The Routledge Handbook To Accountability And Welfare State Reforms In Europe
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The Routledge Handbook to Accountability and Welfare State Reforms in Europe
There is growing concern that welfare states are inefficient, unsustainable and lack popular support. New Public Management reforms affected the balance between managerial and political accountability and disrupted administrative, legal, professional and social accountability, causing confusion as to whom public organizations are really accountable. The Routledge Handbook to Accountability and Welfare State Reforms in Europe assesses multi-dimensional accountability relations in depth, addressing the dynamic between accountability and reforms. Analyzing how welfare state reforms oriented towards agencification, managerialism and marketization affected existing relationships in services traditionally provided by public institutions, the theoretically informed, empirical chapters provide specific examples of their effect on accountability. Expert contributors explore the relationship between accountability and performance and the impact of reforms on political, administrative, managerial, legal, professional and social accountability. The role of specific actors, such as the media and citizens, on the accountability process addressing issues of blame avoidance, reputation and autonomous agencies is discussed. Comparative chapters across time, countries, administrative levels and policy areas are included, along with discussions linking accountability with concepts like legitimacy, democracy, coordination and performance. This handbook will be an essential reference tool to those studying European politics and public policy.
The Transformation of Work in Welfare State Organizations
How has New Public Management influenced social policy reform in different developed welfare states? New managerialism is conceptualized as a paradigm, which not only shapes the decision-making process in bureaucratic organizations but also affects the practice of individuals (citizens). Public administrations have been expected to transform from traditional bureaucratic organizations into modern managerial service providers by adopting a business model that requires the efficient and effective use of resources. The introduction of managerial practices, controlling and accounting systems, management by objectives, computerization, service orientation, increased outsourcing, competitive structures and decentralized responsibility are typical of efforts to increase efficiency. These developments have been accompanied by the abolition of civil service systems and fewer secure jobs in public administrations. This book provides a sociological understanding of how public administrations deal with this transformation, how people’s role as public servants is affected, and what kind of strategies emerge either to meet these new organizational requirements or to circumvent them. It shows how hybrid arrangements of public services are created between the public and the private sphere that lead to conflicts of interest between private strategies and public tasks as well as to increasingly homogeneous social welfare provision across Europe.
Comparative Governance Reforms
This book presents a comprehensive view of governance reforms, changes, and developments in the structure, process, and cultures of governments and public administration systems around the world since the 1980s. The focus of this book is on the last forty years of experimentation with governance and public administration reforms, with an eye to the future. A wide range of chapters covers various countries—both comparatively and individually—and the nature and dynamics of their governance reforms and changes in administrative systems. The volume utilizes several theoretical approaches that include: 1) institutional theory as applied to explain the ‘context’ of changes and reforms; 2) political economy that explains who gets/gains and who loses; 3) dialectical theory that explains and analyzes the past and the present and predicts the future of governance reforms across the world; and 4) path-dependency theory that explains how past experiences tend to influence the future reform efforts. Governance reforms are also assessed with the alternative theory of Sound Governance (Farazmand 2004) which considers powerful external political, economic, and military forces of globalization and their effects on developing nations. The book is organized into five parts, excluding the Introduction. Part I provides a robust theoretical backbone for the volume. Parts II-IV present case studies (as single or groups of countries) on governance reforms in select countries of Europe, Asia and Central/Latin America. Part V offers a long concluding chapter on the global governance reforms and puts the previous reform measures with recommendations for future governance and administrative reforms. Contributing significantly to knowledge on governance reform, administrative reform, government and public administration, this volume will be of use to scholars and students of public administration, governance, and policy, as well as policy makers and government administrators worldwide.