Special Issue on Public Management Reform in Mediterranean Countries: Late-Comers, the "Odd Ones Out" or a Distinctive Path?

Citation

(2006), "Special Issue on Public Management Reform in Mediterranean Countries: Late-Comers, the "Odd Ones Out" or a Distinctive Path?", International Journal of Public Sector Management, Vol. 19 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijpsm.2006.04219baa.001

Special Issue on Public Management Reform in Mediterranean Countries: Late-Comers, the "Odd Ones Out" or a Distinctive Path?

In the last two decades, public management reforms have occurred in all or most countries, both in the developed and in the developing world. Far from being homogeneous, there seem to be important differences in the national trajectories of reform. While some groups of countries have received significant attention in the scientific and public debate, there is only a limited number of studies at the international level on the countries in the "Napoleonic" administrative tradition, nations that contributed to the shaping of the modern state and have traditionally had an important place in public administration studies.

Features of the inheritance of the Napoleonic administrative tradition of governance include: the centrality of the state as an integrating force within society, and a unitary nation state (though some of these countries have undertaken significant interventions of devolution); a powerful and highly qualified central administration (at least relatively to the other institutions/levels of government); the centrality of the law (administrative law as a separate body), and a related focus of administrative activity on the preparation, enactment and enforcement of the law, as well as an emphasis on the internal consistency of the legislative system and on formal, very detailed procedures; a conception of the citizen as first and foremost subject of rights and duties (more than "customer" of public services); a conception of civil servants as a social group distinct from the rest of society (the bureaucrats); the existence of professional corps; the presence of the prefect, representative of the central state, an institution with a long history that seems alive and well in many of these countries; the influence of internal sources of policy advice (that often comes "from within" the bureaucracy) in shaping the contents of public management reform.

Boundaries of "Napoleonic-style" countries are difficult to draw; in the list of OECD-members by Mediterranean countries we refer mainly to Belgium, France, Greece, Italy, Luxemburg, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, though other OECD and non-OECD countries showing similar features may be considered too.

Papers should include reference to research questions like:

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  How does the politico-administrative context affect the policy-making process in public management?

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  What are the dynamics of organisational change in the implementation of administrative and management reforms in Mediterranean countries?

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  What have been the effects of public management reforms?

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  What has remained, what has faded away of the Napoleonic administrative tradition after the wave of reforms of the last two decades?

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  What lessons can be drawn for the modernisation of these countries?

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  What theoretical issues of contemporary public management can be discussed on the basis of evidence of reforms in these countries?

Both comparative and single-country studies are welcome; especially comparative studies should stress dissimilarities in both context and the trajectories of reform in the countries considered. Because of the interest for country-level comparisons, national-level reforms are of main interest; regional and local-level reforms may be included if related to national-level reforms. Issues of importance include but are not limited to reforms in the areas of personnel management and labour relations; financial management; performance measurement, audit and evaluation, accountability; organisation (including methods of co-ordination, customer-orientation in service delivery, patterns of decentralisation at both intra-organisational and system level); and public procurement.

Papers for this special issue should be sent electronically by e-mail (in a Word format file) to the guest editor by the submission deadline of September 30, 2006. Authors are asked to follow the IJPSM standard formatting requirements. All papers will be reviewed in accordance with IJPSM's normal process. Authors wishing to discuss their paper prior to submission may contact the guest editor by e-mail.

The guest editor of this IJPSM special issue is:

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  Edoardo Ongaro, professor of public management, SDA Bocconi School of Management and lecturer in "Management of International and Supranational Organizations", Bocconi University of Milan, Italy. E-mail: edoardo.ongaro@unibocconi.it