Public Management in Global Perspective

Public Administration in the Century of Interdependence

The times are changing and we along with them.
Ovid,8 c.E.

WHAT TO EXPECT Any discussion of the administration of the "public thing" the ancient Roman res publica, from which "republic" is derived must be predicated on the existence of some government legitimacy and some measure of legal and political accountability. The issue of the appropriate relationship between "policy" and "administration" is an old one. On the one hand, the policy question of "what" is to be done is different from the management question of 'how" it is to be done. The distinction between the quality of the management instruments and the goals that they are meant to achieve is important. One can explain how to sharpen a knife without discussing whether it is to be used for peeling apples or chopping onions. Thus, this book discusses public administration issues mainly in their instrumental aspects. On the other hand, excessively hard boundaries between "policy" and "implementation" eventually lead to both unrealistic policies and bad implementation. Therefore, wherever appropriate, the discussion will shade into public policy issues and the interaction between public policy and public management But make no mistake whatever the right mix of the "what" and the "how," allowing public administration to be relegated to the backseat by the sexier issues of public policy invariably blows back to destroy the policy itself. A strategy paper without a roadmap is a paper, not a strategy; a

decision without implementation is a wish, not a decision; a law without enforcement is a pantomime, not a law. Organized government, no matter how representative and democratic it may be, is utterly impotent without the instruments to carry out its will. This is the broad canvas or this book tinted by the major trends of our time, from globalization to the resurgence of ethnicity and religion and the risk of regression to an apolar international system. This overview chapter describes the main contemporary trends influencing public management in the United States and elsewhere in the world. The institutional and cultural context of public management is outlined next including the all-important concept of governance and the chapter concludes with setting out criteria for assessing and improving public administration. The basic themes and concepts introduced in this overview are embedded in the discussion of the various dimensions of public administration presented in the subsequent chapters. THE MAJOR INFLUENCES TWENTY FIRST CENTURY ON ADMINISTRATIONIN IN THE

Globalization: A Smaller Planet, Spinning Faster Asking the Right Question In late 2007, an internet search for "globalization" showed about 27 million entries (growing at the rate of about one million every three months). Yet, interdependence among individuals, among groups, among nations, has always been a reality indeed, it has been the basis for the evolution of organized human society. Moreover, the increase in independence is not new. From as far back as the fourteenth century, global interdependence has been increasing because of the continuing reduction in "economic distance" the cost of transferring goods, services, labor, capital, and information from one place to another due to improvements in transport technology, tariff cuts, creation of international institutions, telecommunications and informatics, among other reasons. With that said, the acceleration witnessed in the last two decades has been spectacular. Thus, "globalization" is more than just a catchy term for an old phenomenon. There may be no difference in overall impact between, say, the invention of the railroad and that of the computer. However, the difference in degree and speed of impact is so vast as to constitute in effect a new phenomenonparticularly as it coincided with die rapid liberalization of external financial transactions that took place in most major countries. In Thomas Friedman's expression, globalization has made the world flat (Friedman, 2005). And so, let's be clear about the key question. The genuine core of the globalization debate is not the continuing decrease in economic distance, per se, but the valid concern that in recent years economic distance has been shrinking faster than can be reasonably managed by the international system let alone by an individual country. The foremost consequence of this disconnect between an integrated world economy and an un-integrated world political system is the lack of a functioning mechanism to address the problems of individuals, groups and countries on the losing end of the process. Globalization and Public Administration

Globalization has an impact on most dimensions of public administration in most countries, and constrains the ability of national governments to act independently. Gone are the days when major decisions on the extent and manner of state intervention could be taken in isolation. The new reality is the imperative of considering the impact of those decisions on the outside world and the blowback from it. This reality cuts two ways. On the one hand, there is a new constraint on many governments' ability to sustain inefficient economic policies; on the other hand, the implementation of government's independent social policies and redistributive objectives is hampered as well. Globalization is also changing the role of government by introducing a new source of insecurity at the same time as it has raised efficiency (particularly in North America but to an increasing extent in Europe as well). Not long ago, in most developed countries economic security was found largely in the workplace. With the employers' market and sources of input supply fairly predictable, it was possible to provide employees with reasonable assurances of employment security and post employment benefits. As markets have become globalized, and plants, input supply and jobs increasingly outsourced, uncertainty has increased substantially for both the employers and the employees. The employers have accordingly passed through much of that uncertainty to their employees, by larger, more frequent and less predictable layoffs, and by shedding as much as possible the cost of health insurance and retirement benefits Individuals are thus coming to look more and more to the government for the economic security they used to enjoy in the private workplace. Conversely, in developing countries, people at the receiving end of the outsourced jobs are relying more and more on the private sector for gainful employment and rapid advancement. This trend is still at the beginning and its impact in different areas of administration cannot yet be clearly defined, but it will heavily influence the role of government and the modalities of public administration for the foreseeable future. Stopping the Tide? Thus, the economic and social benefits from globalization can be immense, but the costs and risks can be high as well, and the distribution of costs and risks among individuals, groups and countries in different from the distribution of benefits. Globalization also has an impact on the concentration of economic power between and within countries. The answer to this problem is not a retreat into national isolation or a weakening of international rules quite the opposite. It is as impossible to reverse the globalization process as it would be to make television or the internet disappear. Indeed, efforts at reversing globalization may even be counterproductive, because they divert attention from the need to counteract the possible negative impact of the globalization tendency on income distribution and effective competition. The analytical and operational challenge is to strengthen the international and regional management of the process, primarily to (1) slow down the external transmission of destructive developments in any one country; (2) prevent overreaction: and (3) protect vulnerable groups and countries from carrying the brunt of the adjustment and being left farther and farther behind. Finally, it is well to remember that globalization is a two-way channel making it much easier to transmit internationally both positive and negative changes. For example, not only jobs and technology have been globalized, but crime as well. A recent book (Nairn, 2006) provides analysis

and illustrations of the new phenomenon of drug traffickers and other organized criminals operating globallysee Box 1.1. Decentralization: A Double Squeeze on Central Government Gone, too, are the days when central administration had the virtual monopoly of state power. As economic distance between any two areas is reduced, the space for the center naturally shrinks. Globally, the nation-state occupies the center, and the reduction in economic distance from the rest of the world has meant a loss in effective national administrative autonomy. But central governments have been squeezed from below as well. The greater mobility of persons and goods and the ease of communication and information flows have brought several public activities within effective reach of local government. Combined with a stronger civil society and a more assertive population, these developments have led to pressures on the center to "download" onto local government both authority and resources. As an overall trend, internal decentralization may be as unstoppable as globalization. At the same time, however, decentralization of certain functions generates the need for greater centralization of other functions (or for stronger central supervision). Moreover, the need to meet the challenges of globalization is itself a factor making for centralization of state power. The vector resulting from the contrasting forces of centralization and decentralization will of course differ in different countries. In the United States, the post-9/11 perception of major threats to national security and the push to combat and reverse what some view as an erosion of basic values have enabled a recentralization of power in the federal government. Only time and the political choices of the American people will tell whether this signals a new trend or is a temporary blipwith a return to the long-term trend toward decentralization as soon as the largely fabricated sense of insecurity wanes. In Europe, by contrast there has been a voluntary uploading of substantial powers from the component member-states to the European Union as a supranational entity. (But in Europe, too, a backlash has been evident in recent years.) Hence, instead of arguing about decentralization or centralization, in the current context it is more useful to ask: which functions are suitable for greater decentralization (and which are not): what is needed to make decentralization of the suitable functions effective; and what modifications in central government role are necessary to protect the country and vulnerable groups from the risks and costs of decentralization!

The reader can see the close parallel between globalization and decentralization. Like globalization, decentralization carries a potential for large overall benefits as well as risks and losses for the more vulnerable areas and groups. The management of decentralization within a country therefore calls for strong national action, just as the management of globalization requires strong international action. Moreover, the intermediate administrative space is shrinking internally as well as internationally. Until the middle of the twentieth century, the intermediate level of government (the "state" in federal

BOX 1.1 The Seamy Underbelly of Globalization The last decade has seen a mushrooming of international networks of illicit activities. These comprise more than the "traditional" smuggling and drug trafficking, and include transport of illegal migrants, trade in women and children for prostitution (up to and including slavery), money laundering, pirated movies and counterfeit software, trade in human organs and endangered animals, weapons anything on which profitable international trade has been made possible by the extraordinary advances in information and communications technology. It is estimated that the total value of "production" by these crime networks is as high as 10 percent of the world economy. These crime networks are extremely efficient flat, decentralized, fluid, and adaptable. They navigate in the interstices of the international system, are interconnected, and can form, mutate, merge, split, and recombine very quickly to adapt to changes in the "market". These networks are already distorting global trade and financial flows and are increasingly capable of capturing small and weak states. There is also considerable crossover between the criminal and the terrorist networks. (Concerning the latter, it is critical to make a distinction between groups with a legitimate or at least definable political agenda and those whose sole goal is to destroy and create instability.) Because of the global teach of the new crime networks, it is extremely difficult for any single country to counteract them effectively, and an effective response would have to be equally global. Ideally, this would call for the creation of a truly multilateral public entity with the mandate, autonomy, and resources to meet this new challenge. A partial move in this direction has been made by the European Union, where since 1999 the judicial authorities in one country may order an arrest based on a warrant issued in another European country and may also seize evidence requested by judges m another country and transmit it to them. Even in Europe, however, national governments have balked at further integration of their criminal justice systems. At a minimum, far better and systematic communication is needed between national security agencies and the international police organization INTERPOL. Considering the difficulties in communicating even between security agencies of the same country (e.g., the well-known "territorial" mentality of the FBI and other police agencies in the United States), this will not be easy. However, the increased effectiveness of international law enforcement and the genuine improvement in national security all around will be well worth the cost of the effort.
Source: Partly based and adapted from Naim (2006) and The Economist, "Charlemagne," September 30, 2006.

systems such as the United States' or the "province" in unitary systems such as France's) typically enjoyed a double monopoly position: as sole interpreter of government policy vis-a-vis local governments and as sole provider of information and of upward feedback to the center. Economic distance has contracted within countries as well, and this state of affairs has been changing. (Countries wracked by civil conflict or prolonged mal governance are a major exception, with internal economic distance growing sharply in the last two decades.)

In future years, decentralization may primarily entail a leapfrogging of some administrative powers and resources from the central to the lowest level of local government bypassing the intermediate level of government plus a further devolution of powers to local government from the intermediate level itself. In addition, confronted with the erosion of their autonomy vis-a-vis the global market and external entities, national governments are likely to "repossess" responsibilities and resources previously assigned to the provinces. On all these counts, die traditional role of the intermediate levels of government administration may be substantially reduced. This does not necessarily mean a reduction in their influence, however, their role may remain just as important but will have to evolve away from direction and control toward facilitation and technical assistance. As noted, these trends will manifest themselves differently in federal states such as the United States, Canada, or India than in unitary states such as China, France, or Spain. The International Political Environment It is well known that the end of the Cold War (conventionally dated from die fall of the Berlin Wall in October 1989) and the disappearance of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991 have caused fundamental changes in international politics. These changes have three important implications for the role of government and for public administration in the United States and elsewhere. The end of the Cold War opened the door to a massive transformation in Eastern Europe, in the former Soviet Union and, indirectly, in the centrally planned economies of Asia, These diverse countries are frequently lumped together under the designation of "transition countries." The common designation is useful insofar as moving toward greater reliance on the market mechanism and a streamlined role of the state require adjustments of a similar sort .However, the common designation can be misleading because, in addition to the substantial diversity among these countries, the structural challenges are very different. The maximum degree of systemic transformation has been faced by the newly independent countries that were the component "republics" of the former Soviet Union. Radical changes in economy and society have occurred in the past, for example, in China during the last century. And new states have emerged throughout history, toofor example, many of the former colonies of western powers, or some components of the former Austro-Hungarian empire destroyed by World War I. But never before has history witnessed a complete reversal of the economic system at the same time as the coming into existence of brand new political entities. The enormity of the double challenge of nationbuilding and economic transformation in many of the countries of the former USSR is still insufficiently and recognized. Certainly, the governance and administrative transition is far from complete on either front, as shown by the resurgent authoritarianism in Russia and the fragility of institutions in countries such as Ukraine after the victory of democratic forces in the 2004 presidential elections. In central and eastern Europe, the command economy also gave way to a market economy, but this happened in nation-states that had been in existence for generations or centuries. The transformation challenge was massive, certainly, but was confined to the economic and political system. Although the transition is still uneven between different countries, at the beginning of the twenty-first century

virtually all central and eastern European countries are now market economies with representative governance. The circumstances of the Southeast Asian centrally planned economies of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos are very different. These countries are also in transition, in the direction of greater reliance on the market mechanism, some reduction in state intervention, and external openness, but more in an evolutionary way and within the same national as well as political parameters. And China, with its spectacular economic growth record of the past generation, horrendous environmental problems and continuing repressive political regime, is in a category by itself. The Dark Side of Ethnicity Since 1990, ethnic conflict and narrow-based nationalismsnever absentwere given a new lease on life. As is well known, these past seventeen years have been stained by murderous internecine conflict (sometimes spontaneous, more commonly manufactured or fomented for power purposes), ranging from the genocide of one million Tutsis and moderate Hutus in Rwanda in just three months in 1994 to "ethnic cleansing" in the former Yugoslavia, spasmodic brutality in Aceh and other parts of Indonesia, systematic repression and mass murder in Darfur (in the west of Sudan), and many other tragedies. Indeed, there is plenty of evidence that ethnicity trumps even religion as a source of conflict. In Darfur, for example, the local African (and Muslim) population has beep systematically oppressed and repressed by a central government in Khartoum dominated by an Arab (and Muslim) elite. Or, recall the many Hutu priests and nuns who actively cooperated in the genocide of Catholic Tutsistheir own parishioners. These conflicts revalidated at the end of the century the prediction made at its beginning by African-American political scientist W. E. B. DuBois that this would be the dominant question of the twentieth century. Who knowsit may even remain the dominant question for a good part of this century. For public administration, the implications of the ethnic factor concern mainly the need for extreme caution when introducing into multiethnic countries "contractual" and performance management practices developed in homogeneous societies as well as the design of decentralization. Decentralization, long viewed as a "technical" issue (albeit one of high order) must in future years be carefully weighed in light of the new centrifugal and fragmentation risks in many countries. Of the many breakups of countries witnessed in the 1990s, only one (Czechoslovakia) occurred peacefully. The argument is two-edged, of coursein some circumstances, only genuine decentralization can prevent ethnic tensions from eventually erupting into overt conflict, as appears to be the case in Iraq. Similar issues apply to long-neglected caste minorities and low-status social groups in certain countries, such as the Dalits in India (formerly called "untouchables") or the Burakumin in Japan. Albeit of the same ethnicity, religion, and language as the majority population, these groups have been treated in all respects as oppressed ethnic minorities and find themselves in the same predicament. In the United States, of course, the racial and ethnic question has been central to political discourse and government policy ever since the first African slave was brought into the country. In contemporary times, this question has coalesced around the issue of "affirmative action." Subsequent chapters will examine the implications of this issue for various areas of public administration, from government contracting to personnel management. At this stage, we only wish to underline that the semantic fog, ambiguous evidence, and deliberately misleading arguments brought up in the "affirmative action" debate in recent years are a major reason why it has not proven possible in America to build a social consensus on the appropriate handling of ethnic differences. It is not possible to find good answers to bad questions, which have unfortunately dominated the debate.