutually exclusive(cases cannot be classified in terms of more than one category) and collectively exhaustive(one of the categories applies to each case).Examples of these categories in comparative historical research include various (types of Politico-Administrative regime classification:Federal,Unitary,Unitary-decentralized,Unitary-Centralized and typologies of different Executive-Government classifications(Majoritarian, Consensual, Intermediate) and numerous dichotomous variables(Public Interest and Rechtsstaat ,etc.).

26. THANK-YOU