State Management: An Enquiry into Models of Public Administration & Management

192 Pages·2009·1.36 MB·English

by  Jan-Erik Lane

State Management
State Managementoffers a comprehensive yet concise introduction to the new field
of state management, presenting an analysis of basic questions within the theories of
bureaucracy, policy-making, principal–agent modelling and policy networks.
Focussing upon recent state transformation, it illuminates public sector reform
strategies such as New Public Management as well as incorporation, tendering and
bidding, decentralisation, team production and privatisation.
This book argues that we should look upon the variety of models or approaches to
public management or public administration as all belonging under state management.
The so-called “working state” in a well-ordered society involves government
delivering services, paying for social security and respecting the rule of law. In this
text, Jan-Erik Lane systematically examines the key approaches to the study of how
government attempts to achieve these goals, discussing the pros and cons of alternative
frameworks of analysis and exploring the relevance of the principal–agent approach.
Each chapter discusses a different issue within state management that is integral to
the broader debate, including:
• Public regulation
• The relationship between the law and the state
• Combining ecology and policy-making
• Multi-level governance
• The virtues and vices of public–private partnerships
• Policy implementation.
Presenting a clear overview of how the state operates when government sets out to
deliver public services, and generating questions to encourage new research, State
Managementis a valuable new text for both undergraduate and postgraduate courses
in political science, public administration and public management.
Jan-Erik Lanehas taught as a professor in several universities around the globe. He
has published numerous books and articles on many topics in political science. He
was professor at the University of Geneva between 1996 and 2008 and is now
Mercator visiting professor at the University of Heidelberg.
“Jan-Erik Lane has once again produced a timely and provocative book – this time
upon the distinctive challenges of public management in the twenty-first century. It is
sure to become a classic text for researchers and students in the field alike”.
Stephen P. Osborne, Professor of International Public Management,
University of Edinburgh Business School, Scotland
“Jan-Erik Lane has yet again produced a fresh lens for viewing the public sector and
how it operates. State Managementfocuses on theories and models of public man-
agement and administration that provide distinctive means for delivering public serv-
ices. He works systematically through the gamut of design options and issues in short,
crisp chapters organized around a lucid and logical presentation of ideas. The book is
strongly recommended for its ability to engage students and scholars of public man-
agement and administration”.
John Halligan, Professor, School of Business and Government,
University of Canberra, Australia
“A pioneer in the contemporary study of public management shows that state man-
agement is distinctly different from ‘running government like a business’. Lane
points out the consequences for theory and research. He demonstrates the contempo-
rary relevance of classical core questions of public administration by treating con-
temporary management of the public sector from his profound knowledge and broad
overview of the field: from bureaucracy theory to the importance of multilevel gover-
nance, sustainability policy and the rule of law in modern public management. The
result is an inspiring achievement. The book provides a great stepping stone for fac-
ulty and students to address the many wicked issues the management of contemporary
government – in its many component parts – is facing from a theoretically grounded
and research perspective”.
Theo Toonen, Dean, Faculty of Technology, Policy, Management,
Delft University of Technology and Professor of Institutional
Public Administration, Delft and Leiden University
State Management
An enquiry into models of public
administration and management
Jan-Erik Lane
ForDean Beat Bürgenmeier– a great admirer
of Max Weberin the University of Geneva
First published 2009
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2009.
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© 2009 Jan-Erik Lane
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN 0-203-87988-0 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN10: 0–415–49234–3 (hbk)
ISBN10: 0–415–49235–1 (pbk)
ISBN10: 0–203–87988–0 (ebk)
ISBN13: 978–0–415–49234–8 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978–0–415–49235–5 (pbk)
ISBN13: 978–0–203–87988–7 (ebk)
Contents
Preface vii
Introduction: is public management different from
private sector management? 1
1 Formal organisation models: the relevance of informal
organisation 11
2 Asymmetric information models: the principal–agent perspective 28
3 Policy models: how rational is public management? 36
4 Implementation models: bringing outcomes into public
management and policy 47
5 Independent agencies: maximising efficiency? 55
6 Policy network models: the virtues and vices of
public–private partnerships 64
7 Marketisation models: how much should government
use internal markets and public procurement? 72
8 Incorporation as a strategy: transforming the public enterprises 81
9 Principals and agents: public regulation 92
10 Multi-level governance: bringing in the two regional dimensions 101
vi Contents
11 Managing social security: the insolvency problem 117
12 Politics and jurisprudence: law and the state 126
13 Ecology and policy: how to combine the two? 139
14 The developmental state: from the Third World to the First World 149
15 The comparative challenge: are there different state models? 156
Conclusion: state management: relevance of
strategic management 166
Index 180
Preface
While management is the academic discipline that models how private firms
operate, public management or public administration targets the public sec-
tor in an encompassing fashion, covering government at all levels, independ-
ent regulatory boards as well as public enterprises. This book suggests that
we look upon the variety of models or approaches to public management or
public administration as all belonging under state management. A key issue
in state management is whether private management is entirely different
from public management, given the distinction between the market and the
state, the public and the private or economics and politics.
How do governments get the job done in providing services to their popu-
lations? This is the core question in theories of state management, i.e. organ-
isation of the delivery of services in the public sector. It has received many
different answers that will be surveyed in this book, subsuming them under a
parsimonious set of models. The purpose is to identify the different models of
the so-called output side of government, i.e. how the units that deliver public
services operate.
Since the emergence of New Public Management (NPM) in the 1980s,
there has been a tension between NPM and traditional public administration
as academic disciplines, meaning that we perceive a split between two sets
of approaches to be employed when organising the public sector. The time
has come to bridge this gap by showing that state management hosts a
diversity of models with which one may analyse government outputs and
outcomes.
This book surveys the main theories of state management, enquiring into
the different modes of organising the state from the perspective of public
services delivery. It summarises my teaching of public administration and
NPM since the late 1970s, from my teaching at Umea University, Sweden
to my courses in China: Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
University, Fudan University, and in Beijing. Economist Bürgenmeier
viii Preface
suggested the title of this book, being an expert on private management. In
the Conclusion, I have drawn upon the article “Strategic Management in the
Public Sector: More than an Algorithm” published in The British Journal of
Leadership in Public Services(2008), Volume 2, Issue 3.
Jan-Erik Lane
Heidelberg, March 2009
Introduction
Is public management different
from private sector
management?
Introduction
Management is a major field of study in economics and the social sciences. It
forms an integral part of business administration as well as in organisational
analysis. During the post-Second World War period thousands of articles and
books have been published in this area under the labels of “Strategy”,
“Organisational Behaviour” or “Culture and Leadership in Organisation”.
Given such an effort to understand how private firms operate, their goals,
structures and results, one cannot avoid the question of the relevance of man-
agement for the analysis of the public sector and how government functions.
Management deals with how people are motivated to participate in teams
with a definitive structure and leadership in order to produce goods and serv-
ices. The theories of management were developed in relation to the modern
enterprise, often having thousands of employees, working under a specific
private law institution, namely, the Limited Liability Company or aktienge-
sellschaft. Given that management modelled the internal operations of large
private enterprises, it is not astonishing that it identified formal organisation
as a characteristic feature of private sector management. This was a basic
similarity with the study of bureaucracy in government. Yet, one must pose
in an explicit manner the question of whether public management tends to be
more different than similar compared with private management.
In this chapter, I will argue for the difference thesis, claiming that politics
and the public sector make for several differences between public and private
management. Although public management can learn from the many insights
in private management, one should not equate them and bypass how different
public management tends to be compared with private management.
The state as decisions: policies, laws and money
Economists and political scientists have come to realise that issues of
public policy and public finance cannot be solved on the assumption that a