Making Public Management Work in the Global Economy: Lessons from Europe and North America

The conference was held September 23 - 25, 2010 on the campus of Central Michigan University. The following papers were presented during the conference.

 

Panel I: Cross-Border Regional Collaboration: Business, Labor, and Government

 

Bill Anderson
"Supply Chains, Security and Public Policy in an Economically Integrated Cross-Border Region"

ABSTRACT:  Every day a huge volume of freight passes between Ontario and Michigan. Unlike most international trade, which is in finished goods, a very large proportion of this cross-border trade comprises goods in manufacturing supply chains. This is especially true for automotive shipments among parts manufacturing sites and assembly plants on both sides of the border. The two bridges and two rail tunnels that cross the Detroit and St Clair Rivers and the highways that connect the border crossings to production facilities are therefore critical to the operation of the manufacturing complex on which the regional economy is so highly dependent. If freight movement at the border becomes slower and less dependable, supply chains will be less efficient and the industry will be less competitive. This paper discusses the challenges that federal, state/provincial, and municipal governments face in their efforts to facilitate cross-border freight movement without sacrificing appropriate border security.

 

Emmanuel Brunet-Jailly
"Public Management Across International Boundaries - Instruments and Strategies:   Implications for Public Managers in North America and the European Union"

ABSTRACT: The data presented in this paper suggest that in the European Union (EU) complex multilevel governance relations enhance territorially and politically accountable multi-functional policy instruments of cross-border governance, while the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) fosters local informal, uni-functional, and non-territorially based instruments. In turn, the case study findings show that in North America, trans-boundary instruments are primarily functional and specialized and serve interest specific goals. In the European Union, on the contrary, the evidence presented below suggests that the free trade regime and European Union policy and governance enhance territorially based multi-functional policy instruments of trans-boundary governance where local elected governments, municipalities, and counties develop policies to address their communities' needs, which may strengthen social cohesion. In turn, the strategies and constituencies of cross-border regions vary: they will result from private strategies in North America and in Europe emerge from the public sector actors and strategies.

 

Micaela Lottini
"Free Movement of Businesses within the European Union Market and Unlawful Decisions of National Administrations: Problems and Proposed Solutions"

ABSTRACT: Over the last ten years, the correct application of European Union law by National administrations has been acknowledged as a key issue for the integration and the correct functioning of the internal (European) market. The role that the individual decisions of national public administrations play in the European integration process has become a matter of increased interest to both European institutions and Member States. Consequently, different mechanisms have been put forward at a national and European level, aimed at preventing national authorities from making unlawful decisions (under European Union law) and at resolving the actual problems when they occur.   All the initiatives revolve around the principle of 'cooperation' between different levels of administrations (national and European), a principle which is now considered a key feature of the unique system of European governance.   Amongst the various mechanisms, particularly significant is the SOLVIT network; it was set up in the year 2002, to provide an informal resolution of disputes between businesses  (or citizens) and those national administrations which allegedly acted in breach of EU law. Following the SOLVIT experience, a similar network has been set up in the public procurement field. Moreover, cooperation between the European and the national Ombudsmen has been strengthened in order to foster a better and more uniform application of EU law by national authorities throughout Europe.

 

Lawrence Sych 
"Globalization, Economic Development, and Cross-Border Collaboration in a Comparative Perspective"

ABSTRACT: This study applies a model of regional networks and governance to cross-border cases for the purpose of identifying determinants that help local governments overcome barriers and promote interaction in border areas most susceptible to globalization realities, namely "old economy" manufacturing and industrial centers.  We draw together research from a variety of perspectives on regional governance and explore efforts by two local European communities and one local United States community to respond to the challenges posed by the global economy by interviewing stakeholders in territories that have experienced significant deindustrialization.  These interviews were conducted with local, regional and central government officials, as well as private sector actors, in the Italian region of the Marche and in the countries of Luxembourg and the United States in March-April 2006 and March 2008. We focus on cross-border cooperation and address the following questions:  to what extent has local community cross-border interaction in economic development emerged as a result of national and subnational efforts such as the E.U.'s Interreg and NAFTA in the U.S.?  Are particular determinants associated with incidence of and intensity of local community cross-border interaction similar to those identified in literature on regional governance?  Our preliminary findings show a range of interaction forms across several arenas closely associated with economic development, but fail to show direct associations with economic development alone.  We attribute this to the centrality of geographic space in development augmented by local competition and presence of the international border.  We conclude by identifying a set of determinants that will guide future research into local governance cooperation in cross-border economic development and related arenas.

 

Panel II: Financial Regulation after the Global Bubble Burst

Andrea Calabrò 
"Partial Privatization Processes, Public Service Providers and Accountability Issues: Evidence from Italy and Norway"

ABSTRACT:  In these last decades, the privatization process has characterized and changed the public sector in many European countries.  However, often this ended with public service providers (organized in the form of joint stock companies) still owned by the State (partial privatizations).  By discussing these partial privatizations from different theoretical perspectives - New Public Management (NPM), New Public Service (NPS), and New Public Governance (NPG) - this paper highlights some main problematic issues related to corruption, conflicts of interest and the lack of accountability.  While from the NPM perspective the privatization process aims at improving efficiency of public service providers, if analyzed from the NPS perspective it seems to create ethical problems. Moreover, NPG, as co-production, networks and cooperation, offers valid alternatives to privatization focusing more on citizens' public value and interest. Through a case study analysis, we describe the Italian and the Norwegian privatization processes.  The results show the stop-and-go characteristic of the Italian process and the reluctance of the Norwegian government to privatize, and the existence, in both countries, of situations in which the Ministries are still the major owners of service providers. Moreover, although the role of Ministerial governance has different development in the analyzed countries, a common pattern exists in relation to ethical and accountability problems.  To investigate those issues a content analysis of codes of ethics has been conducted on the public service providers owned by the Italian and the Norwegian governments. Finally, we discuss networked modes of governance and the implementation of accountability as reasonable alternatives to the deficiencies and problems generated by these partial privatization processes.

 

Fulvio Costantino
"EU New Proposals of Regulation on Community Macro Prudential Oversight of the Financial System"

ABSTRACT: This paper will examine the package of draft legislation, proposed to strengthen the supervision of the financial sector in Europe. The aim of the UE is to reinforce financial stability, to ensure the application and enforcement of the same basic technical rules, to identify risks at an early stage, to act effectively in emergency situations, and to resolve disagreements among supervisors. The paper will focus also on the new European Systemic Risk Board (ESRB), the European System of Financial Supervisors (ESFS), and the three new European Supervisory Authorities.

 

Thomas Greitens
"Perceptions of Performance in the U.S. Financial Regulatory Arena:  New Technologies and Old Assessments"

ABSTRACT: As changes in information technology made innovations in financial transactions more common and increased potential risks to both markets and organizations, financial regulatory programs "under-performed" and often appeared unwilling and unprepared to control these new types of risk.  To investigate possible reasons for under-performance, this project analyzed program performance records just before the Great Recession of 2008.   Findings reveal a pattern of under-performance built into the programs via politicized performance assessments that hindered effective regulation of newer, more complex types of financial transactions influenced by advances in information technology.

 

Heather McKeen-Edwards
"Regulating Risk in International Finance: The Influence of Transnational Networks on Governance"

ABSTRACT: The recent crisis has re-politicized global finance and created a spate of initiatives to reform its regulation in the last three years.  In addition to key legislative initiatives at the national level, regulatory reform efforts have also been undertaken in the international arena; where organizations like the G20 and the Financial Stability Board have become the public face coordinating the 'new' financial architecture.  Yet when one looks at the reform processes more closely, the existence of a complex transnational public/private policy network for regulating finance is apparent.  Although cracks in the international agreement for regulatory reform have appeared, particularly for more radical proposals like the global bank levy, progress is still occurring in the work being done by transnational technical bodies like the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision and the International Accounting Standards Board, among others.  This paper examines how the composition of this hybrid network has influenced the re-articulation of risk and the relationship between risk modeling and financial governance.  In the process, it looks at both the alterations to the micro-prudential regulatory system that existed prior to the crisis and the proposals to integrate aspects of macro-prudential regulation focusing on systemic risk.

 

Russell Williams
"The Financial Crisis and the Politics of Regulatory Reform in Canada"

ABSTRACT:  The challenges to would-be regulatory reformers in response to the financial crisis are considerable.  Industry complexity and resulting heavy reliance of administrators on industry-policy network participants, combined with the challenges of negotiating internationally-coordinated regulatory strategies, makes an effective and timely response to the lessons of the crisis extremely difficult.  This paper explores the complexities of reform by examining the Canadian case, arguing that differences in the Canadian financial services policy subsystem have contributed to a peculiar pattern of policy initiatives which are not supportive of an effective global response.  While, from a regulatory perspective, the Canadian financial services sector may be every bit as vulnerable as other jurisdictions,  key players in the Canadian policy subsystem, pursuing a variety of pre-existing policy goals, have "framed" the lessons of the crisis differently, contributing to a self satisfied discourse that Canada has little to learn from the crisis.   As a result, Canada has shown a consistent reticence to support the more comprehensive European and American initiatives to reform the industry.  Successful reform requires shared problem recognition - something the Canadian case illustrates does not exist in the case of the financial crisis.

 

Panel III: Pubic-Private Partnerships in Green Economics

Andrea Appolloni
"The Trends in Green Procurement: A State of the Art Literature  Review"

ABSTRACT:  The objective of this paper is to identify the major themes of Green Supply Management (GSM) through reviewing the literature from 1994 to 2010 and develop future research directions.  Academic and corporate interest in green procurement management has risen considerably in recent years.  This can be seen by the number of papers published and in particular by journal special issues.  There is a growing need for integrating environmentally sound choices into procurement management research and practices.  Perusal of the literature shows that a broad frame of reference for green procurement management is not adequately developed.  Six themes of green supply management have been identified from the literature.  Opportunities for future research are proposed at the end of the paper.

 

W. Frank Baber
"Public/Private Co-production of Regulatory Policy: The Case of Natural Resources Management"

ABSTRACT: This paper argues that an opportunity exists for public agencies and private organizations to cooperate in the development and implementation of natural resources management policy.  The key to success is the adoption of broadly participatory practices at the levels of establishing fundamental regulatory norms, selecting regulatory paradigms, and creating implementation plans that take account of the considered views of all stakeholders. 

 

Daniel Cohn
"The Public-Private Partnership for Green Power in Ontario"

ABSTRACT: The electricity generation and distribution network in the Canadian province of Ontario is at a crossroads.   In the last decade Ontario Hydro, a classic public sector service monopoly, has been broken into two separate publicly owned companies; a generator (Ontario Power Generation) and a transmission network (The Independent Electricity System Operator).  Initially it was planned to privatize the generator. In fact, one of the province's nuclear facilities was actually sold off.  However, a variety of miscues and a public backlash ultimately doomed the overall privatization plan.  While the ownership structure of the sector was up for debate in the 1990s and early years of the new millennium, necessary investments did not occur and a looming shortfall in generating capacity now threatens the area. This crisis has opened a window of opportunity for the present government to introduce a green power initiative as part of its anti-climate change policy. The resulting green power projects are primarily being developed through what can only be described as a public-private partnership between the province and private operators.   This paper sets out the Ontario case and seeks to identify the degree to which the decision to focus on private investment to develop green power can be ascribed to; Ontario's unique circumstances, the nature of the green power sector, and/or pressure from the major financial and engineering firms that lead the global green power movement.   

 

Francesco de Leonardis
"Green Public Procurement: from Recommendation to Obligation"

ABSTRACT: Green Public Procurement (GPP) constitutes one of the most effective methods to ensure practical implementation of the precautionary principle envisaged in Article 174 of the EC Treaty. If this purchasing policy were implemented by requiring public entities within the EU to supply green electricity, we would reduce the production of the equivalent of 60 million tonnes of CO2 and, if all European public entities were to choose environmentally-efficient toilets and taps in their buildings, a reduction in water consumption of around 200 million tonnes would result.

 

B. Timothy Heinmiller
"Transboundary Coordination and Adaptation: The Role of Public Administrators in the St. Mary - Milk Water Governance Regime"

ABSTRACT:  Since 1909, an international regime under the auspices of the International Joint Commission has governed the waters of the St. Mary and Milk rivers in the Canada-US Prairie region.  Although water scarcity has always been a governance challenge on these rivers, scarcity-related problems have become more severe in recent years and are likely to become even more severe in the future as a result of climate change.  Consequently, the regime governing the St. Mary-Milk is under increasing pressure to adapt to water scarcity, and some institutional adaptation has been undertaken by administrators on both sides of the border.  However, given the limited discretionary scope of administrators, this adaptation has been largely at the regime's margins while its core rules and provisions remain virtually intact.  This paper examines the marginal adaptation of the St. Mary-Milk regime and explores its implications for the region's economy and environment.

 

Panel IV:  Governance and Accountability in the Global Economy

 

Denita Cepiku
"Governance and Accountability of Cutback Management: What is the Global Strategy for Public Administration?" 

ABSTRACT:  The literature on "cutback management" and on "managing organizational decline" has emphasized the need for a holistic and long-term perspective, rather than a short-term, reductionist approach.  Several contradictions and paradoxical tensions are expected to emerge in an era of austerity:  the difficulty to predict the effects of cutbacks, short-term political influences, penalizing efficient organizations, inability to plan for the longer term, human resource concerns, a collision between the demands for cutbacks and the demands for better services, among others.  The paper aims at contributing to this stream of research, developed mainly during the seventies and eighties (Dunshire and Hood, Levine and colleagues for the public sector and Greenhala, McKinley, Boeker, etc. as a general management literature), by providing an in-depth analysis of the main challenges that public sector managers have to address in managing public spending and activity cutbacks.  An analysis of the venues of international cooperation between public managers - namely the OECD, the EU, and the World Bank - will be explored and the strategies adopted at the local level will be evaluated against the aforementioned challenges and complexities.  Are responses to the crisis formulated at the international level focusing on short-term strategies for mitigating decline (so-called cheese slicing by Pollitt) or on revising long-term system reforms and strategic prioritization?  

 

Contact Information

Political Science Department
Central Michigan University
Anspach Hall 247
Mount Pleasant, MI 48859

Phone: 989-774-3442
Fax: 989-774-1136
Email: paconf@cmich.edu