The GOVERNANCE blog

Sir John Gieve speaks at Governance roundtable on financial crisis

In the current issue of Governance, John Gieve (formerly of the Bank of England) and Colin Provost (University College London) explain how a flawed intellectual model discouraged coordination by monetary and regulatory authorities that might have prevented the financial crisis.  “This common intellectual framework helps to explain why similar mistakes were made in countries with very different institutional arrangements,” Gieve and Provost argue.  Future reforms will put more emphasis on coordination between central banks and regulators, as well as checks against “policy groupthink.”  Open access to the article: Ideas and Coordination in Policymaking.

In the current issue of Governance, Martin Lodge of the London School of Economics and Christopher Hood of the University of Oxford examine the effect of the financial crisis on the attitude of OECD governments toward public services.  These countries will not follow “a single direction of travel” in response to the crisis, they argue, and not only because fiscal vulnerabilities differ.  Two other pressures — demographic and environmental change — may prove equally significant.  Some OECD countries are “triply vulnerable” and face a “formidable challenge” in coming years.  Open access to this article: Into an age of multiple austerities.  Photo: Martin Lodge speaks at Governance roundtable on financial crisis.

“The legacy of the Great Recession for fiscal policy is staggering,” Paul Posner of George Mason University and Jón Blöndal of the Organization for Economic Coordination and Development write in the current issue of Governance (25.1, January 2012).  Some OECD countries have already fallen into devastating “market-driven fiscal crises.”  Are the rest doomed to follow?  Not necessarily, Posner and Blöndal argue.  Skilled political leaders can achieve fiscal sacrifice in ways that promote electability.  The conventional wisdom — that democratic systems are incapable of exercising fiscal self-restraint — is overdrawn.  Open access to this article.  Photo: Paul Posner speaks at Governance roundtable on financial crisis.

In the current issue of Governance, Christopher Hood reviews The Ashgate Research Companion to New Public Management, edited by Tom Christensen and Per Laegreid.  “Readers of this book,” says Hood, “will be struck by the paradox that what was often presented as a common sense, pragmatic, what-matters-is-what-works approach to public management emerges as heavily ideological and evidence-free in practice.”  Read the review.

And Richard Allen reviews The Logic of Discipline: Global Capitalism and the Architecture of Government by Alasdair Roberts.  Roberts sets out a “controversial thesis” about the shift of power to technocrats during the era of economic liberalization, Allen says.  But Roberts’ argument may overstate the problems associated with these attempts to constrain democratic processes.  Read the review.

The 2002 World Summit for Sustainable Development produced agreement on the importance of transnational multi-stakeholder partnerships as vehicles for promoting sustainable development, as an alternative to sclerotic UN institutions.  Over three hundred partnerships have been formally established.  But are they effective, and if so, why?  In the current issue of Governance (24.4, October 2011), Kacper Szulecki, Philipp Pattberg, and Frank Biermann examine these questions.  “Positive expectations that were placed on multi-stakeholder partnerships . . . have hardly been met,” the authors conclude.  A key determinant of success is institutionalization of the partnership through an executive board and permanent secretariat.  Ironically, the organizational form of effective partnerships “hardly differs from the standard structure of intergovernmental organizations.”  Read more: Explaining Variation in the Effectiveness of Transnational Energy Partnerships.

Complaints about the defects of the UN system — bureaucracy, duplication, secrecy and unresponsiveness — persist despite decades of reform initiatives.  In the current issue of Governance (24.4, October 2011) Olivier Nay of the University of Lille Northern France examines a successful effort at management reform within the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS.  Nay concludes that reform succeeded here because of the coincidence of external pressure and the “active support of UN agencies who had a common interest in shifting institutional arrangements.”  Success at reform in international organizations, Nay says, requires an examination of “intertwined” external and internal factors.  Read more: What Drives Reforms in International Organizations? External Pressure and Bureaucratic Entrepreneurs in the UN Response to AIDS.

Policymakers in many countries are increasingly delegating complicated and political sensitive decisions about provision of health care to specialized bodies.  In the current issue of Governance (24.4, October 2011), Claudia Landwehr and Katharina Böhm of Goethe-Universität am Main examine the trend.  They find significant differences in the approach to delegation, and provide a framework for explaining those differences.  Policymakers are engaged in “strategic institutional design,” but subject to two important constraints, Landwehr and Böhm conclude.  The first is the weight of institutional and administrative tradition, and the second is the pressure toward policy convergence that arises out of international networks.  Read the article.

To mark International Right to Know Day (September 28), Governance is providing open access to the lead commentary in the new issue of Governance (24.4, October 2011).  Christopher Hood, Gladstone Professor of Government at University of Oxford, examines the rise of WikiLeaks World, in which transparency comes from direct action rather than official machinery for releasing or publishing information.  The WikiLeaks phenomenon “represents a new chapter in the transparency story,” Hood argues.  But there may be unexpected consequences, as governments “ramp up their spin operations” to maintain control over the public agenda.  Read the commentary now.

In the current issue of Governance (24.3, July 2011), Krishna Reddy, Stuart Locke and Frank Scrimgeour (University of Waikato) examine the effect of corporate governance practices on the performance of New Zealand’s public sector corporate entities.  New Zealand’s reforms of the 1980s emphasized the need for public sector organizations to emulate the practices of private sector companies.  “Public sector corporate entities in New Zealand have complied with the Securites Commission’s guidelines for good governance practices,” they conclude, “and that compliance has improved financial performance.” Read the article:  The Relationship Between Corporate Governance Practices and Financial Performance in Public Sector Corporate Entities.

In the current issue of Governance (24.3, July 2011), Christian Jensen (University of Iowa) shows how new processes for adopting legislation in the European Union affected the content of that legislation.  The new “codecision” process bolstered the power of the European Parliament, which responded by adopting more legislative amendments designed to give more implementing discretion to member states.  On the other hand, the European Council became more aggressive in rejecting parliamentary amendments that limit discretion of the European Commission.  “Procedure matters” in explaining why the European Union adopts legislation that locates discretion in different places, Jensen concludes.  Changes in legislative procedures have administrative consequences.  Read the article:  Procedural Change and and the Sources of Ex Ante Constraints in EU Legislation.