The document discusses the failure of past public sector reform (PSR) efforts and proposes a new "old-ish" strategy. It summarizes that past PSR approaches focused on structural adjustment, governance incentives, and access to services failed to achieve lasting change due to "old" challenges like administrative patrimonialism and political capture. New approaches emphasize leadership, social accountability, and policy adaptation, but also face challenges. The document concludes that an effective strategy requires elements of both "new" and "old" approaches combined over the long term, with sustained political support for reform coalitions.

1. Everything has to change for things to stay the same
“New” approaches confront “old
challenges” in public sector reform
Pablo Yanguas University of Manchester
Badru Bukenya Makerere University
DSA Conference
Panel - “The Pursuit of State Effectiveness”
1November 2014

2. 1. The failure of the PSR agenda
2. “Old” challenges
3. “New” approaches
4. Time for an old-ish PSR strategy?

3. [ 1 ]
The failure of PSR

4. 1. The failure of PSR
Four “generations” of PSR
 Structural adjustment (1980s)
 Good governance & incentives (1990s)
 Access to services (& ease of doing business) (2000s)
 Public provision capacity (post-2015?)

5. 1. The failure of PSR
The Public Sector Reform Agenda
Component Aims
Civil service and
administrative reform
High-performing and affordable civil service managed in an
efficient, nondiscretionary, and transparent manner
Public expenditure and
financial management
Good management and discipline in the allocation of resources
according to policy priorities
Anticorruption and
transparency
Accountability and transparency in the management of resources
to discourage the use of public office for private gain
Tax administration
Improved revenue performance through an equitable and efficient
tax service
Participation and co-
production
Efficient and accountable service delivery through public-private
partnerships
Decentralisation
Transfer of political, administrative, and fiscal authority to sub-
national levels of government

6. 1. The failure of PSR
World Bank 2008 evaluation
Some success in PFM and tax administration, much
lower in civil service and anti-corruption:
 CS: “lack of a coherent strategy”, “inherent political
difficulty”, “weak diagnostic work”
 AC: “indirect measures” had some success; “direct
measures … rarely succeeded, as they often lacked the
necessary support from political elites and the judicial
system.”

7. 1. The failure of PSR
Matt Andrews (2013)
Of 80 countries receiving PSR support between 2007
and 2009, fewer than 40% registered improved
institutional indicators; a third stayed the same; and a
quarter actually declined
Pritchett, Woolcock & Andrews (2013)
“Looking like a state: Techniques of persistent failure in
state capability for implementation”

8. [ 2 ]
“Old” challenges

9. 2. “Old” challenges
World Bank 2008 evaluation
“Most developing countries today (such as Western
Europe and the United States 150 years ago) have
political systems that depend fundamentally on
patronage. Some countries have progressed more
quickly in recent years, but an open dialogue about the
realistic expectations has been missing.”

10. 2. “Old” challenges
Chasing an ideal-type
 Rationality (Weber, Evans & Rauch, Fukuyama)
 Restraint (Weber, Finer)
 Autonomy (Evans, Fukuyama)
VS…

11. 2. “Old” challenges
The subversive nature of Weberian bureaucracy
 Technical recruitment
 Equality of treatment
 Professional culture
 “levelling” of status
“Everywhere bureaucracy foreshadows mass democracy”

13. 2. “Old” challenges
A history of “persistent failure”
 “Juridical statehood” vs “empirical statehood”
(Jackson & Rosberg 1982)
 Neo-Patrimonialism (van de Walle 2001)
 A Weberian façade
 A patrimonial structure

14. 2. “Old” challenges
Political and moral economy of reform
 Administrative patrimonialism
 Public corruption
 Political capture

15. 2. “Old” challenges
Assumptions and Challenges of Public Sector Reform
Assumptions Challenges Evidence
Rationality
Administrative
patrimonialism
Isolated reform efforts, persistent
informal practices, personal
disincentives to enforcement.
Restraint Public corruption
Disempowered reporting, social
sanction of corruption, political
interference.
Autonomy Political capture
Regime-state confusion, merging of
the public and private, lack of
bureaucratic autonomy.

16. [ 3 ]
“New” approaches

17. 3. “New” approaches
From “best practice” to “best fit”
 Three flawed assumptions (Englebert & Tull 2004)
 Western institutions can be transplanted to Africa
 Local elites want to cooperate with donors
 Donors can support long-term reform
 “Good enough governance” (Grindle 2004)
 “Square peg reforms in round hole governments”
(Andrews 2013)of them” requires unpacking the “PEA of
us”

18. 3. “New” approaches
Leadership
(It’s the commitment, stupid!)
 Basic claim: Political commitment and capacity at the top is
essential for reform
 Sample reform strategies:
 Executive office capacity-building
 Performance contracts
 Executive communications and agenda management
 Typical case: Tony Blair’s Africa Governance Initiative

19. 3. “New” approaches
Leadership
(It’s the commitment, stupid!)
 Challenges:
– Islands of excellence
– Short political cycles
– Reforms linked to political gains
– Incentive to misreport

20. 3. “New” approaches
Social accountability
(It’s the participation, stupid!)
 Basic claim: citizen participation and government transparency can
increase demand for public sector effectiveness
 Sample reform strategies:
 Participatory planning and budgeting
 Open government
 Co-production
 Typical case: Open Government Partnership

21. 3. “New” approaches
Social accountability
(It’s the participation, stupid!)
 Challenges:
– The politics of state-society relations
– Little impact on existing social capital
– Success tends to be linked to traditional forms of accountability
(i.e. elections)

22. 3. “New” approaches
Policy adaptation
(It’s the iteration, stupid!)
 Basic claim: Replication of foreign templates results in “isomorphic
mimicry”, whereby the form is copied but the substance remains
the same
 Sample reform strategies:
 Problem identification through dialogue
 Central-local collective action (APPP)
 Iterative design
 Typical case: Problem-driven iterative adaptation (PDIA)

23. 3. “New” approaches
Policy adaptation
(It’s the iteration, stupid!)
 Challenges:
– Experimentation tends to happen under political leadership
– Local institutions may be incompatible with reform aims
– Generating local collective action is in itself another collective
action problem

24. 3. “New” approaches
New Approaches to Public Sector Reform
Approaches Expectations Evidence
Leadership
Executive co-ordination and
monitoring increases
performance.
Short-term political incentives
driving policy; “developmental
patrimonialism”.
Social
accountability
Government transparency
and citizen participation
increases demand for good
governance.
Citizens don’t have the capacity or
interest to police low-level
bureaucratic malpractice.
Policy
adaptation
Innovative and adaptive
problem-solving increases
performance.
Adaptation relies heavily on pre-
existing political will and reliable
capacity for evaluation.

25. [ 4 ]
Time for an “old-ish” strategy?

26. 4. An “old-ish” strategy?
 Early days for new approaches
 They are likely to work better in tandem
Committed leadership coupled with strong social
accountability, transparency initiatives which give rise to
innovative reforms guided by clear vision, and policy
adaptation driven by long-term political commitment open to
public criticism
These hypotheses need to be tested

27. 4. An “old-ish” strategy?
ESID’s PSR project
 4 countries: Ghana, Malawi, Rwanda, Uganda
 Time frame: 15-20 years
 5 core public sector functions:
 Coordination
 Public financial management
 Public/civil service management
 Auditing
 Anti-corruption
 Two implementation dimensions:
 Mandate
 Practice

28. 4. An “old-ish” strategy?

29. 4. An “old-ish” strategy?
ESID’s PSR project
 Intervening variables
 4 reform approaches:
 Executive control
 Social accountability
 Policy adaptation
 Institution building
 Elite commitment (policy, implementation)
 Political settlement of the PSR policy domain
 Elite dynamics
 Elite ideas
 Local-transnational

30. 4. An “old-ish” strategy?
 Lacklustre PSR performance is not about having the wrong
goals, but the wrong frame for intervention and assessment
 PSR – state-building – is a hard, long-term struggle between
tradition and change: building new institutions, overcoming
entrenched social norms, and attracting the ire of those who
stand to profit from informality
 The “failure” of the PSR development agenda lies in the
mistaken assumption that contentious goals could be
achieved in the span of a three- or five-year programme
The failure of PSR was virtually inevitable

31. 4. An “old-ish” strategy?
“Old” challenges call for a clear political strategy
HOWEVER:
“New” approaches feel like
short-term fixes to donor problems

32. 4. An “old-ish” strategy?
Embattled reformers need strategic political support:
 sustained over the long institution building cycle
 courageous enough to build reform coalitions within and
beyond the public sector itself
 acceptant of the risk of displeasing some actors
This is what local reform advocates do
AND what donors actually do when they support
civil society organisations and bureaucrats

33. 4. An “old-ish” strategy?
Something has to change for things
NOT to stay the same

34. Thank you
www.effective-states.org/psr
www.effective-states.org/tag/public-sector-reform/