Towards Holistic Governance : The New Reform Agenda

by Perri 6, Diana Leat, Kimberly Seltzer and Gerry Stoker

• ISBN13: 9780333928912
• ISBN10: 0333928911
• Format: Trade Book
• Copyright: 2002-09-06
• Publisher: Red Globe Pr

Summary

The search for a more holistic approach to policy and management looks set to be as much a hallmark of public service reform in the early twenty first century as the changes introduced under the rubric of 'new public management' or 'reinventing government' were in the closing decades of the twentieth. Towards Holistic Governance presents an authoritative assessment of successes and failures to date and a new framework for analysis and implementation based on extensive research both in the UK - where the New Labor government has been an early enthusiast and pathfinder for 'joined-up government' just as its predecessors were for privatization and contracting out - and elsewhere.

Author Biography

Perri 6 is Director of the Policy Program at the Institute for Applied Health and Social Policy, King's College, London.

Diana Leat is Visiting Professor, VOLPROF, City University Business School.

Kimberly Seltzer was formerly Researcher, DEMOS.

Gerry Stoker is Professor of Politics, University of Manchester

Table of Contents

List of Figures	vii
Acknowledgements	ix
Introduction	1	(8)
Holism Past and Present	9	(19)
Previous initiatives in holistic governance	9	(5)
The cyclical pattern behind interest in holistic governance	14	(32)
Explaining the rise and fall of holism: centrist politics	46
The roots of the New Labour agenda for `joining up'	19	(3)
The New Labour holistic governance programme	22	(4)
Conclusion	26	(2)
Understanding Holistic Governance: Towards a Conceptual Framework	28	(27)
Dimensions of holistic governance: what is to be integrated?	28	(2)
Understanding key terms	30	(4)
Wicked problems	34	(2)
Fragmented governance and its roots	36	(7)
Holism rests on a view that something can be done	43	(3)
The foals of holistic governance	46	(1)
Measuring the depth of integration	47	(2)
Mechanisms, or what gets done	49	(1)
Types of holistic governance	49	(1)
Conclusion	49	(6)
The Case For and Against Holistic Governance	55	(17)
Trade-off(s)	55	(2)
The case against integration	57	(4)
The case for holistic governance	61	(9)
If the case for holism is accepted, when and where is it appropriate?	70	(1)
Conclusion	71	(1)
Lessons From Theory: How Coordination Can Work	72	(17)
The tropes of interorganisational coordination: commonsense responses	72	(5)
Explaining the dominance of tropes	77	(2)
Developing the framework: is reconciliation possible?	79	(5)
Tropes of coordination and the deployment of tools for holistic governance	84	(4)
Conclusion	88	(1)
Designing a Reform Strategy	89	(29)
A framework for thinking about integration risk	90	(5)
Failures in practice: key lessons for national government--the British case	95	(6)
`Top-down or bottom-up'?	101	(1)
Organisational innovation in general: a game of two hales with compulsory extra time	102	(9)
Specific lessons	111	(5)
Conclusion	116	(2)
Interorganisational Relations and Practice	118	(24)
Building trust: a key ingredient for holism	118	(3)
Obstacles	121	(3)
Tactics for overcoming obstacles	124	(4)
Skills for integration	128	(11)
Overcoming obstacles: answering the fatalist	139	(2)
Conclusions	141	(1)
Information Systems	142	(26)
Service provision	143	(7)
Governance	150	(5)
Sifting the evidence in the impact of e-governance	155	(7)
Integration and privacy	162	(4)
Conclusion	166	(2)
Accountability	168	(26)
Understanding accountability	168	(3)
Searching for accountability in holism	171	(5)
Design principles for holistic accountability	176	(3)
Focus on the executive structure or on the legislature?	179	(7)
Centra-local relations: accountability, devolution, decentralisation and local governance	186	(3)
Democracy and public accountability	189	(4)
Conclusion	193	(1)
Finance	194	(18)
A review of experience	196	(7)
Types of holistic budget strategy	203	(3)
Weak tools are needed to supplement, balance and give context to holistic budgets	206	(4)
Conclusion: budgeting in its place	210	(2)
The Prospects for Holistic Governance	212	(31)
The challenge	212	(4)
Institutionalisation and institutional change	216	(3)
Sufficient conditions for institutionalisation of paradigms of public management	219	(14)
How strong are the forces for the institutionalisation of holism?	233	(8)
Conclusion	241	(2)
References	243	(21)
Index	264