Leslie A. Pal

The globalized state: Measuring and monitoring governance

In the last 20 years, there has been an explosion of ‘governance indicators’ purporting to measure and track the quality of governance (especially public administration) among states. These indicators are sponsored by international agencies such as the World Bank, NGOs such as Transparency International and Freedom House, and private sector risk assessors. We argue that this web of standards marks a distinctive feature of globalized, if loose, coordination among states and an increase in monitoring and auditing functions. The article reviews the major governance indicators, their characteristics and limitations. We conclude that these indicators are a little noticed, but supremely powerful mechanism of discordant control and discipline on state systems around the world.

The Public Sector Reform Movement: Mapping the Global Policy Network

Abstract Public sector reform in both developed and developing countries has now become a routine matter of public policy—reform is almost continuous, if not always successful. While the role of international transfer agents such as the World Bank and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in promoting reforms has often been noted, there has been no comprehensive mapping of the global network on public sector reform. This article makes a first attempt to map the close to 100 organizations that make up a loose global network around public administration and governance. It then provides a brief history of the evolution of the network, and the key events that encouraged a substantial degree of coherence among its members. It examines the practices and tools that are specific to this global public policy network, and concludes with some observations on policy transfer models. The article shows that in trying to understand the dynamics of public administration reform, we need to pay greater attention to this network, its members, and its influence over national policy priorities.

Good Fences Make Good Neighbours Policy Evaluation and Policy Analysis – Exploring the Differences

Trying to build political dimensions into evaluation has blurred the distinction between policy analysis and policy evaluation. We do not dispute the importance of political context and values for evaluation or policy analysis, but we argue that evaluation and policy analysis are indeed different by definition, function and methodology. These differences are widely known but increasingly disregarded, especially at the stage of the presentation of findings. Evaluation tends to adopt the stance of the analyst in that it is being urged to make recommendations on policy choices within the narrow scope of answers based on evaluation questions, without the benefit of additional contextual information. The article compares policy evaluation and policy analysis in terms of conceptualization, research methods, problem definition and data presentation and argumentation. In presenting the differences between evaluation and analysis, we point to the dangers inherent in a lack of awareness of where the boundaries lie and what purpose they serve.

Competing paradigms in policy discourse: The case of international human rights

This article analyzes the different paradigms of human rights policy discourse that characterize non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and governments. Focusing on Canadian-based human rights NGOs and the Canadian government, it uses a five-fold classification scheme to make sense of these competing paradigms of discourse: (1) process: how actors define themselves, and how they define their roles within the international human rights machinery; (2) objectives: perceptions of the purpose of the international human rights system and goals to be pursued therein; (3) scope: the breadth of issue definition and consequent action; (4) evidence: the standards whereby empirical claims are filtered, constructed and judged; and (5) action strategies: the enduring patterns of practical action founded upon the preceding categories. The article shows that despite shared objectives and a common commitment to human rights, NGO and government discourses differ sharply and yield markedly different action strategies. Progress in international human rights will continue to depend on NGO-government collaboration, however, and the article ends with some observations on how these differences in discourse might be addressed.

Assessing incrementalism: Formative assumptions, contemporary realities

Abstract Lindbloms 1959 article on incrementalism is one of the most cited works in social science.1 This article examines and probes five of the theorys basic, underlying assumptions in light of current empirical and theoretical approaches. The five assumptions are: (1) the limited nature of rationality and the weak powers of human cognition, (2) the emphasis on practical reason and applied knowledge, (3) partisan mutual adjustment conceived as interactions and conflicts among singular, distinct, and disconnected entities, (4) policy decisions made incrementally can be remediated and reversed, and (5) the United States political system is taken as the model for incremental politics. In our assessment, incrementalism holds up quite well with more recent thinking on public policy process with respect to the first and second assumptions. The third assumption has been confronted by new work on networks. The fourth has been challenged by theories on path dependency. The fifth assumption betrayed a national focus and strong value consensus – globalization and “culture wars” have rendered it untenable. The article therefore gives only qualified support for the continued relevance of incrementalism as a theory of the policy process.

Making reform stick: Political acumen as an element of political capacity for policy change and innovation

Abstract Political acumen as an element of policy capacity involves feasibly and successfully steering policies through organizations and systems. “Normal” policy-making makes no great demands in this regard, and so this paper focuses instead on deep policy reforms that typically engender resistance among organizations and stakeholders. Our approach assumes that the nature of these types of changes is paradigmatic and non-Pareto optimal (imposing losses), and take place within policy systems having reasonable degrees of feedback that require policy reformers to negotiate and adjust their reform agenda. We offer a model of political acumen in dealing with deep policy reform that has 10 characteristics, collected under three sub-categories: (1) the nature of the policy problem, (2) the policy response, and (3) policy skills or capacity. Based on this model, we assess the advice on policy reform in the literature and from the OECD and the World Bank — organizations both deeply engaged in governance reform agendas. Basic tools for policy managers are compensating losers, spreading losses over time, grand parenting, and insulating decision-makers, while elected leaders need to develop mandates for change, build coalitions, and engage in heresthetics. At the highest level, political acumen involves the strategic capacity to manage and implement significant policy change.

Introduction: The OECD and Policy Transfer: Comparative Case Studies

Abstract The six articles in this issue examine the role of the OECD in policy transfer. Two articles (Kudrle on international tax agreements, and Legrand and Vas on Australia’s vocational and educational training policy) conclude that the OECD has been influential, albeit in a grinding and lengthy way. Two others (Clifton on the OECD’s “enhanced engagement” policy with five G-20 countries, and Eccleston and Woodward on tax transparency) find the OECD’s influence either patchier or even dysfunctional. Carroll’s article provides a novel analysis of policy transfer through accession processes, while Alasuutari explores transfer in terms of a comparative analysis of policy rationalizations that refer to the OECD as a “standard.” A common theme of all six articles is the way in which policy transfer is driven by exogenous pressures and crises, and how international governmental organizations like the OECD exploit these pressures to protect and expand their global relevance.

Teaching public policy: Global convergence or difference?

To the extent the policy outcomes depend on policy capacity, an important ingredient in that capacity is the training of public servants, and in particular through MPP and MPA programs. As the introduction to this journal issue dedicated to that theme, this article reviews debates about the content and convergence of such programs around the world. The appropriate nature and quality of that content has been the object of attention of accreditation schemes and best practice research, and in the spread of programs internationally. A framework for understanding that spread or diffusion is presented which highlights the interaction of national context, international dynamics, and institutional isomorphism. The articles in this issue clearly show that there has indeed been diffusion, but only modest convergence or programmatic isomorphism. At the same time, there is a persistent sense of an emergent epistemic community and practices in the field, suggesting that the next stage of research should focus on international networks in the field, and the connection between programs, practice, and capacity.

Policy-Making in a Transformative State: The Case of Qatar

In this book, we explore in detail how public policy is made in Qatar, within the context of what we will call a transformative state. If we simply assume that Qatar is an autocracy, ruled completely by the Al-Thani family, the answer to the policy-making question is also quite simple: policy is what the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani says it is. As the chapters in this book will show, the real answer is more complicated, and indeed other analysts have tried to come to grips with the nuances of the Qatari reality by using qualified descriptions of the system such as “late rentier,” “pluralized autocracy,” “tribal democracy,” or “soft authoritarian.” Most importantly, for our analysis, Qatar is deliberately engaged in a rapid process of societal transformation. That process has its contradictions and tensions, particularly with regards to achieving a balance between Islam, social traditions, and modernity. But it also has a specific policy dynamic of generating ideas and institutions, developing policy and program designs, and implementation and coordination.

The MPA/MPP in the Anglo-democracies: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States

Abstract Should one expect convergence among MPA/MPP programs around the world, and in particularly among programs in the “Anglo-sphere” or among the Anglo-democracies, defined here as Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. For reasons of shared history and language, one might expect convergence, but there are counter-arguments as well that note, for example, the rich diversity among American programs alone. The paper analyzes 99 programs drawn from among these countries to find an answer. The analysis is wider in scope and more granular than anything that has been done to date, with data that allow comparisons of: (1) subject matter emphasis between policy and management, (2) the amount of required quantitative content, and (3) program length (number of standardized courses required to graduate). After illustrating a standardized metric of comparison we show that the convergence hypothesis cannot be sustained. Our conclusion entertains several conjectures about why this might be the case.