Suchergebnisse

Based on a study of 22 Flemish local governments and their respective delivery of elderly care, this article analyses the drivers of three local public service delivery externalisation options: corporatisation, public-public collaboration and public-private partnerships (PPP). The analysis reveals a combination of financial and economic efficiency underlying externalisation. Further, while political ideology appears to impact the choice for PPP, the findings suggest that externalisation is guided by pragmatic rather than political-ideological motivations. Overall, the results show that smaller and more financially strapped local governments are more inclined to choose for public-public collaboration and PPP. Rather than the overall financial situation of local governments being a underlying factor, the (potential) impact of the service-related costs on local finances drive externalisation. We also find that policymakers do not solely motivate their choices based on past and current situations, but also anticipate future challenges.

This article discusses the issue of democratic quality of area-based policy networks, with particular attention to the complex settings of network relations and to the changes in local regimes. It is argued that present associative and deliberative frameworks of democratic theory are useful but inadequate to enable proper assessments of multilevel and multiactor policy arrangements. The article therefore combines both frameworks with a contextualized and dynamic perspective and supports this position with a case analysis of a spatial planning network in Ghent, Belgium. It finds that in Flanders, local representative democracywas dominated by corporatism and party political arrangements, and emergent networks for spatial planning are replacing old corporatist arrangements in a new institutional framework for local representative democracy. The article concludes that analyzing area-based networks without analyzing changes in representative democracy in the same area can easily lead to biased conclusions.

Dans cet article, nous analysons les différents rôles joués par les professionnels de terrain lors du processus de création de valeur publique dans le cadre d'un projet de développement communautaire conduit sur le mode de la coproduction. Nous nous intéressons en particulier à la manière dont des professionnels de terrain motivés associent différents rôles – ami, guide, représentant et médiateur – pour autonomiser et inclure les membres du groupe cible et, ce faisant, participer à la création de valeur publique. Cette question a été examinée dans le cadre d'une étude de cas qualitative concernant un projet de développement communautaire à Ostende (Belgique). Cette étude a montré que le professionnel de terrain devait adopter différentes combinaisons de rôles de manière réfléchie pour influer sur le processus de coproduction intervenant dans la création de valeur publique. La combinaison des rôles d'ami et de guide et celle des fonctions de guide et de médiateur, en particulier, est susceptible de conférer une autonomie accrue aux coproducteurs et de créer ainsi une valeur individuelle pour ceux-ci. En outre, les professionnels étudient avec soin la combinaison des rôles d'ami et de guide pour favoriser la valeur communautaire plutôt que la valeur individuelle. De même, assumer simultanément les fonctions d'ami, de guide et de représentant permet aux professionnels d'inclure un nombre plus élevé de coproducteurs et de renforcer ainsi le sentiment de la valeur communautaire. Il apparaît en conclusion que la mise en œuvre de ces différentes combinaisons de manière idoine suppose la présence d'un professionnel motivé qui dispose du temps et de l'autonomie nécessaires. De plus, nous soulignons que les recherches sur ces différentes alliances de rôles doivent être approfondies pour établir clairement le panorama des différentes associations susceptibles d'être utilisées par les professionnels. Remarques à l'intention des praticiens Forts des enseignements tirés de notre recherche, nous pouvons formuler à l'intention des praticiens deux recommandations essentielles. Premièrement, pour inclure les personnes vulnérables et leur donner des moyens d'agir dans le processus de coproduction, les professionnels doivent acquérir l'éventail de compétences qui leur permettra d'endosser les rôles requis pour nouer le dialogue avec les participants. Deuxièmement, et de manière connexe, cela signifie que les professionnels de terrain doivent disposer de l'autonomie suffisante (à l'égard des responsables des politiques publiques) pour être à même de déterminer les actions nécessaires pour assurer la réussite du projet de coproduction au regard des objectifs d'inclusion et de renforcement du pouvoir d'agir.

This article deals with the different roles of the street-level professional in achieving public value in a co-productive community development project. The article focuses, in particular, on the question of how engaged street-level professionals combine different roles – as friend, leader, representative and mediator – in order to empower and include their target audience, thereby contributing to public value creation. This question was explored in a qualitative case study in a community development project in Ostend (Belgium). The study indicated that the street-level professional needed to adopt different role combinations in a well-considered way in order to influence the co-productive process that affected public value creation. More specifically, the combination of friend–leader, as well as the leader–mediator combination, can empower co-producers and thus create personal value for these co-producers. Moreover, professionals carefully consider the combination of friend–leader to support community value over personal value. Also, by combining the friend, leader and representative roles, professionals can include more co-producers and create a stronger sense of community value. This article concludes that there is a need for an engaged professional who has sufficient time and autonomy to apply the combinations as needed. Additionally, we note that more research on these different role cocktails is necessary in order to provide a clear framework of the different combinations that professionals can apply. Points for practitioners From our research, we can make two key recommendations for practitioners. First, in order to empower and include vulnerable participants to co-produce, professionals need to develop the right skill set to fulfil the roles needed to engage with participants. Second, and relatedly, this also implies sufficient autonomy (vis-a-vis policymakers) for the professionals at the street level, which will enable them to consider what is needed for the co-production project to become successful in terms of inclusion and empowerment.

Co-production is often considered a solution to improve service quality and production efficiency, yet research on the reasons why citizens participate in the creation and/or implementation of public services is still limited to specific sectors. In this article, we study the different citizens' motivations discussed in the literature. We distinguished two categories of motivations, personal and circumstantial. By means of a guided survey, we collected data on these different motivations in a Belgian case in the unstudied setting of community development. The results show that even in a community development case, where material incentives are used to entice citizens in a vulnerable socio-economic position to participate, the reasons behind co-production are still more diverse and complex than simple benefit maximization.

A methodological perspective on network and collaboration research / Joris Voets, Christopher Koliba and Robyn Keast -- Researching networks through sequential explanatory design / Bob Agranoff and Aleksey Kolpakov -- The case study in researching networks and collaborative arrangements / Ming Cheng and Joris Voets -- Survey approach / Ingmar van Meerkerk, Jurian Edelenbos and Erik-Hans Klijn -- Narrative inquiry in public network research / Jennifer Dodge, Angel Saz-Carranza and Sonia Ospina -- Methodology / Rob Kivits -- Researching inter-organizational collaboration using RO-AR / Siv Vangen -- Process tracing / Robyn Keast -- Social network analysis and dynamic network analysis / Robin Lemaire and J"rg Raab -- Qualitative comparative analysis in public network research / Denita Cepiku, Daniela Cristofoli and Benedetta Trivellato -- Using agent-based models to study network and collaborative governance / Christopher Koliba, Asim Zia and Scott Merrill -- Practitioners : what do they want to know? / John M. Kamensky -- Network and collaboration research futures / Dan Chamberlain and Ben Farr-Wharton -- Cross-cutting themes and opportunities for network and collaboration research / Robyn Keast, Christopher Koliba and Joris Voets.