Heterogeneity, Co-production, and Polycentric Governance

Chapter 6 elaborates the conceptual framework and the apparatus emerging from the Ostroms’ efforts, especially the pivotal notion of polycentricity, as a unifying and organizing framework or principle for governance theorizing. First, it explicitly articulates the elements of a theory of value heterogeneity as a foundational component of the entire approach. Then it proceeds to clarify a technical ambiguity in the construction of the co-production model that connects the domain of individual subjective values with the domain of institutions and social order. Third, in light of first two points, the discussion reconsiders the issue of polycentricity, the capstone of the Ostromian system. The chapter advances a fresh elaboration of the notion of polycentrism, seem as a solution both to the co-production problem and to the problems of social choice in conditions of deep heterogeneity, emphasizing several critical features that pertain to its positive-analytical dimension.

Function, Structure, and Process at the Private-Public Interface

Chapter 2 shows how a governance doctrine trapped in a search for pure forms of private organization or public organization, transfixed on the ideal types of the “public” and “private,” would be deficient both normatively and empirically. The chapter shows how it instead makes sense to take an approach that pivots on (a) the variety of (real and possible) institutional and governance arrangements that emerge at the interface (overlap and tension) between public and private, as defined in various circumstances by the relevant social actors on the ground; and (b) the comparison of the feasibility and efficacy of those arrangements in delivering a set of institutional performance functions out of which the preservation of life, liberty, and property are essential. The chapter charts this dynamic territory, identifying a set of essential factors at work in shaping the nature of the interface process and the governance architecture dealing with it.

Public Choice, Public Administration, and Self-Governance

Chapter 5 illuminates the specific nature of the synthesis attempted by the Ostroms’ and their associates and discusses the successes as well as the failures of their endeavors. Their effort to promote the public choice perspective in public administration, and the public administration perspective in public choice and to advance on that basis a paradigm change (from “bureaucratic public administration” to “democratic public administration”) is presented as a reference point, a model and case study entailing several lessons about the nature and limits of such endeavors. The chapter also builds upon the work of Michael Spicer, a remarkable author who has kept alive this type of approach in the field of public administration by combining public choice and knowledge process theory, long after the initial effect of the Ostroms’ efforts faded.

Public Administration and Public Choice

Chapter 4 documents the conceptual territory at the interface of public administration and public choice and puts the Ostromian contribution in an interpretive context that anchors it in the intellectual history of public administration. Identifying areas of convergence and affinities between the two intellectual domains, it charts the ground opened by the Ostroms’ work, an ambitious attempt to blend the two traditions and to create a conceptual framework for a distinctive type of public administration: democratic public administration. The seeing-like-a-state perspective in public administration is openly challenged by the seeing-like-a-citizen alternative, in a field that was anyway trying to unshackle itself from the inherent statism of its Wilsonian progressive legacy.

Dynamic Governance

Chapter 3 present a set of key notions to be employed in framing and approaching the dynamic governance process, and the phenomena associated with it, in ways that are particularly relevant for governance analysis and design: (a) the very idea of process-focused, dynamic governance itself, having at its core the voluntary action principle; (b) the notions of countervailing powers and voluntary sector, nonstate governance, leading to the overarching and encapsulating notion of polycentricity, the governance keystone of the normative individualist system of classical-liberal inspiration; and (c) the epistemic dimension, and the conceptualization of the role of knowledge discovery, production, aggregation and distribution in society, as well as the associated epistemic and institutional processes all seen as a natural complement of the notion of polycentricity.

Introduction

The introduction sets up the stage for the rest of the book by asking a series of key questions: Does classical liberalism entail a systematic framework of principles regarding public governance? If so, what are its broad recommendations and how does this perspective differ from other, more well-known perspectives on public administration? Classical liberalism accepts a wide range of collective arrangements and activities ranging from certain types of regulation to the provision of specific public goods and even to specific welfare policies. As such, the question arises, within the range of government activities accepted as legitimate, or at least not entirely beyond the pale, what are the particular classical-liberal views on the instruments and procedures of the administration of collective affairs? What kind of doctrine of governance and public administration does classical liberalism inspire? Is it possible to reconstruct or piece together such a position using the existing literature and practice?

Conclusions

The public administration principles articulated in the previous chapters are sufficiently distinct to validate the notion that there is indeed in nuce a classical-liberal theory of public governance to be derived from the foundational liberal philosophical and theoretical writings and from the public rhetoric and positions inspired by them. Further development of the theory and its translation into practice is, however, a more complicated task. Yet, a closer look at the developments in public governance during the past couple of decades offers a fresh and intriguing view of the issue. The more we advance in articulating, by using the intrinsic logic of the classical-liberal perspective, diagnoses and solutions to public governance problems, the more we can see that such diagnoses and solutions are far from alien to the contemporary field and practice of public administration. Those changes have led to a move from regulation based on command and control to flexible and diverse forms of regulation in which self-regulation is an important element. The concluding chapter of the book explores these developments.

Polycentric Stakeholder Analysis

Chapter 9 pushes further the frontier of the discussion into a new, growing and controversial governance debate area: that of corporate social responsibility. One of the most sensitive issues in polycentric governance systems, with their hybrid institutional arrangements at the dynamic interface between the “public” and the “private,” is to specify what are—and what are not—the responsibilities of the private sector—business firms and enterprises—when it comes to the public domain. This chapter offers an exploratory attempt to address this challenge. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has emerged in the last several decades as a preeminent concept and issue area engaging the problem of public role of private business. This chapter demonstrates how the ideas and theories discussed so far combine, complement, and bolster this literature and the applied-level insights based on it.

Independent Regulatory Agencies and Their Reform

Chapter 8 explores the issue of independent regulatory agencies. Independent regulatory agencies are seen as a serious challenge to democratic administration. They are government organizations of unelected officials, they often resist even mild audit attempts and they are very vulnerable to corruption, rent-seeking, regulatory capture and revolving door problems. The chapter notes first why independent regulatory agencies may nonetheless respond to a genuine need, namely they are one way of addressing “common-pool regulatory problems”, i.e. controversial but hard to be decentralized problems. Then the chapter presents an approach leading to a better understanding of the independent regulatory agencies’ operations and to their possible improvement. An in-depth look questions thus the conventional wisdom regarding IRAs and their functioning in the larger architecture of contemporary governance systems.

Metropolitan Governance

Chapter 7 focuses on the problems of metropolitan governance, one of the first domains in which the polycentrism theoretical lenses were applied. The example of the police services is used as an overture, as the chapter revisits the field and the literature fifty years after the Ostroms engaged in the “metropolitan reform debate” and launched their program. From a normative standpoint, the underlying thesis is that, even when government is involved in the production of public services, the most efficient form of organization is not hierarchical but polycentric. The chapter uses the example of police services to illustrate. This is also one of the first domains in which the polycentrism theoretical lens was applied. The chapter elaborates this approach and presents new insights. The public choice institutionalist, polycentricity-based perspective gets thus to be applied, illustrated, and expounded at a concrete, applied level.