The Organizational Basis for Public Governance

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Morten Egeberg ◽  
Jarle Trondal
Keyword(s):  
Organization Theory ◽  
Organizational Design ◽  
Organizational Factors ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Public Governance ◽  
Full Account ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Reform Processes ◽  
Organizational Architecture ◽  
Governance Processes

An organizational approach to public governance focuses on the organizational architecture of public organizations and contributes to explaining governance processes by the organizational characteristics of such organizations. The dependent variable “public governance” is defined as the process through which the steering of society takes place. Such steering of society can unfold directly (“governance”) as well as indirectly (“meta-governance”), the latter denoting the process of organizing the apparatus within which governance happens. Governance is not only about making formal decisions, but also about agenda setting, development of alternative policy directions, implementation, and learning. In practice, it is about hammering out legislation, budgets, policy programs, and law application (“governance”), as well as organizing, staffing, and locating the machinery of government (“meta-governance”). Organization structure, organization demography, and organization locus make up the key independent variables. Such a partial model is not thought to provide a full account of what happens in governance processes, but the organizational factors are expected to intervene and bias governance processes systematically and significantly. Since these factors are, arguably, relatively amenable to deliberate change, they constitute at the same time potential design tools. However, rational organizational design also depends on knowledge about the conditions under which the organizational factors themselves may be changed (“meta-governance”). Knowledge about these two relationships is, arguably, ultimately a prerequisite for (rational) organizational design. Public organization literature has largely neglected theorizing meta-governance and conditions for institutional (re)design. Organizational factors may influence meta-governance in two ways: first, existing organization structures, demographics, and locations may affect reform processes; secondly, reform processes themselves may be deliberately organized on a temporary basis to achieve particular goals. Organization theory is helpful in dissecting how different ways of organizing reform processes may produce different reform trajectories and outcomes. The idea sees reform processes as decision-making processes that allocate attention, resources, capabilities, roles, and identities. Reform organizations have structures, demographics, and locations that distribute rights and obligations, power and resources, and normally do so unevenly. Yet, when considering organizational (re-)design, its limitations should be considered as well. Organizational designers might benefit from being aware of the potential stickiness of existing organizational arrangements and the influence of environmental demands, as well as temporal sorting of events. Moreover, the limits to design are greater in complex organizational orders with nested rules such as in nation states, meta-organizations, and supranational institutions such as the European Union, than in single organizations such as government ministries and agencies.

An Organizational Approach to Public Governance

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Morten Egeberg ◽  
Jarle Trondal
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Design ◽  
Organizational Factors ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Public Governance ◽  
Policy Choices ◽  
Governance Challenges ◽  
The One ◽  
Governance Processes ◽  
National Governments ◽  
Organizational Approach

Political science is often criticized for being insufficiently relevant for coping with governance challenges of our time. This book aims to fill this void by launching a general organizational approach to public governance. To achieve this, the book outlines key theoretical dimensions that cut across governance structures and processes horizontally as well as vertically, thus paving the way for integrating separate empirical analyses into a coherent theoretical whole. Moreover, the organizational (independent) variables outlined in this book represent classical dimensions in the organization literature that are generic in character. This allows for generalizations across time and space. The volume addresses how organizational characteristics of the governmental apparatus (within international organizations, the European Union, national governments, and sub-governments) systematically enable, constrain, and shape public governance processes, thus making some policy choices more likely than others. The second ambition of the volume is to focus on (organizational) design implications: By building systematic knowledge on how organizational factors shape governance processes on the one hand, and how organizational factors themselves might be deliberately changed on the other, the book offers a knowledge base for organizational design.

scholarly journals Governing European Affairs

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Jarle Trondal ◽  
Nadja Kühn
Keyword(s):  
Organization Theory ◽  
National Level ◽  
Organizational Factors ◽  
Theory Approach ◽  
Public Governance ◽  
Organizational Variables ◽  
Decision Making Behavior ◽  
Governance Processes ◽  
The Eu

AbstractThe aim of this article is to examine the role of ministerial officials in an integrated European multilevel administrative order. This study argues that organizational variables at the national level constitute a decisive filtering factor regarding how decision premises emanating from European Union (EU)-level institutions are received by domestic government institutions and officials. The study contributes to the literature in two main ways: Empirically it provides a comprehensive study of the role of Norwegian ministerial officials in the EU multilevel administrative order over a time period of 20 years (n = 3562). Secondly, it applies an organization theory approach to explain variation in actual decision-making behavior. The article discusses factors of general relevance to political science applicable beyond the case at hand. The study shows that ministerial officials are deeply involved with the EU multilevel administration. Moreover, it confirms the pivotal role of organizational factors in public governance processes.

An Organizational Approach to Public Governance

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Morten Egeberg ◽  
Jarle Trondal
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Base ◽  
Organizational Design ◽  
Organizational Factors ◽  
The Other ◽  
Public Governance ◽  
Independent Variables ◽  
The One ◽  
Governance Processes ◽  
Systematic Knowledge ◽  
Organizational Approach

This chapter launches a general organizational approach to public governance. It outlines key theoretical dimensions that cut across governance structures and processes horizontally as well as vertically, thus paving the way for integrating separate empirical analyses into a coherent theoretical whole. Moreover, the organizational (independent) variables outlined represent classical dimensions in the organization literature that are generic in character. This allows for generalizations across time and space. The chapter also highlights the potential for organizational design that follows from our approach. By building systematic knowledge on how organizational factors shape governance processes on the one hand, and how organizational factors themselves might be deliberately changed on the other, the chapter offers a framework for developing a knowledge base for organizational design.

Rational instrument or symbolic signal? Explaining coordination structures in the Directorate-General for Fisheries and Maritime Affairs of the European Commission

2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-169 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bertolt Wenzel
Keyword(s):  
European Commission ◽  
Organization Theory ◽  
Organizational Design ◽  
Institutional Environment ◽  
Organizational Structures ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Institutional Perspective ◽  
Functional Efficiency ◽  
Management Concepts ◽  
Directorate General

This article examines the reorganization of formal coordination structures in the Directorate-General for Fisheries and Maritime Affairs of the European Commission. While rational approaches in organization theory emphasize functional efficiency as an explanation for organizational design and coordination structures, the findings of this study indicate that the reorganization was not driven primarily for reasons of efficiency and to increase the coordination capacity of the organization. The study demonstrates that, even in a highly technical policy area such as fisheries management in the European Union, the (re-)design of formal organizational structures does not follow primarily a technical–instrumental rationale. Instead, the formal coordination structures have also been adapted to live up to changing expectations in the institutional environment, to modern management concepts in marine governance, and to ensure the legitimacy of the organization. However, although the empirical findings of this study substantiate the theoretical assumptions of an institutional perspective, institutional explanations alone are insufficient to comprehensively understand why organizational structures are reorganized and changed.

Organizing Public Governance

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Morten Egeberg ◽  
Jarle Trondal
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
Organization Theory ◽  
Organizational Factors ◽  
Design Approach ◽  
Middle Ground ◽  
Organization Studies ◽  
Public Governance ◽  
Science Understanding ◽  
Organizational Approach

Chapter 9 concludes the volume by offering the contours of a design approach in political science. The ambition is to use insights from the volume to set out design implications from an organizational approach to public governance. The chapter thus draws a middle ground in an old turf war in organization studies and public administration between science and craft. Insights into how organizational factors affect public governance is a necessary precondition for using organization theory to meta-govern. This concluding chapter advocates that organization theory as craft requires organization theory as science. Understanding and design are thus complementary and not opposed, as is too often assumed.

The European Union and Diplomatic Law

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graham Butler
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
External Action ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Second World War ◽  
First Century ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Supranational Institutions ◽  
Second World ◽  
The Eu

Not long after the establishment of supranational institutions in the aftermath of the Second World War, the early incarnations of the European Union (EU) began conducting diplomacy. Today, EU Delegations (EUDs) exist throughout the world, operating similar to full-scale diplomatic missions. The Treaty of Lisbon established the legal underpinnings for the European External Action Service (EEAS) as the diplomatic arm of the EU. Yet within the international legal framework, EUDs remain second-class to the missions of nation States. The EU thus has to use alternative legal means to form diplomatic missions. This chapter explores the legal framework of EU diplomatic relations, but also asks whether traditional missions to which the VCDR regime applies, can still be said to serve the needs of diplomacy in the twenty-first century, when States are no longer the ultimate holders of sovereignty, or the only actors in international relations.

Colliding Coordination Structures in Multilevel Systems of Government (and How to Live with It)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Morten Egeberg ◽  
Jarle Trondal
Keyword(s):  
Network Governance ◽  
Administrative System ◽  
Public Governance ◽  
Multilevel Systems ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Governance Systems ◽  
And Control ◽  
Coordination And Control

This chapter discusses governance dilemmas that are often overlooked in studies that do not encompass the ecology of organization in public governance. The chapter discusses how coordination structures may counteract each other in multilevel systems of government. The ambition of the chapter is twofold: Firstly, a coordination dilemma is theoretically and empirically illustrated by the seeming incompatibility between a more direct (interconnected) and sectorally specialized implementation structure in the multilevel EU administrative system and trends towards strengthening coordination and control within nation states. Secondly, the chapter discusses organizational arrangements that may enable governance systems to live with the coordination dilemma in practice. This coordination dilemma seems to have been largely ignored in the literature on EU network governance and national ‘joined-up government’ respectively.

Corruption and anti-corruption local discourses and international practices in post-socialist Romania

Human Affairs ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Filippo Zerilli
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
Research Literature ◽  
The European Union ◽  
The Past ◽  
Research Fields ◽  
Nation States ◽  
National Heritage ◽  
New Research ◽  
Local Discourses ◽  
The Cold War

AbstractIn the past two decades academic and research literature on “corruption” has flourished. During the same period organizations and initiatives fighting against corruption have also significantly expanded, turning “anti-corruption” into a new research subject. However, despite a few exceptions there is a division of labor between scholars who study corruption itself and those who study the global anti-corruption industry. Juxtaposing corruption’s local discourses and anti-corruption international practices, this article is an attempt to bring together these two intertwined research dimensions and explore how an ethnographic approach might contribute to framing them together. Firstly, it describes how corruption in Romania is often conceptualized and explained in terms of national heritage, something related to old and recent cultural history, including traditional folklore. Secondly, it explores how anti-corruption works in practice, focusing on international legal cooperation projects monitoring the progress and shortcomings both prior to and post Romania’s accession to the European Union. Finally, revealing the articulations of these two apparently unrelated research fields, the article argues that corruption’s local explanations and the circular logic of auditing observed within the anti-corruption industry share a common developmental ideology mirroring the crypto-colonialist structure of power relations and dependency among European nation-states emerging out of the Cold War.

scholarly journals New Factors of Organizational Design in a Digital Society

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 61-65
Author(s):  
Mikhail Zakaryan ◽  
Violetta Tibilova
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Design ◽  
National Development ◽  
Organizational Factors ◽  
Science And Religion ◽  
Invariant System ◽  
Organizational Models ◽  
Conditioning Factors ◽  
Methodological Principles ◽  
National Programs ◽  
Economics And Politics

In this paper, we propose an invariant system of factors for the organizational structure of activities in all spheres of society's life in order to systematize new organizational factors that arise during the implementation of the national program "Digital Economy of the Russian Federation" and other national development programs of Russia until 2024, integrated with it. The proposed invariant system of organizational factors in society is based on the results of the analysis of organizational concepts in the system of social sciences. The article examines the nature and mechanisms of its development. In the invariant system of organizational factors in society, four groups of antinomian factors are defined, each of which can enter into antinomy relations with any other group of antinomian factors. These groups of antinomian factors are formed, firstly, in equipment and nature, secondly, in culture and art, thirdly, in economics and politics, fourthly, in science and religion. Equipment and nature give rise to give rise to a group of conditioning factors, since these factors determine the means of activity. Culture and art generate determinants factors, as these factors determine the way one operates. Economics and politics give rise to executing factors, since these factors determine the technology of activity. Finally, science and religion give rise to setting factors, as they determine the methodology of activity. For organizational construction and implementation of activities in society, it is required to establish a continuous simultaneous antinomian correspondence between each pair of groups of antinomy organizational factors and ensure their same continuous and simultaneous synthesis. This synthesis is carried out in people or through people who form society, turning them into a living social organization of the continuous implementation of society's activities, which forms its structure. In accordance with this representation of an invariant system of organizational factors in society, we consider and systematize new factors of organizational design of modern enterprises, institutions and organizations, which are formed in the course of the comprehensive implementation of thirteen national programs. It turns out that the comprehensive implementation of all federal projects of these national programs forms a fundamentally new content of the structure of the invariant system of organizational factors in society, which is characterized by the appearance of imbalances in the structure. This creates for all enterprises, institutions and organizations a constantly accelerating actualization of the problem of their organizational designing. The problem of design organizational research is substantiated as a task of operational organizational modeling for the purpose of operational construction of relevant organizational models, which in turn provide the same operational organizational design of the current activities of enterprises, institutions and organizations. It is concluded that it is necessary to formulate new methodological principles for applying the methodology of a systematic approach to solving these research problems.

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