International Public Management Review
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Introduction - The Many Faces of Public Management Reform in Asia-Pacific: Moving Ahead Amidst
No full textDuring the past decade, globalization and democratization have been the major forces that helped transform the structures, functions, and processes of Asian public sectors. Nevertheless, these transformation efforts of Asian countries vary considerably depending on local context, and have met with different degrees of success. Some countries experienced smooth transformations. For others, the reform process has been more volatile. These issues were explored at a conference July 7-9, 2008 in Bangkok, Thailand, hosted by the Department of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University, and co-sponsored by the International Public Management Network, the Asia-Pacific Governance Institute, and Thailand Democracy Watch. This special issue presents a sample of the work by participating scholars and practitioners
The Effects of Results-Oriented Budgeting on Government Spending Patterns in Thailand
Get PDFThis article investigates the immediate and permanent effects of the most recent budget reform, a results-oriented budget, on a government’s spending levels across functions. Under the new budget format, the resource allocation process is influenced by departments’ program planning and performance data, including objectives, strategies, outputs, and outcomes. The theoretical literature is unclear on the role of this new reform in pinpointing whether it is a rational budget in which resource allocation is tied to policy priorities and whether there has been a benefit in enhancing the government’s planning capacity. Using time-series data from 1965 to 2005 on Thai government spending, the empirical results indicate that the new budget reform enhances government planning capacity in two service functions, national defense and general administration, by shifting resources permanently between functions and cutting spending immediately on the function that is irrelevant to the country’s master plans
Implementation of Performance Contracting in Kenya
Get PDFIn pursuit of the goal of performance improvement within the public sector, New Public Management emphasizes on the adoption of private sector practices in public institutions (Balogun, 2003). NPM models have therefore been invariably seen through the public service reform initiatives in many developing countries as the solution to reversing falling service delivery. In quest of this same goal, Kenya introduced performance contracting not only improve service delivery but also to refocus the mind set of public service away from a culture of inward looking towards a culture of business as focused on customer and results
Decentralization and Management Autonomy? Evidence from the Catalonian Hospital Sector in a Decentralized Spain
Get PDFThe organization of inpatient care provision has undergone significant reform in many southern European countries although the success of the underlying incentives relies on the institutional design with respect to achieving efficiency and promoting policy innovation without harming the essential principle of ‘equal access for equal need’ that grounds National Health Systems (NHS). This article explores some of the specific organizational developments of decentralizations structures drawing from the Catalonian experiences. We find that the coincidence of both managerial and political decentralization is associated with the mergence of organization and policy innovation resulting from policy experimentation at the regional level might be an additional feature to take into account when examining the benefits of decentralization
Principles for Sequencing Public Financial Reforms in Developing Countries
Get PDFA substantial number of developing countries are currently undertaking public financial management (PFM) reforms. A central aspect of such reforms is proper sequencing which is currently highly debated in the donor community. This article provides a general overview of the most common approaches for sequencing PFM reforms in developing countries. Such approaches can provide a useful basis for the development of a sequencing strategy. However, interviews with PFM experts and literature analysis showed that these models should not be considered too technical. As a result, the article suggests some principles which the donor community should follow when implementing a PFM sequencing strategy
In Search of Trust and Legitimacy: The political Trajectory of Hong Kong as Part of China
Get PDFIn the 1980s and 1990s, the impending return of Hong Kong to China by 1997 had triggered a major confidence crisis in Hong Kong. A new logic of governance would have to be created to substitute the then colonial logic which emphasized administrative efficiency and the rule of convenience, a logic that the local population had implicitly accepted out of political acquiescence. However, the path towards a new Hong Kong as a special administrative region (SAR) had not been accompanied by the proper decolonization and democratization of the governance system. Old wine was put into new bottle. The political order as enshrined in Hong Kong’s Basic Law had largely been a continuation (and at most a re-institutionalization) of the ancient regime. Since 1997, the Hong Kong SAR has been suffering from one legitimacy crisis after another. The infallibility of the administrative state, long held responsible for Hong Kong’s success story in the final decades of British colonial rule, has by now been largely eroded. In 2002, government by bureaucrats was replaced by government by politically-appointed ministers, in the hope of enhancing executive accountability and improving policy performance and governance effectiveness. Yet, that failed to deliver results. This article traces the development of the post-colonial administrative state in Hong Kong from 1997 to the present
Emerging Meta-Governance as a Regulation Framework for Public-Private Partnerships: An Examination of the European Union's Approach
Get PDFThis article extends previous research on public-private partnerships (PPPs), which has primarily been case study or national context oriented, by examining how these PPPs are regulated in the framework of the European Union (EU). While a number of partnership models have been identified in the academic literature, this study focuses on three significant types of PPP: the contract-PPP, the concession-PPP, and the institutional-PPP. Based on a notion of the EU as a meta-governance framework that guides, steers, and controls PPP activity at national, sector, and project level, the article draws a number of lessons on the EU’s role in regulating the formation phase of PPP. The research demonstrates that this meta-governance framework provides the EU with no direct regulations for the use of the PPP model in the 27 member states, but two sets of regulations which apply if a public authority decides to sign a PPP deal. As the EU hitherto has engaged in regulation of PPP at a somewhat abstract and conceptual level, national and local public administrations are given considerable room for manoeuvre to craft regulations and policies to support or hinder uptake of PPPs. More recently, however, the Commission has raised its stakes by launching a European Partnership Excellence Centre to support policy learning, the spread of best practice, and PPP expert networks
Addressing and Overcoming Barriers to Youth Civic Engagement
Get PDFYouth civic engagement—and particularly youth participation in properly designed youth programs—has indisputably favorable outcomes for the young people involved (Saito, 2006; Pancer et al., 2002; Flanagan et al., 2002). This research reviews the wide-ranging literature available on youth civic engagement in urban communities. Using content analysis, we identify organizations involved in youth engagement as well as barriers faced by organizations engaged in this policy arena. Our research also identifies 15 broad types of barriers that organizations seeking to encourage youth civic engagement encounter in building and delivering successful youth engagement programs. In addition, we discuss the emergent social and political barriers that are prevalent among the identified service organizations. Ultimately, we argue that such barriers are important influences in determining the ability of organizations to effectively serve their clients
Debt Panic as Strategic Misrepresentation in Management of Government Fiscal Stress and Crisis
Get PDFThe theme of this article is that for reasons related more closely to politic incentives rather than fiscal reality there is a tendency among some policy makers to make wrong choices in attempting to manage fiscal stress and crisis, preferring to use more easily negotiated "quick fixes" such as across-the-board cuts in spending for programs that do not contribute much to deficits and debt. In fact such cutting usually makes the fiscal situation worse rather than better because they reduce economic growth in the private sector needed to pull out of debt and economic recession (Bureau of Economic Analysis, 2012). Typically, such budget reductions result in increased unemployment as public sector jobs are cut, further reducing revenues to government while increasing unemployment insurance cost of government. Fiscal stress is defined as when revenues fall short of expenses but a government or other public entity in debt remains able to obtain loans to finance current operations and debt restructuring, albeit at increasingly higher level of interest while they participate in some form of debt restructuring. Fiscal crisis occurs when governments no longer can get loans and are not able to sell their debt in financial markets at any price. This article examines US fiscal stress conditions and management approaches and then compares the US experience to that of the European Union and the Eurozone. It explains that while there is genuine need for changes in fiscal policy, such changes should be proposed, analyzed thoroughly, negotiated and implemented carefully over time rather than yielding to political expedience using debt panic as a means of forcing the adoption of quick but unworkable approaches to resolution of the real problems that cause both short and longer-term fiscal stress
Essay Review: Second Thoughts on the First Citizens Assemblies
Get PDFWhen two of the most distinguished university presses in the world publish books on the same political events in Canada, one can be sure that something somewhat out of the ordinary has occurred. The two books under review focus on essentially the same subject, save that the later book has the advantage of more evidence - three rather than one citizen assembly – and it shows. This review will focus uniquely on the two Canadian assemblies, however. The Dutch case, while interesting, tells us more about the dynamics of Dutch politics than it adds to the understanding of citizen assemblies which emerges from the Canadian evidence.The issues in question arrive at the confluence of two important discussions on the renewal of democracy in the anglosphere – the potential of deliberative democracy to complement electoral democracy and the reform of electoral systems. Let us consider them in that order