Contract Regimes and Reflexive Governance: Comparing Employment Service Reforms in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Australia
| Author | Mark Considine |
| Published date | 01 September 2000 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9299.00221 |
| Date | 01 September 2000 |
EUROPEAN
FORUM
CONTRACT REGIMES AND REFLEXIVE
GOVERNANCE: COMPARING EMPLOYMENT
SERVICE REFORMS IN THE UNITED
KINGDOM, THE NETHERLANDS, NEW
ZEALAND AND AUSTRALIA
MARK CONSIDINE
Contemporary debates concerning the nature of ‘new governance’ typically focus
upon the shifting roles played by bureaucracies, networks and markets in the pro-
vision of public services (Kooiman 1993; Ormsby 1988). At the core of these recent
changes we find a strong interest in having private agents deliver public services.
Sometimes this is expressed as privatization and in other cases a ‘mixed economy’
of public and private participation may be devised (Williamson 1975; Moe 1984).
In this study a number of central elements of neo-liberal public management are
brought together in a single focus upon the ‘contract regime’ in order to examine the
extent to which single initiatives might combine to produce a recognizable system of
governance. Such an institutional form may then be more carefully specified and
its impact compared in different governmental systems.
Using a four-country comparison of employment service reform the study shows
that distinctions based upon degree of privatization do not adequately explain
regime types whereas distinctions based upon ‘compliance-centred’ or ‘client-cen-
tred’ forms of contracting are more powerful. The type of reflexive interaction
between different elements or levels of contracting also explains country differences.
Contemporary debates concerning the nature of ‘new governance’ typically
focus upon the shifting roles played by bureaucracies, networks and mar-
Mark Considine is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Mel-
bourne.
Public Administration Vol. 78 No. 3, 2000 (613–638)
Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2000, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street,
Malden, MA 02148, USA.
614 MARK CONSIDINE
kets in the provision of public services (Kooiman 1993; Ormsby 1988). This
proliferation of new models and novel techniques may yet prove to be the
most significant set of structural changes to the public sectors of Western
countries since the ‘merit and tenure’ innovations more than one hundred
years ago. Equally we might wonder how much practical effect these pro-
posals will have and how widely the predicted impacts will be felt.
At the core of these recent changes we find a strong interest in having
private agents deliver public services. Sometimes this is expressed as privat-
ization and in other cases a ‘mixed economy’ model of public and private
participation is defined. What is apparently common across such systems
is a belief that public bureaucracy can no longer cope with the pressures
being put on it by budget restraints, higher client expectations and claims
of inflexibility by interest groups and political e
´lites. This turn away from
bureaucracy is buttressed by the emergence in public discourse of economic
theories of organization which draw on agency theory and transaction cost
theory in order to justify quasi-market systems of service delivery
(Williamson 1975; Moe 1984).
In this study a number of central elements of the economic theory of
public management are brought together in a single focus upon the ‘con-
tract regime’ in order to examine the extent to which single initiatives might
combine to produce a recognizable system of governance. Such an insti-
tutional form can then be more carefully specified and its impact compared
in different governmental systems.
The central claim of the research is that the contract regime is built by
different contract instruments being deployed in four dimensions of the
public sphere and which, when combining their effects, together provide
opportunities for governments and other interests to develop whole sets of
interactive or reflexive institutions. Put another way, combinations of con-
tracts at different levels of the public sector generate cumulative effects.
These interact with local histories and traditions to produce a number of
hybrid arrangements and impacts. This process is seen to be reflexive to
the extent that one level or instrument of contracting or agreement-setting
creates conditions which shape the character of other contracts or agree-
ments in the system (Gardener and Ashby 1970; Beck 1992).
THE CONTRACT REGIME
One important common characteristic of public management reforms which
seek to follow the contracting path is the resort to formal agreements as
a central means to identify tasks, goals and costs. Public institutions are
understood as ‘bundles of implicit, spoken, and written contracts’ (Ormsby
1998, p. 382) and ‘organizations can be regarded as stable networks of con-
tracts which govern transactions, enabling coordination and control’
(Ciborra 1996, p. 132). In this context the decision to involve non-profit and
for-profit organizations in the delivery of services is motivated by the
search for least-cost, best-performance options (Williamson 1975).
Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2000
To continue reading
Request your trial