Suchergebnisse

This article presents the first country-comparative evidence on the importance and use of performance management in European central governments, based on an executive survey conducted in 17 countries. The data confirm that performance management has made its way into European central governments and continues to constitute a major reform trend. At the organizational level of ministries and agencies we find a consistently strong use of strategic planning, performance appraisal and management objectives, along with only a partial institutionalization of a performance-management logic. Scepticism towards measurement and the difficulty of acting upon performance information are persistent challenges. We also find that performance-management implementation is significantly stronger in agencies and larger organizations, and that it varies strongly between different countries. Implementation is substantially higher in Scandinavian countries and Anglo-Saxon countries than in Continental and Southern European countries, with a rather varied pattern for Central and Eastern European countries. The findings thereby confirm the need for a more context-sensitive understanding of performance management, along with the need for more extensive research and evidence to further develop this cross-comparative European perspective.

Based on an executive survey this article analyses the extent to which a new managerial logic has replaced traditional administrative values and identity in Austria. We do not find any strong evidence of a new managerial logic but rather modifications, local translations and the emergence of a hybrid identity.

In this article, the authors analyze whether and to what extent an "old" administrative orientation is being replaced by a new managerial logic in the Austrian public sector. They illustrate that shifts in institutional logics can be analyzed by the extent to which actors draw on the social identities derived from the competing logics and show that the vocabularies and accounts the actors employ to communicate their identity claims reflect the local translation of global logics.

Introduction: The Relevance and Conceptualisation of Local Public Finance Regulatory Regimes -- PART I. Concepts of Regulation -- Budget Institutions for Subnational Fiscal Discipline: Local Fiscal Rules in Post-Crisis EU Countries -- Fiscal Rules at the Local Level: The Challenge of Enforcement -- Financial Supervision of Local Governments: An Organisational Hurdle -- European Patterns of Local Government Fiscal Regulation -- Local Public Finance Regulation in Southeast Europe: A Comparison of Slovenia, Croatia, and Serbia -- The Impact of Fiscal Rules on the Financial Management of Municipalities: A Comparative Analysis of Czech Republic and Slovakia -- Monitoring Local Government Financial Sustainability: A Dutch–English Comparison -- The Implementation of Fiscal Regulation: Insights from Germany -- Fiscal Supervision and Party Politics – Lessons from Austria and Germany -- PART II. Bailouts and Insolvency -- Preventing Local Government Defaults: No-Bailout Policy and its Alternatives -- Municipalities and Excessive Debt – Local Insolvency Regimes as an Alternative to Bailouts? -- Four Decades of Municipal Bailouts in Germany -- PART III. Local Public Finance in Times of Crisis -- Global Crisis, Local Impact: A Comparative Approach to the Financial Crisis' Impacts on European Local Levels -- Fiscal consolidation in German and Greek Local Governments: Reform Attempts, Supervision, and Local Measures -- Financial Decisions, Intergovernmental Grants and Regulatory Instability: The Case of Italian Municipalities -- Insights from City Financial Realities: Comparing and Learning across Borders -- Taking Stock: The Role of Institutional Context for Local Government Financial Resilience -- Local Government Tax Structure.

Infrastructure only tends to be noticed when it is absent, declining, or decrepit, or when enormous cost overruns, time delays, or citizen protests make the headlines. If infrastructure is indeed a fundamental driver of economic growth and social development, why is it so difficult to get right? In addressing this perennial question, this volume makes the case for a governance perspective on infrastructure

To unlock the full potential of ICT-related public sector innovation and digital transformation, governments must embrace collaborative working structures and leadership, is commonly argued. However, little is known about the dynamics of such collaborations in contexts of hierarchy, silo cultures, and procedural accountability. A widely voiced but empirically insufficiently substantiated claim is that bringing cross-cutting digital endeavours forward requires more lateral, network-based approaches to governance beyond traditional Weberian ideals. We test this claim by shedding light on three distinct challenges (complexity, risk, and power imbalance) encountered when implementing the specific collaborative case of the German Online Access Act (OAA) and by examining how they have been addressed in institutional design and leadership. Our analysis, which combines desk research and semi-structured expert interviews, reveals that flexible, horizontal approaches are on the rise. Taking a closer look, however, vertical coordination continues to serve as complementary means to problem-solving capability.

This article contributes to the literature on the politicization of appointments to increase political control over public bureaucracies with often substantial managerial and policy autonomy. Using data from a large-scale executive survey from central government ministries and agencies in 18 European countries, the article provides a comprehensive cross-national and cross-organizational analysis of the autonomy-politicization conundrum and the drivers of the politicization of senior-level appointments. We find that national patterns of politicization correspond fairly well to country families as defined by administrative traditions, with some traditions being more coherent than others. At the organizational level, we find no evidence of efforts by politicians to compensate for extended autonomy by politicizing senior-level appointments, yet we provide evidence of differential effects of both formal and informal organizational characteristics on patterns of politicization. Our analyses show that politicization of senior appointments is lower in organizations with agency status, higher organizational social capital, higher financial autonomy and more extensive use of management tools. The article thereby not only offers comprehensive evidence of cross-country differences in politicization; it also adds to the literature on sub-national variation, by fleshing out an organizational perspective to the study of politicized appointments in the European context.

AbstractDespite claims of a paradigmatic shift toward the increased role of networks and partnerships as a form of governance—driven and enabled by digital technologies—the relation of "Networked Governance" with the pre‐existing paradigms of "Traditional Weberian Public Administration" and "New Public Management" remains relatively unexplored. This research aims at collecting systematic evidence on the dominant paradigms in digitalization reforms in Europe by comparing the doctrines employed in the initial and most recent digitalization strategies across eight European countries: Estonia, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway, Spain, and the United Kingdom. We challenge the claim that Networked Governance is emerging as the dominant paradigm in the context of the digitalization of the public sector. The findings confirm earlier studies indicating that information and communication technologies tend to reinforce some traditional features of administration and the recentralization of power. Furthermore, we find evidence of the continued importance of key features of "New Public Management" in the digital era.