Governance and Collaboration: Review Article

2006 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 315-321 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Durose ◽  
Kirstein Rummery
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Citizen Participation ◽  
Public Services ◽  
Collaborative Governance ◽  
New Labour ◽  
Local Democracy ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Policy Practice ◽  
Collaborative Working ◽  
Key Policy

Rod Rhodes (1997) Understanding Governance: Policy Networks, Governance, Reflexivity and Accountability, Open University Press 1997.Gerry Stoker (1998) ‘Governance as theory: five propositions’, International Journal of Social Sciences 50, 1, 17–28.Helen Sullivan and Chris Skelcher (2002) Working across Boundaries: Collaboration in Public Services, Palgrave.Janet Newman, Marion Barnes, Helen Sullivan, and A. Knops (2004) ‘Public participation and collaborative governance’, Journal of Social Policy 33, 203–223.From a term used largely within political science in the mid-1990s, ‘governance’ has become a key conceptual and analytical convention adopted by social policy, largely because of its usefulness in examining questions that are key to the discipline: citizenship; welfare rights and responsibilities; accountability; legitimacy and partnership working. Clarence and Painter (1998) have constructed a useful characterisation of public policy, identifying a shift in emphasis from hierarchies, to markets and now to collaboration. Networks, ‘joined up’ governance and partnership working are now central in both policy practice and analysis. These processes are not new, but New Labour have clearly expanded and accelerated them. For New Labour, collaborative working is now perceived as central in their response to key policy challenges: improving public services, tackling social exclusion and revitalising local democracy. These processes are now evident at all levels of policy making from supranational organisations such as the European Union down to neighbourhood-based initiatives. It appears that we are moving from the closed, unitary system of government of the Westminster model to a more open, decentralised system of governance. Our conceptions of citizenship have accordingly shifted, from one based on representation to one based on active participation, particularly within local communities. Governance is an issue which concerns all levels of government and citizen participation, from international-level World Bank concerns about commitment to efficiency and accountable government, to highly devolved localised urban regeneration partnerships.

scholarly journals Assessing the Past and Future Development of EU and UK Social Policy

2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 265-279 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda Hantrais
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Social Dimension ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Reciprocal Influence ◽  
Social Agenda ◽  
The Social ◽  
Subsidiarity Principle ◽  
Key Policy ◽  
The Uk

This article examines both the place of the social dimension in past and on-going debates about the United Kingdom's membership of the European Union and the reciprocal influence of EU and UK institutions on developments in the social policy field. It explores fluctuations in the relationship between economic and social policy, the divisiveness within, between and across political parties, the role of key policy actors in shaping the social agenda, and the failure of attempts to harmonise social welfare systems as enlargement intensified their diversity. We argue that, although difficult to predict, the implications of Brexit for future social policy in the UK and EU may not be so far-reaching as in some other policy areas, due largely to the maintenance of unanimous voting and the subsidiarity principle in many social domains, combined with the shift towards soft law and the widespread resistance of member states to tighter social integration.

Citizen Participation in Social Policy: The End of the Cycle?

1970 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 313-323 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jon Van Til ◽  
Sally Bould Van Til
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Citizen Participation

Austerity urbanism: Rescaling and collaborative governance policies in Athens

2017 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 80-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ioannis Chorianopoulos ◽  
Naya Tselepi
Keyword(s):  
Urban Politics ◽  
Social Deprivation ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Third Sector ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
Collaborative Governance ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Partnership Approach ◽  
The City ◽  
Opening Up

This paper explores the urban politics of austerity in Greece, paying particular attention to ‘local collaboration’. It revisits the key austerity periods noted in the country since accession to the European Union (1981), and marks their impact in redefining central–local relations, amidst a broader rescaling endeavour. A direct link is identified between austerity-oriented pre-occupations and the introduction of territorial regulatory experimentations that rest heavily on local-level collaboration and competitiveness. The overall record of partnerships, however, has been appraised, up until recently, as underdeveloped. From this spectrum, we look at the latest re-organization of state spatial contour (2010). The influence of this rescaling attempt on local relational attributes is explored in Athens, in light of the emergent re-shuffling in the scalar balance of power rendering austerity pre-occupations a firm trait of the emerging regulatory arrangement. Examination focuses on key social policy programmes launched recently by the City in an attempt to ameliorate extreme poverty and social despair. In Athens, it is argued, a financially and regulatorily deprivileged local authority is opening up to the influence of corporate and third sector organizations. It adopts a partnership approach that is best understood as a form of ‘elite pluralism’, undermining local political agency and falling short in addressing social deprivation.

Public service delivery in the Nordic Region: An exercise in collaborative governance

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elin Cedergren ◽  
◽  
Diana Huynh ◽  
Michael Kull ◽  
John Moodie ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Service Delivery ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Public Services ◽  
Collaborative Governance ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Ageing Population ◽  
Public Authorities ◽  
Public Service Delivery ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
Nordic Region

Nordic welfare states are world renowned for providing high quality public services. Nordic municipal and regional authorities, in particular, play a central role in the delivery of key public services in areas, such as, health, education, and social care. However, in recent years, public authorities have faced several challenges which have reduced capacity and resources, including long periods of austerity following the 2008 financial crash, rapid demographic changes caused by an ageing population, and the COVID-19 health crisis. In response to these challenges many public authorities have looked to inter-regional, inter-municipal and cross-border collaborations to improve the quality and effectiveness of public service delivery (OECD 2017; ESPON 2019). Indeed, collaborative public service delivery is becoming increasingly prominent in the Nordic Region due to a highly decentralized systems of governance (Nordregio 20015; Eythorsson 2018).

Policy, practice and racism: social cohesion in action

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zanib Rasool
Keyword(s):  
Social Cohesion ◽  
Policy Development ◽  
Policy Issue ◽  
Structural Inequality ◽  
Scarce Resources ◽  
Policy Practice ◽  
Ethnic Minority Women ◽  
Internal Conflicts ◽  
Key Policy ◽  
Policy Impacts

This chapter considers some questions related to policy development, as policy impacts all areas of community life. In particular, it explores the concept of social cohesion in neighbourhoods, which is currently a key policy issue. The context for this includes internal conflicts between groups competing for the same scarce resources, structural inequality, housing and environment neglect, crime, and disorder, creating segregation and a culture of ‘us and them’. Moreover, this chapter finds that arts methodology is a tool for ethnic minority women and young people to negotiate boundaries and hostile territories and to engage in policy questions on community cohesion through photography, portraits, and poetry.

The terroir of bureaucratic practice: Everyday life and scholarly method in the study of policy

2018 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 617-633 ◽  
Author(s):  
Merje Kuus
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Cultural Geography ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Policy Studies ◽  
Policy Practice ◽  
Michel De Certeau ◽  
Do So

This article seeks to connect political geographic scholarship on institutions and policy more firmly to the experience of everyday life. Empirically, I foreground the ambiguous and indeterminate character of institutional decision-making and I underscore the need to closely consider the sensory texture of place and milieu in our analyses of it. My examples come from the study of diplomatic practice in Brussels, the capital of the European Union. Conceptually and methodologically, I use these examples to accentuate lived experience as an essential part of research, especially in the seemingly dry bureaucratic settings. I do so in particular through engaging with the work of Michel de Certeau, whose ideas enjoy considerable traction in cultural geography but are seldom used in political geography and policy studies. An accent on the texture and feel of policy practice necessarily highlights the role of place in that practice. This, in turn, may help us with communicating geographical research beyond our own discipline.

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