ABSTRACT

The move away from the State: consequences for governance These various movements away from conventional patterns of governing have been referred to as “governance”. That term has been used in a variety of different ways (see Tiihonen 2004), but they all refer to basic, and often quite fundamental, changes from State domination over policy toward models in which there is a more mixed involvement of State and societal actors in making and implementing public policy. As noted, even the State itself has altered its involvement in policy, tending to utilize more autonomous organizations than in the past, and also utilizing sub-national governments more extensively, even in States that nominally are centralized. The State may still intervene but in a less direct manner. While these movements away from conventional government mechanisms for delivering public services may have generated some gains in efficiency and perhaps some gains (of a type) in democratization they have also created a number of important governance problems, so that the costs of the reforms may outweigh the benefits that were created. The problems created by the transformation of the styles of governing – the decentering of the State already mentioned – are for the most part familiar governance issues that have been plaguing governments since their inception. These problems have, however, been exacerbated and to some extent transformed by movements away from the conventional means of governing. One of the most important issues for governance by decentering is coordination and coherence. Since the inception of specialized government organizations there have been difficulties in getting those organizations to work together effectively, because of conflicts over scarce resources within government as well as sincere disagreements on the appropriate priorities for the public

sector. The decentering of the State has created more organizations that need to be coordinated, and also has tended to empower managers to make their own decisions.4 The creation of agencies has been central both to improving the delivery of some public services and in creating the need to bring the decentered public sector back together. The empowerment ideas alluded to above have also played a major role in reducing the internal coordination of the public sector. The ideology of New Public Management emphasized empowering senior managers in the public sector so that they would have greater latitude to manage their programs for greater economy and efficiency. The participatory approach to reforming the public sector emphasized empowering the lower levels of public organizations and also empowering the clients of public programs to have greater influence over the way in which their programs were managed. These various directions of empowerment may engender political conflicts (Peters and Pierre 2000) among the various actors involved in delivering public programs, and they also tend to increase the sense among public organizations that they are immune from external controls.