Evaluating public management reforms: an international perspective

ID: 35898

Authors: Christopher Pollitt e Geert Bouckaert.

Source: Revista do Serviço Público, v. 53, n. 3, p. 7-31, July-September, 2002. 25 page(s).

Document type: Article (Portuguese)

Best practice in central government modernization

ID: 35899

Authors: Werner Jann, Christoph Reichard.

Source: Revista do Serviço Público, v. 53, n. 3, p. 33-52, July-September, 2002. 20 page(s).

Document type: Article (Portuguese) Show Abstract

This paper summarizes first findings from an international comparative research project evaluating major achievements of central state modernization in different western “reformcountries”. Based on country reports by a number of well-known public administration and management experts from Denmark, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and the United States, new practices, which have evolved similarly in different countries, with obviously quite different administrative traditions, cultures and reform paths, and which seem to work, are identified and analysed. The main emphasis is laid on the implementation, on the real practices and processes and on the impact of innovations in clearly defined policy areas and/or projects, and not on general modernization strategies and programmes. The paper concentrates on three main findings: on a new logic of steering at central government level (agencification and contract steering), on innovations in the field of personnel (normalisation and performance orientation of personnel systems) and on public financial management (budgeting and accounting). It concludes with some observations about implementation strategies (administrative policy) and with some general experiences from this kind of a rather unusual international cooperative research effort, based more on available material and informed judgement than on an advanced research design.

Control dilemma and sequential failure in managerial reforms

ID: 35900

Authors: Flávio da Cunha Rezende.

Source: Revista do Serviço Público, v. 53, n. 3, p. 53-77, July-September, 2002. 25 page(s).

Document type: Article (Portuguese) Show Abstract

administrative reform policies are classical cases of policies leading to sequential failure. Reforms are begun but run into implementation problems and are usually abandoned, modified, or terminated. Contemporary administrative reforms in the different National States consist of a historical legacy of sequential failures. This article discusses the problem of sequential failure in administrative reform policies, provides a wide range of explanations for this phenomenon, and suggests an additional explanation based on the causality between the “control dilemma and the sequential failures in reforms.” The article further shows how this problem is evident in managerial reforms of the 1990s, which contain a contradiction associated with the demand for control, which, in certain contexts, positively encourage sequential failure. The first section describes the sequential failure phenomenon in administrative reform policies. The second section sets forth a wide spectrum of explanations available in the literature on this matter, paying special attention to causal mechanisms and major arguments. The final section sets forth the additional explanation proposed and its application to the 1995 Brazilian managerial reform.

Regulation and the new managerial models in Brazil

ID: 35901

Authors: Pedro César Lima de Farias, Sheila Maria Reis Ribeiro.

Source: Revista do Serviço Público, v. 53, n. 3, p. 79-94, July-September, 2002. 16 page(s).

Document type: Article (Portuguese) Show Abstract

The article is about the peculiarities of Brazilian regulatory reform, unfolded from 1995 on, where one can notice the break on the monopoly of gas and oil, telecommunications, broadcasting and transportation services, as well as the hastening on privatization processes and a movement towards the State institutional reform, pursuant to the economic structural adjustment. It establishes the relation between regulatory reform and the proposal on administrative reform, as substantiated in the 1995 Directive Plan on the State Apparatus Reform, describing the further process on political construction of the regulatory agencies. It analyzes conceptual aspects that characterize the new regulatory bodies, mainly concerning their autonomy and control. The article ends by calling attention to the need for deepening a conceptual framework on the regulatory reform, in such a way as to allow for improving the regulatory institutional tools, defining competencies in the relation with sectoral Ministries, as well as endowing the State with mechanisms for the Public Power’s coherent action besides both market and the civil society.

Decentralization and good government: how to improve the capacity of local government?

ID: 35902

Authors: Markus Brose.

Source: Revista do Serviço Público, v. 53, n. 3, p. 95-146, July-September, 2002. 52 page(s).

Document type: Article (Portuguese) Show Abstract

Since the new Constituition of 1988 the country is undergoing a rapid process of decentralization. The Local Government is receiving new duties, without a previous process of planning or a public debate about the limits of this process. There is also no process of decentralization of resources to the Local Governmnet. Within a historical tradition the Federal Government anb the Regional Governments dont trust the Local Government, and are creating new forms of control and pressure over it. This article describes a reasearch undertaken with stakeholders within small countys in the state of Rio Grande do Sul about their perception of this process. At the end of the article there are presented proposals in order to reverse the process: how to strengthen the capacity of Local Governments, instead of only controlling them.