The sustainability of institutions: an unstable condition
| Author | Patrizia Santoro |
| Published date | 01 December 2019 |
| Date | 01 December 2019 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0020852317741533 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
International
Review of
Administrative
Sciences
The sustainability
of institutions: an
unstable condition
Patrizia Santoro
University of Messina, Italy
Abstract
This article uses the concept of institutional sustainability to examine how institutions
survive in a context, such as the current one, in which a problematic economy
(a decrease of resources), politics (e.g. a crisis of parties and decline in voter partic-
ipation) and social environment (corruption, wastefulness and administrative
malpractice) weaken their legitimacy. Specifically, the purpose of this article is to
suggest a conceptual model of institutional sustainability different from the one gener-
ally used in the literature on sustainable development to analyse the capacity of insti-
tutions to strengthen their roles, tasks and functions with the limited (quantitative and
qualitative) resources (e.g. human, economic and instrumental) that they may already
have or are given. To this end, the article attempts to ‘operationalize’ the concept
of institutional sustainability, starting with the technical-managerial and political
nature of administrative action, and to suggest analytical factors that fall within the
sphere of functional autonomy and legitimacy.
Points for practitioners
This article aims to make the concept of institutional sustainability smoother and more
precise by focusing on the intrinsic value of a sustainable way of life for institutions. The
specific focus is public administration, now increasingly burdened by the need to com-
bine the political reorganization of public debt with development planning and the
provision of services. I suggest some necessary requirements (functional autonomy
and legitimacy) to guarantee and/or increase sustainability.
Corresponding author:
Patrizia Santoro, Dipartimento di Scienze politiche e giuridiche, Universita
`degli Studi di Messina, Piazza XX
Settembre n.4, 98122, Messina, Italy.
Email: santoropatrizia1@gmail.com
International Review of
Administrative Sciences
2019, Vol. 85(4) 609–626
!The Author(s) 2018
Article reuse guidelines:
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DOI: 10.1177/0020852317741533
journals.sagepub.com/home/ras
Keywords
institutional performance, institutional sustainability, institutions, public administrations,
sustainability
Introduction
Over the last few decades, public institutions of highly developed Western democ-
racies have encountered a deep and complex crisis that endangers their functions
and their ability to pursue goals and mobilize resources (Peters et al., 2011).
A discrepancy has been exposed between problems and solutions, particularly
the progressive inefficiency of decision-making and the limited capacity for imple-
mentation by the political-administrative organization (central and local) of the
state (Pollitt, 2010). Under indictment are the most common criteria of efficiency,
merit, professionalism, transparency and responsiveness; for some countries, the
rampant phenomena of administrative malpractice, waste and corruption are to
blame as well. This situation signals a profound political crisis involving several
aspects of representative democracy (e.g. the decline in voter turnout, fragmented
and radicalized party competition and high social inequality), which demonstrates,
more vigorously than in the past, the gap between ‘being’ and ‘to be’ of public
institutions (Lijphart, 2001).
In addressing this issue, the political science literature usually focuses on insti-
tutional performance (Kaplan and Norton, 1996), which provides a better under-
standing of institutions and how they behave. However, this perspective is not very
useful for fully understanding the difficult relationship between institutions and
society or for providing guidance regarding the potential to keep institutions alive,
especially in a time of widespread scepticism towards public institutions (Norris,
2011).
Given diminishing resources, it is important to understand the capacity of
public institutions to maintain and/or enhance their role in society. It is necessary
to think through this capacity to adopt the appropriate methodological perspective
for the debate concerning reforms related to today’s public institutions, and even
more so for future ones. This article contributes to this direction by suggesting the
use of the concept of ‘institutional sustainability’ in a way that differs from the use
associated with the capacity building of sustainable development policies generally
adopted in the literature.
The concept of sustainability used here relies on the etymological meaning of
the term ‘sustainability’. It indicates institutions’ ability to survive thanks to the
maintenance and development of activities and functions that respect the limita-
tions (quantitative and qualitative) of resources (human, economic, instrumental,
etc.) that the institution possesses and that are recognized by society. This calls into
question the logic and dynamics of actions that involve not only technical-
managerial aspects, but also a political nature. The latter is the most innovative
610 International Review of Administrative Sciences 85(4)
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