LIST OF PANELS

Governance, in modern states, is problematic, particularly in democratic institutional frameworks. Adding to ‘normal’ difficulties inherent to the complexity of steering multiple sets of institutions within public opinions shifts and legal frameworks boundaries, polities are strained by tensions and conflicts arising from the very nature of economic and social issues. States are under intense and recurrent demands, with limited state capacity and restricted options. Public administration is always under substantial stress and intense pressures. Good and bad government can be understood as “success” in key political arenas, or merely as political survival of a governing coalition.

Certainly many -if not all- of these problems are universal, as the present shows with some clarity. But they tend to become more dramatic in countries where life conditions of most citizens are considered either insufficiently decent or too unequal, therefore straining governance to higher levels of conflict, usually within less performant economic systems and lower levels of state autonomy and capacity. The central question the panel wishes papers to address is: Are there public management problems specific to this “developing world”? And if so, what, where and when?

The workshop evolves from the interest to continue the discussion started at the 2018 Pittsburgh workshop Bad Governance, State Capacity Deficits and Public Policy Management Problems in Developing Countries: What Do We Know? In that workshop, we received papers dealing with public policy analysis strategies capable of detecting state management issues during the “management-intense” phases of public policy design and implementation; as well as papers studying specific cases of “bad” or “unsuccessful” public management.

The rich discussion that ensued dealt with the reasons underlying low performances of state agencies in all sectors and levels of government; low, insufficient or unstable impacts, relative to public and expert expectations; and legally and/or ethically objectionable ways and procedures. Among many political scientists, these governance problems are likely to be attributed to “bad politics”, assuming the public policy process is a somewhat mechanical outcome of political arrangements and decisions. In other cases, they are attributed to “error”, assuming political regimes, governments and governing coalitions, or even specific figureheads, actually plan and implement strategies according to their interests and will.

Yet, for researchers interested in the organizational problems of public policy, and the meanders of decision-making and management, a challenging handful of question derives from cases of unsuccessful policies. Classical policy analysis defined “good” governance as timely and cost-efficient solutions to problems (Lasswell, 1951; Lindblom, 1959), although it was soon acknowledged that the very nature of problems -let alone the solutions- vary according to interests and cognitive maps (Wildavsky, 1979). Within the political regimes where policy sciences developed -democracies, or more precisely, “polyarchies” (Dahl, 1971)- a considerable variety of interests and cognitive maps are tolerated, as long as basic sets of rules are respected, essentially: the rights to do politics, to maintain free flows of information, and to avoid excessive concentration of political power. In such regimes, “good” needs to carry an acceptable degree of “common”.

Other public policy students directed their attention to “governance” and “state capacity”, as (more or less related) ideas capable of providing frameworks to answer questions about state performances and public policy results. At least since the provoking works of Michael Mann (1997, 1998, 2012 and 2013) comparative studies aimed at resuming Max Weber’s reasoning on states (1977), looking for keys to understand their success and failure as political organizations producing material and symbolic forms of power. If in Mann, infrastructural power is the effective combination of key sources of social power through political means (1997 and 2012), the question is how to get this combination, particularly when it does not seem to come out of contingency.

Some of these studies worked on the classical idea of “good government” (Rosanvallon, 2015) or “governance” (Mayntz), in at least two senses: the ways in which policies are conducted in arenas or political regimes where power is not concentrated (Bovens, t'Hart & Peters, 2001; Benz & Papadopoulos, 2006; Peters & Pierre, 2006; all drawing on numerous previous authors); or the ways in which problems affect state performance (Tobelem, 1992; Evans, 1995; Grindle, 1996; ibidem). Most studies in this direction tended to look, at the same time, at institutional and operational, political and administrative dimensions of public policy, and invited to look into (though not necessarily did) the actual implementation processes (Saetren, 2005).

On this issue of “public management”, within a relatively abundant literature (see Lynn, 2005 y 2006; and Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2004 y 2009; for general approaches), key debates tended to identify the specificity of public management (Barzelay, 1992); its changes through time (Hood, 1991; Frederickson, 1996); the problems of bureaucratic organizations that are, at the same time, subjects, stake-holders and objects of public policies (Moe, 1989; Olsen, 2005 and 2008); the issue of human resources, public service and civil service (Ingraham, 2005; Derlien & Peters, 2008); or the problem of inadequacy and obsolescence of public policy tools facing rapidly changing public problems (Dror, 2001).

Closer to our interests, Bovens, t'Hart y Peters (2001) searched for patterns of success and failure, for selected European countries, in what they labelled governance capacities. Isolating relevant public policy fields where national and European Union collided, they traced the way in which national state agencies intervened. Interestingly, they identified significant asymmetries in the assessment of “success” and “failure” to programmatic achievements (relative to the actual problems policies supposedly attacked) and to political achievements (relative to the perceptions the public had on such “attacks”). “Success” was to be used only if the asymmetry between these two assessments was low enough. Although none of the factors underlying success and failure found were common enough to establish general patterns capable, key factors found were institutional “embeddedness” or propension to negotiation and agreement between different sectors and levels of government (as in Evans, 2005); favourable contingency, as in “solutions finding problems” (Cohen, March & Olsen, 1989); “windows of opportunity (Kingdon, 2010); capacities in civil service (Cohen, 1993); and “advocacy coalitions” (Sabatier, 1998).

In the same direction, Martin Painter and Jon Pierre (2015) suggested to speak of policy capacity as the ability to adequately combine classical elements of state capacity, political and administrative, achieving governing capacities. While policy capacities depend on stocks of resources moving in essentially contingent ways, governing capacities generate and accumulate adequate quantities and qualities of resources, controlling flows and pointing them toward desired directions, thus producing the expected outputs and outcomes (Painter & Pierre, 2015: 3-4). The effectiveness of these governing capacities can be measured through performance indicators and normative criteria, and in so doing, research can point to instruments and tools that recurrently (although not systemtically or mechanically) orient flows in successful ways, and can become key support systems for governments.

The proposed panel wishes to continue this discussion focusing on cases coming from the developing world, around the following key questions. On what conceptual/normative basis do we speak of good and bad governance, and what is the specific role of public administration in it? Is there specificity in the developing world’s public administration issues, relative to “universal” state management problems? Are there patterns on which comparative studies can shed light, on developing countries public policy issues like inadequate strategic decision-making, or unethical management -corruption, in a wider sense? Are there frameworks of analysis that can be used to understand public administration issues in developing countries, regardless of sectors or political regimes?

References

Barzelay, Michael (1992): Breaking Through Breaucracy. A New Vision for Managing in Government; Berkeley, University of California Press.

Benz, Arthur & Papadopoulos, Yannis (editores) (2006): Governance and Democracy. Comparing national, European and international experiences; Routledge, New York.

Benz, Arthur & Papadopoulos, Yannis (2006): "Governance and Democracy: Concepts and Key Issues"; in Benz & Papadopoulos (op. cit.).

              Bovens, Mark; t'Hart, Peter & Peters, Guy (2001): "Analysing governance success and failure in six European states"; in Bovens, Mark; t'Hart, Peter & Peters, Guy (editores): Success and Failure in Public Governance: A Comparative Analysis; Edward Elgar, Cheltenham-Northampton.

Bresser-Pereira, Luiz Carlos (1977): Estado e Subdesenvolvimento Industrializado; Editora Brasiliense, São Paulo.

              Cohen, Michael; March, James & Olsen, Johan (1972): "A Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice"; in Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 17, N° 1.

              Cohen, Steven (1993): "Defining and Measuring Effectiveness in Public Management"; in Public Productivity & Management Review, Vol. 17, N° 1.

Dahl, Robert (1971): Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition; New Haven-London, Yale University Press.

              Derlien, Hans-Dietrich & Peters, Guy (2008): The State at Work; Volume 1: Public Sector Employment in Ten Western Countries; Edward Elgar, Cheltenham.

Dror, Yehezkel (2001): The Capacity to Govern. A Report to the Club of Rome; Frank Cass, London-Portland.

Evans, Peter (1995): Embedded Autonomy: States and Industrial Transformation; Princeton University Press.

Ferlie, Ewan; Lynn, Laurence Jr. & Pollitt, Christopher (editors) (2005): The Oxford Handbook of Public Management, Oxford University Press.

Frederickson, H. George (1996): "Comparing the Reinventing Government Movement with the New Public Administration"; in Public Administration Review, Vol. 56, No. 3.

Grindle, Merilee (1996): Challenging the State. Crisis and Innovation in Latin America and Africa; Cambridge University Press.

              Hood, Christopher (1991): "A Public Management for All Seasons?"; in Public Administration, Vol. 69.

              Ingraham, Patricia (2005): "Striving for Balance. Reforms in Human Resources Management"; in Ferlie et altrii (op. cit.).

              Kingdon, John (1995): Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies; Harper-Collins, Nueva York.

              Lasswell, Harold (1951): ‘The policy orientation’, in Lerner, Daniel & Lasswell, Harold (editores): The Policy Sciences; Stanford University Press.

              Lindblom, Charles (1959): “The science of 'muddling through'”; en Public Administration Review Vol. 19, N° 2.

Lynn, Laurence Jr. (2005): "Public Management: A Concise History of the Field"; in Ferlie et altrii (op. cit.).

              Lynn, Laurence Jr. (2006): Public Management: Old and New; New York & London, Routledge.

Mann, Michael (1997): The sources of social power. Volume I: A history of power from the beginning to AD 1760; Cambridge University Press [1986].

Mann, Michael (1998): The sources of social power. Volume II: The rise of classes and nation-states, 1760-1914; Cambridge University Press [1993].

Mann, Michael (2012): The sources of social power. Volume III: Global Empires and Revolution, 1890-1945; Cambridge University Press [1993].

Mann, Michael (2013): The sources of social power. Volume IV: Globalizations, 1945-2011; Cambridge University Press.

              March, James & Olsen, Johan (1989): Rediscovering Institutions: The Organizational Basis of Politics, Free Press, Nueva York.

              Mayntz, Renate (2006): “Governance en el Estado moderno” [2003]; in POSTData N° 11.

Moe, Terry (1989): “The Politics of Bureaucratic Structure”; in Chubb, John & Peterson, Paul (editores): Can the Government Govern?; Brookings Institution Press, Washington DC.

Olsen, Johan (2005): "Maybe It Is Time To Rediscover Bureaucracy"; in Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory N° 16.

Olsen, Johan (2008): "The Ups and Downs of Bureaucratic Organization"; in Annual Review of Political Science Vol. 11.

Painter, Martin y Pierre, Jon (2005): Challenges to State Policy Capacity. Global Trends and Comparative Perspectives; Houndmills, Palgrave-Macmillan.

Peters, Guy & Pierre, Jon (2006): "Governance, Accountability and Democratic Legitimacy"; in Benz & Papadopoulos (op. cit.).

Pollitt, Christopher & Bouckaert, Geert (2004): Public Management Reform: A Comparative Analysis; Oxford University Press.

Pollitt, Christopher & Bouckaert, Geert (2009): Continuity and Change in Public Policy and Management; Edward Elgar, Cheltenham.

Rosanvallon, Pierre (2015): Le bon gouvernement; Paris, Seuil.

              Sabatier, Paul (1998): "The Advocacy Coalition Framework: Revisions and

Relevance for Europe", in Journal of European Public Policy, Vol. 5, N° 1.
              Saetren, Harald (2005): "Facts and Myths about Research on Public Policy

Implementation: Out-of-Fashion, Allegedly Dead, But Still Very Much Alive and Relevant"; in Policy Studies Journal, Vol. 33, N° 4.

              Tobelem, Alain (1992): "Institutional Capacity Analysis and Development Systems (ICADS): Operational Manual"; World Bank LATP Occasional Papers N° 9, Washington DC.
              Weber, Max (1977): Economía y sociedad. Esbozo de sociología comprensiva [1922]; México, Fondo de Cultura Económica.
Wildavsky, Aaron (1979): Speaking Truth to Power: The Art and Craft of Policy Analysis; Little-Brown, Boston.

Governance, in modern states, is problematic, particularly in democratic institutional frameworks. Adding to ‘normal’ difficulties inherent to the complexity of steering multiple sets of institutions within public opinions acceptance and legal frameworks boundaries, polities are strained by tensions and conflicts arising from the very nature of economic and social issues. States are under intense and recurrent demands, with limited state capacity and restricted options. Public administration is always under substantial stress and intense pressures. Good and bad government can be understood as “success” in key political arenas, or merely as political survival of a governing coalition.

Certainly many -if not all- of these problems are universal, as the present shows with some clarity. But they tend to become more dramatic in countries where life conditions of most citizens are considered either insufficiently decent or too unequal, therefore straining governance to higher levels of conflict, usually within less performant economic systems and lower levels of state autonomy and capacity.

The panel welcomes papers addressing the following central question: Are there public management problems specific to the “developing world”? Within this wide area of questions, we wish to provide a place to discuss the following issues, as well as other reasonably related to them:

- Conceptual perspectives and discussions on bad governance and mismanagement in developing countries.

- Comparative and case studies of bad governance and mismanagement in developing countries crossing sectors, levels and regions.

- Conceptual perspectives and comparative studies addressing similarities and differences between bad governance and mismanagement in developing countries and the “developed” world.

- Analytical and research strategies capable of detecting state capacity deficits and/or public policy issues in developing countries.

- Studies aiming to trace the relationship between specific public management issues and political regimes.

We intend to organize the discussion around “key” subjects, so we encourage participants proposing papers to make efforts to reasonably adapt their current research production to these issues.