Taking on the system - credit where credit is due

I try to avoid references in this blog to personalities and „hot” news and issues – whether DSK, the Arab risings, Wikileaks, the financial crisis etc – on the basis that this is what most blogs and media focus on and there is nothing useful for the rest of us to say. But one article about Sarah Palin I have to share – since it puts a very different slant on her work and raises the interesting question of what might have happened if she had stuck to her own initial script rather than the one the extreme Republicans gave her after her nomination as the Republican’s VP Candidate.

Palin’s achievement was to pull Alaska out of a dire, corrupt, enduring systemic crisis and return it to fiscal health and prosperity when many people believed that such a thing was impossible. She did this not by hewing to any ideological extreme but by setting a pragmatic course, applying a rigorous practicality to a set of problems that had seemed impervious to solution. She challenged supposedly inviolable political precepts, and embraced more-nuanced realities: Republicans sometimes must confront powerful business interests; to govern effectively, you have to cooperate with the other side; you sometimes must raise taxes to balance a budget; and doing these things can actually enhance rather than destroy your career, whatever anybody says. True reform—not pandering to the base—established Palin’s broad popularity in Alaska. This approach is sorely absent from most of what happens in Washington these days.

The full article - The Tragedy of Sarah Palin - in the current issue of the Atlantic tells an amazing story of how she (a) came to take head-on the Oil Giants and corrupt Alaskan politicians they had in their pocket; and (b) put together an unlikely coalition with opposition politicians to pull off an incredible deal for the State. And some of the corrupt politicians were duly arraigned and imprisoned. The article give suseful chapter and verse.
Political systems these days need individuals who are prepared to take on the strong financial interests which are destroying us – and it is indeed a tragedy that she ran on a completely different ticket!
OECD insights has a useful post on this very subject of battling graft (corruption)

What are public admin scholars up to?

I don't want to offend - but this is a 16th Century Albrecht Durer sketch - which seems quite appropriate for the theme.

Strange but refreshing weather in Sofia – starts well, then in late afternoon scudding grey clouds, wind and thunder.
I’m reading at last Basic Instincts – human nature and the new economics by Peter Lunn (who has academic qualifications first in neuroscience then in economics (with a considerable spell as broadcaster in between) and whose book gives a good critique of mainstream economics and introduction to the new behavioural economics which has been developing in the past decade and which already has many books, blogs and, as of last week, a world-wide Association of 3,500 members.
In March last year I suggested that, as both mainstream economics and psychology were undergoing major challenge, it was time that the scholastic discipline of public management had this sort of overhaul The only popular book on the subject I can think of was Reinventing Government (1991) by David Osbourne and Ted Gaebler – which did not, however, attempt an overview of the topic but was rather proselytise for neo-liberalism. For a book which had such a profound effect, it’s curiously absent from google scholar and those not familiar with it will have to make do with this useful riposte to its approach.

Economics and psychology, of course, are subjects dear to the heart of everyone – and economists and psychologists figures of both power and ridicule. Poor old public administration and its experts are hardly in the same league! As I said in yesterday’s post, not only does noone listen to them – but the scholars are embarrassed to be caught even writing for a bureaucratatic or political audience. And yet the last two decades have seen ministries and governments everywhere embark on major upheavals of administrative and policy systems – the very stuff of public administration. But the role of the scholars has (unlike the 2 other disciplines) been simply to observe, calibrate and comment. No theory has been developed by scholars equivalent to the power of the "market”, "competitive equilibrium” or "the unconscious” – unless, that is, you count Weber’s "rational-legal bureaucracy” or Robert Michels "iron law of oligarchy”. Somehow Lindblom's "disjointed incrementalism" never caught on as a public phrase!
Those behind the marketising prescriptions of New Public Management (NPM) were not from the public admin stable – but rather from Public Choice Economics and from the OECD – and the role of PA scholars has been map its rise and apparent fall and (occasionally) to deflate its pretensions. At its best, this type of commentary and analysis is very useful – few have surpassed Chris Hood’s masterly dissection of NPM 20 years ago. This sets out for the first time the basic features of (and arguments for) the disparate elements which had characterised the apparently ad-hoc series of measures seen in the previous 15 years in the UK, New Zealand and Australia – and then goes on to suggest that the underlying values of NPM (what he calls the sigma value of efficiency) are simply one of three clusters of adminstrative values – the other two being concerned with rectitude (theta value) and resilience (lamda value). 
Table 2 of the paper sets this out in more detail.

The trick (as with life) is to get the appropriate balance between these three. Any attempt to favour one at the expense of the others (NPM) will lead inevitably to reaction and is therefore unstable. This emphasis on the importance of balance was the focus of a very good (but neglected) paper which Henry Mintzberg published in 2000 (which I’ve mentioned before on the blog) about the Management of Government which starts with the assertion that it was not capitalism which won in 1989 but "the balanced model” ie a system in which there was some sort of balance between the power of commerce, the state and the citizen. Patently the balance has swung too far in the intervening 20 years!

Hood elaborates on these three sets of values in the book he published at the same time with Michael Jackson - Administrative Argument (sadly out of print) - when he set aut 99 (conflicting) proverbs used in organisational change.

In 2007, Russell Ackoff, the US strategic management guru, published a more folksy variant of this proverbs approach – The F Laws of management a short version of which can be read here We desperately need this sort of approach applied to the „reformitis” which has afflicted bureaucrats and politicians in the past 20 years. A book is needed which –
• Is written in a clear and accessible way
• Sets out the history of public admin thought (already available in many academic texts)
• Sets out the thinking which has dominated practice of the past 20 years; where it has come from; and what results it has had (already well done in academia see the Pal paper on the role of the OECD I referred to a few posts back)
• Gives case studies – not of the academic sort but more fire in the belly stuff which comes, for example, from the pen of Kenneth Roy in the great crusading Emag he edits and which today tells a tale which should be shouted from the rooftops of the collusion of so many public figures with the activities of the cowboys who run privatised companies which are trying to muscle in on (and make profit from) public services.

Perhaps I should try to produce such a book?

Speaking truth to power

The last session of the NISPAcee Conference on Saturday afternoon came back to the Conference theme of Public Administration of the Future - with a slightly over-the-top intro to Professor Bouckaert, suggesting that governments listened to him and acted upon his advice. Netherlands may, of course, be an exceptional case – but the sad reality is that few public admin scholars even see government as an audience. There is the odd occasion when a Ministry does commission some scholars – Finland did it in the early 2000s and Denmark also.
It would be great to see a paper from some academics which tried to summarise the lessons from the last 20 years of frenetic administrative reforms in a way which made sense for political leaders in central europe (let alone Western) eg a presentation for junior Ministers. Even more helpful would be an advice note on how they should handle the latest recommendations from management consultants! I have actually never read such a paper. Chris Pollitt’s stimulating 2004 paper on Buying and Borrowing Public Management Refoms is as close as I can get to such a paper. In 2006 he actually addressed the issue of consultancy - but from a rather shamefaced point of view"Academic Consultancy What is its nature, place, value within academia?" The paper is useful, however, in separating out eight possible roles which academics can usefully play - including "court jester" and "sparring partner". And Chris Pollitt is the guy who actually produced, in 2003, a book written for officials - The Essential Public Manager.
Even a literature review could be useful but the PAR literature now is so vast that noone (to my knowledge) has attempted it – although there are useful literature reviews on more specialist areas such as anti-corruption work (many); performance management etc.
One of the best policy analysts was Aaron Wildavsky who actually made the budgetary process a sexy topic - and gathered his various papers together in the late 1970ss in a book called "Speaking Truth to Power". It's time for this tradition to be reborn!

Reflections on an intellectual network

NISPAcee has played an interesting role in monitoring and encouraging institution-building in central and eastern europe these last 18 years. Funded initially by the Ford Foundation and by the Pew Charitable Trust; then by SIGMA, LGI Soros (even The World Bank I think at one stage),its Quarterly Newsletter, annual Conferences and publications have been an important resource for those interested in administrative reform in the countries which moved out of the communist embrace in 1989. The Conference is very much a showcase – more than a hundred papers were presented – ie half of those attending were presenting. This leaves little time for thematic exploration – although hopefully the older working groups (civil service reform; and local government) manage a bit more of this. Any dialogue has therefore to take place elsewhere. And the presentations are predominantly academic – as befits an organisation which has defined itself in scholastic terms. I find it a shame that the important concern for analytical rigour is assumed to require obeisance to the narrow and soul-destroying standards of modern academia.
Of course, most authors are writing in a foreign language (English) – and feel it necessary to use all the jargon of new public management. It is the younger people who attend the Conference (they have the language) and, at this early stage in their career, it is difficult (both intellectually and politically) for them to challenge the concepts. It is a pity the Conference cannot attract more older practitioners (from both East and West) who could not only have useful exchanges between themselves – but also challenge the conventional wisdom of the theorists (and the OECD). Of course OECD itself convenes sessions with senior officials on these issues – but they are restricted events.
The theme of the Conference was supposed to be Public Administration of the Future – but got lost a bit in the proliferation of papers and working groups and rather passed me by, distracted as I was by my own presentation. I did, however, catch a panel discussion on the American perspective whose 4 wizened members, understandably, did not seem to be able to move away from the job haemmorrage which is taking place there in the public sector generally and also in university. One of the few interesting comments made by the panel was that American Public Admin scholars have traditionally had a strong link with government practice – and that this was perhaps something which should be taken up by central and east european PA scholars. Certainly it is not very evident in West Europe

As I write this in an empty Sofia (yet another 2 day pubic holiday!) I am listening to the great World Music programme and heard some very touching harp and vocals from the Scottish bard, Robin Williamson, who many decades ago was part of The Incredible String band. It can be heard for the next 4 days here - you’ll find it about half way through.
NISPAcee is at a bit of a crossroads – not least because a major source of funding dries up shortly. In 2007/2008, it carried out a major strategic review and produced a strategy for 2009-12 from which I have pulled this mission statement

The strategic goals of NISPAcee are to:
• define itself as a network-oriented organisation towards the improvement of PA education and training standards in the region
• provide an orientation in multi- and trans-disciplinarity in curriculum development of PA programmes, paying special attention to the connection to, for example, sociology, developmental studies, etc.
• transform itself as a research organisation increasingly oriented towards public administration reforms, and problems of significant importance and high priority in the modernisation of public administrative systems
• measure up to international standards of research and to be competitive with Western Europe and the US
• strengthen the relationship between research, education and consultancy,
• strengthen the role of a bridge between academia and practice, inside the NISPAcee region and between the NISPAcee region and the Euro-Atlantic world.

My only comment (as a sympathetic outsider who only recently took out individual membership) is that there is not much evidence of the strengthening of the relationship with consultancy; and I would love to see the evidence for success in building a wider curriculum. Although quite how relevant that is for undergraduates I doubt. It is by no means obvious that PA graduates are any better recruits to state bodies than others; indeed some would argue that the breadth of their studies makes them intellectually less suitable! Of course the French ENA tradition has had an influence on the region on this point - but I could never understand how, for example, the Presidential Academy of PA in Azerbaijan could justify its existence when virtually none of its graduates were subsequently recruited to state bodies!
Romania is in the Francophone area of influence and inherits its intellectual tradition. Its National Political Studies and Public Admin was strongly represented at the Conference (just down the road) and their papers were quite incredible in their remoteness from reality.
There were some moments at the Conference when its potential was evident - such a range of countries (Afghanistan made its first appearance with quite a strong delegation) and mix of ages and disciplinary interests. But the potential is not being focussed.

Conference frustrations

When you’re a blogger and at a Conference, you are supposed to move into a higher gear. All the chats and adrenalin etc But the NISPAcee Conference at Varna on the Black Sea seems to have had the opposite effect on me. First – few contacts. I missed both evening receptions – because I had travelled by car. Thursday I was just so tired after negotiating Varna (so easy to reach from Bucharest) trying to find the Conference Hotel at the Golden Sands in the north amongst so many thousands in the area – that I could not be bothered getting in a bus to retrace 25 kilometres to Varna University.
And, no matter how hard you prepare for a presentation, you have to see the arena and feel the chemistry of the people before you can decide how to pitch the ideas. NISPAcee has seven working groups and our room was the ballroom (!!) – where even the largest slide was difficult for me to read. Only 10 minutes were allowed (in my case for a 25 page paper with 60 footnotes) and most of the presenters in the first Friday morning session understandably opted for Powerpoint. One didn’t – and I at least focussed more closely on his words. I decided therefore to throw away the slides (but still distribute them as individual handouts). So I missed the plenary session at 11.00 while I wrote a new presentation.
My presentation went down fine amongst the 40 participants (at least amongst the older, more independent characters from Bulgaria, Poland, Serbia and Slovakia who no longer have to earn brownie points from the older academic guru figures around whom most of the Conference swarms). This was a working group (on administrative reform) which I had helped establish by a critical paper I had presented to the 2006 Conference (with several others including David Coombes) – but it was not being managed in a way which allowed any sustained dialogue.
And Friday’s reception involved another bus journey – which I did not fancy - to the nearby Albena resort for some real estate marketing. And, after a couple of beers, the car journey I had planned (to give me the flexibility) was out of the question because of the Bulgarian police lurking behind every palm tree. I had planned to leave Saturday afternoon – but realised this was unfair so decided to stay the course to see if something more coherent could be retrieved. But the presentations were so messy – and all treated as worthy - no matter how pathetic (eg an ex Romanian State Secretary whose support is seen as so crucial to the Conference that he can turn up literally at the last minute - without the necessary paper - and scribble something illegible on a whiteboard). I will later name names!!
Of course it is always a privilege to have the chance to present a paper - even without feedback, it helps me write the paper I should have presented in the first place. And listening to other presentations from those other rare individual who have got into this business of public admin reform also sets off fascinating thoughts which enrich my creative juices. So many thanks to those who took the trouble to attend for the duration (and not just swan in at the last moment via a state limousine) and make a real contribution at Varna!

Hungary's repressive state

I’ve mentioned the Hungarian Specrum blog several times already. If ever a blog deserved a prize, it’s this one – for its consistent and detailed reporting of the misdemeanours of the different parts of the Hungarian system. Here’s a recent post on how an innocent opposition mayor was kept in jail for almost 3 years – with no charges and no evidence. Be very afraid when you cross into Hungary!
People in the EU know about the government control of the Hungarian media. What they haven’t woken up to is the extent of Orban (their PM’s) relentless takeover of every part of the Hungarian system (including the judiciary) and crushing of opposition figures. For that information, you have to read Hungarian Spectrum.

And more on the subject of yesterday’s comment about the long-hatched plot to privatise the English health system. So far, the Scottish government has managed to resist this trend.

The stories about jobless Greek people returning to their villages should be read in conjunction with this blog which, every week, addresses the issue of the simpler life we should be choosing to live - rather than waiting until you're forced to.

laboratory of education and health change

Hats off to the mayor of sector 1 Bucharest! Thanks to the municipality scheme, we were able to pick up 2 bikes at 11.00 Sunday morning – completely free of charge – and cycle around in the delightful Harastroia park and lake in complete safety for 2 hours. Hopefully this scheme – which lasts until the autumn - will encourage more to take to their bikes.

As usual, England is currently the subject of mad scientist experimentation – in the 2 fields politicians most like to play around with – education and health.
A good case-study in economics and in the use and meaning of league-tables is given in an article in The London Review of Books which explores the apparent UK Coalition Government’s drive to emulate US policy toward universities ie customer payment and competition.

The data which appear, at first glance, to demonstrate the great strength of the US university system are revealed, on even the most rudimentary analysis, to demonstrate nothing of the kind. Measure for measure, US universities are manifestly not the ‘best of the best’. If value for money is the most important consideration, especially in an age of austerity, the American model might well be the last one that Britain should be emulating.
This analysis has serious implications for government policy. There is no evidence here that private sector competition drives up academic standards, but there is clear evidence that market competition drives up prices, since academic excellence apparently costs much more in the US than the UK. Why is this? It isn’t in fact difficult to see why the introduction of market pricing into a small cohort of elite universities will drive prices up, not down. Wherever a small and strictly limited supply of a highly desirable commodity – such as places at Harvard – is introduced into a genuinely open market, the wealthiest cohort in society will drive its price up to levels only they can afford. This is essentially what has been happening at the upper levels of the US university league since the income gap began to open up in the 1980s. For several decades, tuition fees have been rising at double, triple and even quadruple the rate of cost-of-living inflation, first at the most exclusive universities, and then throughout the private sector, so that there are now more than a hundred private colleges and universities in the US charging students at least $50,000 annually for fees, room and board.
The introduction of competition drives down prices only in markets for commodities that can be readily produced. If a firm is producing things inefficiently, or skimming off too much profit, it can be undercut by more efficient methods of production or leaner business models. But there are some things which cannot be readily produced, and ancient universities are an excellent example. Oxford and Cambridge have a 600-year head start on their English rivals. Many of the advantages they enjoy are the product of their long histories: their architectural settings, their libraries and archives; their unique systems of tutorial teaching, collegiate organisation and self-government; and the academic prestige accumulated by two dozen generations of scholars, philosophers, scientists, poets and prime ministers. Their competitors cannot produce these things at any price, much less one that undercuts theirs. And because the ‘student experience’ they offer is one that many find uniquely attractive, they could, if freed from the constraints of government legislation, charge as high a price for this experience as the market would bear, without the risk of being undercut by anyone but each other.
But why does all the extra money pouring into US universities generate such a poor return in the rankings? Evidently, a large fraction of this funding is being invested in something other than academic excellence. This haemorrhage of funds has not gone unnoticed by American university leaders, who have traced the source of the leak to another aspect of market-driven academic culture which the government plans to start importing from America: the ‘student experience’.
Jonathan Cole, former provost and dean of faculties at Columbia, wrote in the Huffington Post last year that in addition to fee inflation, a major contributor to the increased cost of higher education in America stems from the perverse assumption that students are ‘customers’, that the customer is always right, and what he or she demands must be purchased. Money is well-spent on psychological counselling, but the number of offices that focus on student activities, athletics and athletic facilities, summer job placement and outsourced dining services, to say nothing of the dormitory rooms and suites that only the Four Seasons can match, leads to an expansion of administrators and increased cost of administration.
If Cole is correct, then the marketisation of the higher education sector stimulates not one but two separate developments which run directly counter to government expectations. On the one hand, genuine market competition between elite universities drives up average tuition fees across the sector. On the other, the marketing of the ‘student experience’ places an ever increasing portion of university budgets in the hands of student ‘customers’. The first of these mechanisms drives up price, while the second drives down academic value for money, since the inflated fees are squandered on luxuries. To judge from the American experience, comfortable accommodation, a rich programme of social events and state of the art athletic facilities are what most 18-year-olds want when they choose their ‘student experience’; and when student choice becomes the engine for driving up standards, these are the standards that are going to be driven up.

As far as the government's intentions for the poor health system are concerned, the backlash from the medical profession to the idea of putting GPs in charge of the health budget (in England) has been so great that the Government set up a "listening exercise"in the summer. Two recent discussion threads give a good sense of what's at stake - in the first BBC's Paul Mason sets out the very clearly the thinking which lay behind the reform; the problems it has run into; and what might now happen. A rare analytical discussion. The second thread - from the Guardian - is more conerned with political aspects.
In the course of following the discussion, I came across a good health blog.
Coincidentally, just as put down (a reread of) Colin Leys' 2001 book on Market-Driven Politics (which was the first study I ever read of the "commodification" of public services, I came across a new article and booklet he has written, suggesting that the government's health changes are not (as normally represented) a deviation but rather part of a change whiuch has been more than a decade in preparation.
The Kazanluk gallery was kind enough to Email me yesterday this pic of one of several paintings they have by Vassil Bakarov - "my mother".

Salute to the local municipal galleries

Thursday I spent on a very pleasant drive from Velingrad in the Rhodope mountains to Bucharest (500 kms) – first through the gorge I spoke about; then east across the Thracian plain with a spectacular glowering sky; a hop past Stara Zagora over another mountain; and pulled in at Kazanluk on the basis of what I had read about its Art Gallery. And I was not disappointed. I was warmly received by Daniela who introduced me to their collection which included the Stanio Stamatov featured above – he was one of many local painters. Indeed the small town was so prolific with artists that it used to be called „the town of a hundred painters”. The collection is therefore a rich one - of both paintings and sculptures - and, amongst those whose acquaintance I made were Vasil Barakov (1902-1991); a scupltor Hristo Pessev (1923-2000); and Spas Zawgrov (1908-1991) born in a nearby village whose landscapes and portrait sketches were in a temporary exhibition funded by his family. Hristo Genev, the Director, welcomed me into his den and presented me with a couple of discs (one of his own material). He sculpts the most fascinating pieces from wood – one of which I displayed a couple of posts back. This is a gallery worth a detour to see – and many revisits!

I don’t often look at yahoo stories - but this is a useful bit of pleading for the simpler life we should be leading.

There are definite advantages in attending workshops which are in languages one doesn't understand! It forces you to use other senses to understand what is going on - to look at body language, for example. And it also gives me the time to reflect - eg I suddenly remembered the paper I had written in 2008 about Training assessment Tools which have different examples which could be used at the different stages of the training cycle. I duly had it printed it out and gave it to the Council of Ministers rep who was also attending the Vilengrad session (since they had insisted on a simplistic evaluation form being used). I will add this shortly to my website.
And I was also able to read more closely the paper on Training and Beyond; seeking better practices for capacity development by Jenny Pearson which I referred to recently - which sets out very well the critique of training I was myself struggling toward in my own 2008 paper.

Finally three good articles on the Chinese mood. The first about a rare critical article on Mao by an 82 year old Chinese economist. Then a good piece on the competition for the new leadership positions.
The last is particuarly interesting - since it gives an insight into how systematic is the Chinese way of researching issues.