The good German of Nanjing

I have a week or so to update the paper I delivered at the Varna Conference on 20 May – my critique of the sort of advice in institution- building which is dished out by western consultants and the procurement procedures which the EC uses for that. So this morning I was having another look at it - building in some references which I had missed (such as Tony Verheijen’s 2007 World bank paper Administrative Capacity in the New Member States – the limits of innovation?; and trying to get a more coherent ending to the paper.
This year there is no guarantee that the paper will be published – NISPAcee funds are running low. However, last week I receives a letter suggesting that I submit it as a possible contribution to The Journal of US-China Public Administration.
Some posts back, I mentioned an excellent panel discussion of central european developments of the past 20 years Is Europe’s democratic Revolution Over? Reference was made during that discussion to Ralf Dahrendorf’s prescient comment (in an extended public letter he wrote in 1990 and published under the title Reflections on the Revolution in Europe) that it would take one or two years to create new institutions of political democracy in these recently liberated countries, maybe five to 10 years to reform the economy and make a market economy, and 15 to 20 years to create the rule of law. And it will take maybe two generations to create a functioning civil society.
A Czech panellist (who had been an adviser to Vaclav Havel) suggested that

what we see now is that we have completed the first two stages, the transformation of the institutions, of the framework of political democracy on the institutional level, there is a functioning market economy, which of course has certain problems, but when you take a look at the third area, the rule of the law, there is still a long way to go, and civil society is still weak and in many ways not very efficient.

He then went on to make the useful distinction

between democracy understood as institutions and democracy understood as culture. It’s been much easier to create a democratic regime, a democratic system as a set of institutions and procedures and mechanism, than to create democracy as a kind of culture – that is, an environment in which people are actually democrats

I find most Chinese novels I get hold very gripping to read. Is this perhaps something to do with the repressions and incredible madnesses (of a Hieronymus Bosch sort) they have experienced in the past 100 years? I’ve just finished Ye Zhaoyan’s Nanjing 1937 – a Love Story which led me to check the precise location of the city – and the evil events of December 1937 when about 250,000 defenceless Chinese were massacred by Japanese soldiers. Thus I learned of The good German of Nanjing - John Rabe who (as Chairman of a hurriedly assembled International Committee for the Nanjing Safety Zone; and as Head of the local Nazi association) saved a similar number by creating a safe zone and facing down marauding Japanese on numerous occasions (by flashing his swastika pass). Last September I wrote about the similar courageous role played by an American (Asa Jennings) in September 1922 when Greek residents of Smyrna were being massacred. Rabe's achievement and heroism went for naught for the Brits whose actions reduced him to dire poverty in the denazification programme in post-war Berlin – but the citizens of Nanjing did not forget him and for the last few years of his life sent money and food to him in Berlin before he died of a heart attack in 1950.
Such people are the real heroes - but they are generally lost to us all. When reviewing Robert Fisk's huge book on the Middle-East conflicts, I made the comment that this should be the stuff of case-studies in public admin teaching - to remind us that we are human beings and that principles should triumph over rationalistic calculations!
The large oil painting on the Nanjing massacre was done a decade ago by Li Zijiang

EC Structural Funds

I’m quiet because I’m busy! Swimming first thing in morning – with refreshing walks through Sofia’s great South park with Vitosha Mountain above always offering a fascinating artistic backcloth, with or without clouds. Wednesday the sky was as spectacular as it gets hereabouts – stormy greys and blues…with thunder rolling around in late afternoon as we scurried home protectively clutching the latest painting acquisition. Our fifth Milcho Kostadinov – but first seascape – which has rich hues of green, blue, grey and crashing white foam. This is it - above.
I’m also thinking about a possible bid for a project in Bulgaria’s Structural Funds (SF) (Administrative Capacity) – whose terms of reference are, naturally, in Bulgarian. But the more I learn of the detail, the less enthusiastic I get. The project I am currently involved in is required to train 2,800 local officials (in aspects of bidding for and managing SF) in a 12 month period. That’s one workshop every day – somewhere in one of Bulgaria’s regions. Understandably, the process is more about ticking boxes than developing the sort feedback, learning and quality needed for sistainability. The new project I’m looking at would require 5,000 officials to be trained in 6 months! That’s almost 4 workshops each day!! Impossible - unless it is all done at a regional level, when it does become manageable. But companies bidding would have to put money upfront – and hope that the authorities would honour the receipts. No wonder so little money actually gets spent!
Yesterday I visited a workshop we were running on Communications and Information – for 20 municipal officials – and chatted with the 2 trainers. I was fascinated to learn that the Gates Foundation is funding work with the local library system here – Bulgaria has 900 of them! And, given the parlous demographic state of many of the villages here, it is not suprising that few have computers or internet connections.
A year ago - some comments about education.

Opening the dark recesses of Sofia City Gallery

The special exhibitions of Sofia City Art Gallery play an important role in Bulgaria in bringing together the paintings of people like Dobre Dobrev, Nikolae Boiadjiev (to mention 2 recent events) from the various municipal and private museums in the country. But the Sofia gallery boasts the best collection of Bulgarian art (7,000 artefacts) and how therefore to ensure that they see the light of day? The Gallery curator Dr. Maria Vasileva has different ways of dealing with the issue - first collections around themes such as "the window"; the "artists's studio and model" and "portraits of artists"(to mention three recent themes).
The Gallery has also started a series of exhibitions (and booklets/discs)(“The other Eye”) which involves opening up the gallery's large collections to selected outsiders - who are invited to comb the dungeons of the gallery where the collections are stored, strip off the protective covering and select some paintings for public display.
I missed the first two exhibitions of such works – selected by an artist Luchezar Boyadjiev and a philosopher Boyan Manchev. The small booklet which accompanied the second exhibition tells of Manchev expecting to find a large section of the museum’s collection covering major events – whether historical or personal). Instead

“the representation of various aspects of people’s private world obviously prevails, there being, conditionally speaking, an “idyllic” thread running through the works, which unifies all those aspects through the representation of elements of everyday living, which are not directly related to either big moments in history and monumental events, or to essential existential and metaphysical issues such as life, death, birth, violence, suffering, etc.”

It says a lot about the richness of the Bulgarian painting tradition that only the first four of the following names selected for the exhibition are on the list of more than 140 painters I have selected for the booklet on Bulgarian painting I am working on! Naoum Hadjimladenov, Bencho Obreshkov, Dechko Ouzounov, Kiril Tsonev, Vera Nedkova, Vera Loukova, Ivan Nenov, Lika Yanko, Sami Bidjerano-Sabin, Georgi Bawev, Nadezhda Kouteva, Samouil (Suli) Seferov, Dimiter Voinov, Dariya Vassilyanska, Nadezhda Deleva, Andrei Daniel, Zina Yourdanova, Luben Kostov, Nina Kovacheva, Ivan Moudov, Nikola Mihov, Stoyan Sotirov, etc.
Of the new names, I found Loukova, Nedkova and Nenov most attractive.

And a third exhibition has just opened – The Choice - of artefacts this time selected by 43 prominent Bulgarian art and cultural historians belonging to different generations and fields of work (lecturers, researchers, museum curators, directors of art galleries, museums and nongovernmental organizations, art critics, curators and freelance researchers. The project aim is defined in very ambitious terms

• to look into the factors that single out an artwork as valuable and important for the development of Bulgarian art from today’s perspective;
• to establish whether selection criteria have changed as compared to the ones applied in decades past;
• whether the best textbook examples of artworks have stood the test of time;
• whether the language of art criticism has changed; what is the personal stance of the most prominent Bulgarian art historians.

The accompanying booklet (only 5 euros) allows each of the 47 to analyze their choice both in view of its specific features and the features it shares with other works belonging to the same historical period. Alongside the collection’s masterpieces there appear somewhat forgotten names, as well as some totally unfamiliar ones; alongside classical artists there stand young artists. For my taste, there is too much contemporary crap – collages and multi-media. And the text which accompanies each artefact – which could have been informative to lay people like myself – is too often self-indulgent and uninformative.
The displays which impacted on me were –
• A still life from a forgotten - Patriki Sandev (1881-1959)
• A portrait by Konstantin Shturkelov (1889-1961)
• A portrait by Kiril Tsonev(whose greatness I am only now beginning to appreciate)
• The famous Haymaking-Rest by Zlatyu Boyadjiev (1941)
• Village scene (Muslim Bulgarian women) by Simeon Velkov (1885-1966)
• Zlatin Nuriev’s harrowing scuplture Window (1985) of an eyeless Pomak (carved during the “Revival Process” when those of Turkish descent were forced to take Bulgarian names.

Perhaps I can persuade the Gallery to let me into its depths?? And I wonder whether the Regional Galleries have the same policy. I hope to visit the Stara Zagora Gallery on Sunday. The painting is an Ivan Milev - who died so young.

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!