Institutional Design for Sub-national Governance

• Author: Edwin Jones
• Pages: 229-248

Institutional Design for Sub-national Governance 229

II

II

Introduction and Backgroundntroduction and Background

ntroduction and Backgroundntroduction and Background

ntroduction and Background

Since the late 1970s, the character and form of public service delivery have

extended beyond provision through central government towards sub-

national or decentralised systems, with a central objective of “empowering

communities”. These decentralised systems increasingly focus on socio

economic and political development projects, reflecting the fact that central

government alone cannot promote developmental change within the framework

of the “politics of globalisation”. This decentralisation movement also recognises

“good governance” as a major development strategy capable of shaping and

improving relationships among state, market and society at the local level and

ultimately yielding a pattern of “holistic development”. Nonetheless, some of

the problems found within central governments that propelled the idea and

practice of decentralisation – e.g. over-centralisation and inefficiency,

unaccountability as well as tendencies toward social manipulation and

symbolism – have continually resurfaced and in some ways become just as

troubling. In the main, these and related problems relate directly to the quality

of “systems and structures” within particular contexts. The texture of such

problems is augmented particularly in contexts of low trust and where

institutions are underdeveloped. Their underdevelopment is reflected in the

fact of being under-capacitated, poorly integrated and therefore lacking the

dynamic synergies needed to ensure development and good governance. The

basic thrust of this discourse is to interrogate some of the concepts and ideas

involved in the issues just mentioned, and to identify possible problem solving

tools and techniques available for their Caribbean application.

Some Analytical Frameworks and Considerations

Notions of empowerment, decentralisation and capacity building as well as

ideas about “community” and communitarianism are central building blocks

InStItutIonal DeSIGn for

Sub-natIonal GovernanCe

EDWIN JONES*

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

230 GOVERNANCE SYSTEMS AND STRUCTURES

that articulate systems of sub-national governance and the institutional

arrangements that support such systems. Critical analysis of these building blocks

is necessary in order to formulate some new and alternative approaches for the

Caribbean region. Governance is the central organising theme in such a

programme.

A highly contested literature has grown up around the governance concept,

partly reflecting the ideological roots of the debate. Nonetheless, over the past

decade or so, governance has emerged as a major development strategy to

reconstitute relationships among state, market and civil society. Its main, most

recent policy agenda embraces slimming of the state, improving efficiency in

the delivery of public services and a broadening of public-private working

relationships. Concepts and a range of policy and institutional reforms drive

the overall agenda. All these imperatives have become standard components of

the policy packages, usually “transferred” globally as coercive conditionalities

via the network of bilateral and multilateral bureaucracies that constitute the

international policy community (Minogue 2002; Common 1998).

Within the variety of meanings attributed to governance (often qualified as

“good governance”) the dominant themes clearly relate to democracy, co-

management, economic development and the strengthening of all-round

managerial competence. A degree of autonomy from the state is a consistent and

central principle that has been employed in the application of this concept.

In this mix of meanings, governance is viewed as “self organising and inter-

organisational networks”, consisting of state and non-state actors and rest on

relations of exchange and trust rather than on formal institutional roles and

boundaries (Rhodes 1997; Minogue 2002). Another perspective (UNDP 1995,

1998: Kooiman 1993) stresses systems of “co-management” and “co-production”

in policy affairs of a country among state and non-state partners who are equally

represented. This democratic framework is expected to ensure “voice” for the

most vulnerable and poorest in the community. Consistent with its “economic”

mission, the World Bank (1992) conceptualises governance as “management of

a country’s economic and social resources for development”, with policy actors

functioning in a predictable and transparent framework of rules and institutions.

The British wing of the international development and policy network accepts

these mainstream visions of governance, but emphasises technical competence

to design and implement appropriate policies and efficiently deliver policy

products (ODA 1993; DFID 2000).

All these conceptualisations converge in a critique of centralised public

administration, with a preference for decentralised or sub-national forms of

exchange. Yet, as Minogue (2002) has shown, the governance strategy is often

viewed with “pessimism and suspicion”, partly because its application is

sometimes associated with coercive politico-economic conditionalities; partly

because it engenders “control and surveillance” in support of “international

capital”; and partly also because in the field experience of its application it has