East China Normal University
Department of Educational Management
Workshop on
Practical Foundations of Educational Management & Educational Governance
Lecture 1
From Educational Management to Educational Governance:
A Practical Enquiry
A. The Emergence of the Discourse on Governance:
1. The labyrinth of the notion of governance
a. “Governance is said to be many things, including a buzzword, a fad,
a framing device, a bridging concept, an umbrella concept, a
descriptive concept, a slippery concept, an empty signifier, weasel
word, a fetish, a field, an approach, a theory and a perspective.”
(Levi-Faur, 2012, P.3)
b. “The term ‘governance’ refers to a change in the meaning of
government, referring to a new process of governing. There are
many uses of governance, for example, it refers to minimal state;
corporate governance; and the new public management. It has too
many meanings to be useful.” (Rhodes, 1997, P. 15; original
emphasis)
c. “The difficulties surrounding the term governance are
considerable. …One colleague describes it as a ‘weasel’ word ─
slippery and elusive, used to obscure not to shed light.” (Bevir &
Rhodes, 2003, P. 41) “There is no essentialist notion of governance.”
(P. 43)
d. The discourse of governance “involves some rather slippery,
confusing and contested concepts.” (Ball & Junemann, 2012, P. 1)
2. The task ahead: This enquiry attempts to clarify the various meanings
surrounding emerged from the discourse of governance. It aims not
only to break the labyrinth around the notion of governance but also
substantiate the practical, empirical and theoretical significance in the
study of governance
3. The approach to the study of governance: There are commonly two
approaches to the study of the phenomenon of governance
a. Essentialist approach: In search of the empirical-positivistic valid
constituents that can definitively delineate a specific social
phenomenon.
b. Comparative-historical approach (Morphogenetic Approach): In
search of the patterns of human activities emerged and constituted
in given temporal and socio-political contexts.
The enquiry is to adopt the latter approach.
B. The Idea of Governance: A Comparative-Historical Approach
1. It has been well documented in the literature of the study of
governance that there have been significant changes in the ways of
governing in most of the post-industrial societies, most notably the UK
and the US in the past thirty years. It has also been stipulated that
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these transformations of models of governing have invoked the
popularity of the idea governance. Hence, one way to understand the
meanings of the idea of governance is to trace the trajectories of the
transformation undertaken by the states in post-industrial societies in
their ways to obtain and exercise their public authorities, to conduct
their public administrations, to implement their public policies and to
deliver their public service.
2. The operational definition of governance: In order to facilitate the
subsequent enquiry, let’s render an operational definition of
governance as following: It refers to the ways the popular sovereignty
of a modern state used its public authority to govern its subjects.
(Peter, 1996; Kettl, 2005; Bevir, 2012).
a. Distinction between the studies of government and governance: In
light of this definition, researchers commonly make a distinction
between studies of government and that of governance as follows
i. The traditional studies of government in political science focus
on the institutions and organizations, i.e. the rules and
procedures, employed by the public authority of a sovereign
state.
ii. The studies of governance in political science focuses on the
interactions and social dynamics evolved and “institutionalized”
in a particular process of governing.
b. Levels of studies of governance: Accordingly, the process of
governance can further be differentiated into three levels
i. Public-authority level of governance: It focuses on the way the
sovereign state obtaining and exercising its public authority. It
concentrates mainly on the macro-level studies in political
science.
ii. Public-policy level of governance: It focuses on the way the
governing authority implements public policies of a particular
policy domain, for examples education, public health, national
defense, etc. It relates in general to the meso-level studies in
public administration.
iii. Public-service level of governance: It focuses on the way a
particular policy branch with a government delivers specific
services to the respective targets clients. It relates generally to
the micro-level studies of the managements and operations of
particular agencies, such as schools, hospitals, social-service
agencies, etc.
3. Transformations of Models of Governing: A number of scholars in the
field of public administration and policy have synthesized the changes
in models of governing in post-industrial societies into several stages.
(Peter, 1996; Mayntz, 2003; Kettl, 2005; and Rhodes, 2000: Bevir,
2010) They basically includes the following four stages
a. Post-WWII Keynesian Welfare-state (1950s-1970s)
b. New Public Management of Neoliberalism (1980s-1900s)
c. Network Governance (The latter half 1990s…)
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4. Post-WWII Keynesian welfare-state: It signifies the model of governing
commonly adopted by Western capitalistic-democratic state since the
post-WWII decades. It has been characterized by Bob Jessop as the
“Keynesian Welfare National State (KWNS)” (1999).
a. Governing orientations of the KWNS: KWNS signifies four specific
governing orientation of the post-WWII state
i. Keynesian approach to economic policy by means of
demand-side management of public expenditure target national
full employment;
ii. social-welfare provisions in the form of social-wages, which aim
to facilitate the reproduction of labour power for capitalistic
economy;
iii. confinement to the scope within its national boundary and the
interests of its nationals and citizens;
iv. state-interventions in the forms of nationalization, direct
provisions of services, substantial subsidies, etc.
b. Governing measures of KWNS: In order to achieve the above policy
orientations, post-WWII state adopted specific governing measures
of
i. Centralized planning;
ii. Top-down implementation;
iii. Bureaucrat-professional led delivery;
iv. Political-hierarchical accountability
c. The Westminster-Whitehall model of the UK: The model of
governing adopted by the UK has the characterized as one of the
typical cases of post-WWII KWNS. It has be labeled as the
Westminster and Whitehall models, which signify two of the specific
features of UK governing model, namely the traditions of the
parliament sovereignty and professional public servants. The
Westminster-Whitehall model can be summarized as follows
Westminster Tradition
Whitehall Tradition
Public authority of the sovereign
state rests on the institution of
democracy
Public servants of political
neutrality & public anonymity
Rule by the majority in the House
of Commons
Expertise based on management
science and policy science
The Cabinet & its functional
ministers
Executive decisions to be
checked & balanced by the
Parliament
Accountability through periodical
election
Tradition of “public spirits”, i.e. duty
of defending “the public interest”
Accountability to the respective
functional ministers
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d. The Old Public Administration in the US: A comparable tradition to
the “Whitehall Tradition” can also be found in the US. It is commonly
called the “Old Public Administration”. For example, Denhardt and
Denhardt have summarized the tenets of the “Old Public
Administration” tradition as follows. (Denhardt & Denhardt, 2000, Pp.
551-552)
“ Public administration is politically neutral, valuing the idea of
neutral competence.
The focus of government is the direct delivery of services. The
best organizational structure is a centralized bureaucracy.
Programs are implemented through top-down control
mechanisms, limiting discretion as much as possible.
Bureaucracies seek to be closed system to the extent possible,
thus limiting citizen involvement.
Efficiency and rationality are the most important values in public
organization.
Public administration do not play a central role in policy making
and governance: rather, they are charged with the efficient
implementations of public objectives.
The job of public administration is described by Gulick’s
POSDCORB (Planning, Organizing, Staffing, Directing,
Co-Ordinating, Reporting, Budgeting).”
5. New Public Management of Neoliberalism:
a. Governance failures of the welfare state: Since the 1970s, welfare
states in most of the Western industrial societies witnessed a series
of crises and public critiques. They included
i. Oil crisis and global economic recessions;
ii. Fiscal crises in the forms of mounting deficits in most of
government budgets the Western industrial societies;
iii. Rising criticisms on the inefficiency of the ever-growing state
bureaucracies;
iv. Critiques on overloading the state;
v. Critique of the effects of de-commodification of the welfare
states on the capitalist production sectors;
vi. Neoliberal’s “war-cries” of “roll back the state”.
b. The rise of Neoliberalism: As a result of the discourse of the
governance failure of the post-WWII welfare state, political parties
of Neoliberalism came to and remained in power for over a decade
in several Western industrial countries, for examples
i. From 1979 to 1997 the Conservative Party led by Margaret
Thatcher and then John Major rule over the UK from 18 years;
ii. From 1981-1993 the Republican Party presided by Ronald
Reagan and then George H. W. Bush governed the US for 13
years;
iii. From 1982 to 1998 the Christian Democratic Union led by
Helmut kohl ruled over the West Germany and then the Unified
Germany for 17 years.
c. Public Sector Reform of the Neoliberalism: To many researchers of
in the theory and practice governance, the governance discourse or
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even paradigm was initiated in the 1980s by the so-called “Public
Sector Reform”.
i. The background: As Jan-Erik Lane underline: (1997, P. 2)
“The public sector reform drive was initiated during the 1980s in
the advanced capitalist democracies as a response to the public
sector expansion process that had been such a dominant
feature of the OECD countries after the Second World War. In
the early 1980s there was a realization that the public sector
had a profound problem in relation to how well its various
programmes were operating, given the fact that the public
sector had grown from below 25% to over 45% of GDP in a
couple of decades as an average.”
ii. As a result, a series of reforms were launched by central
governments in most of the OECD countries. These so-called
public sector reforms have been related by researchers as the
“Chicago-School” teaching (Lane, 1997) or the advent of
“Neoliberalism” (Harvey, 2005).
d. The policy features of the public sector reforms: Different
researchers have characterized the policy features in different ways,
for example
i. Jan-Erike Lane (1997) has characterized the reforms in OECD
countries by three features, namely deregulation, privatization
and marketization (DPM);
ii. Christopher Hood (1991; Pp. 4-5) has labeled the reform in the
UK as the New Public Management and characterized it with
seven “doctrinal components: (1) hands-out professional
management in the public sector; (2) explicit standards and
measures of performance; (3) output control; (4) disaggregation
of units in the public sector; (5) competition; (6) private-sector
styles of management practice; and (7) greater discipline and
parsimony in resource use.
iii. David Osborne and Ted Gaebler have formulated the reforms of
the US government into “ten principles of entrepreneurial
government ” (1992, P. 20). They simplify them as follow:
“Most entrepreneurial governments (1) promote competition
between service providers. (2) They empower citizens by
pushing control out of the bureaucracy, into the community. (3)
They measure the performance of agencies, focusing not on
input but on outcomes. (4) They are driven by the goals ─their
missions ─not by their rules and regulations. (5) They redefine
their clients as customers and offer them choices ─between
schools, between training programs, between housing options.
(6) They prevent problems before they emerge, rather than
simply offering service afterward. (7) They put their energies
into earning money, not simply spending it. (8) The
decentralize authority, embracing participatory management.
(9) They prefer market mechanism to bureaucratic mechanism.
And (10) they focus not simply on providing public services, but
on catalyzing all sectors ─public, private and voluntary ─into
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action to solve their community’s problems.” (Osborne &
Gaebler, 1992, 19-20, original emphases)
e. The policy rhetoric advocated by neoliberals in the public sector
reforms in various countries may be summarized into four
dimensions. They are
i. Hollowing out the state
ii. Bringing in the market
iii. Dismantling the hierarchy (public bureaucracy)
iv. Constructing the hegemony of performativity and auditing
culture
Accordingly, the New Public Management proposed by politicians
and scholars of Neoliberal stance can be synthesized as follows.
Hollowing out the state
- Decentralization & delayering of
decision making
- Devolution of service delivery
(Steering rather than rowing)
- Contracting out, deregulation, &
privatization
Bringing in the Market
- Introducing market competition
into the public sector
- Open & reverse bidding among
agencies by lower cost and
higher standard
The Neoliberal Reform & New Public Management
Dismantling the Hierarchy
- Displacement of anonymous
public servants with high prolife
public managers
- Introducing the organizational
culture of entrepreneurship
- Restructuring rule-driven
organization into mission-driven
Constituting the auditing culture
- Management by results &
outcomes rather than by input &
procedure
- Developing quantifiable
performance indicators
- Introducing ranking or
league-table system
6. Network governance:
a. The background: Since the second half of the 1990s, the discourses
around the limitations and pitfalls of the public sector reform waged
by the New Right and Neoliberal governments had proliferated
across different Western countries in both academic and practical
arenas in the field of public administration and policy. These
limitations and pitfalls include
i. Hallowing the state: The consequences of devolution and
privatization have substantially weakened or even dismantled
the coordinating and controlling apparatuses of the state. As a
result, the neoliberal reforms have been criticized as “steering
out of control”. Apart from the Neoliberal’s policy of internally
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dismantling and hollowing the state mechanism, the governing
capacities of the state have also been weakened externally by
the process of globalization and Europeanization. The advent of
the international organizations, such as the WTO, World Bank
and European Union has also eroded away some powerful
policy instruments of the state, most notably, the governing
instruments on international-trade, fiscal and monetary policies.
ii. Fragmentation of the public sector: As the consequences of
contracting-out, devolution (in the form of agencification and
corporationaliztion), and privatization; the public sector,
especially the public-service delivery sectors have been
fragmented into diverse providers with different criteria and
standards.
iii. The growth of managerialism and performativity: To remedy to
loss of direct supervision and control over the public agencies,
the state has expand and extend its quality-assurance
mechanism and surveillance apparatuses. As a result, it has
practically destroyed the alliance and trust between the officials
and professionals built up during the post-war period in delivery
of public services. A distrusting and depressing culture has
been proliferating among the serving professionals in the public
sectors, such as school teachers, social workers, doctors and
nurses, etc.
iv. The advent of entrepreneurialism and the loss of public spirit:
The introduction of competitions in the forms of open bidding
and reverse audition among public-service providers has
nurtured the entrepreneurial culture of cost-cutting and
risk-taking among public-service agencies. As a result, it has
gradually eroded away the long tradition of “public spirit” of
serving and caring among civil servants and serving
professionals.
b. The structuration of the network governance:
i. New Labour’s Modernizing Government project: After eighteen
years of ruling, the Conservative Party was replaced by the
New Labour Party led by Tony Blair in 1997. One of major
reforms waged by the New Laubour government was to deal
with “the problem of fragmentation, which the Labour leadership
believed was a symptom of eighteen years of Conservative
state reforms.” (Richard & Smith, 2002, P. 239)
The governance reform launched by the New Labour was
commonly advocated as the “Modernising Government” project
or more generally called the Third Way.
“New Labour …advocates the idea of networks of institutions
and individuals cooperating in mutually beneficial partnerships
based on a relationship of trust. Labour is not seeking the
outright abandonment of central bureaucracy or the welfare
state. Nor does it advocate the wholesale use of markets
instead it embrace a mixture of both. The aim is to utilize a
combination of hierarchies, networks and markets, the mix of
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which is determined by the nature of the particular service to be
provided. …No formal structure should be adopted to condition
this collaboration; instead, different options should be available
in order to ensure flexibility and responsiveness. The key to
binding the various relationships together is one of trust.”
(Richard & Smith, 2002, P. 238)
ii. Conceptualization of network governance: With the retreat of
the Neoliberal governments and their DPM reforms of
governance, a new paradigm of governance study rose to
prominence in the late 1990s. It is commonly called the network
governance (Sorensen & Tortfing, 2007) or some advocates
would even simply call it the governance study (Rhodes, 1997).
At this juncture, it is illuminating to make a distinction between
two meanings of the term governance in the literature. One is a
broader meaning, which indicates governance as the models
and institutional patterns adopted by a sovereign authority in
governing its subjects (Peter, 1996; Kettl, 2005; Bevir, 2012).
The other is a narrower meaning, which designate the term
governance specifically to the governance in and by network.
(Rhodes, 1997) In this workshop, the broader meaning of the
term governance is adopted. Accordingly, the term “network
governance” will be used to designate the model of governance
in and network, which has emerged specifically in the 1990s.
iii. R.A.W. Rhodes’ conceptualization: Rhodes, professor of
political scientist in the UK, in his book Understanding
Governance: Policy Network, Governance, Reflexivity and
Accountability (1997) renders the following definition to
governance (i.e. network governance):
“Governance refers to self-organizing, interorganiztional
networks characterized by interdependence, resource
exchange, rule of the game and significant autonomy from the
state.” (Rhode, 1997, P. 15) The definition signifies several
structural features of network governance. They are
- self-organizing and interorganizational;
- interdependence and resource exchange;
- rule of the game;
- significant autonomy.
iii. Sorensen and Torfing’s conceptualization: Eva Sorensen and
Jocob Torfing, both professors of Public Administration in
Denmark, define network governance as follow.
“We shall define a governance network as
1. a relatively stable horizontal articulation of interdependent,
but operationally autonomous actors;
2. who interact through negotiations;
3. which take place with a regulative, normative, cognitive and
imaginary framework;
4. that is self-regulating within limits set by external agencies;
and
5. which contribute to the production of public purpose.”
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(Sorensen & Torfing, 2007, P. 9)
vi. Klijn and Koppenjan’s conceptualization: Erik-Hans Klijn and
Joop F.M. Koppenjan, both professors in the Netherland,
specify the characteristics of network governance as:
- Mutual dependence of actors which leads to sustainable
relations between them;
- In the course of interactions, rules are formed which regulate
actor behavior;
- Policy processes are complex and not entirely predictable
because of the variety of actors, perceptions and strategies;
- Policy is the result of complex interactions between actors
who participate in concrete games in a network;
- Network co-operation is not devoid of problem and needs
process of conflict management and risk reduction.” (Klijn &
Koppenjan, 2000; quoted in Meuleman, 2008, P. 33)
v. A synthesis: In light of the policy practices of the New Labour
and the conceptual formulations of s selection of European
scholars, we may summarized the nature and structures of
network governance as
- The norm: Network governance is a form of governance
alternate to the hierarchical top-down planning by the
government and the market competition by the anarchy of
self-interest. It signifies the third way of governing based on
the normative values of trust, cooperation, negotiation,
sustainability and flexibility. (Bevir, 2010, P. 185; Meuleman,
2008, P. 32)
- The actors: The constituent units of a network governance
are neither governmental departments, officials and civil
servants; nor private self-interest seekers. They are
organizations (either public, private or hybrid of
public/private), which are autonomous but at the same
interdependent.
- The relationships: The constituent units are related the forms
of horizontal (in contrast to hierarchical), collaborative (in
contrast to competitive) and positive-sum (in contrast to
zero-sum) game.
- The interaction: undertaken by the actors are in the forms
of exchanges of resources (material, informational, social,
cognitive …resources), negotiations, and deliberations.
- The framework: The interactions taking place within a
network has to be framed in the form of “the rules of the
game” (North, 1990) and regulations (Jordana & Levi-Faur,
2004). That is in the form of sustainable and resilient
institution.
- The process and outcome: Though a network governance
with its diverse actors and dynamic interactions are working
towards to overall public policy and objectives, the process
and outcome of a network governance are not entirely
predictable and controllable. They are work under the
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purview of complexity.
c. Typology of policy network: Apart from explicating the definitive
features of network governance, another conceptual tool, which
could be of great help in understanding network governance, is the
typology formulated by researchers in comparative-historical
studies of governance.
i. Marsh & Rhodes:
(Source: Rhodes, 1997, P. 44, Table 2.3)
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ii. Rhodes Typology (1986)
(Source: Rhodes, 1997, P. 38, Table 2.1)
D. Theorization of Governance:
Apart from tracing the practical developments of modes of governance in
Western post-industrialized, the studies of governance can also be
construed from the theoretical perspectives that have emerged and
consolidated in the recent decades. For examples, the meta-governance
perspectives, the interactive governance perspective, the polycentric
governance perspective, the New Public Service (NPS) perspective.
1. The Metagovernance Perspective:
a. The deliberation of conception and theory of governance in the past
thirty years has resulted in constituting three distinct modes of
governance within the field of public administration and policy. They
are
- Hierarchy (Old Public Administration or the Westminster- Whitehall
tradition);
- Market (New Public Management), and
- Network governance.
In the course of history during the developments of these three
typical modes of governance, each seemed to be in succession and
replacement of the others. They more or less seemed to exist in
contending or even conflicting manner. However, since the 1990s
several researchers in governance study have put forth ideas about
the complementary combinations of the three. For examples
- In early 1990s Bradach and Eccles proposed to combine the
three ideal types (in their terms money, authority and trust) into
“plural forms” (1991).
- The concept of “metagoverance” was first coined by Bob Jessop
to underline the idea of “coordinating different forms of
governance and ensuring a minimal coherence among them.”
(1997, P. 7)
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b. The conceptualization of the idea of “metagovernance”:
i. The literal meaning of the prefix “meta” refers to “beyond or
higher”, hence the notion metagovernance can simply be
construed as that of “beyond governance” or as Bob Jessop
indicates, it is something “supervenient on that of governance.”
(Jessop, 2011, P. 106)
ii. The development and formulation of the concept of
metagovernance in fact signifies the research efforts in the field
have elevated to a more general and comprehensive level.
Instead of concentrating on depicting features of specific modes
of governance, researchers of the field have attempted to
synthesize how different modes of governance are blended
together in the reality of political practices.
iii. Accordingly, Bob Jessop has defined the notions of governance
in much more general terms. He writes, “Governance refers to
the structures and practices involved in coordinating social
relations that are marked by complex, reciprocal
interdependence, and metagovernance refers in turn to the
coordination of these structures and practices.” (Jessop, 2011,
P. 108)
iv. More specifically, Louis Meuleman defines the term
metagovernance as follow.
“Metagovernance is a means by which to produce some degree
of coordinated governance, by designing and managing sound
combinations of hierarchical, market and network governance,
to achieve the best possible outcomes from the viewpoint of
those responsible for the performance of public-sector
organizations: public managers as ‘metagovernors’”.
(Meuleman, 2008, P. 68)
v. Meuleman has constructed a conceptual framework of
governance and metagovernance as follow:
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Source: Fig.5 Governance and metagovernance (Meuleman, 2008, P. 74)
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2. The Inactive-governance perspective:
a. In line with the perspective of metgovernance and the European
tradition (most notably the Dutch School and the Cologue School)
Jan Kooiman, a Dutch scholar, argues that
“Governance of and in modern societies is a mix of all kind of
governing efforts by all manner of social-political actors, public as
well as private; occurring between them at different levels, in
governance modes and orders. These mixes are societal
‘responses’ to persistent and changing governing ‘demand’, set
against ever societal diversity, dynamics and complexity.” (Kooiman,
2003, P. 3)
b. Definition of interactive governance: Kooiman defines the term
governance as “the whole of interactions taken to solve societal
problems and to create opportunities, including the formulation and
application of principles guiding those interactions and care for
institutions that enable and control them.” (Kooiman et al. 2005, P.
17)
c. The conceptual framework of interactive governance: Jan Kooiman
and his collaborators have formulated several sets of concepts into
helping them to analyze different dimensions of a system of
interactive governance. They include
i. Core features of the system
ii. Elements of governance
iii. Modes of governance
iv. Intention-structure interactions
v. Governance orders
Source: Kooiman et al., 2008, P. 6
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d. The conception of governance orders: Among the conceptual tools
within Kooiman’s framework, the conception of governance orders
is the most oft-quoted. Kooiman has in fact differentiated the
governance orders into three types. They are
i. 1st order: It refers to the capacities that a governance system
can generate in solving problems and/or creating opportunities.
It basically depends on the rational (instrumental rational)
foundation of a governance system
ii. 2nd order: It refers to the institutional foundation of a
governance system. More specifically, it refers to the capacities
that a governance system can “institutionalize” the
problem-solving and opportunity-creating capacities into stable
and sustainable “rule of the game”.
iii. 3rd order (the meta order): It refers to the capacities of
integrating the diverse, complex and dynamic parts (elements,
modes, …) of a governance system together by means of
values, norms and principles. It basically constitutes the
legitimation basis and normative foundation of a governance
system.
3. The polycentric governance perspective:
a. Elinor Ostrom, the Nobel laureate in economics in 2009, in her
Nobel Prize Lecture entitled “Beyond Markets and States:
Polycentric Governance of Complex Economic Systems”, she
reviews her five-decade career of studying institutions and
governance by presenting the “polycentric governance” model,
which she and her husband Vincent Ostrom develop.
b. The conception of the polycentric governance: Elinor Ostroms
began the construction of the perspective of polycentric governance
by contrasting it with the two dominant models in political economy,
namely the state and market:
Conception of
individual
Conception of
goods
Conception of
optimal
organization
Monocentric Governance
Hierarchy
Market
Single conception of individual:
Economic man
Public goods
Private goods
Single optimal
organization:
the State
Single optimal
organization:
the Market
Polycentric
Governance
Multi-conception
of individual
Multi-conception
of goods
Multiple optimal
organizations:
the IAD model
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c. Classification of goods: Elinor Ostrom modify the dual classification
of goods into four types
Subtractability of use
High
Low
High
Common-pool
Public goods: Peace
Difficulty of
Resources:
& security of a
excluding
Groundwater basins, community, national
potential
lakes, irrigation
defence, knowledge,
beneficiaries
system, fisheries,
fire protection, wealth
forests, etc.
forecasts, etc.
Low
Private goods: Food, Tolls goods:
clothing, automobiles, Theaters, private
etc.
club, daycare centres
(Source: Ostrom, 2014, P. 172)
d. The Institutional Analysis Development (IAD) model: Elinor Ostrom
has developed throughout her career a governing model for
distributing Common Pool Resource (CPR) by means of empirical
field work and laboratory experiments. The major findings of her
research efforts are recorded in her book Governing the Commons
(1990). She has worked out the process of constituting the
governance of the commons by means of the Institutional Analysis
Development (IAD) model.
i. Three tiers of conceptual units in the IAD model
- the action arena,
- the exogenous variables, and
- the interaction patterns and their outcomes
(Source: Ostrom, 2005, P. 15)
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ii. The internal structure of the action situation: With an action
situation, Ostrom has further differentiated seven components.
(Source: Ostrom, 2005, P. 33)
iii. The rules of the game: As an action arena has been
substantiated through time, “rules” may develop within each of
the seven components of the action situation. As a result, an
action arena and its situation will be institutionalized into a
regular, sustainable and resilient institution.
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(Source: Ostrom, 2005, P. 189)
e. Poly-centricity and complexity: At the end of her Nobel Prize Lecture,
Elinor Ostrom concluded her fifty-year intellectual journey by
underlining that
“The most important lesson for public policy analysis derived from
the intellectual journey I have outlined here is that humans have a
more complex motivational structure and more capacity to solve
social dilemmas than posited in the early rational-choice theory.
Designing institutions to force (or nudge) entirely self-interest
individuals to achieve better outcomes has been the major goal
posited by policy analysts for governments to accomplish for much
of the past half century. Extensive empirical research leads me to
argue instead, a core goal of public policy should be to facilitate the
development of institutions that bring out the best in humans. We
need to ask how diverse polycentric institutions help or hinder the
innovativeness, learning, adapting, trustworthiness, level of
cooperation of participants, and the achievement of more effective,
equitable, and sustainable outcomes at multiple scales.
“To explain the world of interactions and outcomes occurring at
multiple levels, we also have to be will to deal with complexity
instead of rejecting it. ….(W)e must continue to improve our
frameworks and theories so as to be able to understand complexity
and not to reject it.” (Ostrom, 2014, P. 197)
4. The New Public Service (NPS) perspective:
a. Normative debate on the governance perspectives: Apart from the
modification of the structure and dynamics of the model of
governance among the European scholars, on the other side of the
Atlantic a debate on the normative foundation of governance took
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place in the early 2000s. Robert Denhardt and Janet V. Denhardt
took issue with the idea entrepreneurial government made popular
by David Osbornt and Ted Gaebler’s best seller Reinventing
Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit is Transforming the
Public Sector (1992).
b. Seven principles of New Public Service: Set against the “ten
principles of entrepreneurial government” advocated by Osbornt
and Gaebler (1992), Denhardt and Denhardt put forth seven
principles for the reform of public administration and policy for the
21st century. (Denhardt and Denhardt, 2000, 2002, 2015)
i. “Serve, rather than steer: An increasingly important role of the
public servant is to help citizens articulate and meet their
shared interest, rather than to attempt to control or steer society
in new directions.
ii. The public interest is the aim, not the by-product: Public
administration must contribute to building a collective, shared
notion of the public interest. The goal is not to find quick solution
driven by individual choice. Rather, it is the creation of shared
interests and shared responsibility.
iii. Think strategically, act democratically: Policies and programs
meeting public needs can be most effectively and responsibly
achieved through collective efforts and collaborative processes.
iv. Serve citizens, not customers: The public interest result from
dialogue about shared values, rather than the aggregation of
individual self-interests. Therefore, public servants do not
merely respond to the demands of “customers,” but focus on
building relationships of trust and collaboration with and among
citizens.
v. Accountability isn’t simple: Pubic servants should be attentive to
more than the market; they should also attend to statutory and
constitutional law, community values, political norms,
professional standards, and citizen interests.
vi. Value people, not just productivity: Public organizations and the
networks in which they participate are more likely to succeed in
the long run if they are operated through processes of
collaboration and shared leadership based on respect for all
people.
vii. Value citizenship and public service above entrepreneurship:
The public interest is better advanced by public servants and
citizens committed to making meaningful contributions to
society rather than by entrepreneurial managers acting as if
public money were their own.” (Denhardt & Denhardt, 2000, Pp.
549-559)
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Additional references
Bradach, Jeffrey L. and Robert G. Eccles (1991): Price, authority and trust:
from ideal types to plural forms. Pp. 277-292. In: Thompson et al. (eds.)
Markets, Hierarchies and Networks: Coordination of Social Life. London:
Sage.
Jessop, Bob (1997). Capitalism and its Future: Remarks on Regulation,
Government and Governance. Review of International Political Economy,
Vol.4, No. 3, Pp. 561-581.
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