The Palgrave Handbook of Public Administration and Management in Europe

1306 Pages·2018·10.81 MB·English

by  Edoardo Ongaro

THE PALGRAVE HANDBOOK OF
PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND
MANAGEMENT IN EUROPE
Edited by
Edoardo Ongaro and Sandra van Thiel
The Palgrave Handbook of Public Administration
and Management in Europe
“Recognizing that the art of effective government in contemporary society is now
also dependent on social science, Ongaro and van Thiel have delivered an ambitious
scholarly project to document administrative diversity and complexity in Europe.
Grounded in a parliamentary-legal context, this long awaited set of analyses by pro-
minent scholars provides a compass for delivering on governments’ promises, a
comparative framework for scholarly research across borders, and a model that public
administration and management communities in other regions of the world—governed
under diverse systems—should not only teach, but replicate as an intellectual resource.”
—Marc Holzer, University Professor and Founding Dean Emeritus, School of Public
Affairs and Administration, Rutgers University, USA
“Public administration in Europe is doing remarkably well—both as a field of practice
and as an interdisciplinary field of study. Contrary to some expectations the modern
state, its organization and its management are more important and relevant than
ever, and European scholars are playing an ever more prominent role in describing
and explaining these developments. This Handbook offers a fascinating overview over
the unique administrative and theoretical diversity of Europe, and for the first time
it assembles a truly European group of PA scholars, from north and south as well as
from east and west. It is a milestone for many years to come.”
—Werner Jann, Emeritus Professor of Political Science, Administration and
Organisation, University of Potsdam, Germany
“This comprehensive collection is strongly recommended as the essential source on
European public administration and management. A compelling feature is that the
book includes so many of the right experts writing on the most pertinent subjects in
this field.”
—John Hallighan, Professor of Public Administration, University of Canberra,
Australia
“True understanding is comparative and contextual in nature. This handbook
embodies that spirit and will greatly help advance our understanding of public
administration and policy in Europe. It is not only comprehensive and systematic
but also substantive and state of the art! A must-have for those who are interested
in Europe and those who are interested in comparing public management and policy
across national boundaries.”
—Kaifeng Yang, Dean and Professor, School of Public Administration and Policy,
Renmin University, China, and Professor, Florida State University, US
“This is an authoritative collection of key readings on Public Administration and
Management covering all key topics and perspectives. While its geographic focus is
Europe, indeed right because of the uniqueness of depth of analysis into the context
of this region, readers in all parts of the world will find it most useful.”
—M. Ramesh, Professor of Governance and Public Policy,
Lee Kwan Yew School of Public Policy, Singapore
“This Handbook provides a comprehensive and informative collection of key readings
on the public sector in Europe. Anyone interested in p ublic administration in Europe
can profit from reading this volume.”
—B. Guy Peters, Maurice Falk Professor of American Government,
University of Pittsburgh, USA
“When brilliant scholars are joined together by equally competent editors—in
a p erspective that is all-encompassing across the countries of a region and the
generations of scholars—the outcome is a marvellous gift for the entire public
administration and management community, the Latin American and the global one.
We do have in our hands a richly designed mosaic of theories, doctrines, approaches,
methods and practices, corresponding to all the most relevant themes in the field.
Charting the territory of public administration and management in Europe provides
an invaluable map for the comparative administration movement across the globe.
Focus and locus are intertwined to generate good knowledge.”
—Bianor Scelza Cavalcanti, International Director, Getulio Vargas Foundation, Brazil
“Now we have a very significant and challenging handbook of Public Administration
and Management contextualized to contemporary Europe, where the science and
practice of public administration are strongly developed. It represents a basis for other
regions of the world to undertake comparative research and ultimately further the
general study of public management in the global society.”
—Koichiro Agata, Professor of Public Administration, Waseda University, Japan
Edoardo Ongaro · Sandra van Thiel
Editors
The Palgrave
Handbook of Public
Administration and
Management in Europe
Editors
Edoardo Ongaro Sandra van Thiel
Department for Public Leadership and Institute for Management Research
Social Enterprise—PulSE Faculty Radboud University Nijmegen
of Business and Law Nijmegen, The Netherlands
The Open University
Milton Keynes, UK
ISBN 978-1-137-55268-6 ISBN 978-1-137-55269-3 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55269-3
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017939083
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This book is dedicated to Christopher Pollitt
a dear colleague, an intellectual guide, a friend
F
oreword
‘Tous les savoirs du monde’ (all The Knowledge
oF The world)
It always was an ambition of human beings to map what is known, and to do
so in a systematic way. This happened in Mesopotamia, in China, in Europe.
It happened in the distant past of Alexandria, but also in the current wikipe-
dian world.
Mapping the known in a certain reality, almost in an encyclopedic way,
requires considering two intellectual dimensions. First, to have a good struc-
ture for the knowledge inventory. Second, to have a comprehensive list of
what is known under a particular category within that structure.
These structures of knowledge are always contingent. One could structure
the existing knowledge and create a comprehensive format which includes all
modules (which is mostly what this handbook aims to make). However, one
could also start in a deductive way, and then develop a tree structure of pos-
sible knowledge, known and unknown.
It is also interesting to see how levels of knowledge and coverage of reali-
ties have evolved over the centuries. This is a dynamic process since knowl-
edge creates realities, but realities also create knowledge. For these reasons, it
is good to take stock of what is known in a particular field. This book is tak-
ing stock of Public Administration in Europe as well as of the distinctiveness
of European Public Administration. With its 63 chapters, it is comprehensive
in its ambition.
european perspecTives For public adminisTraTion (eppa):
european pa versus pa in europe
The PA research community in Europe has changed significantly in the past dec-
ades. PA research has become more European. The volume of research money
at the national and European (see the research programmes FP7 and H2020)
vii
viii FOREWORD
level also has expanded and allowed to finance substantial research pro-
grammes and networks (COST). It has pushed the quantity and quality of
comparative research in the field of PA. Researchers and Ph.Ds. have circu-
lated within Europe between research teams. Doctoral PA programmes have
professionalized.
The PA community in Europe has grown in the past decades, certainly in
some countries. There are many reasons for this. Obviously, the presence of
EGPA (the European Group for Public Administration) and NISPAcee (the
network of National Institutes and Schools for Public Administration in Cen-
tral Eastern Europe) has created a (re-)new(ed) capacity. The PA-teaching
networks have become more European with an effort to guarantee exchange,
learning, quality control and to promote knowledge transfer across Europe
(through the European Association of PA Accreditation—EAPAA, and the
Erasmus programme).
There is a need to keep PA ‘contemporary’ and to stay relevant for the
practice of public administration. Contemporary PA is not just PA knowledge
produced today and focusing on current developments in the field of public
administration and society, it is PA knowledge produced today that is relevant
for the future. To have a PA knowledge production strategy which guarantees
its relevance for the future, there is a need to organize this as an academic
community.
Several periodic efforts have been organized in the past, mostly in the
USA. The Minnowbrook tradition including the major conferences Min-
nowbrook I (1968), Minnowbrook II (1988), Minnowbrook III (2008) are
fine examples of how to reflect upon how to remain relevant for the future
and how to anticipate. On the European side, even when many Americans
were involved, the Bielefeld project at the beginning of the 1980s was a land-
mark initiative. EGPA, on the occasion of its 35th anniversary in 2010 (as
a regional group within IIAS—the International Institute of Administrative
Sciences—which celebrated its 80th anniversary), reflected on the identity of
its European PA community (Bouckaert and van de Donk 2010); and 5 years
later, on occasion of its 40th anniversary, launched a similar exercise, this time
focused on the institutionalization of EGPA in the research landscape, Euro-
pean and global, as well as on the functional, cultural and institutional reasons
that call for a regional group for PA in Europe (Ongaro 2017). Some promi-
nent scholars have also made their own analysis and assessment of the field
(Pollitt 2016).
When these past efforts of ‘taking stock’ or producing ‘substantial reflec-
tions’ are analyzed, there seems to be a set of common denominators,
assumptions and expectations (Bertels et al. 2016):
1. Public Administration research and teaching runs too much behind the
actualities; however it should also be in front of the facts, it should not
just push realities but also pull realities;
FOREWORD ix
2. P ublic Administration is too much dominated by one discipline; how-
ever, it should be much more taking several disciplines into account and
result in an equilibrated approach;
3. Public Administration is thinking too much in causal terms; however, it
should also, as a social science, think in teleological terms;
4. Public Administration is often pretending to be disconnected from time
and space; however, it should take actively and positively context and
culture into account;
5. Public Administration research is still relevant for practice; however, it
should anticipate its future relevance for public administration.
But why a European perspective?
There are several reasons to take a European perspective to map the
knowledge of PA. The European level adds to its multi-level governance
approach. There is administrative diversity and plurality, also shown in the
official languages as expressions of cultures. Several modern conceptions were
founded in Europe and have evolved in their own way, including the welfare
state, separation of State and Churches or parliamentarianism. Its history has
created its own path dependency.
There is a difference between European Public Administration (EPA) and
Public Administration in Europe (PAE). It is necessary to distinguish between
these two approaches. The one, EPA, takes the contingencies and features
of Europe into account. It starts from the European specificities and moves
to the general and generic levels. The other, PAE, is about applying general
knowledge to the European sphere of public administration. Both approaches
invite for comparative research and learning from other practices.
There are specific problems in Europe which need to be addressed, also
by European scholars. Studying the functioning of the European Union
Institutions (and the Council of Europe) and their policies, and their inter-
actions with the Member-Countries, is one of the most significant topics
where European Public Administration needs to increase its relevance and its
capacity to be a part of the solutions. At the same time, Europe is about an
ethnolinguistic and cultural diversity. There are 24 official languages in the
European Union. To bring unity in diversity in a context of ‘requisite variety’
becomes an important assignment for PA.
Transformations of PA systems in Europe are a combination of causality
and path dependency as a push factor, but also and even more of a teleologi-
cal drive as a pull factor. Defining this ‘telos’—the goal to be pursued—should
be a part of the role of PA to develop possible futures. The European Union
moved from a chapter in foreign policy to a chapter in domestic policy and
politics. Therefore, Public Administration also needs to move from Public
Administration in its separate Member-Countries, to Public Administration
in Europe, to ultimately European Public Administration. This trajectory calls
for the broad umbrella of European Perspectives for Public Administration.
x FOREWORD
learning Through dialogues
The major purpose of mapping knowledge is also to push for new strategies
for new knowledge. Increasingly knowledge production happens through
interactions, collaborations and dialogues. PA as an interdisciplinary field of
study needs platforms with shared research strategies. Ultimately, taking stock
should be functional for the future. It will allow to ‘Know the known’, to
‘Know the unknown’, and to be aware of the ‘Unknown unknown’.
A crucial point for PA is if our knowledge of PA creates new realities, or
whether (new) realities create new knowledge. It is the difference between
knowledge as discovering existing realities and knowledge as innovating new
realities. Social sciences in general, and PA in particular have been too much
on the side of discovering and understanding existing realities, and perhaps too
little on the side of innovating new realities. Let us hope this Handbook results
in research strategies which innovate realities, and which anticipate future chal-
lenges. Let us develop European Perspectives for Public Administration.
Geert Bouckaert
KU Leuven, Belgium
reFerences
Bouckaert, G. & van de Donk, W. (eds.) (2010). The European Group for Public
Administration (1975–2010) Perspectives for the Future, Le Groupe Européen
pour l’Administration Publique (1975–2010) Perspectives pour le Futur. Bruylant,
Bruxelles, 342p.
Bertels, J., Bouckaert, G. & van de Donk, W. (2016). European Perspectives for Pub-
lic Administration and Public Management. Paper presented at the 2016 IPMN
Conference, St. Gallen, Switzerland.
EPPA (European Perspectives for Public Administration). www.europeanperspectivespa.eu.
Ongaro, E. (ed.) (2017). Public Administration in Europe: The Contribution of EGPA.
London: Palgrave