scholarly journals Participatory Budgeting: A Comparative Study of Croatia, Poland and Slovakia

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jasmina Džinić ◽  
Mária Murray Svidroňová ◽  
Ewa Markowska-Bzducha
Keyword(s):  
Public Management ◽  
Consumer Satisfaction ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Social Innovation ◽  
Local Governance ◽  
Quality Of Services ◽  
Participatory Budgeting ◽  
New Public ◽  
Additional Costs

Abstract The New Public Management movement regards citizens as customers and, accordingly, focuses on the quality of services provided by public-sector organizations. Since this approach negatively affected democratic values, there has been a shift of the focus from consumer satisfaction and quality of services to quality of governance. The latter implies the improvement of the relationship between government and citizens as active members of the community. Over the last twenty years, participatory budgeting (PB) has become a popular form of co-production intended to improve the quality of local governance. The aim of the article is to provide a comparative analysis of the use and role of PB in Croatia, Poland and Slovakia and to identify the models of PB used in selected countries. In order to compare the case studies of municipalities in selected countries, a qualitative analysis has been used and the classification of PB models applied. Most analyzed local units use the “Porto Alegre adapted for Europe” model, but the “Consultation on public finances”, “Representation of Organized Interest” and “Proximity participation” models are also represented. The main findings are that PB indeed enables better allocation of public sources according to citizens’ needs (various public services were delivered following the trend of social innovation and co-creation), but the problem lies in the low amount assigned for PB from public budgets and the relatively low interest of citizens to participate in the PB processes. PB might also bring certain risks linked with its implementation, e.g. misuse of the idea for political reasons or additional costs of projects delivered in the PB process.

scholarly journals Put your money where your mouth is - participatory budgeting in Romanian cities

2020 ◽  
Vol 338 ◽  
pp. 303-312
Author(s):  
Nicolae Urs
Keyword(s):  
Local Governments ◽  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Participatory Budgeting ◽  
Public Servants ◽  
Digital Era ◽  
New Public ◽  
Policy Making Process ◽  
The Government

Almost 40 years ago, New Public Management theorists reserved an increasingly important role for citizens and civil society in the policy making process. This trend continued afterwards with proponents of Digital Era Governance or New Public Service theories. But without the opportunity of taking decisions on how to spend at least some parts of the government money, the influence of citizens and NGOs is fairly limited. Local governments, as the institutions closer to the needs and wishes of the communities, have gradually taken note of the increasing clamor for more power and transparency. Participatory budgeting processes have sprung up all over the world in the last years. Romania is no exception; a number of cities have implemented platforms that allow their citizens to propose and vote on projects to improve the quality of life in their communities. Our research will try to ascertain the level of success such initiatives have in Romania, a country with a generally low level of civic engagement. For this, we will use questionnaires and interviews with public servants in charge of these platforms.

Does Citizens’ Self-Identification of Their Public Role Affect Their Satisfaction with Public Services?

2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-100
Author(s):  
Hemin Choi ◽  
Jong Seon Lee
Keyword(s):  
Public Service ◽  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Role ◽  
New Public ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Service Expectations ◽  
Manova Analysis

This study investigates how citizens define their role qua citizen and how the public role they assign themselves matters in their assessment of satisfaction with public service performance. We compared survey respondents who identified their citizen role as customer (n=280), partner (n=353) or owner (n=467) to test this relation. Theoretically, the dominance of New Public Management (NPM) scholarship has resulted in the framing of citizens as simply customers, but our empirical study finds that citizens consider themselves more as partners or owners of government. This mismatch in conception was our research hypothesis for further research. We then ran a number of t-tests and carried out a MANOVA analysis, the results of which indicate that there is a significant difference between the customer and partner groups regarding expectations and satisfaction on the quality of their living area but not regarding performance. There is also evidence that shows that the role citizens assign to themselves is related to their public service expectations but that the connection between their view of their role and their assessment of performance is weak.

Quality Assurance and Accreditation in Open and Distance Learning

2021 ◽  
pp. 1079-1097
Author(s):  
Vimbi Petrus Mahlangu
Keyword(s):  
Quality Assurance ◽  
Distance Learning ◽  
Total Quality Management ◽  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Total Quality ◽  
New Public ◽  
The World ◽  
Open And Distance Learning

The purpose of this chapter is to argue that all open and distance learning (ODL) institutions should carry out quality assurance and accreditation processes in order for students and funders to have confidence in them. It also explains in detail what quality assurance and accreditation entails in ODL. This chapter follows a qualitative approach in understanding quality assurance and accreditation in ODL. Data were collected via literature review. During recent decades, the discourse and practices of systematic quality assurance and quality control have spread around the world, resulting to a great extent in market-based models related to the ideology and policy of neo-liberalism and expressed in economic rationalities such as new public management, total quality management, public choice, and human capital. Quality assurance and accreditation in ODL aims to maintain and raise the quality of education and to guarantee the improvement of its standards.

scholarly journals Impact of the New Public Management Paradigm on the Operation of Federal Establishments in Borno State, Nigeria

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Usman D Umaru
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Service ◽  
Service Delivery ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Chi Square ◽  
New Public ◽  
The Impact

The study examined the impact of the New Public Management Paradigm on the operation of Federal establishments in Borno State, Nigeria. To achieve this objective, the collected data were analysed using Chi-square, Correlation and ANOVA. The study revealed that there is a significant improvement in the performance of the staff and the quality of service delivery in the Federal establishments under study. The study concluded that the outsourcing of services has improved the quality of service delivery. However, the policy was not being properly implemented because in some of the Federal establishments under study, the same services outsourced were being carried out by very few retained staff. They were not enough to do the job and the outsource firms given the contract, did not provide enough qualified staff to augment the short-fall. The study recommended that qualified service providers (outsourcing firms) in the relevant cadres be allowed to do the job or as an alternative, the Federal government can encourage the setting up of Independent Units in all its establishments to compete with the outsourcing firms in carrying out outsourcing services at a fee, in order to attain qualitaty service delivery.   Keywords: New Public Management, Public service, Outsourcing and Service delivery.

scholarly journals Can research quality be measured quantitatively? On quality of scholarship, numerical research indicators and academic publishing - experiences from Norway

2017 ◽  
Vol 195 (2) ◽  
pp. 164-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Richard Handley Jones
Keyword(s):  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Research Output ◽  
Publication Output ◽  
Research Quality ◽  
Impact Factors ◽  
Academic Publishing ◽  
New Public ◽  
Assess Quality

In this article I reflect on ways in which the neoliberal university and its administrative counterpart, new public management (NPM), affect academic publishing activity. One characteristic feature of NPM is the urge to use simple numerical indicators of research output as a tool to allocate funding and, in practice if not in theory, as a means of assessing research quality. This ranges from the use of journal impact factors (IF) and ranking of journals to publication points to determine what types of work in publishing is counted as meritorious for funding allocation. I argue that it is a fallacy to attempt to assess quality of scholarship through quantitative measures of publication output. I base my arguments on my experiences of editing a Norwegian geographical journal over a period of 16 years, along with my experiences as a scholar working for many years within the Norwegian university system.

scholarly journals Translating participatory budgeting in Russia: the roles of inscriptions and inscriptors

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 302-326 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evgenii Aleksandrov ◽  
Konstantin Timoshenko
Keyword(s):  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Democratic Values ◽  
Participatory Budgeting ◽  
Content Type ◽  
New Public ◽  
Building Process ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Human Actors

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how participatory budgeting (PB) as a democratic governance tool has been translated within the Russian public sector by addressing the local specifics of its design and mobilization through the formation of networks. Design/methodology/approach The paper is based on a case study of one pioneering municipality. Data have been gathered through triangulation of interviews, document search, video and netnographic observations. By relying on ideas from actor–network theory, the study focuses on the relational and rhetorical work of human (allies/inscriptors) and non-human (inscriptions) actors involved in the development of PB in Russia. Findings The findings indicate that the initial democratic values of PB underwent several stages of translation as a continuous inscription-building process and the formation of networks. The main finding is that putting democratic idea(l)s of PB into practice proved problematic, since PB depended on many “allies” which were not always democratic. Paradoxically, in order to launch democratic practices in Russia, PB relied largely on bureaucratic and even New Public Management inscriptions, which it was originally supposed to fight against. Notwithstanding, while these inscriptions can fog the democratic values of PB, they are also capable of uncovering its democratic potential over time, albeit not for a long time as the “external referee” is needed. Originality/value The paper juxtaposes PB development in Russia with the translation literature. Not only does the study emphasize the role of human, but non-human actors as well.

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