| Review of: | Challenges to State Policy Capacity: Global Trends and Comparative Perspectives edited by Martin Painter, Jon Pierre |
|---|---|
| Reviewed By: | Anne Tiernan |
| Reviewed in: | Australian Journal of Public Administration |
| Date accepted online: | 25/09/2006 |
| Published in print: | Volume 65, Issue 2, Pages 110-124 |
Book Reviews
Several times in recent years, Australian politicians have lamented the poor quality of policy advice provided to them by public service departments and agencies. The Australian Wheat Board (AWB) controversy is merely the latest in a litany of purported public service analytical and intelligence 'failures' which have resulted in Ministers claiming not to have known or been informed of key governance issues. In mid 2004 Prime Minister, John Howard, was disappointed at being apparently 'misinformed' by the Department of Defence over what Australian authorities knew about the prisoner abuse scandal at the Abu Ghraib prison; it seems he was similarly let down by the intelligence community over the basis for Australia's decision to join the 'Coalition of the Willing' in Iraq. Earlier, the Prime Minister was unaware of doubts about the veracity of the government's 'children overboard' claims, and in 1997 he felt badly advised by the Department of Administrative Services in the 'Travel Rorts' affair.
Questions about the ability of the public service to support decision-making through their policy analysis and advisory functions are also preoccupying the attention of leaders in other political systems. Prime Minister Helen Clark has lamented the amount of effort her government has had to invest in 'rebuilding the policy capacity' of the New Zealand public service. Advisory and analytical failures have also bedevilled British Prime Minister Tony Blair and US President George W. Bush. Those dependent on the performance of advisory systems seem to think that something is badly amiss. Public service leaders and commissioners have also expressed concern about declining policy skills and competencies.
Scholars have for some time been aware of practitioner concerns, and have devoted effort to describing the forces that have contributed to the problem that has become known as 'declining policy capacity'. Since the mid 1990s, a stream of reports and publications has raised questions about the ability of governments radically reshaped by New Public Management (NPM) reforms, to identify and respond effectively to the challenges they face and to anticipate the capabilities they might need to do so.
The edited volume by Painter and Pierre is a significant contribution to the scholarly literature on this important contemporary debate. The product of a collaboration of public management scholars from nine countries, it provides a wide-ranging examination of the challenges confronting policy-makers in an increasingly globalised and networked governance context.
Four key themes or questions are explored in the book. These are: What are the building blocks of policy capacity? What causes policy capacity to shrink or grow? How can policy capacity be 'designed in'? What are the crucial issues for policy capacity in contemporary research and analysis? The introductory chapter by Painter and Pierre 'unpacks' the notion of policy capacity which they acknowledge is complex and difficult to conceptualise. Eleven substantive chapters examine the impacts of globalisation, multilevel governance and new public management (NPM) reforms on the capacity of governments to make 'intelligent choices'. The survey reveals that fragmentation, pluralisation and the demands of trans-national governance have created complexity, challenging the effectiveness of existing institutions and structures, and creating demands for new skills and modes of coordination and political control. Painter and Pierre's concluding chapter summarises the key findings - the contingency of policy capacity and the potential for it to be enhanced or diminished by the actions of governments whether consciously or unconsciously. They identify the external and internal challenges to the making of intelligent choices by public policy-makers, and conclude with some tentative recommendations for recreating policy capacity.
This book is a useful exploration of the 'problem' of policy capacity and some of its potential causes. But it does not provide the type of systematic, longitudinal empirical evidence that would be needed to precisely diagnose the nature, extent, causes and consequences of the capacity problem. Nor does it engage with how the problem is perceived and understood by those grappling with the dilemmas and complexities so ably described by the contributors to this study. Despite their efforts, the concept of policy capacity remains elusive - a discourse encompassing a variety of concerns about the provision of advice and information to decision-makers, rather than a precisely delineated analytical term.
Persistent controversies over the adequacy and performance of the advisory systems supporting policy-makers suggest further research in this field is urgently needed. Those embarking on such projects would do well to consult this volume.