WHAT IS GOVERNANCE IN THE ‘PUBLIC INTEREST’? THE CASE OF THE 1995 PROPERTY FORUM IN POST‐CONFLICT NICARAGUA
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.2011.01977.x |
| Published date | 01 June 2012 |
| Date | 01 June 2012 |
doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9299.2011.01977.x
WHAT IS GOVERNANCE IN THE ‘PUBLIC INTEREST’?
THE CASE OF THE 1995 PROPERTY FORUM IN
POST-CONFLICT NICARAGUA
KEVIN MORRELL AND NICOLA HARRINGTON-BUHAY
‘Public interest’ (synonymous here with ‘common good’ and ‘public good’) is a central concept in
public administration. In an important, basic sense, we evaluate the effectiveness of governments
in terms of whether their policies are detrimental to, or benefit, public interest. However there are
problems operationalizing public interest: it seems a concept that is simultaneously indispensable
yet vague. While difficulties operationalizing public interest are widely understood, a further
problem is insufficiently acknowledged. This is that many features underpinning public interest (a
tradition of citizenship, stable government, a rule of law, basic infrastructures) are taken for granted
in established democracies. However, in other contexts we cannot assume these. Examining what
public interest means in developing countries can be useful to identify these taken for granted
assumptions, and to re-examine this ubiquitous and enduring concept. We do this through a case
study of land rights reform in post conflict Nicaragua.
Public interest is an ancient idea that remains at the heart of writing on religious, social
and applied ethics (Hollenbach 2002; Dorrien 2008; Carcello 2009; O’Brien 2009). It is also
core in the contemporary literature on public administration (Lewis 2006; Barabashev and
Straussman 2007; Bozeman 2007; Dillman 2008; Morrell 2009; Rhodes and Wanna 2009).
At the same time as an apparent consensus about the core meaning of ‘public interest’,
there are long-standing and well-acknowledged problems with using this as an analytic
concept (Schubert 1962). It is by engaging with these problems from a novel, comparative
perspective that we seek to contribute. We begin by identifying two central conceptual
problems with ‘public interest’. This provides the theoretical context for an illustrative
case study, an analysis of the property forum in post conflict Nicaragua. We argue that
this context provokes a reappraisal of how we understand public interest.
PUBLIC INTEREST
The problem of attainment and the problem of operationalization
There are two main problems with using public interest as an evaluative criterion in public
administration. The first is that ultimate satisfaction of the public interest is unattainable.
Societies are pluralist and governing is a never ending process, where aspirations are
potentially limitless but resources finite, and where different interest groups have goals
and values that may be destined to be in conflict. Three theorists offer accounts which can
serve as resolution to (what we call) the problem of attainment.
First, from a societal perspective, Bozeman (2007, pp. 17–18) defines public values
(shared normative criteria about governing, and the rights and duties of citizens), in
terms of ‘public value’ (a criterion for judging the extent public values seem to be
achieved). On these terms, public interest would be a way of judging progress, without
Kevin Morrell is in the Business School, University of Birmingham. Nicola Harrington-Buhay is Deputy Director,
United Nations Development Programme, Brussels.
Nicola Harrington-Buhay would like to make it clear that the views expressed in this paper are those of the
author(s) and do not represent those of the United Nations, including UNDP.
Public Administration Vol. 90, No. 2, 2012 (412–428)
©2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden,
MA 02148, USA.
WHAT IS IN THE ‘PUBLIC INTEREST’? 413
commitment to a utopian destination (for a critique of the ‘public value’ concept, however,
see Rhodes and Wanna 2009). Second, from an individual perspective, Lewis (2006)
suggests public interest is an ongoing obligation, which is consistent with the idea
that administration involves pursuing equity and discharging an obligation to future
generations (Frederickson 1994). This also resolves the problem of attainment by showing
public interest as a process rather than an end state (see also Goodsell 1985, 1990).
Third, Morrell (2009) relates individual and societal perspectives on the ‘public good’
(synonymous with public interest) using the Aristotelian idea that the good citizen and
good state are defined relationally. Again this leads to a process perspective on the
problem of attainment, namely that administrations can be evaluated over time in terms
of how well they allow citizens to live the Good Life.
As well as the problem of attainment, there is a second and consequent problem with
using public interest. This is one of operationalization; summed up by Schubert’s (1962)
suggestion that public interest, ‘makes no operational sense’ (in Denhardt and Denhardt
2007, p. 67). As Lewis (2006) has suggested, the terms ‘public good’, ‘public interest’
and ‘common good’ can have different nuances but they are used interchangeably
in contemporary literature. Grandy (2009, p. 1119), for instance, aligns public interest
with collaboration and citizenship, ‘the values of collaboration, the public interest, and
citizenship’, in the same way Simo and Bies’ (2007, p. 125) operationalize cross-sector
collaboration, as ‘orientation toward the public good’. Vigoda-Gadot and Meisler (2010,
p. 73) use public interest to discuss outcomes associated with public work, just as
Moynihan and Pandey (2007, p. 40) use public good. Barabashev and Straussman (2007,
pp. 380–1) describe corrosion of the public good in an absence of neutrality among public
workers, where, ‘personal interests dominate the public interest’. Tullock (1984, p. 89)
defines public interest as ‘abstract devotion to the public good’.
At their core, these all resonate with Rawls’ (1999) definition of common good, ‘certain
general conditions that are in an appropriate sense equally to everyone’s advantage’ (also
cited in Carcello 2009; Morrell and Clark 2010). Beyond this though, and without an
anchoring framework such as that offered by Bozeman (2007), Lewis (2006) or Morrell
(2009), it is open to question as to what additional analytic benefit using such a general
term has. This second problem – the problem of operationalization – is understood, but it
could perhaps be described as a pseudo-problem if we allow for the possibility that ‘public
interest’ is at the same time a term which makes no operational sense, but is also indis-
pensable. We are sympathetic to this interpretation and yet there is an important aspect to
this issue of operationalization that has not been given sufficient attention in the literature
to date. This is that understanding of public interest is predominantly based on the study
of Western, developed democracies. To explore this further, we adopt a comparative
perspective to try to understand what public interest may mean in an unfamiliar context.
The need for comparative study
Partly because of the critical literature in postcolonial studies, there is a growing interest in
research into public administration in developing contexts (Spivak 1999). ‘Public interest’
is a pre-modern, even ancient idea and this suggests that drawing on some of the literature
inspired by postcoloniality is helpful. The central critical imperative of postcoloniality
is a rejection of established (colonial) structures of hegemony and domination. These
structures may be comparatively tangible, for instance debt, or they can be more abstract:
a continued colonization of logic, language, culture or space (Said 1978; Bhabha 1994).
Given that ‘public interest’ is an ancient idea that has developed in tandem with
Public Administration Vol. 90, No. 2, 2012 (412–428)
©2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
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