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- Convenor:
-
Pablo Yanguas
(University of Manchester)
- Location:
- Room 10 (Examination Schools)
- Start time:
- 12 September, 2016 at
Time zone: Europe/London
- Session slots:
- 2
Short Abstract:
The public sector remains an inescapable component of development. Moving beyond the limited agenda of public sector reform, this interdisciplinary panel addresses public sector transformation as a contentious and transnational process of organisational and political change.
Long Abstract:
The public sector remains an inescapable component of development policy, whether as an instrument of regulation, service delivery, redistribution or recognition. In an increasingly transnationalized world, public servants face a complex landscape of interactions with political regimes, civil society, the private sector, international organisations, academia, and their professional peers across the world; actors who advance competing agendas about how the public sector should think and behave, about what policy domains it should oversee or release. Moving beyond the relatively technocratic contours of the public sector reform agenda, this panel addresses the broader politics of public sector transformation: the everyday contestation of institutions, the resilience of organisational cultures, the role of policy entrepreneurs, or the growth of epistemic networks that blur the boundaries between state, society and regime. In so doing, the panel seeks to bring together theoretical contributions from political economy, contentious politics, organisation sociology, development administration, history, critical theory and international relations, harkening back to a time before academic disciplinary boundaries sequestered the study of public administration from politics and sociology. These theoretical contributions will be explored through empirical narratives of change and contestation from across the global South, from fragile countries with weak public institutions all the way to emerging economic powerhouses struggling with persistent informal legacies. The panel will place a particular emphasis on contributions addressing one or more of the following analytical sub-themes: Public entrepreneurs, Organisational change, Formal and informal institutions, Discourses about the state, Public sector advocacy, and Transnational influences.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Paper short abstract:
This paper, using recent data, applies an alternative approach to doing institutional and political economy analysis with the objective of showing how these can be carried out to strengthen public sector reforms that in accordance with the emerging donor policy paradigm
Paper long abstract:
Institutions are conventionally conceived as rules independent of human agency, an assumption that has guided public sector reforms for years. Institutions are the independent variables causing changes in human behaviour.
An alternative way of studying institutions is experiental. It acknowledges that living under rules implies living through them: institutions are living mechanisms imbued with human will-power. This approach has a long intellectual pedigree dating back to John Dewey and includes also Pierre Bourdieu. Here institutional stability is not the default position. Institutions often go "off track" because people work through these structures. Restoring order takes creative action by those inside. (See Berk and Galvan, Theory and Society 38:543-80).
This approach is relevant for ongoing revisions of reform strategy that prioritise "working with the grain" (Levy 2014), i.e. starting with what is already on the ground rather than importing preconceived design packages. This emerging strategy calls for new approaches to institutional and political economy analysis as precursors to programme designs, acknowledging that politics drive reforms (Khan 2010) and success relies on understanding normative and cognitive structures in which interventions are made (Andrew 2013).
The paper draws on data from recent evaluations of donor-funded capacity development programmes and a study of Sida's support to public institutions in the 2000s. Using the approach proposed above, it will examine the data with a view to suggesting how institutional and political settlement analysis can make reforms more effective.
Paper short abstract:
This paper outlines an emerging and distinct public sector reform and management paradigm in policy and academia, which focuses very much on the individual and their intrinsic or internal psychological drivers, rather than on systems and extrinsic rewards.
Paper long abstract:
With policy problems that are complex, involve multiple actors, and cut across policy arenas and political boundaries, there is a need for public management approaches which can address this. I argue that there is an emerging and distinct paradigm, in academia and policy, which builds on existing approaches but focuses very much on the individual, both those within public bureaucracies and non-bureaucrats engaged in public service. This nascent paradigm focuses on intrinsic or internal psychological drivers, rather than on systems and extrinsic rewards. It builds on psychological theories of motivation, in particular the concept of public service motivation; social identity; and values. Reform suggestions include: pay structures that do not crowd out those with high intrinsic motivation; allowing autonomy to craft solutions; a supportive social environment; and leadership which emphasises the public and social value of work. For researchers there is a need to embrace a pluralist research agenda which identifies universal drivers of motivation for public service but also the values within a specific context that give rise to public service in that instance. While not a comprehensive framework, this turn to the individual provides a new lens through which to understand public service and public management, and new tools with which to promote them.
Paper short abstract:
This essay advances insights into the idea of ‘relational leadership’ and what it might portend for public sector transformation in DCs. It examines the politics of trust in policy decision-making in a developing context and argues that public leadership should be a relationship-based social process
Paper long abstract:
This paper provides new thinking on public sector leadership that recognizes the complexities and contextual dynamics of public sector governance and reform management in a developing context. Drawing on the relational state theory of Mulgan (2012), this essay advances critical insights into the idea of 'relational leadership' and what it might portend for public sector organisational change in developing countries (DCs). The paper examines the politics of trust and the dynamics of power relations in public leadership in a developing country's context and argues that leadership in the public sector should be a relationship-based social process. The relational form of public leadership proposed in this essay, critiques traditional bureaucratic public administration and the New Public Management (NPM) perspective. In particular, the paper explores the limitations of hierarchy and plurality associated with both approaches, highlighting the need to understand the influence of power relations and networks on public sector governance and leadership in developing countries. The case for a shift in focus to relationships reflects changes in the wider global political economy, and is presented as an inevitable consequence of new and complex multi-faceted policy problems facing the public service, especially in DCs, which arguably require a heterodox and context-sensitive response from public leaders and greater collaboration among key stakeholders. Overall, the overarching purpose of this essay is more to stimulate debates around leadership competencies needed to successfully lead bureaucratic change and tackle emerging complex policy problems in DCs, than to provide a best practice model for public leadership.
Paper short abstract:
This multi-level ethnography of the Zambian health system illustrates the importance of top-down accountability, and how it has emerged in a historically neglected sector. Maternal health care indicators are prioritised when they are benchmarked, at district and national levels.
Paper long abstract:
This multi-level ethnography of the Zambian health system illustrates the importance of top-down accountability, and how it has emerged in a historically neglected sector. Maternal health care indicators are prioritised when they are benchmarked, at district and national levels. The realisation that Zambia was lagging behind African countries making progress towards MDG 5 (to reduce the maternal mortality ratio by three quarters) appears to have invoked reputational concerns and revealed inspirational possibilities. Growing prioritisation also stems from a change in incentives, with some partner funding being conditional on the proportion of deliveries attended by skilled health personnel.
Paper short abstract:
Drawing from the policy transfer theory, in considering the process of adoption of social protection in Kenya, the paper brings new evidence on the mechanisms of transfer that have been employed by international actors in influencing the adoption of the cash transfer programmes.
Paper long abstract:
In most of sub-Saharan Africa, the adoption of social protection has been driven by transnational actors. Previous studies on social protection in Africa have however largely focused on impact, design, fiscal space and sustainability of the programmes with little understanding on the dynamics of their adoption. For this reason, there remains a paucity of evidence in understanding the dynamics of transfer and adoption of social protection on the continent. Through a qualitative case study approach, this paper investigates the role and mechanisms used by transnational actors in promoting the adoption of social protection, in particular cash transfer programmes. The paper draws from the policy transfer theory in considering the process of adoption of the Cash Transfer for Orphans and Vulnerable Children (CT-OVC) and the Hunger Safety Net Programme (HSNP) in Kenya. The study provides new evidence on the mechanisms of transfer employed by various international actors in influencing the adoption of the programmes. Previous discussions on policy transfer research in developing countries has focused on either voluntary or coercive mechanisms. However, this paper argues that transnational actors employ a combination of mechanisms in influencing the uptake of social protection and examines them through a continuum, ranging from voluntary (learning) to soft coercion.
Key words: social protection, transnational actors, policy transfer, mechanisms of transfer
Paper short abstract:
This paper discusses the interests and strategies of local politicians in the design and delivery of public goods to urban dwellers. These strategies are seen as specific responses to contest and shape the hegemonic structure of their municipal government which is dominated by the central regime.
Paper long abstract:
The municipal government of Kumasi, like numerous others in Ghana, has autonomous powers to make laws and reform their structures to regulate local economic and development activities. Municipal political reforms seek to improve their local policy-making processes, governance and delivery of public goods to the city's dwellers. Yet, the institutional reforms have also spurred strategic reactions from local actors who exploit institutional ambiguities to pursue their local political interests. This paper, drawing on empirical data and the institutional concept of 'entrepreneurs', shows how actors with local political interests exploit legislative ambiguities to establish themselves as institutional entrepreneurs emboldened to contest the hegemonic structure of the local state which is manipulated by the central state. However, these manipulations by central state politicians, which are reactions to processes from the international development system, make the municipal government's promise of reforms that deliver efficient public policy in the city particularly difficult. Management of public goods and services becomes a contested field for bureaucrats and political actors all vying for their interests in the city's political landscape. This renders the city government less capable of delivering the expectations of constituents because the institutional changes appear mainly as 'business as usual' with new rules.