International Public Management Review
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Challenges of Retaining Skilled Employees, The Case of Eritrean Public Sector
Get PDFThis article uses the public sector in the sub-Saharan nation of Eritrea to illustrate how the problem of brain drain poses severe challenges to developing countries. Following its analysis of the views of 313 Eritrean public servants, the article comes to the conclusion that deteriorating economic conditions, lack of good governance and political instability are the major causes of the brain drain in developing countries. On that basis, the article suggests some policy implications as well as frontiers for possible future research
Observed Differences in Corruption between Asia and Africa: The Industrial Organization of Corruption and Its Cure
Get PDFThe paper presents a nonconforming view about corruption and an approach to its ‘cure’. It seeks to explain the anomalous situation that despite pervasive corruption and weak institutions, emerging economies in Asia attracted a flow of foreign investment and achieved a remarkable economic growth and reduction in poverty. Fragile countries in Africa have not done so well.The paper posits that the main difference in the corruption characteristics between the two regions is that in Asia corruption is part of the fixed cost and in Africa it is in the variable costs and consequently has less distortionary effect on investment and economic growth in Asia. Corruption becomes part of the fixed costs when it has a governance structure based on relationships. Although corruption and violent criminality are often correlated, many involved in corrupt governance structures are not evil.An early version of this paper was written and presented ten years ago under a slightly different title, and in that sense the paper is anachronistic. The paper has been updated and its concept that there are two kinds of corruption—variable and fixed cost corruption— remains valid. The qualification that needs to be made is that there has been progress in both continents and the broad-brush generalization applies to countries that are stuck in fragility in a different way from those that are making sustained efforts to bring stability and reforms in their country. So, with a decade-long arc and a slight change in the title of the early paper, the regions are good proxies for calling attention to the two kinds of corruption and their associated dysfunctions, crime, violence and political instability.The leaders are implicated as enablers of corruption. A further premise is that corruption is an emotional disorder and difficult to cure. The paper outlines modern grouppsychoanalytic process to governance and to reorient corruption based on the hypothesis that the human drives, both positive and negative, that bring into being ‘good enough’ government and a cohesive country are the same forces that act as agents of corruption and as a safeguard against it.
Book Review: Vito Tanzi, 2010. Government versus Markets: The Changing Economic Role of the State. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Get PDFVito Tanzi’s important, well-written and occasionally provocative new book provides an historic account of the development of the state in a worldwide perspective. Part I is an excellent essay on the role of the state, well worth reading in its own right, which draws together the book’s main arguments and conclusions. Part II describes the development of the role of government and public spending during the past century, and the factors that contributed to it. Part III outlines theories related to the role of the state in different settings and discusses the policy tools that have become more important in recent years. Part IV focuses on results, in terms of significant socio-economic indicators, that can be attributed to the growth of public spending in recent decades, with the main focus on advanced OECD countries. The concluding chapter reviews the issues that are likely to influence the future economic role of the state
Particularistic Exchanges and Pacts of Domination in Africa: Examining how Patronage Appointments may have increased Resistance to Public Sector Reforms in Kenya
Get PDFThe complex bureaucratic institutional mechanisms that make it difficult to implement reform policies are deliberately set up by most African rulers to serve their selfish interests, which are diametrically opposed to the objectives of public sector reforms. It means that the emergence of a new form of institutional arrangements, which produce more efficient patterns of relationship between state, markets and civil society in the management of public policies, depends on dismantling the old order. In order to be successful, the proposed reforms require altering the internal incentive of the bureaucracy, which would in turn fundamentally alter the power controls and relationships on which a traditional bureaucracy is based. But this new and more efficient pattern of relationships has for a long time been resisted by the existing web of associations created by patronage appointments.This paper examines political emasculation of key public service institutions through patronage appointments leading to loyalty to the government of the day, but with no institutional integrity and with a weakened trust among the actors in the external environment (Cameron 2010). Under such circumstances, prospects for reform depends either on fundamental political change or on engaging with that class’ fear that reform represents a threat to their interests (McCourt 2007). Therefore, this paper contends that the lackluster performance of public sector reforms in Kenya was not because reforms were implemented but yielded unsatisfactory results, but because several initiatives never got past the implementation stage at all. Rather, they were blocked outright or put into effect only in a tokenistic, half-hearted manner (Polidano 2001), due to vested political interests
Comment on Antti Talvitie’s Paper, 2012: Observed Differences in Corruption between Asia and Africa: The Industrial Organization of Corruption and Its Cure
No full textI was asked by IPMR to comment on the above article. As a prior blind reviewer of this article, I recommended that this paper “not be accepted by IPMR for publication." Other reviewers disagreed and the paper was published. What follows is a commentary for future researchers, not a paper review. Where relevant, I re-address certain original concerns not met in the updated version. The following paragraphs are not meant to diminish or dismiss an important article. Dr. Talvitie has gone out on a limb. More of us need to find such limbs, give them a bounce, and see if they hold. Dr. Talvitie should be congratulated for allowing his already-published paper to be utilized in such a manner. Not all authors would be so brave
Cutbacks vs. PerformanceStat: What's the Conflict? Financial Deficits and Attention
Get PDFReductions in any organization’s financial budget can cause reductions in the organization’s performance (its outputs and outcomes). It is not obvious, however, that the primary cause will be direct: Less money to spend means less can be done. Instead, the bigger impact may come through the opportunity costs created by the financial cuts on the time budget of the members of the leadership team. For the attention that they must pay to any budget reductions automatically reduces the attention that they can devote performance improvements — and to everything else. It isn’t the financial cuts themselves. Rather, it is that the deficit in the financial budget creates a deficit in the leadership team’s time budget. The funding deficit in the financial budget imposes an attention deficit in the time budget
Managing the E-Government Organization
Get PDFThis article examines the internal and external administrative factors conducive and inhibitive of the development of e-government. It develops a conceptual framework on the basis of existing experiences drawn from administrative reforms. Using data from a large survey of public managers in the German federal government to test guidelines and prescriptions provided in the article, this study indicates that the elements and guidelines developed in our research have had a direct or indirect influence on the development of e-government. Finally, the article indicates further research requirements, as well as consequences for practical project design
Problems in Public Management Development in Asia
Get PDFIs it possible to measure the quality of overall governance in a developing Asian country? Are present measures robust enough to allow the ranking of countries along a continuum from well-governed to poorly-governed? Should these rankings be used by donor agencies and private investors in making investment decisions? Despite the complexity and diversity of approaches of governance systems, there are various qualitative and quantitative tools being used in the region. In this article, the advantages and disadvantages of some of these tools will be analyzed, and some lessons will be derived showing how the prudent use of governance indicators can help development agencies and private investors
Public Management Reform in the U.S. and Italy: Accounting, Measurement and Financial
Get PDFThis article focuses primarily on efforts to improve management control systems and processes, including budgeting, accounting and reporting, within the context of a responsibility framework in the United States and Italy. In public management theory, management control is assumed to be a process for motivating and inspiring people to perform more effectively in the context of working in complex organizations (Jones and Thompson, 1999: 130). From this perspective, management control attempts to motivate public managers to serve the policies and purposes of the organizations to which they belong, and to meet the demands and preferences of the citizens and customers they serve. Additionally, management control is a means for correcting performance problems and including inefficient use of resources. Among the initiatives taken to implement management control systems and to control costs is the design of new or reconfigured budgeting, accounting and reporting systems. One approach to redesign is responsibility budgeting and accounting, now widely practiced internationally
Performance Measurement Challenges in Switzerland: Lessons from Implementation
Get PDFThis article assesses recent reforms to implement performance budgeting at the national level in Switzerland with emphasis on the necessity for integrating the political dimension. The political context is Switzerland is described as a regulation-driven with fairly liberal but still detailed private and public law, and where the legal basis is the major subject of political influence. In practice, the law is the result of long-term politics while the budget reflects the short-term, actual value of tasks is determined by the legislators. Thereby, a systematic link between legal obligations and financial resources – such as is the case in U.S. programs – does not exist in the traditional form of political steering. In times of financial pressure, this can lead to laws that are not enacted due to a lack of resources. The article analyzes traditional budgeting and contrasts it with results-oriented public management and performance budgeting as manifest in the Swiss model