REPUTATION‐BASED GOVERNANCE ‐ by Lucio Picci
| Author | Louise Fitzgerald |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.2012.02086.x |
| Date | 01 March 2013 |
| Published date | 01 March 2013 |
REVIEWS 241
REPUTATION-BASED GOVERNANCE
Lucio Picci
Stanford University Press, 2011, 223 pp., ISBN: 9780804773294 (hardback)
This book is intended ‘to spur the debate on the new opportunities that the use of
reputation in governance affords’. As such the author acknowledges that there is, at least
in part, a normative stance to the book but claims that the book also analyzes the role of
reputation in governance. As defined by the author, ‘governance’ is about the institutions
of governance: that is, individual incentives, appropriate organizations, and procedures.
In order to support and sustain the argument, the author carefully details his definition
of ‘reputation’, exploring concepts of public trust and reputation. In central chapters of
the book, he offers highly detailed proposals on how the measurement of reputation
should occur and discusses the analysis of statistical information. The text also introduces
the argument that reputation-based governance would enable greater, democratic public
participation in shaping policies.
The main thrust of the argument in this book is that we should use ‘reputation’,
carefully measured and accounted for at both organizational and individual level, as the
basis of the governance of public organizations. The author maintains that with internet-
based technologies, it is possible to ensure that these measurements of organization
can be put into the public arena so that the basis of ‘reputation’ is publically available
knowledge.
There is no doubt that this book is an ‘ideas’ book and in that respect, there are a
number of interesting ideas explored. In particular, I noted the idea of a ‘career concern’
model to explain the motivation of individuals within public sector organizations. This
model acknowledges that many public sector employees are not motivated by money and
therefore this will not act as an incentive, but they do wish to progress in their careers.
Thus personal reputation is important to them. My attention was also engaged by the idea
of transferring the concept and technique of the sociogram to tracing the interconnections
in policy initiatives. There has been considerable discussion of the issue of dealing more
coherently with the interconnections between policy domains (Clarke and Stewart 1997;
Newman 2001). Recent debates have drawn continuing attention to ‘wicked problems’
and the uncoordinated outcomes of these fragmented (and disconnected) interconnections
(Clarke and Stewart 1997; Ferlie et al. 2011).
Of all the chapters in the book, I found Chapter 10 on ‘Reputation-Based Democratic
Participation’ was one of the most stimulating. There were ideas in this chapter for
possible futures. To this extent, this and other sections fulfilled the author’s desire ‘to
reveal interesting possibilities’.
The book is also at times a fascinating read, since the author draws on such an eclectic
mix of examples and narratives. He starts us off with eBay and ranges over the Romans,
Obama and towards the end, leads us to the Palacio do Alvorada in Brazil. These examples
and illustrations are undoubtedly stimulating and I enjoyed the range.
On the other hand, I cannot say I found the book entirely convincing. I tried hard to
accept the author’s stance that this was a book about the future and future direction.
He himself stated that he had avoided the important question of what can be done
Public Administration Vol. 91, No. 1, 2013 (232–250)
©2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
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