Suchergebnisse

What defines a good civil servant is not self-evident. In fact, when you ask civil servants what it means "to be a good civil servant" and "to do a good job," you receive differing responses based on the various values that guide the way each individual approaches their job. The differing values can be traced to well-established perspectives in the literatures of public administration, governance, and political science. Each perspective defines "good government" and "being a good civil servant" in different ways, elevating differing values in the process. These perspectives are institutionalized and internalized in the present-day reality of public administration. Therefore, a present-day civil servant works amid a variety of competing perspectives about what "good government" and "being a good civil servant" mean. It is interesting how various perspectives on "good governance" and "being a good civil servant" play out in the working-practice of civil servants: How do values from the various governance perspectives guide the practical actions of civil servants? To answer this question, we conducted a research project to look for patterns in the values that guide the work of civil servants. We distinguished four governance perspectives from literature on governance. We translated these four governance perspectives into typical value statements that guide practical action, and used Q-methodology to survey civil servants with these perspectives as options. We found four distinct profiles of combined values that apparently guide the practical actions of civil servants. The profiles help us better understand the variety of values that guide practical actions of civil servants.

This article compares views of policy officials and members of community-based collectives on the ideal role of government in processes of community self-organization. By using Q methodology, we presented statements on four different governance perspectives: traditional public administration, New Public Management, network governance, and self-governance. Perceptions differ about how government should respond to the trend of community self-organization and, in particular, about the primacy of the relationship. Whereas some public servants and collectives favor hands-off involvement of policy officials, others show a preference for a more direct and interactive relation between government and community-based collectives. In general, neither of the two groups have much appreciation for policy instruments based on performance indicators, connected to the New Public Management perspective or strong involvement of politicians, connected the traditional public administration perspective. This article contributes to the discussion of how practitioners see and combine governance perspectives and serve to enable dialogs between practitioners.

Public audit is in transition. On the one hand, professional organizations claim it is time 'to break out' and develop new roles for auditors that 'add more value'. On the other hand, critics are concerned about public sector accountability deficits necessitating more control and urging auditors to hold on to their traditional role.This article discusses tensions and relevance between these positions and their implications for auditing in government. The article will help policy-makers in their strategic decision-making on the role and focus of internal audit in government.

Parmi les rares conclusions rigoureuses de la littérature consacrée aux politiques publiques, on trouve le fait que la dynamique politique est à la fois une fonction de stabilité et de volatilité. Et bien que la plupart des théories relatives à la politique publique postulent que la survenue de moments critiques politiques constitue une condition nécessaire à un changement d'envergure, les études qui cherchent à démêler l'écheveau des mécanismes sous-jacents de ces moments critiques demeurent relativement rares. Le présent article développe l'hypothèse selon laquelle ces moments critiques, généralement considérés comme des vecteurs de changements d'envergure, impliquent pour l'essentiel une causalité commune. Nous montrons que les forces du changement ont une nature commune et qui les renforce mutuellement à l'aide d'une étude de cas axée sur la réglementation relative aux primes. Le présent article, qui se base sur une analyse documentaire et une analyse de programme politique, démontre que la plupart des changements de la règlementation relative aux primes étaient marginaux. Nous soutenons que la nature intrinsèquement attrayante de la récompense des performances, combinée à une totale absence d'alternatives soutenues par une coalition forte et visant à modérer l'appétit du risque sur les marchés financiers, semble jouer un rôle dans la résilience des pratiques en matière de primes. En théorie, l'étude de cas contribue au développement de la théorie de la causalité commune qui entraîne des changements politiques majeurs. Sur le mode empirique, elle expose un mécanisme clé utilisé par le secteur financier pour résister aux réformes : proposer une alternative que personne ne peut refuser. Remarques à l'intention des praticiens La littérature relative à la politique exprime un vaste consensus quant au fait que les changements politiques résultent généralement de forces multiples. Nous identifions cette causalité commune des changements politiques et suggérons que parmi les forces du changement, une alternative politique forte capable d'unir une vaste coalition de parties prenantes constitue une condition nécessaire à un changement politique. Il est donc peu probable que les réformes financières, et plus spécifiquement la pratique des primes, soient moins le résultat d'une réglementation stricte que d'alternatives réelles pour récompenser l'excellence professionnelle et réduire l'appétit du risque.

Nowadays, media and media logic have become important and inherent elements in everyday practices of public administration and policy making. However, the logic of the media is often very different from, and conflicting with, the logic of political and administrative life. So the question of how public managers experience and deal with media attention is more relevant than ever. An analytical sketch of the literature on the relationship between public managers and media provides three main categories of literature (public relations, agenda, and mediatization tradition). These three categories are used to develop statements (so-called Q-sort statements) to capture the way public managers experience their relationship with the media. A group of managers involved in oversight then sorted these statements into order of preference. The research reveals three different groups of managers who show different attitudes to media attention and whom we have labeled as adaptors, great communicators, and fatalists.

One of the few robust findings in the public policy literature is that policy dynamics are both a function of stability and volatility. And although most theories of public policy making posit the occurrence of policy junctures as necessary conditions for significant change, studies that set out to unravel the underlying mechanisms of such policy junctures remain relatively rare. This article further develops the idea of policy junctures, commonly hypothesized to initiate significant change, as essentially entailing joint causation. We illustrate the joint and reinforcing nature of forces of change with a case study of bonus regulation. Based on document analysis and a political claim analysis, this article shows that most changes in bonus regulation were of a marginal nature. We argue that the intrinsically attractive nature of performance rewards that a bonus practice entails combined with a sheer lack of alternatives supported by a strong coalition on how to curb risk appetite in financial markets seem to count for the resilience of bonus practices. Theoretically, the case study contributes to theory development on joint causation that causes major policy change. Empirically, it unravels a key mechanism employed by the financial sector to resist reforms: offering an alternative no one can refuse. Points for practitioners There is a broad consensus in the policy literature that policy change usually results from multiple forces. We identify this crucial jointly causal nature of policy change and suggest that among the forces of change a strong policy alternative capable of uniting a broad coalition of stakeholders is a necessary condition for policy change. Financial reforms, in particular the practice of bonus payment, are thus not likely to result from tight regulation, but rather from real alternatives on how to reward professional excellence and curb risk appetite.

This article looks at policy failure in systems that rely on highly autonomous organizations to deliver the services promised in the policy programs. We argue that in order to better understand success and failure in such systems, the existing categories of policy failure and organizational failure do not suffice. Therefore, we look at the ability of agents assigned to that task to effectively act in the relation in-between the system level and the level of individual organizations. This brings to the fore another type of failure – governance failure – the inability of a policy system to timely detect and asses looming failure in individual parts. It is helpful to apply a lens of interactive complexity to these systems and to look at causal loops rather than causal lines. We apply this perspective to a case of the Inspectorate of Education, to study how it dealt with three cases of looming failure in schools. The perspective of causal loops helped the Inspectorate to understand in hindsight how two schools collapsed, and it was then used proactively to intervene in a third school. The paper helps practitioners to better deal with failure in layered policy and sets an agenda for further research into the use of circular dynamics for policy analysis and intervention.

This article looks at policy failure in systems that rely on highly autonomous organizations to deliver the services promised in the policy programs. We argue that in order to better understand success and failure in such systems, the existing categories of policy failure and organizational failure do not suffice. Therefore, we look at the ability of agents assigned to that task to effectively act in the relation in-between the system level and the level of individual organizations. This brings to the fore another type of failure – governance failure – the inability of a policy system to timely detect and asses looming failure in individual parts. It is helpful to apply a lens of interactive complexity to these systems and to look at causal loops rather than causal lines. We apply this perspective to a case of the Inspectorate of Education, to study how it dealt with three cases of looming failure in schools. The perspective of causal loops helped the Inspectorate to understand in hindsight how two schools collapsed, and it was then used proactively to intervene in a third school. The paper helps practitioners to better deal with failure in layered policy and sets an agenda for further research into the use of circular dynamics for policy analysis and intervention.

When designing and implementing policies, policy makers usually assume linear, proportionate causation between interventions and consequences. Yet frequently unexpected consequences occur that seem unintended and disproportionate. This article argues that interventions are more appropriately understood as loops, not lines. System dynamics shows that causes and consequences interact in circular patterns, creating unexpected outcomes and self-reinforcing mechanisms. Some loops are vicious, causing deterioration of the situation, others are virtuous, propelling self-sustaining improvements that exceed original intentions. The article illustrates the circular approach to causality by applying it to interventions aimed at the improvement of the performance of primary schools in the Netherlands.