Koen Verhoest

Machinery of Government and Policy Capacity: The Effects of Specialization and Coordination

The machinery of government and its organization stems from the division of labour and specialization between its units and the coordination between them. Based on a multiple-country study on specialization and coordination in the public sector, this chapter develops three arguments on the effect of specialization and coordination on the policy capacity of governments. First, a comparative static analysis based on empirical observations of three countries shows that the new public management-based specialization and fragmentation of the governmental apparatus during the 1980s and early 1990s was followed and complemented by the introduction of new or revised coordination instruments. These coordination mechanisms may be classified as hierarchy-type mechanisms, market-type mechanisms or network-type mechanisms.

Lessons and Recommendations for the Practice of Agencification

The previous chapters have provided an overview of agencification in 29 countries and one supranational organization. The authors have demonstrated that there is large variety in both the types of agencies and in experiences with agency creation over time. These experiences can now be used to draw some lessons and formulate recommendations that governments may use to improve their decisions about the creation and governance of agencies.

Introduction: Reforming Public Sector Organizations

New Public Management (NPM) assumes that task specialization results in efficiency gains (Hood 1991). Following this logic governments have structurally disaggregated major monolithic public sector organizations into smaller parts, with some degree of autonomy. Since the 1980s, this has been visible in the increase in decentralization and devolution, as well as in a clear expansion of the types and numbers of autonomous agencies. Two other changes in the political-administrative system occurred at the same time. First, the split between politics and administration was re-emphasized; secondly, the different phases in the policy cycle, i.e. policy design, policy implementation and policy evaluation, were organizationally split (Bouckaert et al. 2010).

Special Issue on ‘Welfare governance reforms and effects in the Post-Golden Age’

Since the early 1980s, when the ‘Golden Age’ of welfare capitalism is widely held to have peaked, the delivery arrangements of social provision in Europe have considerably changed. The delivery configuration has generally shifted away from the State as the exclusive provider of welfare services and geared towards a mixed economy of welfare, namely the horizontal mix between public, private and voluntary sectors. This has been particularly prominent in the United Kingdom and liberal welfare state regimes, but certainly not confined to them. This type of welfare state change has created turbulence to traditional institutional and organizational arrangements, as they emerged and were consolidated in the post-war years. New actors and organizations have become involved in social policy implementation and delivery, and old actors have been exposed to unprecedented challenges of co-governance in the mixed economy of welfare. Moreover, managerialist reforms were introduced which aimed to bring more managerial autonomy to service providers, and simultaneously to increase external pressures for performance. These pressures stem from an increased demand for performance accountability driven by measurable outcomes, a more intensive use of market-like incentives and choice (Le Grand 2007) and from more involvement of customers by giving them greater ‘voice’. This Special Issue analyses such governance reforms pertaining to social provision on a European scale, accounting for the effects of different welfare regimes, often underestimated by the public management scholarly debate. Three policy domains are covered in this volume. They are health care, higher education and elderly care. The issue presents new empirical data from countries also with different politicoadministrative cultures, legal traditions, and welfare regimes. They are Denmark, Norway, the United Kingdom (more specifically, England), Germany, France and the Netherlands. Limited empirical attention has been paid to the internal and external effects of governance reforms on social provision and delivery of welfare services in a

Chapter 4 Reforms of Central Government Coordination in OECD-Countries: Culture as Counterforce For Cross-National Unifying Processes?

A well-coordinated public sector is often considered to be of major importance, but at the same time it appears to be a huge challenge. Public sector reforms struggling with the coordination conundrum are numerous and countries display a certain dynamic in their adoption of coordination instruments throughout time. On the one hand, it is sensible to presume that – to a certain extent – countries are stimulated to adopt similar coordination instruments, because of isomorphic processes induced by factors such as the spread of the new public management line of thought or the multiplication of exchanges of good practices at an international level. On the other hand, culture-linked elements might have an important role to play in explaining idiosyncrasies. By examining the conceptual link between coordination and culture through an empirical analysis for four counties (UK, New Zealand, France, and Sweden), it is the aim of this chapter to explore the relevance of culture for understanding coordination trajectories of individual countries.

Belgium and Its Regions

For a long time, Belgium was a consensual and pillarized society with a history of coalition governments. It has a strong administrative law and Rechtstaat tradition, and the basic traits of its administrative system refer to the Napoleonic tradition. The senior level of public managers in its administration is heavily politicized. Since the 1970s, the Belgian unitary state became increasingly subjected to a federalization process, resulting in a federal state with a complicated internal structure. Basically, there are two main member regions—Flanders and Wallonia— with the Brussels region and the German community having a specific position. In particular, most domestic service-delivery functions at the federal level have been moved to the regional governments. In this text, we not only discuss agencification at the federal level, but also consider the diverging practices at the Flemish and Walloon levels.

Specialization and Fragmentation in Regulatory Regimes

In recent years, the regulation literature has reported a marked increase in the complexity of regulation. New regulatory organizations have emerged as a result of the hiving off of tasks from existing organizations (Jordana and Levi-Faur 2004). First, specialized regulators have been created in multiple sectors (Christensen and Laegreid 2006). Secondly, authority has been dispersed from central states towards multiple levels of government. National states delegated authority to subnational (e.g. regions) and supranational levels. These new organizations have not entirely replaced the old ones, which led to an accumulation of institutions.

The Interaction between Agencies, Networks, and the European Commission in Emerging Regulatory Constellations: A Comparative Analysis of the European Telecom Sector and the European Patent System

Abstract Purpose Many European-level networks and regulatory constellations in different sectors (e.g., energy, telecommunications) without clear anchorage into the European Union (EU) institutional landscape have been subject to increasing efforts by the EU institutions to tie them closer to the EU. They are serving increasingly as platforms for preparing EU policy or for implementing EU decisions, which may result in closer institutional bonds with the EU. This chapter aims at examining the differences and similarities between the process towards more EU-integration in two different domains (i.e., telecommunications and patents) and regulatory constellations (i.e., supranational and intergovernmental). Methodology/approach The chapter analyzes the evolution in the European telecommunication sector and the European Patent System and juxtaposes this analysis with the literature on institutionalization, Europeanization of regulatory network-organizations, and multilevel governance (MLG). It focuses on the role of the European Commission and the interaction with the national regulatory agencies (NRAs) and networks within the institutional framework. Findings Irrespective of the particular regime (intergovernmental/supranational) in a certain domain or sector, a common trend of closer coordination and integration prompted by the Commission is taking place, which triggers a certain resistance by the national bodies regulating that domain. As long as a specific competence is considered instrumental in the creation of the single market, the Commission has strong incentives to strengthen its influence in this field, even if those competences have been regulated through an independent intergovernmental regime. Research implications The dynamic described in this chapter allows us to reflect upon the MLG conception as developed by Marks and Hooghe (2004), which distinguish between two types of MLG. Type I MLG refers to different levels of governments, more specifically to the spread of power along different governmental levels and the interactions between them. Type II MLG refers to jurisdictions that are both task-specific and based on membership that can intersect with each other. They respond to particular problems in specific policy fields (Marks & Hooghe, 2004). Our analysis shows that the increase in coordination and integration are the outcome of both MLG Type II processes (coordination between two issue-specific bodies) and of MLG Type I processes (tensions between two governmental levels). Furthermore, the negotiation dynamics regarding this increased coordination and integration reveal that the tensions typical of MLG Type I took place as a consequence of the increased coordination between Type II bodies. Put differently, multi-level coordination and integration mechanisms in the EU can be seen as both Type I and Type II processes. They combine features of both categories and reveal that their Type I and Type II features are interdependent. Practical implications The analysis in this chapter shows a need for further strengthening the MLG Type I and II conceptual framework by balancing the analytical distinction between the two types with developments about how Type I and Type II are often entangled and intertwined with each other rather than separated realities. Social implications The chapter describes and compares the dynamics in the European telecommunications sector and the European patent system with interesting observations for NRAs and the European Commission with respect to coordination and integration. Originality/value The original nature of the current chapter relates to the two selected areas and the addition to the literature on MLG. First, with respect to the areas investigated the dynamics of the European telecommunications sector have been analyzed also by other authors, but the European patent system is an area which is relatively unexplored in terms of governance research. The combination of the two sectors with a detailed analysis of similarities and differences is highly original and generates interesting lessons with respect to coordination and integration in supranational and intergovernmental regimes. Second, Marks and Hooghe (2004) distinguish between the two types of MLG as if they are two different constructs that are not related to each other. Our cases and argument cover both types of MLG and show the interconnection between the dynamics taking place in the two types of MLG.

Autonomy and Decision-Making Power of Independent Regulatory Agencies in Multi-Level Arrangements

This chapter analyses to what extent and in what way the autonomy of independent sectoral regulators relates to the broader regulatory arrangement and to the concentration in terms of relative regulatory decision-making power of these sectoral IRAs. Theoretical/normative arguments based on credibility, legitimacy and administrative capacity support the claim that regulatory agencies that are very autonomous vis-a-vis government will have a stronger power in regulatory decision-making towards both government and other actors that are involved in the regulation of a specific market (Maggetti, 2009a; Majone, 2001). The theoretical reasoning is elaborated in Chapter 2.

Les deux faces de la réorganisation : La spécialisation et la coordination dans quatre pays de l'OCDE au cours de la période 1980 – 2005

L’on estime que la doctrine du nouveau management public a entraine, dans les annees 1980 et 1990, une desagregation et la fragmentation sous-optimale de l’Etat, rendant necessaire un renforcement de la capacite de coordination au moyen de nouveaux mecanismes hierarchiques, de mecanismes de marche et de mecanismes de reseau. Afin de verifier la validite de cette these, nous decrivons, dans le present article, la trajectoire qu’ont suivie quatre pays (Nouvelle-Zelande, Royaume-Uni, Suede et France) en matiere de specialisation et de coordination. Nos conclusions confirment cette hypothese, meme si des trajectoires differentes sont observees. Par ailleurs, les resultats font ressortir un regain d’interet pour la coordination fondee sur la hierarchie, mais aussi sur les marches et les reseaux.Remarques a l’intention des praticiens La specialisation et l’integration peuvent avoir une influence tres positive sur le fonctionnement du secteur public. Une adhesion excessive a l’une ou l’autre de ces approches engendre neanmoins des dysfonctionnements. Les gestionnaires disposent de toute une serie d’instruments pour imposer la coordination, mais ceux-ci s’alignent sur les cultures organisationnelles existantes ainsi que sur les ressources disponibles. Les questions de specialisation et de coordination portent sur les liens qui existent au sein du cycle strategique ainsi que dans la structure de l’Etat.