David Giauque_The New Public Management

8/3/2019 David Giauque_The New Public Management

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566 International Review ofAdministrative Sciences 69(4)Levy, R. (2003 ) 'Confu sed Expectations: Decntralising the Managcment of EU Pro-grammes', Public Money and Management 23(2): 83-92.Mclzonuld , M. (2000) ' Identi ti es in the European Commiss ion' , i n N. Nugent (ed .) At (heHearl of the Union: Studies a/the European Commission, 2nd edn, pp. 51-72. London:Macmillan.

Metcalfe, L. (1996) 'The European Commission as a Network Organizat ion' , Publius: TheJournal of Federalism 26(4): 43-62.Metcalfe, L. (2000) 'Reforming the Commission: Will Organizat ional Efficiency ProduceEffective Governance?', Journal of Common Market Studies 38(5): 817-4 I.Middlelhoek, A., Ahlenius, I .-B. , Salcedo, J ., Lelong, P., Tizzano, A. and van Gerven, W.(1999a) First Report all Allegation Regarding Fraud, Mismanagement and Nepotism inthe European Commission. Brussels: Committee of Independent Experts.Middlelhcek, A., Ahlenius, I .-B. , Salcedo, J ., Lelong, P., Tizzano, A. and van Gerven, W.(I999b) Second Report 0/1 Reform of tile Call/mission Analysis of Current Practice andProposals for Tackling Mismanagement, irregularities aiul Fraud. Brussels: Committeeof Independent Experts.

Osborne , D . and Gaebler , T . (1992) Reinventing Government: Holt' the EntrepreneurialSpirit is Transforming the Public Sector. Reading, MA: Addison Wesley.Page, E. (1997) People Who Run Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Peters, B . Guy (1998) 'What Works? The Ant iphons ofAdmini st ra tive Reform' , in B .GuyPeters and D. Savoie (eds) Taking Stock: Assessing Public Sector Reforms, pp. 78-107.Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queens Univers ity Press .Pollitt, Christopher (1993) Managerialism and the Public Services. Oxford: Blackwell.Polli tt , C. and Bouckaert , G. (2000) Public Management Reform: A Comparative Analysis.Oxford: Oxford University Press.Pollitt, c., Birchall, J. and Putnam, K. (1998) Decentralising Public Service Management.Basingstoke; Macmillan.

Rainey, H. (1998) 'Assessing Past and Current Personnel Reforms' , i n B . Guy Peters andD. Savoie (eds) Taking Stock: Assessing Public Sector Reforms, pp. 164-86. Montrealand Kingston: McGill-Queens University Press.

Simon, H. (1947) Administrative Behaviour. New York: The Free Press .Smelser, N.(1962) The Theory of Collective Behaviour. New York: Macmillan/Free Press.Smi th , A . (2003) 'Why European Commiss ioners Mat te r' , Journal of Common MarkelStudies 41(1): 137-56.Stevens, A. and Steven s, H. (1997) 'Le Non-management de I'Europe', Politique etManagement Public 15(1): 33-52. .Stevens, A. and Stevens, H. (2001) Brussels Bureaucrats? The Administration of the Ell 1'0-pean Union. Basingstoke: Palgrave.Well er , P. and Young, L. (2001) 'Aus tral ia : Mandarins or Lemons? ', i n R .A.W. Rhodesand P. Weller (eds) The Chang ing IVOI' ldo f Top Of ficial s, Mandar ins or Va le ts?Buckingham; Open University Press.

New public management and organizational regulation:the liberal bureaucracyDavid Giauque

AbstractThis art icle sets out to quest ion the impact of new public management (NPM) reformsOil the functioning of public organizat ions . This investigation uses the concept oforganizat ional regulat ion as a basis . We assume that the introduction of NPM principlesand tools result s in the const itut ion of a new type of regulat ion tha t we refer toas' liberal bureaucracy '. We describe the main characteris tics based on quali tativeempirical research carried out i ll four federal adminis trat ive departments in Canadaand Switzerland. We conclude with a comparison of the data gathered with certainfacts relat ing to the functioning of private sector organizat ions and highlight thestriking similarities in this field.IntroductionPublic organizat ions in OEeD countries are undergoing radical change (GEeD,1997). Naturally, the nature and scale ofthese changes vary depending on the case(Hood, 1991; Polli tt, 2000) but the fact remains tha t major changes a re takingplace. These administra tive transformations are associated wi th the wave ofreforms generally referred to as the 'new public management' (NPM). During thepas t 20 years , NPM principles and tools have been introduced into public sectororganizat ions. A large number of publ ica tions descr ibing these principles(Osborne and Gaebler, 1993; Schedler, 1995), as well as practi ca l guides forimplementing the reforms a imed at publ ic managers and poli tical decision-makers (Hablutzel et al. , 1995; Haldernann, 1995; Finger and Ruchat, 1997) haveappeared. Conversely, scientific books that take a different view of the changes inprogress ~ i .e . that systematically assess them in order tounders tand their impactinorganizational terms ~ are rare.

Dr David Giauque is Professor, Haute Ecole de Gestian du Valais (HEVs), PublicManagement Centre of Competence, Sierre, Switzerland. This art icle is taken from a doc-toral thesi s advanced by the Ins ti tu t de Hautes Etudes en Adminis trat ion Publ ique and theUn iversity o f Lausanne in Mar ch 2003 under the title: 'Changes in th e Public Sector:Towards a Redefini tion of Organizational Regulat ion in the New Publi c ManagementS ituat ion' ~ 'Changement s dans Ie sec teur publi c: vers une redef in it ion de la regulat ionorganisat ionnelle en situation de nouvelle gestion pubJique' .CDU: 35.012.3(100). Trans-lated from the French version published under the t it le: 'Nouvelle gestion publique et regu-la' organisat ionelle. La bureaucratic Iiberale' .International Review of Administrative Sciences [0020-8523(200312)69:4]Copyrigh t 2003 liAS. SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and NewDelhi), VoL 69 (2003), 567-592; 039426


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568 International Review ojAdministrative Sciences 69(4)It is precisely the aim of this article to present the first results of research' con-

ducted between July 2001 and August 2002 in publ ic organizat ions$l order to( I understand the consequences of administrative changes on the fuiictloning of the\ organization.[We studied this subject through the concept of w:ggtnizational regu-lation, whic~enables us to take into consideration the complexity of organizatiOi'l-al units. The guidelines for our investigation and the construction of our analysisare based on the following general assumptions: the organizational regulationemerging within public organizations is based on new disciplinary mechanisms,i .e. on threats and shared fears ofpotential sanctions, as well as on shared chanceswhere these changes create opportunities for individuals, which results in accept-ance of this regulatory model and its legit imization. We cal l this model ' Iiberalbureaucracy' in order to emphasize the fundamentally paradoxical nature of theprocess, which combines liberty and constraints, neoliberalism and bureaucracy,decentralization and conceitlrntion of power:- .----- -In order t~ke our poin~e proceed by stages. First, we present OUf concept

of organizational regulation, carefully defining its scope. Next, we return to thenature of the NPM changes that the GEeD countries have undergone in recentyears . We also take this occasion to outl ine the basic elements of the pol itica lphilosophy that provides the framework and describe the principles and practicaltools provided by this reform movement . Thi rd, we review case studies that wehave conducted in order to understand the impact of the changes in progress onorganizational regulation. We also describe the method selected to carry out oursurvey. This enables us to continue with a description of the main findings of ourempirical research. We conclude with an in-depth explanation of 'liberal bureau-cracy' organizational regulation, the definition of which, we believe, aptlydescribes the situation that currently prevails within public organizationsThe concept and scope of organizational regulationWe define the concept of organizational regulation drawing heavily for our inspi-rat ion on the work ofE. Morin (Morin, 1977, 1990) . Regulation is not a state of equilibrium, because there is no equilibrium, only

a process. Regulation is a process through which changes to anti-organizationalprocesses are offset by opposing forces that maintain the system. Regulationmeans constant control of conflicts.This means that any type of organization is always threatened by disorganization,just as disorganizat ion is the corol lary, or the hidden face , of organizat ion. Inorganizat ional terms, this means that any organization is subject to opposingforces and regulation of these forces enables it to survive and endure. A cris is isreached in an organization when the anti-organizational forces develop andanomie (Durkheirn, 1986, 1988) appears when the organizat ion finds it self in asituation where any cooperation between these components (groups, individuals)i s no longer possible . 'Regula tion in a unit can be perceived as a combination ofantagonisms where the act ivat ion of anti -organizational potent ia l tr iggers i ts

Giauque: New public management and organizational regulation 569FIGURElThe classic triptych ill organizational analysis

Organizational strategy

Structure Culture

opposite, which is reabsorbed when the anti-organizational action is reabsorbed'(Morin, 1977: 120).Using this general definition as a starting point, we need to define the scope of

{the concept by adapting it to the real wor ld of public organizations, which issomewhat different from the private sector. Tradi tionally, organizat ions aredefined in terms of three main dimensions: st rategy, cul ture and structure (seeFigure 1). We believe that these three dimensions do 110t dojustice to the specificcomplexity and particularities of public organizations. We think that we also needto take into account three additional aspects to complete the dimensions of theorganizational regulation concept if we wish to use it to analyse organizationsin the public sector. These are (1) the political character of public organizations,(2) their ' legal' character and (3) their particular culture.

F,)The political cJzaract~!'(fE!_{blic organiza!i,ons: public organizations have very\.dose l inks with the polit ical authorities of count ries, provinces and cantons ~ inother words with the regional polit ical entit ies of each country. Public organiza-tions funct ion on the basis of a budget, often allocated fol lowing a vote in parlia- {ment. However, although they are different in this respect from the private sector, .they have in common certain management tasks, which are often similar in termsof mechanisms and processes. Just like private organizations, administrations 2_have a stock of resources (budget, staff, offices, equipment, etc.) and must gener- r-ate products or goods. Management consists of matching the resources and thetasks to be completed and attempting to find a balance or even to make a profit .This process corresponds to the first production function of public organizations.However, unlike organizations in the private sector, public sector organizationsalso have to take into account the second product ion function, which is publicpolicy management.


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570 International Review ofAdministrative Sciences 69(4)This responsibility of the public sector is what distinguishes it f rom private enterpr ise.The la tter i s f re e toproduce yoghur ts or not . The 'Roads and Bridges' Depa rtment , onthe o ther hand , i s not f ree to s top maintaining the roads , because i t ope ra te s wi th in apolitical framework laid down by government institutions and justified by a quest forresults. In other words, policy management isadded to internal management. The job ofa civil service manager covers two different aspects: eff ic iency and effectiveness. In away, th is dua l fr ame of re fe rence makes the administ ra tive task, i f not more compl i-cated, a t least very different from managing a private enterpr ise. (Thoenig, 2000: 167)We see from this description that the second production function, public policymanagement, is extremely restrictive for public sector organizations and they doIt not have the room for manoeuvre and freedoms avai lable to thei r private sector

\\ counterparts (Knoepfel and Bussmann, 1998; Knoepfel and Varone, 1999).c : 2 The 'legal' cha~?!!~l!!!._~c orgal1izatiol1~:anotl~er impor~ant cI~aracteristicof publ ic sector organizations is associated WIth thei r legal dimension . As wehave just seen, public organizations are dependent, to a large degree, on their rela-

I I t~ons with. t!lepolit~c~l auth~rit.ies of the country ?r province ~ut they also have to,. hsten to cmzens, CIVIlaSSOCIatIOnsand other social groups. 1hey have to respondto needs which are, in principle , defined democratica lly, i.e. the goods and ser-vices created by publ ic organizations are, H~p!"~(;_ctessi~!et? all. ci tizens

.. without any sort of discrimillahon.TtioiaeI~to achieve this goal, they are'suT)Je~Ctrot> very strict ethical rules. Traditionally, staff members benefit from a degree of pro-tection anddo not f u a r dismissal except in exceptional circumstances and cases ofserious offences. Salaries in the civil service. are often good, at least sufficientlyhigh to prevent corruption - but ofcourse there are exceptions. tIhe internal rulesof the civil service are impersonal, aimed at achieving a certain impartiality in the

II treatment of civ il dossiers and the public service mission is often strongly re~affi rmegJMoreover, this bureaucratic e thos described by Weber in one of hisbooks (1971) allows a significant separation between the public and privatesphere, where the public sphere cannot allow the same values and the sameobjectives as the private sphere. By defini tion, the public sphere belongs to the \ con~muni~y and ~hepr. ivate sphere cover~ every aspect of~i~e that : sca?es the col - , {Iective w111.ThIS eth ical and democrat ic code of the civil service IStherefore Jl .~.",.important (du Gay, 2000). Failing to take this aspect into account is tantamount to . \ '1ignoring one of the irreducible characteristics of public sector organizations by-7 trying to eradicate the difference between the public and private spheres. L Withoui1th is separat ion between public and private , the democratic values of the civi lservice (impartia li ty and legal authority, for e1ample) could not be as str ict lyapplied. This is why it is very rare to find such democratic and legal values inprivate sector organizations where the objectives are different and largely aimedC t satisfying the speci~~ inter~sts of.their respective clients. Del1l?crati~ and legalvalues are related tocitizenship, whilst pnvate values are compatible WItha moreclientelist' approach (Greve and Jespersen, 1999; LiegJ, 1999).

Giauque: New public management and organizational regulation 5713. The specific culture ofpublic organizations: the specifically political and legalaspects of public organizations often result in the creation of a particular culture inpubl ic sector organizations, ~_cul tweassocia ted with the special nature of thep~?_Iic.service mission. In this respect, i t should be noted how much th~E1~- l'}t ion of bureaucrats or c ivi l servants differs from that of their counterparts in thepriV[ltesector (Jurkiewicz et al., 1998). The public service mission is often a moreimportant incentive than the level of the ,salary, although it should be understoodthat the mission alone is not sufficient to motivate individuals (KettI, 1997; Petersami Savoie , 200I) . However, public organizat ions are insti lled with severaldifferent values and the link between them, as well as the balance between them,is not easy to change.The values are profound convictions that influence the choices that we make

and the means available . Natural ly, not all values are ethical values, in otherwords not all values serve to distinguish between just and unjust, or good and bad.It is therefore useful to make a distinction between ethical values and other typesof v.alues (Kernaghan, 2000: 112). >__ C".~_."_ c,", .,FAttfi~present t ime, conflicts are frequent, notably due to administ rat ivereforms that place the emphasis on changing prof~ssi()nal values (Francfort et al.,1995; Farazmand, 1999). These cQl;fJidsfl,lse r;i:eciseIY~15ecausehe specificcultural values of public sector organizations are often underestimated or evenoverlooked.In a rather haphazard manner, the specific features of public organizations referto several aspects of the study of organizations. The political dimension stressesthe fact that they are highly dependent on the i.!!tttmjgq'!L~!"l,yJ!2l),l_!1!=!I}Jn whichthey evolve. The IgggLg.im!=!!.~~~onefers to the many rules and procedures thatgovern both the behaviour of tIle actors involved (such rules control the work ofthe actors and influence power games in a particular direction) and the manner inwhich public organizat ions are required to carry out their act ivi ties when pro-ducing goods and services. The legal character of public organizations largelygoverns the manner inwhich they manage their production processes. As we havealready pointed out, public organizations are obligedtol~g1t~rni~1?!h~i!_1l(;Hy.iJi(,:~in two ways: primary legitimization concerns conformity to the laws and rules ofthe state; and secondary legitimizat ion concerns the efficiency with which theadministrative products and services are pI:~duc~d. Finally, public organizationsdevelop speci fic cultural features. Through the ' legal' rules that they have toobserve, public actors often identify with the 'civic' values associated with publicservice missions. The primary legitimacy of public organizations is, therefore, nota hollow debate devoid of meaning; on the contrary, this call to the values ofequality of treatment is often a very vigorous cultural reality within publicadministrations.Table I summarizes the aspects associated with the specific features of public

organizations discussed here.In order to deal properly with the theoretical aspect of the regulation of public

organizations, we therefore have to take these five dimensi~sraera(iOll.


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572 International Review ofAdministrative Sciences 69(4)TABLE!

Summary of the speciflc features of public organizat ions'Political' character 'Legal' character 'Special culture'

Dimensionsassociated withspecific featuresof publicorganizations

Institutional /'dimensionDimension of....-interplay betweenactors and

networks of actors(power)

Dimension linkedto admini st ra tion /and managementDimension linkedto legitimization

Symbolicd imension /

FIGURE 2The concept oforganiza tional regulat ion and i ts dimenslnns

InstitutionaldimensionDimension of

a dm i ni st ra ti un a ndmanagement

Organizationalregulation Symbolicdimension

Dimension of power

Legitimizationdimension

Giauque: Nell' public management and organizat ional regulat ion 573The five dimensions presented in Figure 2 are the dimensions of our concept

of organizat ional regulat ion. These dimensions provide the guidelines for ourempirical investigations and enable us to describe the organizational regulationtrend emerging within public organizations undergoing change.Changes resulting from the NPi\I trendGeneral trends can be identified concerning the options selected for administra-t ive reforms within the OEeD. There i s no consensus on a precise defini tion ofwhat exactly new l l l ihli"1!ill .!l1!g~nt represents (Lynn, 200 I; Poll itt , 200 I).Nevertheless, it i s possible to highl ight a number of cOlllmon princ iples tha tfeature in var ious implementat ions in different countries (Hood, 1991; Fer lie etal. , 1996; Lane, 1997). These principles give priority to several objectives: Ia~)to inlprove the service~c:Ieliyered tofhe publ ic (and, hence, to cit izen-clients);' ... - . ... ...2, to mo9m]]i~(,!tll~PI:Qqt.lc:_tiQl1mQC:_Ys..~nd, therefore, the productive organi-

zation of administrative services in such a way that it becomes more flexible andmore adaptable;3 . to def ine m~_l~lli ly. tl~! ;:_{)bjcct ives to beachievedb~I~,~d on a service

contract (or mandate) associated with a globalhlldgetai'Y-envelope (Varone andGiauque, 200 1);4. to a~s~ss more .sys~e!m\.ti~allxcoH~ctix~ .and. indiyicll1!_l1~l:rOl:!lllll_l~~_ydefining assessment criteria; and5. ill many cases a lso, there is a c lea r desi re to achieve savings by means of

increasing organizational productivity, whilst reflecting on the means to find newsources of rewards.What we have witnessed i s the int roduct ion of different types of reform. In

part icular, we can use an inte resting typology to characterize them based onWeberian ideal types. In this way, based on the l ite rature (Ferli e e t a l., 1996;Moncks, 1998; Bolgiani, 2002), we can identify t1:1~e_~~tl~~!~~N!::~nl~~l~.~ 6~{~()I'he first type could be called the efficiency I~~d~i~?;'~~"ark~tmodel. This

model emerged in the ear ly 19808, especially in cc7iaill~A;lgl;=S~;~-()nc~untries,and aims to make public sector organizat ions more eff icient by measuring theirperformance against that of the private sector. At the heart of this model , the eco-nomic concepts of c..2!!!~ti!i()ll and prodlt~tivep~~f()I~IE_anceare dominant andthere is widespread use of private sector management tools.@ The second type is the 4()\Vl1~i:i':i!lg,~~~n.tl:!_lli;::


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574 International Review ofAdministrative Sciences 69(4)(3)A third model is the search for e~I~}lceJ! l.9Q~1 or the quali ty model , basedoi'lc~echanisms aimed at changing the organizational CUltlll:~ ~otl1-aTit-f~-capableof generat ing at titudes conduc ive to continuing leani ing and improvement .Efforts are made to sa ti sfy c li ents, in part icular through ISO certi fication orsatisfaction surveys.These models represent ideal types : ill other words they arc abstractions of

reali ty that should never be confused with reali ty . However , the real s ituationsthat adminisrative reforms have to confront are always more complex in that theyalways constitute ajudicious mix of these three models.Having said this, i t should be noted that the NPMprinciples and tools are under-

pit~ne.dby a particular philosophy that is la~'ge~ybased on :he.neo-liberal rationale. \T!lIS IS founde~. to a lar?e ~x. tent "" a belief 111the s~lpe~'[ontyof market mecha- ,nrsms, compenuon and individual interes t as the monvatron for work. The major-ity of the key figures of NPMessentially obey a logic that emanates from the worldof bus iness and the commercial sector. To put itmore bluntly, the principles of theNPIIIare u~erpiE~~ by fundamentally economic analyse's-inspired by the theoryof the new political economy (Frant, 1998). This new economic trend is supportedby three major schools: the pllblif~s:Jl()l~~~'!lo!(Palombarini, 2000), the agencyrela tions school (Fama and Jensen, 1983a, b) and the transact ion costs school(Williamson, 1994; Gomez, 1996; Menard, 1997). It was, in fact, largely becauseof these three theories tha t c rit ici sm was leve lled a t the functioning o f publicadministrations. Always suspected of working for their own benefit, civil servants- egoisti c, ca lculat ing and opportuni st ic ac tors - are l ikely to act asobstacles tothe 'pure ' implementat ion of policies, in par ticular those that deal with economicpolicy. As a result, by introducing market mechanisms into public organizations,by putting departments into competition with each other, for example, by prompt-ing the civil servants themselves to behave as entrepreneurs and managers, jus tl ike workers in the private sector, and injecting cer tain tangible and intangibleincenti ves (Hood, 1998), it is possible, according to the theory, to reduce the costsof o rganizat ion - conside red to be intolerable - and, the refore , to p roduce moreusing fewer resources. This is, in effect, one of the main aims of NPlILIn addit ion, the programme of administrative reforms, for which we have just

outlined the theoret ical and philosophical foundations , involves a change in theperception of the s tate and its prerogatives in the f ield of economic managementand an equally manifest change in the vision of the relationship between theeconomy and other aspects of l ife in society (Minogue et al. , 1998; White, 1999;Clary et al. , 2000).

The field survey: the method usedIn order to understand the main impact s of the princ iples and tools of the newpub lic management on the regulat ion of pub lic organizations, we conducted asurvey in four admini strat ive services. Two of them were departments of th eCanadian federal administration and the other two formed part of the Swiss

Giauque: New public management and organizational regulation 575federal administration.! Our empirical investigation took place in Canada betweenMay and October 200 I and in Swi tzerland between March and August 2002. Inorder to gather data concerning the perception of the actors of the changes inwhich they part icipated and which affected them at the same time, we selected acomparative and qualitative methodological approach based on semi-directiveinterviews. We conducted 45 individual interviews of this type, each lasting from60 to 90 minutes, 18 in Canada and 27 in Switzerland.' The objective of theseinterviews was to obtain rich, often multidimensional, information on thephenomenon of organizat ional behaviour or, more precisely, .o n organizationalregulat ion. The interview was , therefore, used to identify the s ignificance and theunderstand ing of the respondents of the phenomenon from thei r point of view.Carrying out several interviews is l ikely to reveal the rat ionale of an individual orcol lective act ion in al l it s complexity (Blanchet and Gotman, 1992). Conse-quently, this quali tative inves tigation technique was selected in order to achievethe purpo~es of our research. Similarly, in this qualitative survey, we gave priorityto a mul ti-case comparison investigation method. 'The purpose o f multi -casecomparison is to discover convergences between several cases , Compared with as ingle case s tudy, i t provides greater control over the f ield of inves tigation whendetermining the units or categories of observation and when choosing the cases (0study' (Lessard-Hebert et al., 1996: 112),This is why we chose the semi-directedinterview technique, with a strong element of standardization and harmonizationof the subjects broached in the interviews, Also, the four adminis trat ive serviceschosen fo r the study had in common the fac t that they had al l undergone majormanagerial transformations dur ing the pas t f ive years . All four are, therefore,undergoing radical change and working arrangements a re sti ll suffe ring frommajor transformations, marked by the introduction of the new managementprinciples and tools aimed at assessing their productive efficiency and the qualityof their services. Finally, to ensure respect for the scientific nature required of thistype of survey , we took great care to establ ish informat ion redundancy beforeending our interviews. Following this, each interview was completely re-transcr ibed and analysed ' thematical ly '. We then drew up separate case s tudies ,s ti ll using an interpretat ive approach, in order to compare them and identify s imi-larities and differences.In our field survey, the approach was to analyse the impact of th_yill


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576 International Review ofAdministrative Sciences 69(4)FIGURE 3Survey logic and objective

Independent variable:NPM tools and principles (nature of reformsundertaken in the countries under s tudy)

1Dependent variable:organizat ional regulat ion defined according to theinstitutional, management, power, symbolic andlegitimization components

JObjective:to determine the nature of the organizationalregulat ion of the cases studied in terms of thecomponents and to identify similarities and differences

OUl' empirical investigationIn this section, we present the main results of our empir ical research. However,before we go any fur ther , we would like to provide some information concerningthe nature of the reforms carri ed out in Canada and in Switzerland, because weanalysed two administrative departments in Switzerland and two others inCanada.Administrative reforms ill CanadaThe particulari ty of the admini st rat ive reforms at federal level in Canada is theattention paid to the systematic s tudy of all administrative programmes with theaim of assess ing the relevance of pursuing them, redef ining their scope or evenabandoning them (Paquin, 1997; Corkery e t al ., 1998). As from the la te 1980s,the conserva tive government in power se t about drastical ly, and in some casesineptly, rest ructuring the publ ic organizat ions, resul ting in an extremely large \ \number of pos ts being eliminated in order to make financial savings. The bas is ofthe political programme was, therefore, resolutely ~flti-bureaucratic (Corkery eta l., 1998: 141-2), where the first elements of cha lig- e~lTlvoTve(Cabove al l, ail l. .nstaking analysis of all expenses incurred by the administration. The f irstmeasures introduced, which largely concerned the dismissal of several thousandcivil servants , contr ibuted to massive destabil izat ion amongst public off icials.This f inding is confirmed by research carried out by two Canadian univers it ies

Giauque: New public management and organizational regulation 577(Zussman and Jabes, 1989) which, on the basis of surveys conducted amongst apopulation of priva te and public sec tor managers, led to the conclusion that theatt itudes of managers in the public sector were much more pess imis tic than thoseof their counte rparts i ll the priva te sec tor. In 1993, the conservat ives lost theelect ions and the liberals under lean Chretien took the des tiny of the country intotheir hands. It was at th is t ime tha t the t ransformations began to move towardsmaking painful political choices concerning the continuation, re-dimensioning orel iminat ion of certain admini st rat ive programmes (or publ ic poli cies). Thi s'Review of Programmes' (Harder and Lindquist , 1997) led to the elimination of14percent of all jobs, equivalent to 45,000 pos ts out of 380,000, and a reductioninthe benef its granted under social programmes. This made itposs ible to obtain a,. ., 1 v , \ I , v1reduct ion in the budget deficit . However, these downsizing and effi ciency ' I ' )~\ rre forms contributed to a cul tura l ~eaval that affec ted the morale o f the troops(Bourgault and Gusella, 2001) and weakened their des ire to inves t in the publicadministration.The administrative services that we analysed were affected by these upheavals

and had just been through major poli ti cal cri ses at the t ime when we start ed oursurvey in the f ield . In both cases, these difficult ies OCCUlTed t the end of the1990s and resulted in very heavy polit ical involvement in the res tructuring of thedepartments. Both departments had their operating and production rules radicallyamended. These changes were aimed mainly at improving their organizat ionalproductivity and efficiency.Administrative reforms in SwitzerlandThe changes made within the federal off ices (administrative depar tments at fed-era llevel) used a mode l tha t was a hybrid be tween the search for effic iency andquality. In the late 1970s, the financi.~!J~!,


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578 International Review ojAdministrative Sciences 69(4)the administration) in October 1997, the Federal Council (executive) found itselfobliged to achieve the four main objectives contained in the law, namely

1. to improve efficiency - this could be obtained notably by eliminatingcertain tasks that had become unnecessary, or even externalizing some of them;2. to achieve profitabi lity - to el iminate redundant act ivi ties and boost syn-

ergies within departments and administrative units;3. to make savings - notably by means of eliminating posts and through

better management of financial resources;4. to optimize management and structures - to overhaul and improve theorganizational structure of administrative departments and units.In order to achieve these aims, the Swiss Confederation opted for contractualiza-tion or, to use the name employed in Switzerland, management by servicemandate and budgetary envelope (GMEH). Although the GMEH aims mainly to givemore room for manoeuvre to administrative uni ts , above all it expects to takeeffect through the modernization of management. This type of reform, introducedprogressively over the past five years, affects 12 administrative departments orpilot units and has the following main objectives: increased flexibili ty - by making administrative instructions more flexible

and granting a global budgetary envelope, service centres obtain more room formanoeuvre; empowerment - objectives giving more precise outputs and greater I Idecision-making autonomy are the basis of increased empowerment of public

managers; a new enterprise culture - the new management system, supported by new

staff development measures, should bring about a change in attitudes at all depart"mental levels (increased awareness of costs, 'clients' and the quality produced); controlling the operational costs of the administrative services - all admin-

istrative units under GMEH must reduce their costs by 10percent over four years; greater decentralization - the delegation of tasks, competences and respon-

sibili ties to new units is aimed at greater autonomy and empowerment, whichshould create a spirit of enterprise that results in innovation and creativity.These different objectives are globally those that appear in the official

brochures presenting the Gl'IIEB (Office federal du personnel, 1999; Departernentfederal des finances, 2000). Both of the departments that we examined form partof these GMEB pilot units and are, therefore, undergoing profound managementchanges.Main f ind ingsIn order tofollow the logic of our concept of organizational regulation, we presentour data in terms of i ts five dimensions. Since i t is not possible , in this article, toshare all the richness of the data gathered, we have restricted ourselves todrawingan accurate but general portrait of trends currently taking shape in the administra-

Giauquc: New public management and organizational regulation 579TAllLE2

'Raw' findings ofthe case studiesDimensions ofthe concep t oforganlzntloualregulation Findings frOI11Swiss casestudies

V Institutionaldimension

Findings from Canadian case studies

Managerialdimension

The depar tments obtain more room< > for managerial manoeuvre (partial

independence from policy) The cl ient i s a key figure in r efo rms Desire to introduce indirect politicalcontrol based on assessments andbudgetary control

Reforms justified by pressureof the context/- Elimination of hierarchical levelsl!.Functioning of working groups Desire toempower individualso Demand for the development of newprofessional skills (risk taking;skills in social relations; etc.)

Q Assessment of the work ofall staff (under the law)

Powerdimension ~!-')ncreased importance of steeringcommittees Increased staff empowermentI('!:):oncentmtion of decision-makingprocesses without total centralization Increase in the difference betweenmanagerial and non-managerialstaff (widening gap)r8New importance of actors workingin finance mill human resources

Increased political controlG Growing feeling ofbelonging to one

Of more teams (lim ited identification with one or more groups)( jDif ticulty inretaining a more globalorganizational culture Development of competitionbetween groups or business un itsGClient culture (focusing on the client) Measurement culture (constantassessment of changes) .

Legitim izat ion & O S 5 of legitimacy of the formaldi mension bureaucratic roles


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580 International Review ofAdministrative Sciences 69(4)tive departments undergoing NPlII reforms. Table 2 contains the raw results of oursurvey for the Swiss and Canadian administrative services. We then return toeachof the dimensions of the regulation concept ingreater depth.

IFindings concerning the institutional dimension. The relations between admin-

istrative departments and their social and political environment have changed agreat deal following the implementation of reforms. At a theoretical level, and tosome extent at a practical level, administrative units have gained more room formanoeuvre to develop their strategy(!Qr achieving their objectives and fulfillingtheir missions'[Heads of departments and senior management have more autono-my recrui t s ta~ as wel l as for certain operat ional expenses associa ted withfitting out offices and premises. Similarly at a dif ferent stage, managers areincreasingly being asked ~2define for themselves the strategic guidelil!9 for theirdepartments and the tools and processes to be used to carry out productive activi-ties. Consequently, the polit ical authorities to which they report - inother wordsthe ministr ies or federal counci llors in charge of the departments within whichtheir departments operate - increasingly take less interest in the operat ionalprocesses of departments and concentrate more Oil the main objectives to beachieved. Even though this f irst trend is more marked in Switzerland than inCanada, due to the service contracts, it is, nevertheless, significant and representsa general trend. In addi tion , the cl ien t is becoming the point of reference for thefunctioning of the organization. The client is now the main focus rather thanhis/her counterpart, the citizen. As a result, an entirely new commercial vocabu-lary is emerging and becoming widely used, so that the quality of the servicesprovided is becoming the dominant factor to ensure that the customer is satisfied.The manner or the process via which the service is provided is no longer of greatimportance under such a system.We also observe that a lthough the Executive in both countries under study

intervenes less and less in the operational aspects of the administrative units, they~~ are, nevertheless, subject to tight financial controls. Direct monitoring on a day-

to-day basis, therefore, tends to be replaced by financial and budgetary monitor-ing which is deferred but no less restrictive. Indeed, the administrative servicesare being allocated a budgetary envelope to achieve their missions and objectives,an envelope that to some degree defines the limits of their room for operat ionalmanoeuvre. In periods of state financia l and budgetary cris is , i t is by no meansrare to find that the budgetary envelope al located to these departments is i tsel frevised downwards without the objectives or missions also being reviewed.Naturally, under these conditions, indirect financial and budgetary surveillanceplays a powerful role in ensuring conformity and as a disciplinary mechanism. Ina similar vein, our interviewees consider t11a,tc:91!~t~!!tf~f~T~_I!c:et(}tl!~cgentJ~e5l!11'Lq~~~~?~_~i~~!plil~fl,I:ygt:~~1'Landditional control measure (Giauque, 2003).The client i s the one on whose behalf the reforms are implemented and they arejustified by his very existence. We were struck bythe extent of the 'fatalistic ' att i-tude in the organizations under study, where the reforms and pressures acting on

Giauque: New public management and organizational regulation 58 Ithe administrative services were systematical ly presented as inevi table. Thefigure of the client plays a major role in the development of this feeling ofinevitability. Nobody within the political and administrative system is any longerresponsible for external contingencies - contingencies that include cl ien ts -which makes it easy to legit imize the changes whi ls t using a unitary rhetoric inthe style of 'everyone is inthe same boat' . Customer satisfaction, at the end Oflhe]day, has also become a disciplinary mechanism that is bitterly resented by the ~individuals interviewed.Findings concerning the management or administrative dimension. The work

carried out in public institutions is also organized in a different manner from pre-viously. Working groups and teams are set up more systematical ly in order tocarry out projects or tasks over varying periods. The trad itional hierarchicaladministrative st ructure has been modified so that a large number of tiers havebeen simply abandoned or eliminated, or short-circuited by the new mor;;:flexiblestructures of w Q L ! 5 : I n g groups~nd' teams. In other words, we can see a sort ofhierarchical 'tlattening~-:Sill1iiaay:o~r'interviewees said that they had the impres-sion of having more ~illtonomyand responsibility following the implementation ofreforms in their respective departments. New skills and new professional qualitiesare required of civil service staff, notably: greater flexibili ty; more autonomy;more responsibilit ies; more risk taking; communication and listening skills; andsocial skills associated with group working. In brief, these are the professionalqualities and skills that are also required in the private sector. In this respect, thedifferences between the private and public sectors are naturally tending to blurfollowing the changes inspired by NPM principles and tools.These openings and new possibilities, which are real and happening, are

counterbalanced by subtle new discipl inary mechanisms that retain a certaindegree of control over the work of civil service staff. We have seen the irresistibleadvance of staff assessment tools. Whether in Canada or Switzerland, eventhough the latter is more advanced in this field, at regular intervals individualsare called to collaboration interviews during which objectives and missions arenegotiated, and an assessment interview is carried out in which the individual isassessed by his superiors inrelation to the work accomplished. In Switzerland forall s taff, and in Canada only for management staff , these assessments have animpact - at least theoretically under the rules in force - on their salaries. Ourinterviewees perceive these assessment tools as an instrument aimed at puttingindividuals, or even groups, into competition with each other within the adminis-trative units. This effectively contributes to the deveLQPJueJlLOLl!ll",,:,il}stit!JJimlal~gl~l~~~ather than an atmosphere conduiY~_~Q_~~sl!~nge,c?op~rat~?n~~~_col-kc_tiv~ harmony. Moreover, the test imonies col lec ted clearly indicate a sub-stantlaffllcj:ease in the pace of work and an explosion of administrative tasks. Thelatter are mainly associated with all of the formal control processes that accom-pany the reforms, in particular the practice of service contracts. In other words,the pressures acting on the actors involved are more marked, because it clearly


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582 International Review ofAdministrative Sciences 69(4)emerges that the administrative units must still provide the services, whilstimproving their quality using fewer resources.Findings concerning the power dimension. At the macro level, we find more

room for manoeuvre in the management of the administrative units under study.Because of the manifestly ~g interest of members of the Executive in opera-tiona! matters relating to the servIces under their responsibility, the steering com-mittees of the administrative units genuinely have more' power over the activities

t r: l / \vof their organization. We also found during our interviews that there was a m~ve-. '\ ). , I v "" "" '_ _ ' ~.j ment towards the 'pol iticizat ion' of the administration , because the steering~ '1...'5 / committees more frequently take initiatives aimed at obtaining backing for their

LI:::>)!"(5! decisions from th~ political bodies,. largely because they hav~ to defend them-e; selves before parliamentary committees or respond to questions from electedrepresentatives. This means that the members of the steering committee of theadministrative services are forced to bypass their head of department, a memberof the Executive, and directly defend their plans before members of parliament.

~At a ~~10remicro-organization~l. ~r.infra-organizationalleve~, we fOl!lIdthat sta!]'benefited from more responsibilit ies and more autonomy III carrying out theiractivities. Their tasks are also becoming more complex in that they have tomanage new skills, especially social skills, because they are working on projectsand in teams.These different openings and possibili ties a lso have their downside. At themacro level , our interviewees poin ted to the growing influence of members ofparliament and other lobby groups, both political and economic, that frequentlyintervene directly with the administrative services to express their requirements,their grievances or their dissatisfaction.f!!le declining influence of members of theExecut ive corresponds, at the end of the day, to the renewed importance of newand unexpected actors - first members ofQ,arliament but also others from socialand economic s~Iei1 Consequently, the potential room for manoeuvre tlliitbenefits the managerial level in the steering committees, due to the withdrawal of.members of the Execut ive , is somewhat offset by the interference of new actors I tputting direct pressure on them. This aspect is important because it explains whythe new freedom of management is a lways accompanied by new constraints. Ininfra-organizational terms, we are seeing a concentration of decision-makingprocesses but without centralization (Sennett, 2000). This subtle mechanism ismade possible by the new flexible architecture of public organizations structuredaround working groups and teams. What is more, all strategic decisions and majorguidel ines are decided at a higher organizational level , i.e, in the steering com-mittees, whilst the working groups are free to use the instruments, tools andprocesses that they want to accompl ish the tasks entrusted to them. If we are tobelieve the persons interviewed, this type of functioning is not likely to limit theorganizational const raints . On the contrary, it seems that this i s a particularlyeffect ive system for ensuring conformi ty and discipline. The group heads areresponsible for achieving objectives, so the pressures act directly on all members

Giauque: Nell' public management and organizational regulation 583of the group, which internalizes totally all of the restrictive mechanisms, which aretherefore no longer direct but indirect. Similarly, we found that a divide is appear-ing within the administrative departments studied between managerial and non-managerial s taff . With the reforms, t l~gerialstaff have become vi t~l ,r~_l~! '.swi th the management to pass on messages and int roduce the new managementprinciples and tools. This is why their strategic importance has further increased.This also partially or wholly explains why their remuneration has risen signifi-cantly, whilst the salaries of ordinar~ has tended to stagnate, in the best ofcases, or even fal l against the cost of l iving. Finally, the actors occupying postS} I /associated with financial and budgetary matters, as well as human resources, with- tin the administrative units today have even more benefits in terms of power. Theemphasis placed by the reforms on the financial aspects and the desire to assessstaff are the main reasons for such a situation emerging. ---Findings concerning the symbolic dimension. The flattening of the hierarchy.

and the new organizational architecture of working groups referred to earlier ,which are a consequence of the reforms in progress" without doubt favour thedevelopment of a feeling of belonging to ateam, The persons interviewed told usthat they first identify with their group, their team - in other words tothe personsthey work alongside during the working day. Within flexible organizations struc-tured into semi-independent teams or project groups, everyone's opinion issolicited, discussion takes place and relations often tend to be informal and morespontaneous than before. In other words, we are seeing the emergence of notice-ably stronger group cultures than was previously the cas~.This cultural openness is offset by other aspects. The predominance of working

group cultures is a substant ia l barrier to the cIliergel lce and~stabl ishm~I1t of a ( ') \co{kti'le_or,organizati;n,;IGilitlire~' aj~~lXl.lgofbe'IQngiIlg tO~1lentity. (}th~rth~n \2Jthe gr(}l1panq tll~tl':~Up.Because of this, gl:oups-f]11vea tendency to compete witheachother, to make comparisons, to be rivals in inventiveness and creativi ty in~~;,;:"i~:~~:~c~::;l:~:~~f~~~~l~;i~~~~~~~;;~,~l;~;g~~~~~~::~el~~1~1:d::~S~I:~i~~ ~ - < Dservices, difficulties that can easily be associated with this institutional egoismthat we have just described. This loss of a shared feeling of belonging to-amacr~ent ity opens up the way to the exercise of new const raints on the groups and theirmembers. These are closely linked to the competition that is emerging betweenthe groups and actors, as well as the withdrawal of identification to the frontiers ofthe team alone. Another important aspect, because it enables us to identi fy theemergence of another disciplinary mechanism, is ~1.!!1!il!geti11I!finB;. The focusof the new management principles and tools inpublic organizations on 'measure-ment' (measurement of costs, collective and individual performance, measure-ment of customer satisfaction, etc.) has contributed to the emergence of anaq;ounting culture, which can be identified by the attention paid by actors to the;~t-;~;~~~cTate(r\Vlth the services delivered. This situation is becoming almostunhealthy, especially as the actors and their team are also assessed for their pro-


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584 International Review ofAdministrative Sciences 69(4)ductive efficiency. Management by measurement is, therefore, tending to replacemanagement by direction, by mission and by the purpose of the work.Findings concerning the legitimization dimension. Within the admini strat ive (

uni ts studied, we found that the ac tors no longer legi timize the ir work only interms of the conformity of their act ivit ies to the formal rules in force. The sacro-sanct character of foi 'mal 1 1 i I e s r u 1 d coalficatioils~providillg-~-f;amework foradministrative work is dying out. However, growing importance is attached to thequality 9f the work and th~vi~~!Q._~e_pr()~yi_c_l_l!_sI.his results in the professionalact ivity, hom a technical standpoint and carried out using highly specific skil ls,becoming the key element for jus tifying why a person is working in the organiza-t ion, in a par ticular team and not in another . The values of the indus tr ial world aredeveloping (Boltanski and Thevenot, 1991) a sort of philosophy that values thetechnical abilities used to master the production process in order to produce goodsand se rvices of recognized qual ity. Moreover, the in troduc tion of the c iti zenand the client and their respective' needs in the production process reinforces thevalidity of this justification for the work accomplished using the new professionallogic.This apparent openness is also constrained by the jus tifying rhetoric based on

the values of the business world (Bol tanski and Thevenot, 199 I ) which plays arole as a control and conformity mechanism. Concepts such as efficiency, compe-\\titian, prices, costs, profitability, clients, etc. correspond to a very infl~ential dis-cursive mechanism, the effects of which represent the normalization and controlof individual behaviour within organiza tions. In addit ion, i t seems that thesenotions , largely internalized by the actors, are no longer perceived by them asnewexternal rules but as self-evident truths. This type of 'accounting' justification andlegit imizat ion of the work carried out in the adminis trat ive depar tments , mainlybased on a commercial measurement rationale, comes into conflict with the tradi-t iona l publ ic service values based on the object ives of the departments, thei rusefulness and thei r accessibi li ty to the publ ic , with no di st inc tion of any sortbetween the wealth, status or social rank of the beneficiaries. Itemerged from ourinte rviews that the focus on legi timiz ing princ iples based on management bymeasurement could lead, paradoxical ly , to the loss of a sense of scale (Giauque,2002).In the wake of the previous developments, we can draw up a table containing a

comparison between the expected results of the reforms in both countries and thenon-conforming results found by our f ield survey (see Table 3).Switzerland-Canada: diverging strategies but strangely convergent resultsWe have seen that the reform strategies implemented in Switzer land and Canadato reform their federal administrations are different. Canada opted for a very prag-matic approach consist ing of determining which adminis trat ive programmes toel imina te, or to transfer to the prov inces, o r to provide private sec tor serviceproviders. Switzer land, on the other hand, chose to exper iment with service COIl-

Giauque: New public management and organizational regulation 585TADLE3Expected results and results ofOUI' survey that donot conform to the expectationsassociated with the reforms

DimensionsNon-conformlng results identif ied byour surveyxpected results of the reforms

Institutionaldimension < . T !

Managerialdimension

Powerdimension

Cultural orsymbolicdimension

Legitimizat iondimension

More room for manoeuvre fo r theadministrative services

Stric te r separat ion of s tra tegic andoperutiona I activities Close r to the c lien t

More flexible organizationalfunctioning

Development ofe f ficiency bysetting objectives and stricterbudgetary management

More power devolved to managers(senior staff) Staff empowerment

Cultural change (greater flexibility,Innovation, initiatives)

More competi tion tomotiva teindividuals

The client, the market, measurementand eff ic iency as new values forpublic admi nistration

Development of the conce p tofqua li ty to jus tify the work of theadministration

Emergence ofnew actors tha tinterfe re in the a ffairs of thedepartments (various lobby groups)

More marked int eres t b y members o fparliament in opera tional aspec ts ofthe services' /

The client becomes a disciplinary t!:figure for the administration Development ofcompetit ion within theadministr ative ser vi ces and l oss of / _capacity for cooperation and L., Icoltaboration

Explosion of administrative tasksassociated with the management toolsintroduced

Great er concentr at ion of power and Lpoliticlzatlon ofpublic managers


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586 International Review ofAdministrative Sciences 69(4)Canadian case, including: the increase in internal competition; institutional ego-ism and problems of coordination; increasing reference to commercial values; theexplosion of administrative tasks associated with organizational and individualperformance measurement; s taff performance assessment; etc. Never theless,these elements are also present , to a lesser degree, in the exper iments carried outin Canada . In Canada , the impact of the re forms on organ iza tional regula tionconcerns more specifically the culture and management, in that i t is the workingconditions of civil se rvice staff tha t have changed a grea t dea l, combined wi th asharp fa ll in the number of civil servants, cont ribut ing to the deve lopment of afeeling of uncertainty and fear amongst staff.Apart f rom these divergent elements, we have to recognize that we are seeing

the emergence of convergent organizat ional phenomena following the imple-mentation of these reforms. We have already described these changes. Also, look-ing beyond the dive rgences, mainly concerning reform stra tegies, it should benoted that the results are converging towards the development of a form of organi-zat iona l regula tion that we cal l 'l ibe ral bureaucracy'. As a result , the reformstrategies under taken in each of the countries s tudied s tamp their own logic on theidenti fied e ffec ts. However, since these two types of change stra tegy both form .par t of a des ire to increase organizat ional eff iciency and to reduce the operatingcosts of the administrative apparatus , i t seems that the lat ter aspect governs (orone could say determines) more clear ly the emerging organizat ional regulat ionthan the other features identif ied in the different case s tudies . This could explainwhy it ispossible toidentify more convergences than divergences at the end ofthestudy.ConclusionsThese empir ical elements enabled us to establish that the organizat ional regula-tion of the admini st rative units studied show a dua l trend: @opening up to new jopportunities and new possibi li ties ; and the appearance of new constraints,new control and conformity mechanisms. Table 4 summarizes the different con-tradictory pairs that we have already highlighted:The findings tha t we have highlighted c lea rly indicate to us that a new type of

quasi-commercial organizational regulation model is gradually penetrating publicsector organizat ions. We have pointed out that this is specific to a par ticular type( \ of inst itut ion: the l iberal bureaucracy. This innovative concept , which iscentral to

our work, can be developed on the basis of the findings refe rred to earli er. It hasthe advantage of providing an effective summary of the problems that our s tudyidentif ies. In addit ion, we believe that this concept of l iberal bureaucracy illus-trates particularly well the administrative reality of our times, its contradictionsand impasses. Itappears to indicate that there is well and truly a special configura-t ion emerging within the public organizat ions dur ing a per iod of change inspiredby the precepts and principles of the neoliberal economy.Moreover, this name is by no means anodyne because it highlights the two key

aspects of the reali ty in the administrative services: a highly bureaucratic s ide,

Giauque: New public management and organirational regulation 587TAllLE4The dual emerging trends in organizatlonal regulation

Dimeuslons Openlngs-posslbllltiesConstraining mechanisms-disciplinary mechanisms

Insti tuti onal More r oom for manoeuvre, mor ef reedom for the department f romits environment

Strateg ic f reedom for themanagement of administrative units Importance of the qua li ty of se rv icesin order to satisfy clients

Management Working i n g roups, in teams, moreudmin ls trat ion f lexible, more informal, le ss

hierarchical More autonomy, individualresponsibilities incarrying out work

Power Importance taken by the managementof administrative services

More iitiati ves possible for publicorganizations

More responsibilities for civilservants in re la tion to the ir work More complex tasks and new skills

Symbolic Development of a feeling ofbelonging toa team, a group

Emergence of s trong group cultu res

Legit imizat ion New jus tifica tions for work basedon new professional values (newtechnical skills ~new professionalrationale)

Redoubled f inancial monitoring bypolitical bodies Pressure f rom new polit ical and soc ia lactors (stakeholders)

The c lien t asa d iscipl inary f igure

More systematic staff assessment,competition, pressure of performance

Fas te r pace ofwork , exp losion ofadministratl ve tasks

Doing more with fewer resources More marked contra! ofdepartmentsby members ofparl iament and otherlobby groups

Concentration of decision-makingprocesses without centralization Widening gap between manageria l andnon-managerial staff Increasing importance of controlfunctions (finance, HR, etc.) Dec line in the f ee ling of b elonging to alarger entity

Increased competition between groups(problems of internal coordination andcooperation)

Discipline of accounting thinking Subjection of all orders tojustificationusing commerclal logic, Internalizationof the imperatives of efficiency,profitability, cost control, etc.

very hierarchical, very control led, control mechanisms and omnipresent ins is t-ence on conformity, ~e evident following the introduction of the reforms;and, on the other hand, newpossibilltles and new openings, inbrief, opportunitiesand c~beSeized:This " Is ~the-eason--we-llave-dedded to caU-thec'entralre~chanisms a liberal bureaucracy with flexible constraints. Theseflexible constraints are made up of a myriad of new control and conformitysystems, although they do not eliminate the potential to create new opportunitiesfor the actors. In reali ty , we have seen that the effor ts made by off icials are oftennot followed by compensation, in other words the new regulatory system canprobably dispense with compensation due to the uncer tainty and external pres-sures on staff. In this respect, we also became aware of the importance of the


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588 International Review ofA dillinistrative Sciences 69(4)' fatalistic' attitude in these disciplinary mechanisms for ensuring conformity; the

t pressures exercised on public organizat ions were sys tematically presented ascoming from the externa l environment. Also, they were often considered to beinevitable because civil service staff could do nothing about them. Hence,nobody, at least ins ide the organizat ion, was really responsible for dealing withexternal contingencies, which makes it extremely easy to legitimize the reforms.The remedies to this situation of unavoidable external pressure are presented in

the fo rm of management instruments and tool s (which al so comprise the basicprinciples of NPIIl) from the private sector business world. Thi s involves thecreat ion of more managerial room for manoeuvre in the administrative servicesand making their operation more flexible so that they can adapt as quickly aspossible to the changing demands of c iti zen-c lients. When we examine moreclosely these different elements, one thing leaps immediately to mind: the resem-blance of this type of reasoning to what is happening ill private sector organiza-tions. In other words, it supports the idea that there is a form of mimicry betweenthe public and private sectors, the former is borrowing more thanjust a few man-agement tools and ins truments and is, indeed, inspired by a cer tain type of work-force mobilization regime, in this case the regime that predominates within theclass ic neoliberal enterpr ise. This mobilization, typical of private enterpr ise, isbased, curiously, on a series of contradictory stric tures (Cout rot, 1998, 1999;-ennett, 2000):I First , staff are required to par ticipate, to exchange information, to becomeI involved and to take ini tiat ives (or even r isks) , whilst at the same time, these samepersons have no decis ive impact on the decis ions or s trategy of the organizat ionwithin which they operate. The staff oft en make signi ficant e fforts to respond to the new professional

challenges that are proposed tothem whilst any compensation is totally absent. InI I addit ion, salaries are tending tofal l because indexing to the cos t of l iv ing has nottaken place for a long time in certain branches of activity or in certain enterprises. Finally, we are witnessing a concentration of the decision-making processes,

a reinforcement of the position of managerial staff and, to some degree, organiza-tional dualization with, on the one hand, directors who are still better paid and stillhave more power and status, and, 011 the other hand, a more f lexible labour forcewith sala ries that are not rising and having even less power and influence overdecision-making processing within their organization.On reading these character ist ics, which are confirmed by other authors (Gorz,

1988,1997; Castells, 1998; Kergoat et al. , 1998), we are struck to find similaritieswith the findings that we have drawn from our own empTrTc:Jjesearch. Does thismean that the development of organizat ional regulat ions in the public sector is inthe process of al igning wi th those operating in the private sec tor? One could betempted to take this route, especially as the NPJ\l management principles, instru-ments and tool s are directly inspired by those used in the commerc ial priva tesector. But one quest ion remains : What are the mechanisms that ensure a degree

Giauque: New public management and organizat ional regulat ion 589of cooperation in this mobilization regime based on flexible constraints? Anumber of elements have been provided by other s tudies concerning the privatebus iness world .! fhe current model of the mobilization regime achieves the ' tourde force ' of aksociating external f lexibi li ty and hierarchical control , internalf lexibi li ty and negotiated involvemenI1Because of the f lexible constraints , i t ispossible to obtain greater involvement despite the development of r ising workinsecurity, to grant more autonomy whilst increasing the number of control mech-anisms, etc, (Coutrot, i998) . This ' sOiTotlorced cooperation is ensured by thepresence of strong external contingencies, considered to be inevitable, that makeorganizations uncertain about their future, which is used tojustify the reforms andthe additional demands in terms of staff involvement without any real compensa-tion , whilst offering certain opportuni tie s and chances for the actors tha t haveunderstood the system and been able to highlight their individual merits.I t is, therefore, because the constraints do not act directly, but indirectly, and

the discipl inary mechanisms are moderated by the presence of new possibi li tiesand openings for civil servants that this type of regulation canexist. This couplingof subtl e antagonisms, which we have described earl ier, current ly gives theregulatory process a degree of stabil ity, Nevertheless, in the future if the co!1-straining mechani sms are no longer perce ived as acceptable to members of thecivil service, the whole edifice could collapse. I t remains to be seen whether theopenings and possibil it ies offered by the reforms wil l cont inue in the future toprovide a credible counterweight that allows public organ.izations to motivatetheir staff. It would not be unreasonable to doubt that the ' liberal bureaucracy 'type of organizational regulation could offer sufficiently substantial opportunitiesand advantages to ensure, over the longer term, the involvement and commitmentof members of sta ff. A story to be cont inued. -Notes1. A danger that Hannah Arendt (1983) is aware of, because she firmly denouncesthecurrent trend of 'modernity' aimed at aligning thepreoccupations handled by the publicspherewith considerations thatfundamentally fall intothe private domain.2. For reasons of confidentiality, it is not possible to name the administrative servicesstudied.3. Of these 45 interviews, 20 were with senior officials in management positions. Theother 25 concerned staff without managementresponsibilities. Ofthese,five were workingon staff committees and therefore responsible for representing their colleagues at strategicmeetings with themanagement.ReferencesArendt, H. (1983) Condition de l'homme modeme. Paris: Calmann-Levy.Blanchet, A. andGetman, A. (1992)L'enquete et ses methodes. Paris: Nathan.Bolgiani, I. (2002) L'app lica tion des nouvel les methodes de gestion publ ique dans lessecteurs sanitaire et hospitalier: risques et opportunites, Muri: Societe suisse pour lapolitique de la sante (SSPS).Boltanski, L. and Thevenot, L. (1991)De lajustification. Les economies de fa grandeur.Paris:Gallimard.Bourgault, J. and Gusella, M. (2001) 'Performance, fierte, et reconnaissance dans Iafonc-


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590 International Review ofAdministrative Sciences 69(4)t ion publique federate du Canada' , Revue Internationale des Sciences Administratives67(1); 31-52.

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Critical book reviewsYehezkel Dror, The Capacity to GovernReviewed by H. Ian MacdonaldIvan Horrocks, Jens Hoff and Pieter Tops, Democratic Gove.manc~.mldNew Technology. Technologically Mediated Innovations m PoliticalPractice ill Westerll Europe

Reviewed by Michel Marechal

59 4

59 6

Florence Chaltiel, La souverainete de l'Etat et l' Union europeenne,L'exemple francais. Recherches sur la souverainete de I'Etat membre(State Sovereignty and the European Union, the French Example. AStudy of tile S overeignty of the Member State) .Eleanor E. Zeff and Ellen B. Pirro (eds) , The European union and theMember States, Cooperation, Coordination and Compromise

Hussein Kassirn, Anand Menon, B. Guy Peters and Vincent Wright (eds),The National Coordination ofEU Policy: The European Level

Reviewed by Paul Magnette 598

Documents

David Giauque_The New Public Management