Better public sector governance through partnership with the private sector and civil society: the case of Guatemala’s forest administration

Published date01 December 2006
DOI10.1177/0020852306070077
Date01 December 2006
Subject MatterArticles
Better public sector governance through partnership with the
private sector and civil society: the case of Guatemala’s forest
administration
Regina Birner and Heidi Wittmer
Abstract
Improving public sector governance is an important challenge for developing
countries. Taking the case of Guatemala’s forest administration, the Instituto
Nacional de Bosque (INAB), as an example, this article analyses an innovative option
for public sector reform: the delegation of authority to an independent agency that
is jointly managed by professionals from the public sector, the private sector and
civil society. The article develops an analytical framework, based on transaction cost
economics and politics. The analysis shows that delegation and partnership have
considerable potential to reduce political interest capture, but they involve potential
problems of ‘delegatee drift’ and ‘legitimacy drift’. In view of this trade-off, the
comparative advantage of delegation and partnership is influenced by the level of
organization among the stakeholders, their managerial capacity and the degree
to which they share common interests. The article also discusses the political
dimension of the reform process that led to the creation of the INAB.
Points for practitioners
The article analyses Guatemala’s forest administration, the Instituto Nacional de
Bosque (INAB), which represents an innovative option for public sector reform: the
The following two articles are based on papers presented at the IIAS Conference in Berlin in
September 2005. Originally we had hoped to have a somewhat larger symposium of papers from
that conference, but several other contributions fell out during the refereeing process or for other
reasons.
Regina Birner is a Senior Research Fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
She is leading IFPRI’s Governance Research Program.
Heidi Wittmer is a senior researcher at the Centre for Environmental Research UFZ in Leipzig,
Germany and heads the Working Group on Governance, Institutions and Policy for the Sustainable
Use of Landscapes.
Copyright © 2006 IIAS, SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi)
Vol 72(4):459–472 [DOI:10.1177/0020852306070077]
International
Review of
Administrative
Sciences

To continue reading

Request your trial

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT