P&G Boek Week 3

Quality
of Governance
Values and Violations
Edited by
Hester Paanakker · Adam Masters
Leo Huberts
Quality of Governance
Hester Paanakker • Adam Masters
Leo Huberts
Editors
Quality of Governance
Values and Violations
Editors
Hester Paanakker Adam Masters
Radboud University Centre for Social Research and
Nijmegen, The Netherlands Methods
Australian National University
Leo Huberts Canberra, ACT, Australia
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
ISBN 978-3-030-21521-7 ISBN 978-3-030-21522-4 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21522-4
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer
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Preface and Acknowledgements
This volume is the result of the admirable hard work of many. The topics
this volume addresses stem directly from the continuous flow of papers,
ideas, and discussions generated by the members of the Study Group on
Quality of Governance. Over the past few years, this group has fostered
many inspiring meetings and outputs. We are particularly indebted to the
continued support of the many academics and practitioners involved. A
particularly inspiring idea emerged a few years ago, when the three of us
started deliberating an edited volume that would draw together the work
of the group and would be an accurate reflection of the research agenda
we pursue as a group.
The ongoing developments in governance systems and settings are not
to be taken lightly. In a highly complex and interconnected world, with
swift technological advancements, with people, capital and information on
the move, and with an increasingly global impact of public policies, the
way we govern societal problems and solutions has become ever more
crucial—and yet, volatile at the same time. Political fragmentation, eco-
nomic breakdowns, and escalated human suffering and inequality lie at
wait. Attempts to do justice nowadays to normative questions of gover-
nance, and to attain and uphold high levels of quality in governance,
might be a hazardous undertaking that brings both perils and potential
breakthroughs to the table.
In both instances, careful assessment and deliberation on what it is that
constitutes quality of governance and what can be done to improve it are,
in our view, decisive for our future administrations and their impact. It is
this question our study group devotes its academic work to. We are proud
v
vi PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
to present the fruits of this labor in this edited volume on values and viola-
tions of quality of governance. We gratefully take this opportunity to
explain a little more on the composition and aims of the Quality of
Governance Study Group. We would also like to express some words of
gratitude to those that helped to accomplish this volume.
About Study Group IV—Quality of Governance

Many national and international governmental and non-governmental
organizations are increasingly involved in topics that concern the quality
of governance and its foundations. Among them are many initiatives con-
cerning ethics and integrity including the struggle against corruption;
programs aimed toward other valued aspects of governance such as
democracy, human rights, and the rule of law; and initiatives focused on
the effectiveness and efficiency of public policies and services. This involve-
ment coincides with the research agendas of several fields of study in aca-
demic disciplines including public administration.
In 2012, the International Institute of Administrative Sciences (IIAS),
a non-profit organization seated in Brussels, aimed at promoting the
exchange of knowledge on the main trends of public administration in the
different regions in the world, created a new entity: Study Group IV—
Quality of Governance (QuGo). The QuGo study group convened in
Amsterdam with scholars from five continents (Africa, Asia, Australia,
eastern and western Europe, and North America) and intended to develop
a better understanding of the processes of governance and the values
which contributed to the quality of governance. From its initiation
onward, the study group conceived of the quality of governance as con-
taining a light and a dark side—quality of governance can be good, and
quality of governance can be bad. Focusing on only one side of the equa-
tion or the other leaves a gap in our understanding on how to maintain
and foster good quality in the processes of governance and to reduce or
eliminate the bad.
A set of themes underpin the research agenda of the QuGo study
group. These include,
1. Quality of Governance: good and bad governance in context.

What is quality of governance given the manifold public values?
What values matter in governance (processes) and what is their
impact in decision-making and policy-implementation? How do the
PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vii
values relate to ‘relevant publics’ (e.g., citizens, politics and admin-

istration, elite and street-level)? How do we understand ‘good gov-
ernance’ from the top down and bottom up and internationally?
2. Quality of governance policies, systems, instruments, leadership.
Many initiatives to improve the quality of the governance process
exist. These are apparent in, for example, the literature on ‘integrity
systems,’ including actors involved in protecting public values (e.g.,
anti-corruption agencies, civil society involvement, judicial actors,
ombudsmen, auditing and oversight divisions, etc.). But how do
these actors relate and work, and what really works in what context?
3. Quality of governance and quality of outcomes.
How do characteristics of (the) governance (process and organiza-
tion) relate to the quality of resulting policies and results? This is
important to reflect upon in (sub)national contexts, but the (un)
intended effects in a broader (international) context are rele-
vant as well.
4. Quality of governance and governance studies: theory and

methodology.
What is the state of the art in this field, paying attention to theoreti-
cal development (and its relationship to, for instance, political the-
ory and philosophy), and methodological advancement (quantitative,
qualitative, ethnographic, etc.)?
These themes serve as a starting point for our initial and ongoing work.
The QuGo study group has grown and explored further in a series of ses-
sions at IIAS and other conferences (Box 1), in initiatives to connect the
manifold groups in this field, and through cooperative comparative
research. Since the convening, the study group has met regularly in
Europe, the United States, and Asia. Within the first two years, more than
fifty concept papers, presentations, or full papers have been presented by
the study group to develop its research agenda.
Our aim is to relate, connect, and synergize these fields of study in a
global context. In doing so, the Study Group strengthens existing initia-
tives through its global forum in this challenging and important area. Our
leading research question is: What is quality of governance and how can
quality be advanced in multi-faceted national and international gover-
nance processes and structures?
viii PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Box 1 IIAS Study Group IV: Activities 2012–2018

• Inaugural Seminar, Amsterdam, the Netherlands—7–12 May,
2012
• Pre-conference workshop, New Orleans, USA—14 March, 2013
• Panel: Quality of Governance: Understanding Corruption,
Animosity, and Integrity, in cooperation with the Ethics Section,
American Society for Public Administration (ASPA) Annual
Conference, New Orleans, USA, 15–19 March, 2013
• Panel: Quality of Governance, International Institute of
Administrative Sciences (IIAS) International Congress,
Bahrain—1–6 June 2013
• Pre-conference workshop, Washington DC, USA—13 March, 2014
• Panel: Quality of Governance: Values, Policies, Corruption and
Training, in cooperation with the Section on Ethics and Integrity
of Governance (SEIGOV), ASPA Conference, Washington DC,
USA—14–18 March, 2014
• Sessions: (I) Challenges to Quality of Governance: Good Governance
in Context, (II) Quality of Governance Institutions IIAS
International Congress, Ifrane, Morocco—15–16 June 2014
• Pre-conference workshop, Chicago, USA—5 March 2015
• Panel: Quality of governance, in cooperation with the Section on
Ethics and Integrity of Governance (SEIGOV), ASPA Annual
Conference, Chicago, USA—6–10 March, 2015
• Sessions: (I) What is Quality of Governance about? (II) How does
quality of the governance system/process relate to the quality of soci-
ety? (III) The organizational level, IIAS/IASIA (International
Association of Schools and Institutes of Administration) Joint
Congress, Chengdu, PR China—19–23 September, 2016
• Panel: Quality of Governance, International Conference on Public
Policy, National University of Singapore—28–30 June 2017
• Panel: The vulnerability of governmental agencies for threats from
outside, in cooperation with the Section on Ethics and Integrity of
Governance (SEIGOV), ASPA Annual Conference, Denver Co,
USA—9–13 March 2018
• Sessions: (I) Quality of Governance, (II) Integrity of Governance,
(III) Resilience of Governance, IIAS/IASIA Joint Congress,
Tunis—25–29 June 2018
PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ix
Acknowledgements
Our acknowledgements, like the study group, span a large array of like-
minded scholars. Some of the following kudos the reader will easily follow,
the ‘dinosaur’ theme flows from a running joke within the study group.
First, we would like to acknowledge the IIAS for facilitating our QuGo
study group and for recognizing the importance of the topic. They help us
to advance theory and practice on quality issues of governance by provid-
ing a platform for us to meet and attract new members. We thank profes-
sor Geert Bouckaert for his skillful and cordial leadership and Anne de
Boeck and Steve Troupin for their excellent organizing talent and flexibil-
ity in facilitating our many (and often late) requests.
Second, we want to recognize the fellow co-chairs of our study group. In
accord with IIAS policy, three scholars co-chair Study Group IV. Professor
Leo Huberts, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam; Professor Adam Graycar,
Flinders University, Adelaide and Honorary Professor at the Crawford School
of Public Policy at the Australian National University; and Associate Professor
Tina Nabatchi at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University, New York. We
would like to acknowledge the contribution of Adam Graycar and Tina
Nabatchi, as well as the senior academics in Study Group IV who have pro-
vided mentorship to their junior colleagues. For this, the young dinosaurs,
Hester Paanakker and Adam Masters who have edited this volume thank
both them and their editorial colleague—the oldest dinosaur—Leo Huberts.
Many of the activities of the study group could not have occurred with-
out the administrative support provided by various assistants at the VU
and the Australian National University—roles from which two of the
editors—Paanakker and Masters—have emerged. Others who have sup-
ported the administration of the QuGo study group include Thomas
Westveer, Martijn Wessels, and Sanne-Minouk van den Broek.
Especially, we would like to thank all who have contributed directly to this
volume, as well as those who have actively participated in the many QuGo
activities we have listed. Without their enthusiasm and collaboration, many
of the insights of this volume would be left unsaid. On a personal level, we
also thank them for their good company at conferences and other meetings.
Furthermore, some of the authors within, and many of our other colleagues
have gone on to publish their contributions to the various QuGo study
group meetings around the globe (e.g., Adams & Balfour, 2017; Anechiarico,
2017; de Graaf & van Asperen, 2016; Schnell, 2016; Van der Wal & Yang,
2015; Yang, 2016; Yang & Van der Wal, 2014). This volume continues the
theme established in 2012 and represents our most significant shared output
as members of the IIAS Study Group IV on Quality of Governance.
x PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Finally, no book is possible without the support of those involved in the

publishing process. We thank our reviewers for their insightful comments
and feedback, which strengthened the work before you. Thanks is also due
in no small part to Oliver Foster, Jemima Warren, and the team at Palgrave.
Nijmegen, The Netherlands Hester Paanakker

Canberra, ACT, Australia Adam Masters
Amsterdam, The Netherlands Leo Huberts
References
Adams, G. B., & Balfour, D. L. (2017). Doubling down on derivatives: The legal
but corrupt exploitation of the fallout from the great recession. In F. Anechiarico
(Ed.), Legal but corrupt: A new perspective on public ethics (pp. 15–28). London,
England: Lexington Books.
Anechiarico, F. (2017). Racialized policing in New York City: The NYPD and
stop, question, frisk. In F. Anechiarico (Ed.), Legal but corrupt: A new perspec-
tive on public ethics (pp. 81–104). London, England: Lexington Books.
de Graaf, G., & van Asperen, H. (2016). The art of good governance: how images
from the past provide inspiration for modern practice. International Review of
Administrative Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1177/0020852316630392
Schnell, S. (2016). From information to predictability: Transparency on the path
to democratic governance. The case of Romania. International Review of
Administrative Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1177/0020852316648756
Van der Wal, Z., & Yang, L. (2015). Confucius meets Weber or “Managerialism
takes all”? Comparing civil servant values in China and the Netherlands.
International Public Management Journal, 18(3), 411–436. https://doi.org/
10.1080/10967494.2015.1030486
Yang, L. (2016). Worlds apart? Worlds aligned? The perceptions and prioritiza-
tions of civil servant values among civil servants from China and The Netherlands.
International Journal of Public Administration, 39(1), 74–86. https://doi.org
/10.1080/01900692.2015.1053614
Yang, L., & Van der Wal, Z. (2014). Rule of morality vs. rule of law? An explor-
atory study of civil servant values in China and the Netherlands. Public Integrity,
16(2), 187–206. https://doi.org/10.2753/PIN1099-9922160206
Contents
Introduction 1
1 Quality of Governance: Values and Violations 3

Hester Paanakker, Adam Masters, and Leo Huberts
Part I Institutionalizing Values in Governance Practices 25
2 Democratic Legitimacy in Bureaucratic Structures: A

Precarious Balance 27
Neal D. Buckwalter and Danny L. Balfour
3 Dissecting the Semantics of Accountability and Its Misuse 45

Ciarán O’Kelly and Melvin J. Dubnick
4 Transparency Assessment in National Systems 81

Sabina Schnell
5 Integrity and Quality in Different Governance Phases103

Leo Huberts
6 The Multi-interpretable Nature of Lawfulness in a

National Framework131
Anna Simonati
xi
xii Contents
Part II Translating Values in Practitioner Behavior 157
7 Mission Impossible for Effectiveness? Service Quality

in Public–Private Partnerships159
Anne-Marie Reynaers
8 Professionalism and Public Craftsmanship at Street Level181

Hester Paanakker
9 Robustness and the Governance Sin of Bureaucratic

Animosity215
Adam Masters
Conclusion 235
10 Reviewing Quality of Governance: New Perspectives

and Future Research237
Adam Masters, Hester Paanakker, and Leo Huberts
Index249
The Contributors
Editors
Leo Huberts is Professor of Political Science and Public Administration
at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Adam Masters is Lecturer in Criminology at the Australian National
University, Australia.
Hester Paanakker is Assistant Professor of Public Administration at the
Nijmegen School of Management, Radboud University Nijmegen. At the
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the Netherlands, she is completing a PhD
on understandings of public craftsmanship in the Dutch prison sector.
Value Chapter Authors

Danny L. Balfour is Professor of Public, Nonprofit, and Health
Administration at the Grand Valley State University, USA, and former
chair of the Section of Ethics and Integrity of Governance for the American
Society for Public Administration.
Neal D. Buckwalter is Assistant Professor of Public Administration at
the Grand Valley State University, USA.
Melvin J. Dubnick is Professor of Political Science and director of the
MPA program at the University of New Hampshire. He has written on a
range of issues from accountability, regulatory policymaking, and federal-
ism to health care reform.
xiii
xiv The Contributors
Ciarán O’Kelly is Lecturer in the School of Law at Queen’s University,

Belfast, and is on the editorial boards of American Review of Public
Administration and Public Integrity.
Anne-Marie Reynaers is Assistant Professor of Public Administration in
the Department of Political Science and International Relations,
Autonomous University Madrid, Spain.
Sabina Schnell is Assistant Professor of Public Administration and
International Affairs in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public
Affairs, Syracuse University, USA.
Anna Simonati is Associate Professor of Administrative Law at the
University of Trento, Italy.
List of Figures
Fig. 2.1 An array of values to uphold democratic legitimacy 30

Fig. 2.2 The balance of democracy and bureaucracy 31
Fig. 3.1 Accountability (Figure 1 in Bovens, 2007, p. 454) 54
Fig. 3.2 The accountability cube (Figure 1 in Brandsma & Schillemans,
2012)54
Fig. 5.1 System model of politics (governance) 104
Fig. 5.2 Famous World Bank good governance values 116
Fig. 9.1 Model of bureaucratic animosity and discretion 228
xv
List of Tables
Table 2.1 Governors triggering emergency financial manager or

emergency manager in Michigan 38
Table 2.2 The revolving door of emergency managers in Flint, MI, USA 40
Table 3.1 Five models of accountability 50
Table 3.2 Accountability as a social relation (Box 1 in Bovens, 2007,
p. 452)53
Table 4.1 Perspectives of transparency 87
Table 4.2 Transparency in Romania: Key legislation and patterns of
behavior95
Table 5.1 Eight views on integrity 105
Table 5.2 Types of integrity violations 108
Table 5.3 Number of integrity violations and impression of the values
violated119
Table 7.1 Case characteristics and number of respondents 165
Table 7.2 Conditions influencing quality in DBFMO 174
Table 8.1 Respondent characteristics 193
Table 8.2 Overview of prison officers’ reported value orientations
toward public craftsmanship 196
Table 9.1 Integrity violations and NSW ICAC matters 221
Table 9.2 Elements of bureaucratic animosity 224
Table 9.3 Integrity violations and bureaucratic animosity 231
xvii
Introduction
CHAPTER 1
Quality of Governance: Values and Violations
Hester Paanakker, Adam Masters, and Leo Huberts
1.1 Topic of the Volume

Why do values matter, and how can they be employed to address the quality
of governance? Ongoing theoretical and empirical work explores the collec-
tive meaning of public values as guiding sets of action in governance settings
and beyond. However, research that explicitly sets out to unravel the mean-
ing of individual values and reflects on their coherent—or incoherent—
adherence and significance is far scarcer, especially seen in application in
concrete contexts. This volume represents a joint effort of the Study Group
on Quality of Governance, a group of international researchers associated
with the International Institute of Administrative Sciences (IIAS), to fill this
gap and to advance our understanding of concrete value attainment. It is a
H. Paanakker
Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
e-mail: h.paanakker@fm.ru.nl
A. Masters (*)
Centre for Social Research and Methods, Australian National University,
Canberra, ACT, Australia
e-mail: adam.masters@anu.edu.au
L. Huberts
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
e-mail: l.huberts@vu.nl
© The Author(s) 2020 3

H. Paanakker et al. (eds.), Quality of Governance,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21522-4_1
4 H. PAANAKKER ET AL.
continuation of the broader agenda of the Study Group to grasp the com-
plex dynamics of what “Quality of Governance” constitutes and outlines the
thematic line of values-based research to uncover the content and scope of
the topic. In line with this specific objective, the volume harnesses a very
specific framework limited to eight values as its point of departure. The con-
tributions to this volume cover, respectively, democratic legitimacy, account-
ability, transparency, integrity, lawfulness, effectiveness (in terms of service
quality), professionalism, and robustness. As such, it is the first of its kind to
look beyond the taken-for-granted nature of abstract, aspirational, and
often-assumed rather universalistic values. In a set of independent case stud-
ies, this book seeks to provide a truly in-depth examination of the relevance,
limitations, and applicability of some of these claimed core values of the quality
of governance. How does transparency matter to the complex dynamics of a
set of public, private, non-governmental, civil society, and other associated
actors in daily governance settings? How to interpret the importance of
democratic legitimacy? What are critical indicators to uniformly safeguard
public effectiveness? And what role do interpretations and semantics play in
the violation of such values of governance? The establishment and evalua-
tion of governance processes, practices, policies, and tools geared toward
maintaining quality—in society and government—continually demand our
attention. Contextual, applied values-based research enables us to peel back
some of the layered complexity of these questions.
1.2 Values Covered in This Volume

We specifically aim to complement existing research by zooming in on the
importance and meaning of this particular set of values to the overall qual-
ity of governance. Therefore, each chapter explicitly addresses one specific
value at a time, and each contribution discusses the underlying question of
the relevance, limitations, and applicability of that specific value to the quality
of governance. Of course, many other and perhaps equally valid frameworks
exist. Rather than an attempt to streamline or limit our understanding of
the role of certain values to quality of governance at the expense of others,
we fully acknowledge that our volume represents just one way of looking
at quality of governance among many. We do not claim that our perspec-
tive is better, more comprehensive, or more conclusive than other distin-
guished work on quality of governance, which we applaud and are inspired
by. By no means do we claim our analysis to be exhaustive in either the
number of values or the number of cases discussed. We do present to you
an interesting peak into the role of some key values that, in our view, might
1 QUALITY OF GOVERNANCE: VALUES AND VIOLATIONS 5
very well constitute the core of governance processes in the late-modern

world. These values have roles of their own, relationships with each other
that mutually reinforce maxims for thought and action, or work in combi-
nation with other values that are left outside the equation in this volume.
The choice for this set of eight values is obviously not a random one
and builds on extensive groundwork of adjacent literatures. Classifications
of the values a quality of governance framework should contain are wide-
spread and diverse. Besides promoting single values such as impartiality
(Rothstein, 2011) or democracy (Bevir, 2010) as the central characteristic
of governance quality, several more inclusive lists of a range of comple-
mentary values exist. Bovens et al. (2007), for instance, distinguish four
clusters of values that are relevant to the assessment of good governance:
lawfulness, integrity, democracy, and effectiveness/efficiency. A seminal
article (La Porta, Lopez-de-Silanes, Shleifer, & Vishny, 1999) empirically
addressed the determinants of the quality of governments in a large cross-
section of countries. Quality or ‘good governance’ was interpreted as
‘good for economic development,’ using the measures of government
intervention, public-sector efficiency, public good provision, size of gov-
ernment, and political freedom. That specific focus on ‘economic’ devel-
opment is anything but uncommon in the good governance literature.
The most influential—and arguably also most heavily criticized—frame-
work is that of the World Bank, which sees good governance as participa-
tory, consensus oriented, accountable, transparent, responsive, effective
and efficient, equitable and inclusive, and in accordance with the rule of law.
What these three examples have in common is the fact that they include
values that pertain to both process (for instance, participation) and outcomes
(for instance, effectiveness) of governance, or in potential to both (for
instance, integrity and equitability). In this volume, we build on the previ-
ous work of Huberts (2014), who integrated this insight into a value pan-
orama of seven key values in his book The Integrity of Governance: What Is
It, What We Know, What Is Done and Where to Go. Based on an elaborated
examination of theoretical and empirical work on the morality of gover-
nance over the last decades, he hypothesizes that the following central val-
ues (clusters) define the quality of governance (Huberts, 2014, p. 213):
1. ‘democracy with responsiveness and participation’—paying atten-

tion to social preferences and with the involvement of actors having
an interest (including citizens);
2. ‘accountability and transparency’—being open, honest, and willing
to account for behavior;
. ‘lawfulness’—respecting laws and rules;

3
4. ‘incorruptibility and impartiality’—acting in the public interest

instead of self-interest or other inappropriate partial interests;
5. ‘effectiveness and efficiency of process’—acting capably in agenda-
building and preparing, taking, and implementing decisions;
6. ‘professionalism and civility’—acting in line with professional stan-
dards and standards for (inter)personal behavior; skillfulness (exper-
tise), civility and respect, neutrality and loyalty (including
confidentiality), and serviceability for civil servants; and reliability,
civility, and trustworthiness for politicians;
7. ‘robustness’—being stable and reliable but also able to adapt

and innovate.
Huberts (2014) underlines that future research will have to demonstrate

how tenable this panorama is and encourages further reflection on its mean-
ing and usefulness. With this volume, we set out to meet this call and produce
a coherent collection that provides further insight into how each value relates
to the overall quality of governance. For this purpose, the contributions to
this volume relate to these key value clusters and fully cover the spectrum.
Specifically, we invited experts on particular values to bring together
their knowledge and insights on that value as well as reflect on the central
question of the volume. This lead to a slight adaptation of the value labels
used to ensure good coverage of the authors’ work. For instance, ‘democ-
racy with responsiveness and participation’ is addressed in this volume as
‘democratic legitimacy,’ ‘incorruptibility and impartiality’ is addressed as
‘integrity,’ ‘effectiveness and efficiency’ is represented by a contribution of
effectiveness understood as service quality, and the cluster ‘accountability
and transparency’ is accounted for by two different contributions (one on
accountability and one on transparency) as they represent two quite sepa-
rate bodies of literature in practice.
Inherently, this expert approach also means that the volume does not
represent geographical or sectoral distribution in terms of the countries or
cases that were selected. Rather, the contributions are independent case
studies. The case studies derive their value from the profound, compre-
hensive, and deep analysis of that value’s relevance, applicability, and limi-
tations in concrete contexts, which is where values ultimately manifest
themselves and attain their practical ‘worth.’ The proof of the pudding is
in the eating…. It is this demarcated, detailed analysis that carries lessons
that reach far beyond the confines of the specific cases or country contexts
that are discussed. On this, we hope future research will build further.
1.2.1 The Good and the Bad: Examining Both Sides of Values

Without a doubt, quality of governance is a contested topic and one that
has own itself a spot in both academic as well as policy debates worldwide.
Governance has become one of the key concepts for public administration
over the last three decades, and is popularly recurring in several disciplines
that study steering,1 power, authority, politics, policy, administration, gov-
ernment, management, and organization (Bevir, 2009; Fukuyama, 2016;
Kettl, 2015; Kjaer, 2004; Rose-Ackerman, 2017). As our understanding
of the concept widens and deepens, key questions arise from both empiri-
cal studies and normative thinking. Vital among them is how do we delin-
eate between governance that is good and governance that is bad.
This volume scrutinizes this notion of good and bad through a values-
based analysis of the quality of governance. Concurrent to the dispersion of
governance, the concept of good governance has permeated both theory
and practice of governance in the public sector worldwide (Huberts,
Maesschalck, & Jurkiewicz, 2008). Increasing emphasis is put on guaran-
teeing a certain standard of quality of governance. What quality of gover-
nance actually comprises remains subject to debate: interpretations vary
from impartial government (Holmberg, Rothstein, & Nasiritousi, 2009;
Rothstein & Teorell, 2008) to integrity of governance (Evans, 2012), and
from a minimum set of delivered public services (Woods, 2000) to a set of
complementary values (Bovens, ‘t Hart, & van Twist, 2011; de Graaf, Van
Doeveren, Reynaers, & Van der Wal, 2011). A common denominator in
the vast body of literature on good governance, either explicitly or implic-
itly, is the central role of values. Since 2000, the public administration
field, in general, has witnessed increased scholarly attention to the role of
values (Van der Wal, Nabatchi, & De Graaf, 2015), for example, in public-
private debates (Reynaers, 2014a, 2014b; Van der Wal, 2008) or in the
economic individualism discourse (Bozeman, 2007). Despite discussions
on public values labels and definitions, a stable, new, and increasingly
diverse agenda seems to have taken root in public administration to map
and assess the functioning of governance (Bøgh Andersen, Beck Jørgensen,
Kjeldsen, Pedersen, & Vrangbæk, 2012; Van der Wal, 2016; Van der Wal
et al., 2015).
1
The word ‘governance’ derives from Latin origins that imply a notion of “steering.” This
connotation of ‘steering’ a society contrasts markedly with the traditional ‘top-down’
approach of governments ‘driving’ society.
The concurring shifts to examining quality of governance on the one

hand, and to examining if and how which public values are addressed on
the other, merge into this volume on values of quality of governance.
Contributions include attention to their violation and its corresponding
impact on quality at large. As a Study Group of international researchers,
we have found a focus on quality of governance and a set of values which
underpin this quality has enabled a better understanding of not only the
outcomes, but also the processes of governance—which are equally, if not
more, important than governance outcomes. To illustrate this importance
with a brief analogy, a government policy for a new hospital demands its
construction in a controversial location. The government may engage a
private consultant to ensure that opposition to the hospital is minimized
and land appropriated for its construction. The consultant hires a sub-
contractor who engages in violent, unethical, and illegal behavior, keeping
no records. Both charge exorbitant fees for their services. The outcome is
a well-run hospital as much at the cost of the quality of governance as a
badly run hospital that compromises patients’ health and well-being—in
the process, the values of democracy, accountability, transparency, integ-
rity, lawfulness, and efficiency have all been sacrificed. Such an example is
illustrative only, but any scholar or practitioner of public administration
need not stretch their mind too far to think of real-life examples which
demonstrate how both processes and outcomes of governance are impor-
tant to quality. Contributions in this volume, therefore, seek to explore
the quality issue by looking at process-oriented issues as well as outcome-
oriented issues.
In addition, some chapters put more emphasis on exploring the ideal of
‘good’ quality of governance, whereas others have a stronger focus on
violations of a central value, illustrating ‘bad’ quality of governance.
Collectively, these chapters demonstrate our need to examine the ‘good’
or positive aspects of public values to understand the ‘bad’ or negative
aspects arising from violations of public values—and vice versa. Thus, we
derived the sub-title of this book: values and violations. For instance, (1)
how does integrity or lawfulness contribute to the accomplishment and
preservation of quality?; (2) how can we attain such a value and actuate it
to reach its full potential?; and (3) what happens if we fail to address it
adequately? We think this satisfactorily complements the scientific and
applied studies that pull larger sets of values together in distinct classifica-
tions, assigned or assumed weight, aspirational public purposes, or inher-
ent conflicts to be resolved among them. In contrast then, our volume
highlights the complementary importance of single values and stresses

their individual indispensability—often best signaled by exploring or theo-
rizing the consequences of violation of these values. In addressing both
the positive (values) as the negative (violations) side, our volume repre-
sents a tribute to the role of some individual values we deem relevant and
whose significance we should not lose sight of when deliberating the qual-
ity of governance.
Before describing the contents of this volume in more detail, we will
first set out how we understand some of the core concepts used and what
theoretical assumptions our work is based on.
1.2.2 Defining Governance and Quality

The attractiveness of the governance concept is partly explainable by the
many changes taking place within society in terms of public power and
policy-making. In addition to politics, government, and administration,
many other actors and organizations have become involved in addressing
public problems and challenges (Huberts, 2014). With respect to good
governance, Grindle argues ‘Not all change has to be orchestrated by the
state or demanded by the international financial institutions’ (2004,
p. 537). One of the ‘godfathers’ of governance theory, Jan Kooiman
(2003, p. 4), defined governing as ‘the totality of interactions, in which
public as well as private actors participate, aimed at solving societal prob-
lems or creating social opportunities; attending to the institutions as the
contexts for these governing interactions; and establishing a normative
foundation for all those activities.’ Globally, governance is generally char-
acterized as who governs, at what level, how and toward what end
(Rajagopal, 2013).
In this volume, governance is seen as ‘authoritative policy-making on
collective problems and interests and implementation of these policies’
(Huberts, 2014, p. 68). Governance is about addressing collective problems
and interests, possibly by one actor but also by a network of public and
private actors (Huberts, 2014). Another important element is authorita-
tive, a term referring to the relation between the governing actor(s) and
the collectivity involved (Huberts, 2014). It presupposes support and
legitimacy of the organization or community whose problems and inter-
ests are addressed—the relation to Easton’s (1953) famous definition of
politics as the ‘authoritative allocation of values’ is of course not coinci-
dental. As will be demonstrated throughout this volume, different entities
may assert the authoritative role of safeguarding values in governance,

depending on the context. Examples include central or local governments,
civil society, public institutions, private sub-contractors, street-level
bureaucrats, financial administrators, legal experts, or, as a counterforce to
politics, professionalized bureaucracies.
When reflecting on the quality of governance, of course the central
question arises what quality is? Quality is a rather complex concept.
Dictionaries tell us it refers to ‘the standard of something as measured
against other things of a similar kind; the degree of excellence of some-
thing,’ and to a ‘distinctive attribute or characteristic possessed by some-
one or something’ or to ‘levels of excellence,’ to ‘being of good worth,
well made, fit for purpose.’2
In the context of ‘quality of governance,’ the concept then refers to
standards (of excellence) for governance, to criteria that distinguish
between good and bad governance, or in other words to the relevant val-
ues to judge governance (Huberts, 2014). The literature defines values in a
number of ways. These definitions contain common elements such as
beliefs or qualities, and each contains subtle differences which can shift the
analytical perspective. Here we combine the work of many, leading to a
broad definition: values are beliefs or qualities appreciated for constitut-
ing, or contributing to, judgments about what is good, right, beautiful,
admirable or worthy of praise, and guide people’s thoughts and actions
(Bozeman, 2007; De Graaf, 2003; Huberts & Van der Wal, 2014; Van der
Wal, 2008; Rutgers 2014). Contributions to this volume may harness
slightly different definitions. What they have in common are the basic
assumptions that values have considerable weight in the choice of action
by individuals and collectives and that values underpin practices of good
and bad governance. Finally, they emphasize that a perspective of values is
a useful tool to evaluate governance policies, instruments, strategies, insti-
tutions and systems, and to discuss how the quality of governance can
be improved.
This volume explicitly understands quality to pertain to process as well
as outcomes of governance. In her reflection on how to define quality in
public administration, Löffler (2002) presents an analysis on the way in
which the concept of quality evolved in the private and public sectors. She
2
http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/quality and http://en.wiktionary.
org/wiki/quality (acc. January 31, 2018).
states that today’s notion of quality public services clearly stems for the
business concept of Total Quality Management, with a focus on the out-
come of customer satisfaction as the point of reference for the degree of
quality achieved. In a similar vein, the focus on outcomes recurs in percep-
tions that ‘good governance is that which contributes to the good of soci-
ety’ (Perry, de Graaf, van der Wal, & van Montfort, 2014, p. 27).
According to Löffler (2002), quality has always played a role in public
administration, at least implicitly, but its meanings have changed over time
to include both process and outcome criteria. She quotes Beltrami (1992,
p. 770) who distinguished three phases in the evolution of quality in the
public sector: quality in the sense of respect of norms and procedures
(which we would characterize as process-oriented quality), quality in the
sense of effectiveness, and quality in the sense of customer satisfaction
(which we would characterize as output-oriented and outcome-oriented
quality, respectively).
Initially, quality meant formal correctness, which corresponds to the
early notion of quality as technical conformance to specification in indus-
try (Löffler, 2002). The meaning of quality in the public sector changed
in the late 1960s when management by objectives gained popularity in
public administration (Löffler, 2002). The quality in the public sphere
would still include the absence of errors but also started to link the con-
cept of quality with the purpose a product or service is supposed to serve.
In the early 1980s, the ‘total quality’ concept of the private sector was
transferred to the public sector in North America and Western Europe,
making customer satisfaction the point of reference for the degree of qual-
ity achieved (Löffler, 2002). However, although improving the quality of
services may increase customer satisfaction as an outcome criterion, it may
not necessarily boost trust in government—the latter demands honoring
values that target the administrative process:
… a high quality public administration must not only be able to increase

customer satisfaction with public services but also build trust in public
administration through transparent processes and accountability and
through democratic dialogue. In order to do so, conventional business con-
cepts of quality which regard public agencies as service providers and citi-
zens as customers must be enriched by a democratic concept of quality
which perceives public agencies as catalysts of civic society and citizens as
part of a responsible and active civic society. (Löffler, 2002, p. 15)
The way this reverts to the importance of guaranteeing quality in how

governance comes about signals a move in the public sector during the
1990s from a dominant concern with excellence in service delivery to a
concern for good governance in a broad sense, including improvements in
quality of life and improvements in governance processes (Bovaird &
Löffler, 2003). Involving stakeholders to negotiate ‘improved public pol-
icy outcomes and agreed governance principles’ has become common-
place (Bovaird & Löffler, 2003, p. 316).
These publications illustrate that the interpretation of quality of gover-
nance shifted from ‘good process’ to ‘good outcome according to citi-
zens,’ and back to good process in combination with good outcomes
again. In any respect, the values perspective evidently enables us to grasp
what quality of governance is about, how it evolves, and how we can assess
and improve it. To summarize, we conceive quality of governance here as
the relevant values to judge governance processes and outcomes.
1.2.3 Value Pluralism
By using the theoretical stance of value pluralism as a point of departure,
this volume fully recognizes the rich diversity and complexity of the value
spectrum in global governance. Value pluralism is based on two lead-
ing premises.
First, it adopts the idea that, in governance settings, practitioners are
faced with multiple coexisting values they must try to accommodate,
which reveals their inherently conflicting nature (Berlin, 1982; Spicer,
2001, 2010; Steenhuisen, 2009). In a survey among 231 top public offi-
cials or managers in the Netherlands, Van der Wal (2008) researched no
less than 20 core values, with lawfulness, impartiality, and serviceability
being reported in the top ten as a result. In comparison, Beck Jørgensen
and Bozeman (2007) even constructed a ‘public values universe’ of 72
values, extracted from 230 studies on public values, based on a literature
review of public administration journals from the United States, United
Kingdom, and the three Scandinavian countries, from 1990 to 2003.
They categorized these 72 values into seven overarching families, includ-
ing public sector’s contribution to society (among which are the common
good and sustainability) and behavior of public-sector employees (among
which are accountability, professionalism, and moral standards) (Beck
Jørgensen & Bozeman, 2007, pp. 360–361). Evidently, it is a sheer impos-
sibility for public officials to address so many categories and so many val-
ues to the same extent at the same time: ‘The pursuit of certain values
must inevitably comprise or limit our ability to pursue certain other values’
(Spicer, 2001, p. 509). Values are often incompatible—for example, the
resources consumed in democratic processes may undermine the efficiency
of a system. Another example includes lawfulness and effectiveness: strict
adherence to complex and partially overlapping national and global rules
and regulations, sticking to the letter of the law, can stand in the way of
achieving goals (de Graaf & Paanakker, 2015).
Especially, in terms of good governance, it is acknowledged that endless
wish-lists of values for governance actors to comply with serve little pur-
pose (Perry et al., 2014). This goes for Western or non-Western, richer or
poorer countries alike. Demanding developing countries to adhere to
unrealistically long and overwhelming lists of good governance indicators
that embody a wide variety of Western values in exchange for different
types of aid has proven particularly harmful (Grindle, 2010; Stiglitz,
2002). As Grindle (2004, p. 525) aptly argues, we need to be ‘explicit
about trade-offs and priorities in a world in which all good things cannot
be pursued at once.’
Second, the value pluralism perspective holds that values are not only
incompatible but also incommensurable. Lukes (1989, p. 125) describes
incommensurability as follows: ‘There is no single currency or scale on
which conflicting values can be measured […]. Neither is superior to the
other, nor are they equal in value.’ When values are regarded as incompat-
ible, public officials will most likely opt for a trade-off, weighing the dif-
ferent pros and cons of alternative courses of action and evaluating those
in terms of their contribution to some coherent set of measurable goals or
values (Thacher & Rein, 2004; Spicer, 2005, p. 541). Conceiving values
as incommensurable, however, means that not all choices can be under-
stood as trade-offs as the relative importance of values can often not be
measured or determined as such (Thacher & Rein, 2004). It underscores
the significance of addressing values in their own right. Different coping
strategies can be employed to accommodate different values (Steenhuisen
& van Eeten, 2008; Stewart, 2006; Thacher & Rein, 2004), but, as this
volume will show, also to accommodate different interpretations of a sin-
gle value, or to accommodate different interests pertaining to a given value.
If quality of global governance is about managing conflicting and con-
tradictory values (de Graaf & Van Der Wal, 2010; Perry et al., 2014), we
are interested in what those values mean and how they matter in the first
place. If quality of governance is more than the sum of its parts, which we
endorse, we feel an in-depth exploration of the essential parts is a helpful

exercise in comprehending the larger picture. In our view, a contextual
perspective is essential and imperative to understanding the variety of val-
ues associated with accomplishing and improving quality of governance,
including attention to the scope and severity of value-related violations.
1.2.4 Contextual Relevance of Values

Ultimately, what quality means depends on the context in which it is scru-
tinized. What specific policy issue lies on the table? Which (types of) actors
are involved, with what kinds of interests? How well do they succeed in
bringing those interests to the table? With what outcomes for different
stakeholders involved? How well was the collective action achieved in
defining and addressing problems? Moreover, these questions are likely to
be answered differently in different cultural and geographical contexts.
Despite some shared administrative traditions, democracy might have a
different connotation in the Netherlands than that in the United States or
in Italy. And more importantly, it may play out differently: different norms
may be attached to democracy in different national frameworks, depend-
ing on cultural, historical, political, and administrative history. For
instance, does democratic governance imply consulting citizens on selected
policy issues or not? Does it engender a multi-party system or a dichoto-
mous political system? How acceptable is strategic influencing of voting?
And how local is sovereignty over policy implementation allocated? The
question of quality evokes different answers over time and space: ‘Good
governance does not stop with basic agreement on abstract hooray con-
cepts; it also encompasses a continuous process of sense making of values’
(Perry et al., 2014, p. 28). Conventionally, scholars subscribe to the
impossibility of determining inherently prime values of a universal nature
or values with universal and one-dimensional meanings (Rutgers, 2008;
Van der Wal, 2016; Yang, 2016). As Bøgh Andersen and colleagues stress:
‘[w]e know that public values are ultimately context-dependent and that
classifications can only be exclusive and comprehensive in a given context’
(2012, p. 716).
Internationally, experience taught us blueprints in values thinking and
governance practices are neither possible nor desirable. Ethnocentric views
can distort building genuine understanding and advancing governance
practices in other countries than our own. They can surpass existing
norms, customs, and institutions and eliminate them—and directly or

indirectly, their underpinning values—as inferior, which may fail to pro-
duce marked societal gains (Brinkerhoff & Goldsmith, 2005; Grindle,
2004). Sometimes, what is considered bad governance from a Western,
Anglo-Saxon, or European perspective, ‘can serve valuable functions, such
as providing a social safety valve or distributing assets to low-income peo-
ple, that offset its cost to society’ (Brinkerhoff & Goldsmith, 2005,
p. 208). Accounts of the superiority of neoliberalist values, for instance,
and their often imposing character in global governance, are increasingly
criticized in scholarly debates up to a point that its full global feasibility is
completely refuted (Pollitt, 2015; Rajagopal, 2013; Trommel, 2018).
Often, such debates question the added value of neoliberalism to improve
quality of governance worldwide. Moreover, as actors ‘negotiate, formu-
late, and implement’ governance policies and instruments ‘in accord with
their particular interests’ (Bevir, 2010, p. 3), what constitutes ‘good’ and
how this is to be translated to ‘good policy’ or ‘good service delivery’ is to
a large extent a matter of choice and opinion. These choices and opinions
are often rooted in promoting or defending public actor’s specific interests
and understandings.
This volume sets out to make sense of such dynamics and explicitly
draws them into the narrative of what values matter to the quality of gov-
ernance, and how. Key to this volume is the notion of the quality of gov-
ernance as a highly volatile and context-dependent concept, which can
only be understood in a given time and place (see Woods, 2000). Viewing
its underpinning values as contextually relevant underscores the need for
case-based evidence of the role of values in quality debates. This volume
addresses this notion by adopting a contextual approach to values and
violations of the quality of governance in incorporating contextual reflec-
tions and perspectives on a set of demarcated values in designated, inde-
pendent case studies.
1.2.5 Contributions to This Volume

The individual contributions in this volume follow the order of the values
framework as described earlier—democratic legitimacy, accountability,
transparency, integrity, lawfulness, effectiveness (in terms of service qual-
ity), professionalism, and robustness—respectively. In addition, this vol-
ume consists of two parts: quality: institutionalizing values in governance
practices (Part I), and quality: translating values in practitioner behavior

(Part II). Part I covers the contributions on democratic legitimacy,
accountability, transparency, integrity, and lawfulness. These chapters are
approached by the authors from an institutionalized perspective and
mainly focus on how values are embedded in institutional structures and
thinking. They consider how these values matter to governance practices,
such as policies, strategic programs, rules and regulations, and assessment
tools that address, or ought to address, overall quality. Of course, institu-
tionalized practices have repercussions for the confines within which gov-
ernance practitioners find themselves working. These practices create a
public playing field that may determine and constrain public official behav-
ior in administrative reality.
Hence, rather than what is done to accommodate values of governance,
which is the focus of Part I, Part II concentrates on who is doing it and
covers the remaining values of effectiveness, professionalism, and robust-
ness. Within the confines of any larger entity, be it state, institution, or
organization, public officials create their own value dynamics on the work
floor. Through trial and error, and based on, and sometimes in spite of,
institutionalized practices, they actively transfer values to practice— shap-
ing, modifying, and changing values to fit the unique constraints of an
organization or society along the process. Part II develops this theme of
practitioner behavior with chapters addressing effectiveness in terms of
service quality, professionalism in terms of public craftsmanship, and an
analysis of robustness and how this value can be seriously undermined by
forces of bureaucratic animosity. Thematically, these chapters have a
greater focus on behavior of practitioners and how they, when faced with
complex governance structures, translate values into practice.
The chapters reflect on values through several case studies in a variety
of countries and policy domains, ranging from Italy to Australia and
Romania, and from the prison sector to migration and crisis response.
Others still are more theoretically oriented. Each contribution offers in-
depth examination of the importance of the value at hand as a vital
component of quality while at the same time reflecting on issues of viola-
tion. Questions dealt with include practical relevance and applicability in
complex administrative realities, limitations to optimal utilization and
adherence, and sub-optimal realization and its adverse effects. The contri-
butions will be discussed in more detail in the following section.
1.3 Part I: Quality—Institutionalizing Values

in Governance Practices
Democratic Legitimacy in Bureaucratic Structures: A Precarious

Balance Chapter 2, our first substantive chapter by Neal Buckwalter and
Dan Balfour, analyzes the value of democratic legitimacy. Their chapter
considers the puzzle to what extent can democratic legitimacy be sup-
ported and maintained through bureaucratic means and authority? They
frame bureaucracy as the process of governance subject to quality of gov-
ernance scrutiny. Using one of the great failures of public administration
in recent times—the lead poisoning in the water supply of Flint, Michigan,
USA—these authors examine the concept of democratic legitimacy—what
it entails, why it matters, and how it relates to other governance values.
This case study and chapter reflects the darker side of governance pro-
cesses where violations occur, and even the best intentions have led to
outcomes harmful to the public. They then turn their focus toward those
factors which may strengthen or diminish perceptions of democratic legiti-
macy, for as their guiding question implies, legitimacy is not a static value
but rather exists in a relative state of flux. To flesh out these ideas, they
examine the unique use of emergency financial managers in Michigan, an
approach which has been much highlighted in recent years through the
lens of a large-scale municipal bankruptcy and the water crisis.
Dissecting the Semantics of Accountability and Its Misuse Subsequently,

Ciarán O’Kelly and Melvin J. Dubnick address the many different meanings
that accountability harbors and examine the effects of such complex and
multifaceted interpretations. They argue that good governance is increas-
ingly put on par with the concept of accountability. As a cultural keyword,
accountability has become both the medium and the message of modern
governance. However, the call to make situations, processes, or people
‘more accountable’ often reflects a failure to appreciate the fundamentally
relational nature of accountability. The concept is often abused to impose
and control hierarchical and monopolistic relationships in governance. In
Chap. 3, O’Kelly and Dubnick expand the metaphor of the ‘forum’ as a
relational space of accountability to the ‘agora’ and the ‘bazaar,’ In doing
so, they encourage a broader relational perspective that includes concep-
tions of people constructing purpose collectively, and people deriving
meaning from mutual exchange. As such, the chapter explains how unac-
countability tend to be a failure of power, and often a failure of force.
Transparency Assessment in National Systems Sabina Schnell uses Chap. 4

to propose a new conceptual framework for assessing transparency at the
country level. Her chapter identifies three distinct interpretations of trans-
parency: access to information; two-way communication; and predictabil-
ity, or decision-making based on clear and publicly known rules. Each
represents an increasingly demanding form of transparency, but all are tied
to democratic accountability and the rule of law. Using the case of
Romania, this chapter illustrates how such a framework can be employed
to assess the evolution of transparency in a relatively recent democracy.
Schnell’s chapter reproduces work she foreshadowed for the Quality of
Governance Study Group in 2015, which has since been published by the
IIAS journal International Review of Administrative Sciences.
Integrity and Quality in Different Governance Phases In Chap. 5, Leo

Huberts deals with incorruptibility and impartiality when he unpacks the
concept of integrity—a task complicated by the plethora of meanings
attributed to the concept by the extant literature. Furthermore, Huberts
recognizes that there may be a number of blindspots in our interpretation
of integrity and integrity violations within a quality framework. To address
such blindspots, he focuses on four fundamental questions: (1) what is
governance?; what is integrity (of governance)?; what is quality of gover-
nance in public values, good government, and good governance research?;
and (4) what is the meaning/content of integrity in the context of quality
of good governance? While answering such questions underpins the goals
of the IIAS Quality of Governance Study Group, we recognize that
Huberts’ theoretical contribution to this volume is but another step and
not the final word on our agenda. As he rightly points out, an empirical
turn in research on values and quality is required.
The Multi-interpretable Nature of Lawfulness in a National Framework In

Chap. 6, Anna Simonati produces an in-depth reflection on lawfulness in
a detailed Italian case study. Like democratic legitimacy, Simonati demon-
strates that lawfulness in terms of public administration is also a fluid value.
Italy, like so many other modern democracies, has and continues to
undergo administrative reforms in the public sector. Simonati’s forensic
examination of Italy’s laws ruling its infamous bureaucracy demonstrates
that despite the Italian constitution providing a rigid foundation for public
administration, a level of flexibility is found within the processes of gover-
nance exercised by both the executive and legislature. In effect, the instru-
ments of state comply with the general principles in place as well as the
rules (i.e. law) in force. Simonati argues that this allows at least three dif-
ferent conceptions of lawfulness. Her analysis demonstrates that lawful-
ness remains a value for the quality of governance; we, therefore, cannot
neglect the technical boundaries—weak or strong—lawfulness provides to
an administrative system.
1.4 Part II: Quality—Translating Values

in Practitioner Behavior
Mission Impossible for Effectiveness? Service Quality in Public-Private

Partnerships Next, in Chap. 7, Anne-Marie Reynaers covers the value of
effectiveness and specifically explores the level of effectiveness of public-
private partnerships (PPPs) in terms of the quality of Dutch public-private
infrastructure and delivery of public services. The chapter analyzes the
quality shading hypothesis—the assumption that private partners degrade
public service quality as they prioritize profits and hence corrode overall
effectiveness. The research uses a series of interviews with more than 60
project members in four projects in the Netherlands—the construction
and operation of a highway; the construction, renovation, and operation
of wastewater cleaning installations; the construction and operation of a
detention center; and the renovation and operation of the Ministry of
Finance headquarters. The outcome of Reynaers’ elaborate research
identifies which conditions determine quality in PPPs and concludes that
service quality is neither safeguarded nor a priori better protected.
Professionalism and Public Craftsmanship at the Street Level In Chap. 8,

professionalism is subjected to a rigorous analysis from the perspective of
public craftsmanship. Specifically, Hester Paanakker’s chapter represents
an interpretation of professionalism on the micro level of policy imple-
mentation by street-level bureaucrats. Based on empirical data from a
prison case study in the Netherlands, she contends that values of public
craftsmanship are directly associated with, and derived from, the nature of
the profession involved. In addition, even within professions, detailed
accounts of good craftsmanship may be highly contextualized, with mar-
ginal levels of convergence among professionals. As a consequence, pro-
fessionalism constitutes a broad category that may yield very different
meanings and interpretations and that may harbor many different sub-
values. She concludes that conceptions of good craftsmanship ultimately

determine how the public professional thinks, acts, and performs, and that
they define how quality of governance is given shape at the frontline level.
Robustness and the Governance Sin of Bureaucratic Animosity In Chap. 9,

the final substantive chapter, Adam Masters reflects on the meaning of
robustness, focusing on the potential bad side of governance by means of
individual public official behavior. Masters uses empirical examples from
Australia to elaborate on how robustness, as a value that represents reliabil-
ity and stability but also resilience and adaptive capacity, can be seriously
flawed by what he labels as ‘bureaucratic animosity.’ Masters argues that
bureaucratic animosity occurs within the black-letter framework of law and
covers a range of governance sins that do not meet the threshold of criminal
or corrupt behavior, but still violate the quality of administration. Such vio-
lations sometimes have devastating consequences for individuals or busi-
nesses, including significant financial loss of capital or income, business
failure, and physical or mental harm. This widespread but underacknowl-
edged governance sin involves fixed, inappropriate behaviors that directly
undermine the required versatility and reliability of robust governance. For
instance, irrespective of alternatives, administrators may be locked into a
fixed and inappropriate response to the detriment of citizens or clients, who,
in turn, may exacerbate poor governance by taking aggressive or combative
approaches toward the system or the bureaucrat. This chapter concludes
that both system-generated and client-induced instances of bureaucratic
animosity are to the detriment of the robustness of governance.
The observant reader may notice now that the focus of the case studies
in this volume has a rather Western character and is limited to American
and European perspectives only. This is a limitation we acknowledge. This
does not mean that we feel non-Western perspectives should be left out of
the equation, on the contrary, but simply that the work of the members of
our study group does not cover this geographical terrain directly yet. In
addition, it is important to note that this volume contains no claim to
universality whatsoever and does not set out to provide a ‘global’ overview
of value attainment. Rather, as emphasized in the beginning of this chap-
ter, we seek to provide a set of interesting, independent case studies that
each explore the normative meaning and practical significance of a set of
selected core governance values in applied settings. We will reflect on the
meaning of this limited scope in more detail in Chap. 10, the conclusion
of this volume, which also identifies important (theoretical and practical)

lessons that run across the chapters of this volume and articulates an
agenda for future research on the quality of governance, for this study
group and beyond.
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PART I
Institutionalizing Values
in Governance Practices
CHAPTER 2
Democratic Legitimacy in Bureaucratic

Structures: A Precarious Balance
Neal D. Buckwalter and Danny L. Balfour
Democratic societies are based on legitimacy, which itself is largely based on

effectiveness. How can governments preserve their legitimacy if they deny
themselves of the means of being effective? … One of the crucial elements
that contributes to or detracts from responsive, accountable, effective, and
legitimate government is the instrument through which all governments
exercise their authority—the state bureaucracy. (Suleiman, 2003, pp. 2, 7)
If a nation gives the control of government to only a part of the people, it
therefore establishes an incontrovertible fact that some of the people do not
count. Government is democratic government only if it is government by
the whole people…. Our problem from now on is … to extend and make
stronger the institutions and ways that are essential to popular government.
Bureaucracy must find its proper place within this pattern of essential insti-
tutions and ways. (Hyneman, 1950, p. 12)
In the sections that follow, we first briefly examine the concept of demo-
cratic legitimacy—what it entails, why it matters, and how it relates to other
governance values. We then turn our focus toward those factors which may
N. D. Buckwalter (*) • D. L. Balfour

Grand Valley State University, Allendale, MI, USA
e-mail: buckwaln@gvsu.edu

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21522-4_2
28 N. D. BUCKWALTER AND D. L. BALFOUR
strengthen or diminish perceptions of democratic legitimacy, for as our

guiding question implies, legitimacy is not a static value but rather exists in
a relative state of flux. To flesh out these ideas, we examine the unique use
of emergency financial managers (EFMs) in Michigan, an approach which
has been much highlighted in recent years through the lens of a large-scale
municipal bankruptcy as well as a devastating water crisis.
2.1 Democratic Legitimacy as a Governance Value

Democratic legitimacy, in its most formal definition, refers to when the
policies and actions of government (including the appointment of public
officials) are the result of, or are undergirded by, laws passed by the duly
elected representatives of the citizenry or by direct vote (referendum).1
Public policies are legitimate (have authority) because they are seen as
rooted in the will of the electorate (preferably a majority) and consistent
with constitutional requirements and limitations (protection of minority
rights). Democratic legitimacy can be bolstered by processes that promote
and facilitate citizen participation in policy formulation (inform, input,
commentary, etc.; see e.g. Nabatchi, 2010 or Buckwalter, 2014).
These formal requirements—governance by the rule of law and by the
consent and will of the governed—are necessary, but arguably not suffi-
cient, to achieve and maintain democratic legitimacy. In addition, the poli-
cies promulgated by democratic government must be effective in serving
the needs of the citizenry, or, as Waldo (1948, p. 74) pointed out nearly
70 years ago, people will lose faith in the institutions of democracy:
Traditional institutions of democracy in themselves do not guarantee

democracy; indeed, they may impede it. ‘It is important to keep promi-
nently before us,’ prefaced the President’s Committee, ‘the ends of reorga-
nization… There is but one grand purpose, namely, to make democracy
work today in our National Government; that is, to make our Government
an up-to-date, efficient, and effective instrument for carrying out the will of
the Nation. It is for this purpose that Government needs thoroughly mod-
ern tools of management.’ The ‘will of the nation,’ it will be recalled, was
interpreted as ‘the steady sharing of the gains of the Nation,’ ‘security,
steadier employment, better living and working conditions,’ and so forth.
‘Without results we know that democracy means nothing and ceases to be
alive in the minds and hearts of men.’
1
It is not exactly the same as but overlaps considerably with the rule of law.
2 DEMOCRATIC LEGITIMACY IN BUREAUCRATIC STRUCTURES… 29
In other words, legitimacy rests in large measure on a government’s

ability not just to make policy, but to effectively carry it out toward desir-
able ends. To achieve results, modern democracies depend on bureaucracy
to expertly manage the policy process, from helping legislators formulate
policies, to implementing, evaluating, and re-formulating those policies.
This, of course, is undergirded by the assumption that bureaucracy as an
organizational form is unparalleled in its ability for getting things done
(e.g. Weber, 1946). Again, Dwight Waldo posed the essential question:
‘But, in that case, what about the democracy in which we profess to believe?
Is bureaucracy superior to democracy? American students of public admin-
istration have, paradoxically, held to a strong belief in democracy at the
same time they have been firmly convinced of the superiority of “the mono-
cratic type of bureaucratic administration”’ (Waldo, 1948, pp. 46–47).
This paradox comes at least, in part, because bureaucracy serves values,
such as efficiency and expertise, which may not be as well achieved by
democratic processes. On the other hand, democracy may be better at
securing values such as representativeness and openness. A further look at
the values of democracy and bureaucracy follows below.
2.1.1 The Balancing Act Between Democracy and Bureaucracy

Through the years, much ink has been spilled in academic debates regard-
ing the relationship of politics and administration. Over time, notions of a
strict dichotomy between these spheres have been more or less resolved;
in general, stark lines have been blurred and more fluid interrelationships
acknowledged. Such is the state of our understanding of the role of
bureaucracy in democratic governance. Still, at the risk of oversimplifying
an instrumentalist viewpoint, in a democratic state, the institutions and
values of democracy carry a certain primacy as intrinsic ends. Bureaucracy,
or administrative structure, takes a more instrumental role in carrying for-
ward the political will of the sovereign. In that way, bureaucracy becomes
a means to an end, equally able to serve a range of political forms—from
authoritarian to democratic.
An Array of Public Values. Bureaucracy, as an administrative form, is
rather self-legitimating (Weber, 1946). Democracy, on the other hand,
requires constant attention to maintain legitimacy. Democratic legitimacy
is nestled in a broad array of dynamic values, many of which are high-
lighted in other chapters of this book. Figure 2.1, far from exhaustive,
highlights a few select examples for the sake of illustration. The yin-yang
image is meant to soften the suggested dichotomy and depict something
Democratic Values Bureaucratic Values
Responsiveness Effectiveness
Representativeness
Efficiency
Participation Democratic Expertise

Legitimacy
Transparency
Control
Accountability
Order
Fig. 2.1 An array of values to uphold democratic legitimacy
of the fluidity in this characterization of values.2 Some values such as effi-

ciency, expertise, and control find more emphasis on the bureaucratic side.
Others such as representativeness, participation, and transparency (see
Schnell in this volume) provide counterweight from the democratic side.
One could argue that effectiveness and accountability (see O’Kelly and
Dubnick in this volume) are served from both sides. The point here is not
necessarily to argue the exact placement of these values so much as to sug-
gest that many different values are important to the attainment and main-
tenance of democratic legitimacy.
Democratic legitimacy is non-static. If anything, it is characterized by a
nearly constant negotiation (and re-negotiation) between both demo-
cratic and bureaucratic values and processes. Within this dynamic frame-
work, it is possible for the values of one sphere to overwhelm and displace
the values of the other sphere. It would take little imagination to envision
2
Yang and Holzer (2005) briefly introduced the yin-yang image as a way to think about
the politics-administration dichotomy; the overlay and discussion of democratic and bureau-
cratic values is our own interpretation.
a scenario in which the drive for efficiency crowds out opportunity for
public participation, or in which the role of experts supersedes responsive-
ness to the public. And the imbalance can go in the other direction as well,
with endless public engagement making it impossible to make decisions,
let alone move them forward in an efficient and effective way. Therefore,
the question of balance remains pertinent (e.g. see Meier, 1997; Feldman
& Khademian, 2000).
Figure 2.2 reflects various scenarios of balance between democracy and
bureaucracy. In Panel A, democratic means and ends roughly match up in
size and scope with bureaucratic means and ends. Note that the state of
balance in Panel A does not optimize either democratic or bureaucratic
values; rather it reflects a sort of compromise between the two. For exam-
ple, while the value of participation would not overpower the drive for
efficiency, or vice versa, such a balance could result in governance that is
Fig. 2.2 The balance of democracy and bureaucracy

neither very participative nor very efficient. Empirically, such a perfect bal-
ance would likely never be observed; normatively, it may not necessarily be
desirable.
In reality, the balance between democracy and bureaucracy may look
more like the images depicted in Panels B and C, where the fulcrum
point—representing the interplay of many sociopolitical factors—shifts to
the left or right of the center. An un-centered fulcrum point demands a
re-calibration of counterweights to achieve a balance. For example, in
Panel B, the fulcrum point has shifted to the left of center, with an atten-
dant focus on democratic values and processes (notice the shaded box is
larger). A similar shift to the right of center in Panel C places heavier atten-
tion on bureaucratic values and processes.
A History of Shifting Balance Points. The shifting fulcrum, or balance
point, is used here for illustrative purposes and is not intended necessarily
to correspond synonymously with the common parlance of left and right
political leanings. The shift in balance point has more to do with broader
social, cultural, and economic factors, some of which may be tied up in
political leanings, though unpacking the relationship is not so simple. For
this discussion, however, we will treat the various political leanings as
responding to shifts in the balance points rather than driving those shifts.
Many different sociopolitical factors can shift the balance point between
democracy and bureaucracy. The historical development of the United
States is instructive of the type of back-and-forth recalibrating that occurs
over time, as one response acts as a sort of corrective to a previous response.
The American Revolution of the mid-to-late 1700s—captured by such
slogans as ‘no taxation without representation’—was, in part, a backlash
by the colonists to the policies and administrative practices of their British
governors. The result was a dramatic shift to the left, in the direction of
democracy, with notable animosity and wariness toward centralized power
structures. Later, with the acknowledged weaknesses of the prevailing
form of government under the Articles of Confederation, the young
nation moved to bolster federal powers and administration in a new con-
stitution. In many ways, this meant a swing back toward focusing on
structures and values on the right of the scales—such as effectiveness and
control. The rigorous debate that ensued in the late 1780s between pro-
ponents and opponents of the new Constitution, with all of its implica-
tions regarding federal and state powers was, at its heart, about where each
side thought the balance between democratic and bureaucratic values
should be.
The years that followed were marked by a leftward shift, as the combi-
nation of westward expansion and a building resentment toward what
some viewed as the rule of elites contributed to the push for certain demo-
cratic reforms during the Jacksonian Era (roughly 1830s–1850s). This
included, among other things, the rise of the spoils system, which opened
doors to paid government positions to common citizens (Kweit & Kweit,
1981). Decades later, in response to the seemingly endemic problems of
corruption and inefficiency in a rampant spoils system, the Pendleton Civil
Service Reform Act of 1883 was passed. Those familiar with the field of
public administration in the United States also point to then-Professor
Woodrow Wilson’s article published a few years after the Pendleton Act in
which he strongly called for a more systematic and dedicated focus on
studying administration, noting that, ‘It is getting to be harder to run a
constitution than to frame one’ (1887, p. 200). Both examples reflect a
marked shift toward a professionalized and more expertly trained civil ser-
vice, values clearly on the bureaucratic side of the scales.
The build-up of a professionalized public administration amounts to
additional steps away from direct democracy, and can increase people’s
concerns about governance structures that are increasingly distant from
and non-representative of the public they serve (Mosher, 1982). In
response to perceived incursions by the administrative apparatus, reform-
ers often push to ‘overcome the checks and balances of a polity biased
against the expansion of government by promising to restore power to the
people,’ particularly through promises of more direct citizen participation
in governance (Morone, 1998, p. 4). These sentiments, along with
broader social movements emphasizing greater equality, seem to have
pervaded many of the democratic and participation-based reforms sought
during the turbulent, anti-establishment decades of the 1960s and 1970s.
Even students and scholars of public administration began calling for a
‘new public administration’ that more actively would value and pursue
social equity (see e.g. Frederickson, 1971).
In the 1980s and 1990s, efforts to adopt the managerial emphasis of the
so-called New Public Management, again shifted the balance point back to
the right. Many of the attendant reforms of this period reflect what Paul
Light (1997) called ‘liberation management,’ infusing market-like values
into government agencies or moving toward privatization. Some have
argued that the increased focus on collaborative governance since the early
2000s may ‘shift our concern away from hierarchical accountability to
notions of responsibility, responsiveness, and the fostering of democratic
ideals’ (Agranoff & McGuire, 2004, p. 189). This remains to be seen.
What seems clearer is that an increased credence toward market values and
an accompanying erosion of faith in democratic institutions has the ful-
crum currently positioned well to the right of the center.
2.2 The Ascendancy of Market Values

and the Decline of Faith in Democracy
Recently, in the European Union (EU), when push has come to shove,
market values have taken precedence over democracy in the form of aus-
terity measures aimed at bringing fiscal discipline to countries (e.g. Greece,
Ireland, Portugal, Spain, and Italy) that, under the common currency and
structure of the EU, lack the means to manage their own economies.
Once again, the primary casualties are public values and democratic
governance as bureaucratic power is invoked to impose ‘market discipline’
on countries that cannot sustain their social and economic policies as
members of the regional framework. As Meyerson (2011) put it:
Over the past year, in fact, capitalism has fairly rolled over democracy.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in Europe, where financial institutions
and large investors have gone to war under the banner of austerity, and gov-
ernments of nations with not-very-productive or overextended economies
have found that they could not satisfy those demands and still cling to power.
The elected governments of Greece and Italy have been deposed; financial
technocrats are now at the helm of both nations. With interest rates on
Spanish bonds rising sharply in recent weeks, Spain’s socialist government
was unseated last weekend by a center-right party that has offered no solu-
tions to that country’s growing crisis… It’s as though the markets through-
out Europe have had enough with this democratic sovereignty nonsense.
Perhaps not surprisingly, as citizens lose confidence and feel disenfran-

chised by their leaders and institutions, extremist (non-democratic) politi-
cal parties on both the right and left are gaining traction in almost every
European country.
The contemporary American context can be characterized as a longer-
term erosion of institutional integrity and faith in democracy, when
although the formal requirements of democratic legitimacy remain in
place, policies, and actions by elected and appointed officials are increas-
ingly seen as corrupt, ineffective, and serving narrow interests. The ascen-
dancy of the market state over the past 30 years (see Adams & Balfour,
2010, 2017) has progressively undermined the trustworthiness of social,

political, and economic (cultural) institutions and organizations.
Discussing the financial meltdown of 2007–2008, Stiglitz points out the
damage not only to the economy, but also to society more broadly as a
result of pervasive breaches of trust (2010, pp. 275–276):
We have gone too far down an alternative path—creating a society in which

materialism dominates moral commitment, in which the rapid growth that
we have achieved is not sustainable environmentally or socially, in which we
do not act together as a community to address our common needs, partly
because rugged individualism and market fundamentalism have eroded any
sense of community and have led to rampant exploitation of unwary and
unprotected individuals and to an increasing social divide. There has been
an erosion of trust—and not just in our financial institutions.
Indeed, American civil society seems to be entrenched in a self-sealing

cycle: As institutions and organizations are perceived as becoming increas-
ingly corrupt and venal, the more people mistrust and expect the worst
from them. Organizations and institutions become the last place that indi-
viduals look to for the nurturing of values and instead, see them as settings
in which only the foolish or stubborn act with high ethical standards
(Callahan, 2007). Heclo (2008, pp. 17–21) presents a long table of 39
government scandals in the United States stretching from 1958 (Sherman
Adams’—President Eisenhower’s chief of staff—acceptance of bribes in
the form of gifts) to 1999 (President Clinton’s impeachment after lying to
cover up an affair with a White House intern). An even longer list could
almost certainly be constructed just for the years since.
This ongoing, progressive erosion of trust in public institutions and
organizations has sent a different and unfortunate signal around the globe
according to Stiglitz (2010, pp. 225–226):
Faith in democracy is another victim. In the developing world people look at

Washington and see a system of government that allowed Wall Street to write
self-serving rules, which put at risk the entire global economy, and then when
the day of reckoning came, Washington turned to those from Wall Street and
their cronies to manage the recovery—in ways that gave Wall Street amounts
of money that are beyond the wildest dreams of the most corrupt in the
developing world. They see corruption American-style as perhaps more
sophisticated—bags of money don’t change hands in dark corners—but just
as nefarious… They see, in short, a fundamental problem of political account-
ability in the American system of democracy.
Though we believe that counter-balancing shifts will naturally occur

over time, the decay of public trust in democratic institutions and the
continued rise of market-based governance values seem poised to con-
tinue in the near term. But these phenomena are not the only challenges
to democratic legitimacy. While the previous discussion highlighted the
more long-term ebb and flow between democratic and bureaucratic val-
ues, crisis events often trigger shorter-term shifts as well.
2.3 Crisis and Control: The Problem

of Bureaucratic Distortion
The uncertainty associated with various types of crises, such as war or eco-
nomic recession, can also have significant impacts on democratic legiti-
macy, or the space in which legitimacy is negotiated. Often these negative
focusing events or conditions create a form of bureaucratic distortion. By
this, we mean a tendency to employ a lens through which every problem
appears to be best solved by responses that are heavier on bureaucratic
values. This is more than just seeing every problem as a nail when you only
have a hammer. The typical response to mitigating uncertainty is to seek
more means for asserting control, to add a measure of rationality to the
seemingly irrational. Because bureaucratic means are built largely on per-
ceptions of rationality and control, during crises the scales could become
heavily unbalanced. There are clear benefits to adding certainty to an
uncertain situation, but there can also be a dark side to this. Perhaps, the
most poignant historical example of this occurred in the Weimar Republic
(Germany) in the early 1930s when the now infamous Article 48 was
invoked (legally) hundreds of times to empower the chancellor to act
without legislative action in response to political gridlock, economic crisis,
and civil unrest (Burleigh, 2000; Pollock, 1938). We now know that the
longer-term effect of these actions was to empower the bureaucracy at the
expense of the already shaky institutions of the Weimar democracy, and
pave the way for dictatorship.
Self-Governance vs. Expert Intervention: The Michigan Emergency
Manager Law. In the past few years, two major local government crises in
Michigan—the Detroit bankruptcy and the Flint water debacle—gained
widespread attention because of their scope and impact on human life.
While the situation in each of these cities was unique, they did share some
common connections. For one thing, their respective crises were years in the
making, deeply entrenched, and multi-faceted. Each faced deep-seated fiscal

challenges to their ongoing operations as governing jurisdictions. Because
of this, each also found itself subject to the control of a state-appointment
emergency manager. While the outcomes of these control-based interven-
tions in Detroit and Flint are different, the case of Michigan’s use of emer-
gency managers provides some insight into how democratic legitimacy can
be undermined in the name of financial responsibility. This is particularly the
case when citizens are deprived of the one source of power that does not
depend on their wealth—the power of self-governance.
The current emergency manager law passed by the Michigan Legislature
in 2012 allows the state to appoint an emergency manager in cities or
schools deemed to be entrenched in calamitous financial conditions. The
emergency manager is granted ‘broad powers in receivership to rectify the
financial emergency and to assure the fiscal accountability of the local gov-
ernment and the local government’s capacity to provide or cause to be
provided necessary governmental services essential to the public health,
safety, and welfare’ (Michigan Legislature, 2012). While some may inter-
pret this as the state sending much needed reinforcement to a struggling
entity, the application of this law results in duly elected local officials being
replaced by state-appointed experts when the former is deemed to have
failed to govern effectively.
The reader should consider that at the most basic level, the emergency
manager law passes the test of democratic legitimacy within the U.S. fed-
eral framework. Local governments are an extension of the state govern-
ment and are therefore subject to its authority. Hence, it is reasonable on
its face to have a bureaucratic instrument in place to deal with exceptional
circumstances (restore balance) where a local government fails to fulfill its
basic functions and responsibilities. However, the historical development
and implementation of this law provides some insight into the delicate bal-
ance of democracy and bureaucracy, and, unfortunately, how things can go
very wrong when lawmakers and experts deny citizens the right to govern
themselves (see also Masters in this volume). As with any historical case, the
starting point is not all that easy to determine. The evolution of the laws
enabling this form of state ‘solution’ is detailed below, but the reader
should keep in mind that other state actions were also part of the problem.
For example, starting in the mid-2000s, the legislature began raiding the
statutory portion of local government revenue sharing (eventually totaling
over $6 billion) to help balance the state budget, effectively creating or
exacerbating fiscal crises in municipalities across the state (Minghine, 2014).
Early versions of the law include Public Act 101 of 1988 and Public Act
72 of 1990. The former was used just one time, when Governor James
Blanchard took steps to install an EFM in Royal Oak Township at the
beginning of 1990. The latter piece of legislation, which essentially
replaced the former, was expanded to include failing public school sys-
tems. As would likely be expected for this type of dramatic intervention,
its usage was initially very sparse. This, however, has changed over time
(Hakala, 2016).
Table 2.1 depicts the cities and townships (not school districts) that
have been the subject of state intervention through the installation of
either an emergency financial manager or emergency manager. The table
only shows the governor who triggered the usage of the law in that juris-
diction, and not subsequent changes made in emergencies that spilled
over to different administrations. The infrequency of usage in the early
Table 2.1 Governors triggering emergency financial manager or emergency

manager in Michigan
Governor Date Jurisdiction Law Appointment
typea
Blanchard (D) Jan-90 Royal Oak Township Public Act 101 of 1988 EFM
Engler (R) Nov-00 City of Hamtramck Public Act 72 of 1990 EFM
Jun-01 City of Highland Park Public Act 72 of 1990 EFM
Jul-02 City of Flint Public Act 72 of 1990 EFM
Granholm Dec-08 Village of Three Oaks Public Act 72 of 1990 EFM
(D) Mar-09 City of Pontiac Public Act 72 of 1990 EFM
Oct-09 City of Ecorse Public Act 72 of 1990 EFM
Apr-10 City of Benton Harbor Public Act 72 of 1990 EFM
Snyder (R) Oct-11 City of Pontiacb Public Act 4 of 2011 EM
Nov-11 City of Flint Public Act 4 of 2011 EM
Oct-12 City of Allen Park Public Act 72 of 1990c EFM
Mar-13 City of Detroit Public Act 72 of 1990/ EM
Public Act 436 of 2012d
Jul-13 City of Hamtramck Public Act 436 of 2012 EM
Jul-14 City of Lincoln Park Public Act 436 of 2012 EM
Source: Table created based on data available at http://www.michigan.gov/documents/treasury/

EM-EFM_Appointment_History_2-12-16_514604_7.pdf
a
EFM Emergency Financial Manager, EM Emergency Manager
b
Not a new emergency, but replaced existing emergency financial manager (EFM) with new emergency
manager (EM) under Public Act 4
c
When Public Act 4 was suspended by voter referendum, Public Act 72 was revived
d
Public Act 72 was repealed by Public Act 436 of 2012
years is clearly evident, with a decade having passed between the first and
second instance. Also evident is the growth in frequency of usage over
time and over each subsequent gubernatorial administration.
It should be noted that implementation of the laws in question cuts
across political party, with both Republican and Democratic governors
triggering emergency intervention. However, significant changes came in
2011, when then newly elected governor, Rick Snyder, pushed the legisla-
ture to pass a much stronger emergency manager law. The new law—
Public Act 4—impacted both the frequency and scope of intervention,
including replacing emergency financial managers with the expanded
authority of emergency managers. The new emergency managers basically
retained all governing responsibilities, including the power to hire/fire
employees, renegotiate labor contracts, sell/lease/privatize local assets,
change budgets without local legislative approval, initiate municipal bank-
ruptcy proceedings, and so on (Cramer, 2011).
At the time, many municipalities and school districts, small and large,
across the state were in fiscal distress with little prospect for improvement.
While the circumstances were not all the same, all were subject to the
double whammy of the Great Recession and years of cutbacks in the statu-
tory portion of state revenue sharing to local governments. Because reve-
nues could not be increased enough to relieve the fiscal stress, municipalities
were under severe pressure to cut spending and services to bring their
budgets into balance. Public Act 4 of 2011 was meant to provide the legal
authority to do so, but met immediate resistance across the state and it was
repealed by popular referendum the following year. Most Michiganders, it
seemed, valued the democratic legitimacy of their local governments over
the state’s interest in imposing fiscal discipline. A revised 2012 law (Public
Act 436 of 2012) did little to enhance democratic legitimacy, especially
with its provision prohibiting repeal by referendum, but did provide the
broader authority sought by the governor to unilaterally appoint numer-
ous emergency managers to distressed local governments—almost all poor
with predominately minority populations—across the state (and the law
survived a legal challenge in 2013).
The Irony of Flint. While the democratic legitimacy of the emergency
manager law was in question from the beginning, its expert legitimacy
was greatly diminished with the news of the Flint water crisis. This
unprecedented public health disaster occurred under the watch of mul-
tiple emergency managers, and indeed, seems to be the result of trying
Table 2.2 The revolving door of emergency managers in Flint, MI, USA
Date Emergency Manager Law
Nov-11 Michael Brown PA 4

Aug-12 Edward Kurtz PA 72
Jul-13 Michael Brown PA 436
Oct-13 Darnell Earley PA 436
Jan-15 Gerald Ambrose PA 436
Source: Based on data available at http://www.michigan.gov/documents/treasury/EM-EFM_

Appointment_History_2-12-16_514604_7.pdf
to reduce costs by switching to a cheaper water source (Flint River)

without the proper safeguards against pipe corrosion, resulting in wide-
spread lead poisoning. However, beyond the technical decisions to
switch water sources, the Flint case is also characterized by a high degree
of volatility and turnover among its appointed experts, as shown in
Table 2.2. In November of 2011, Governor Snyder installed Michael
Brown as the city’s emergency manager. Less than a year later, when the
law was suspended by public referendum, the provisions of Public Law
72 were re-instituted and existing emergency managers were reap-
pointed as EFM. However, because Michael Brown was a former city
employee, he was ineligible to serve in that role. Therefore, Edward
Kurtz, who had originally served as the EFM in Flint in 2002, resumed
this position for the city, staying in the role until being replaced again
by Brown when Public Law 436 was passed. Since then, two additional
emergency managers have served. It is ironic that a law intending to
bring stability to a city in crisis could result in such revolving-door vola-
tility in leadership.
Many have since asked whether the so-called fiscal discipline should be
allowed to usurp local governance, and if the cure isn’t worse than the
disease (Bosman et al., 2016). Further, as implied above, it is not clear
whether the cities that got emergency managers were fully responsible for
the fiscal crises they faced. For example, if the state had met its statutory
obligations for revenue sharing during the 2000s, the City of Flint, with
the nearly $55 million in lost revenue, could have eliminated its deficit,
paid off all $30 million of its bonded indebtedness, and still had more than
a $5 million surplus (Minghine, 2014).
2.4 Conclusion
The case of Michigan’s emergency manager law supports the importance
of achieving a balance between democratic legitimacy and bureaucratic
authority. The original emergency financial manager law seemed to achieve
that; a rarely used mechanism to restore balance in exceptional circum-
stances. The new law and its application upset that balance with a political
overreach by the state government to frequently and deeply usurp local
governance in the name of fiscal responsibility amidst a crisis that had, in
part, been brought about by the state. Ironically, the attack on democratic
legitimacy by the state government also undermined bureaucratic legiti-
macy and effectiveness. With the accountability controls of local gover-
nance removed, basic bureaucratic procedures and technical requirements
were bypassed and overlooked, leading to a public health disaster. While it
is certainly important to manage public budgets well, it is far more impor-
tant to protect the basic rights and well-being of citizens, and to avoid
what Bozeman terms ‘public values failures,’ in this case, one of a ‘direct
threat to subsistence and human dignity’ (Bozeman, 2002, p. 151).
Students and practitioners of public administration should keep the
value of democratic legitimacy at the forefront of their consideration. Of
particular concern are knee-jerk reactions to crises that tend toward
bureaucratic distortion, with its attendant emphasis on technical experts
and centralized control. While bureaucratic and control-oriented responses
may provide some short-term stability, the question must be asked: Does
this strengthen or damage the polity in its ability to self-govern and the
integrity of governance? We argue that democratic legitimacy outweighs
expertise, even (and perhaps especially) in times of crisis. Therefore, if any
imbalance occurs, we urge that it be on the side of democratic values.
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CHAPTER 3
Dissecting the Semantics of Accountability

and Its Misuse
Ciarán O’Kelly and Melvin J. Dubnick
3.1 Addressing Accountability and Quality

of Governance
Even if we could agree to the core principles of good governance, we

would have no sense of how those principles ought to be expressed. People
might accept that an organization should be transparent but differ over
how much transparency is required, what it is to be transparent (actively
publish reports? respond to requests for information?), or—most impor-
tantly perhaps—on who decides transparency’s parameters at any point in
time. What, alternatively, is it to accept democratic voice? What constitutes
acceptable democratic restraint? To what degree can a democratic say over
micro-level decisions (specific placements of wind farms for instance) be
balanced against an organization’s effective pursuit of already-mandated
macro-level goals (operationalizing a carbon-mitigation energy plan).
Governance not only requires everyday decision-making processes
in order to decide questions such as these but has shied away from solv-
ing them by allocating unilateral decision-making power to single
C. O’Kelly (*)
Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, UK
M. J. Dubnick
University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, USA
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21522-4_3
46 C. O’KELLY AND M. J. DUBNICK
decision-makers. It has instead developed ever-more-complex mecha-

nisms that test decision-makers, and expose them to scrutiny and often
to retribution. No decision-maker’s power is absolute therefore,
although precisely how their non-absolutism can be characterized may
differ in different circumstances.
The degree that law simply prohibits specific kinds of executive behav-
ior varies for instance. Law might delegate power over executives to boards
themselves or designate organizational stakeholders either as decision-
makers or as decision-reviewers. Or it might aim at some mixture of the
three. Questions of what it means—in everyday operational terms—for
powers to be delegated arise, as do questions of how powers of restraint
may be expressed. What executive discretion even means is subject to
negotiation, struggle, and debate both within law-making, within organi-
zations and between the two.
Our expressing values in governance are not simple, therefore. How
democratic voice is imagined in administrative contexts; which degrees or
kinds of transparency are deemed appropriate, and so on, often comes
down to authority and decision-making power being shared and checked
in a multiplicity of ways. Once we expect those exercising authority to
answer for their decisions, then we are in the realm of accountability. Once
we decide that no decision-making power can be unilateral, then account-
ability and the quality of governance become the same thing.
In this chapter, we not only address how resolutions for such questions
are imagined but suggest supplementary pathways to imagining those
resolutions. How do descriptions of social situations shape and constrain
the solutions used to answer the questions posed above? The words we use
to describe social phenomena are not neutral. They are constructive of the
conceptual maps we use to navigate and negotiate the social world. Checks
and balances, decision-making powers, and the like are reproduced using
analogies and metaphors that themselves play a role in how solutions to
social problems are conceived.
We focus on Mark Bovens’s use of the forum metaphor in his account-
ability model. The forum metaphor has emerged as a fundamental compo-
nent in accountability’s status as a ‘cultural keyword,’ reflecting its
extension into the political rhetoric and everyday language of our time
(Dubnick, 2014). People do not imagine value in governance directly,
through observation. They construct it through metaphorical language
and, when it comes to how the underlying decision-making processes are
described, Bovens’s work is at the fore.
3 DISSECTING THE SEMANTICS OF ACCOUNTABILITY AND ITS MISUSE 47
Contra Bovens, we argue that his relational perspective could be taken

much further. We advocate a far broader and more fundamental engage-
ment with the idea of relational accountability. Expanding the metaphors,
we point to two other accountability spaces: ‘agora,’ a primordial account-
ability space and ‘bazaar,’ an emergent accountability space rooted in
ground-level exchange between different actors. Assertions about ‘unac-
countability,’ we argue, very often reflect a failure to appreciate the funda-
mentally relational nature of accountability: those who use such assertions
as bases for action aimed at making situations, processes, or people ‘more
accountable’ in fact seek to assert or impose a certain form of relation-
ship—one that is hierarchical and monopolistic—and reflect therefore a
drive to power and domination.
Its mere appearance in the title of legislation for example triggers an
affective response whether or not the term’s use is appropriate or justified
by the content of the law. The symbolic gesture of stating ‘we shall hold
them accountable’ is now part of the standard repertoire of public officials
responding to some scandalous faux pas or criminal act. Moreover, we
now associate the notion of accountability to any ‘good governance’
reform agenda that promises to reduce corruption, enhance performance,
assure justice, and improve democratic involvement. The concept of
accountability has, in short, become both the medium and the message of
modern governance. Today, the study of governance is effectively the
study of accountability.1
The first half of this chapter is devoted to a discussion of the Bovens
model, how it uses the forum metaphor and how it negotiates a line
between more traditional and mechanistic ‘principal-agent’ perspectives
and an outlook that focuses on particular social relations in the develop-
ment of accountability. We distinguish Bovens’s relational perspective
from other ways of approaching the problem of what accountability actu-
ally is. And we show that ideas of ‘unaccountability’ only work where our
ideas of integrity, accountability, and so on, are inordinately fixed.
Broadening our perspective pushes us to think about how organizational
dysfunction functions, so to speak.
The chapter’s second half seeks to expand upon the Bovens model by
outlining two relational accountability spaces: ‘agora,’ which we regard as
a ‘primordial’ accountability space upon which other spaces rely, and
1
CF Strydom 1999, who saw ‘responsibility’ as the emerging ‘master frame’ that would
shape social and political thinking in the twenty-first century.
‘bazaar,’ where accountability relationships based on mutual exchange

emerge. This exercise is useful in its own right because it highlights how a
more flexible approach to accountability’s conceptual underpinnings can
refocus our thinking about how organizations might be arranged and
understood. It is also useful because it allows us to consider how our con-
cepts of accountability underpin the ways we understand key organiza-
tional norms—such as democratic voice and transparent work—and from
there how organizational integrity might be constructed.
We aim, at least in the first instance, to isolate the principal-agent com-
ponents of the relational model and to demonstrate how critical the ‘rela-
tional’ model is to accountability in the first place. We do not do this in
order to abstract out the components of accountability for its own sake
but because we seek to explain the so-called unaccountability: deviations
from principal demands (drifting though they are, on which see Schillemans
& Busuioc, 2014) tend to be conceptualized as simple misfeasance, or
corruption, or ‘shirking,’ the solution to which invariably involve harsher
penalties or more tempting inducements (a cynic might suggest, depend-
ing on how high up the ‘unaccountable’ actor sits in the hierarchy).
It may be that apparent unaccountability should be approached and
conceptualized as a function of other forms of accountability, though per-
haps ones that are subterranean and are illegible within the forum con-
cept. These forms of accountability represent the human drive to negotiate
the multiple, diverse, and often conflicting expectations (Dubnick, 2014b)
that arise in all aspects of their social lives, including their worlds of work.
We differ from the Bovens model in the degree to which we emphasize
organizations, whether administrative or corporate, as a social flux, unpre-
dictable, unstable, and often unmanageable. Modernity is in large part the
story of the organizational tools employed to solidify, constrain, and direct
that social flux, but we ought not to pretend either that modernity’s proj-
ect has been a resounding success on this front or that we would wish its
success to be complete.
Accountability’s role in the policy realm and in theory both invites frus-
tration in its ongoing failure to achieve submission and acts as ‘promise’
(Dubnick & Frederickson, 2011), holding out the hope that the right
measures or the right attitudes or the right interventions will lead us to
better performance, or coordination or the like. Accountability so con-
ceived aims toward a kind of silence, where aims, intents, and actions are
transparent and clear. Accountability as we conceive it is never so: it is
noisy, complicated, and multifaceted. The Bovens model hints that this
sense of accountability is what differentiates it from the principal-agent

perspective. Our point is that the model does not go far enough. The
forum metaphor, we fear, acts to constrain thinking about accountability
and allows people to drive themselves back toward the very principal-
agent thinking that the forum metaphor could have surpassed. The focus
on process and hierarchy restricts the forum’s potential to broaden our
thought: a point we discuss in the section below.
3.2 The Forum and Accountable Governance

Ironically, while the relevance and salience of (and academic interest in)
accountable governance has expanded, accountability has become more
elusive both conceptually and theoretically. Often regarded in the past as
a species of ‘responsibility,’2 accountability is now frequently treated as the
primary concept (i.e., the genus) among those terms bearing a synonymic
‘family resemblance’ to responsibility.3 Thus, rather than being regarded
as a distinct alternative to other members of that conceptual family,
accountability is increasingly perceived as an encompassing concept that
covers what has traditionally been associated with responsibility, and then
some. In everyday usage as well as in scholarship, few would argue with
the idea that to be accountable is to be liable, obliged, responsive, trans-
parent, answerable, blameworthy, trustworthy, and so on. Accountability
as a cultural phenomenon has enveloped and contained most of its familial
relations.
This ‘ever expansive’ nature of the concept (Mulgan, 2000) is clearly a
challenge to those who seek conceptual clarity, and especially to those
attempting to make theoretical sense of how the cultural form of accountability
2
Two often cited expositions of the historical development of responsibility as a concept
are McKeon 1957 and Ricoeur 2000 [1995]. Both rely on a historical distinction between
‘imputation’ and ‘accountability’; see Kelty 2008 for an overview of these works. Much of
the scholarship on responsibility has followed that approach. For example, Goodin 1987
drew a distinction between ‘blame’ and ‘task’ responsibilities and assigned accountability to
the latter. In Bovens 1998, accountability is presented as a distinctive (‘passive’) form of
responsibility and contrasted with ‘active’ (virtue-related) responsibility. In his explication of
environmental governance, Pellizzoni (2004) posits accountability as one among four types
of responsibility (the others are care, liability, and responsiveness). More recently, Vincent
2010 provides a sixfold elaboration of responsibilities (based on the work of H.L.A. Hart)
that avoids any reference to accountability while clearly implying its relevance to several of
the ‘syndromes’ she highlights.
3
See Bambrough 1960 for an overview of Wittgenstein’s view of family resemblances.
impacts on governance. In this section, we explore and seek to build on the

major effort undertaken by Bovens and others to deal with that challenge—
the development of a forum-based model of accountability. The work of
Bovens and his colleagues represents one pathway among several that have
attempted to address the need for fresh approach to the study of account-
ability now that it has assumed keyword status and become untethered from
responsibility.
3.2.1 One Model Among Many

Putting the Bovens model in perspective, it must be seen in the light of the
broader metatheoretical challenge to make sense of accountability (see
Table 3.1 below).4 Various theories and frameworks have been mobilized
and applied to that task. Some deal with accountability through principal-
agent models that stress a mechanistic view of accountability—that is, that
accountability involves various arrangements aimed at dealing with the
problematics of getting agents to comply to with the preferences of their
principals (see Gailmard, 2014; Mansbridge, 2014). Others treat account-
ability as a function of governance, and rely on institutionalist theories and
models to explain their emergence and development over time (e.g.,
Harlow, 2014; Olsen, 2014). Cultural theorists perceive accountability as
a reflection of what kinds of behavior and relationships are prescriptively
valued in alternative social settings (Licht, 2001; Wildavsky, 1987). Still
another perspective views accountability as a form of individual behavior
that can be explained using theoretical lenses borrowed from social psy-
chology (see Hood, 2014; Patil, Vieider, & Tetlock, 2014).
The relational view of accountability, finally, focuses attention on
accountability’s emergent and ‘second-personal’ nature. As we will argue,
Table 3.1 Five models of accountability

Accountability as Relevant theory
Mechanism Principal-agent theories

Function Institutional theories
Value Cultural theory
Behavior Social psychology
Relationships Moral theory
4
Compare with overview in Bovens, Schillemans, & Goodin 2014.
much of the theoretical work underlying this view is associated with moral
theory and specifically the work of contemporary writers such as Steven
Darwall (2006, 2013) and others5 who have revived interest in the ethical
foundations of accountable relationships.
Because it is rooted in the relational perspective, the Bovens model
offers some insight into this understanding of accountability; but as we
will see, its reliance on the forum metaphor does not provide a theoretical
foundation for pursuing the study of accountability. Our task here is to lay
the groundwork for such a theory by using other metaphorical models to
demonstrate the relevance and power of the second-personal standpoint
for our understanding of relational accountability (Table 3.1).
3.2.2 The Bovens Model

Central to the Bovens model is the concept of the ‘accountability forum’
that was first used by Mark Bovens in his 1998 The Quest for Responsibility:
Accounting for oneself, taking responsibility, and justifying oneself never…

happen in a vacuum; there is always something or someone who asks the
questions or makes the imputation. Such asking and accusing happens
mostly at the instigation and in the presence of some forum or other, vary-
ing in the Constitution from the forum internum of the conscience to the
informal forum of family members, friends, and colleagues, the much more
formal disciplinary committee, tribunal, or parliamentary committee of
inquiry, or even the television, the forum of the nation (Bovens, 1998,
pp. 23–24; italics in original).
The concept is applied loosely and broadly throughout that work, with
the forum indicating both some referenced ‘other’ and/or a type of venue.
It is within the context of a forum that responsibility is transformed into
accountability.6 In that regard, the forum is more than a mere ‘meeting
space’ for interactions and exchanges (political, economic, social, and oth-
erwise). In that sense, it is neither Habermasian public sphere nor Hayekian
marketplace.
5
See the work of Judith Butler (2005), R. Jay Wallace (1994).
6
Bovens cites H.L.A. Hart’s elaboration of various forms of responsibility in this regard,
noting that he is using the term ‘accountability’ in lieu of ‘liability-responsibility,’ which he
prefers ‘since it has fewer strictly legal connotations and also entails an element of moral or
political responsibility’ (Bovens, 1998, p. 24, n.3).
The accountability forum functions, rather, as a juridical location where

one is subjected to the judgment of others through imputation and inter-
rogation (Ricoeur, 2000 [1995]; Van Hooft, 2004). The concept next
emerges in 2005 in a number of sources, including a paper by Albert
Meijers and Bovens focused on accountability and information technolo-
gies (Meijer & Bovens, 2005), and again in a chapter, Bovens contributes
to a volume on public management (Bovens, 2005). These become the
basis for a draft proposal for the funding of a major research project, which
was to focus on accountable governance in Europe (Bovens, ‘t Hart, et al.,
2005). There, the Utrecht group (co-led by Meijers & Bovens) initially
equates the forum with the ‘accountee’ in an accountability relationship
and uses the existence of a forum as the pivotal factor which distinguishes
accountability from other forms of political conduct or activities that
involve, such as transparency, responsiveness, and participation.
‘For an actor to be accountable, information is given to a forum, which
then comes to a judgment that may have consequences for the actor in
case it is negative’ (Meijer & Bovens, 2005, p. 5).7 In that sense, the forum
becomes the defining feature of accountability, and the projects to be
undertaken in the research program would highlight the various ‘account-
ability modes’ and ‘accountability regimes’ reflecting that forum-centered
perspective. What we regard as the Bovens model becomes clearer as the
proposal focuses on their intent to “open the black box of the account-
ability process” (emphasis in original).
The relationship between the actor and the forum, the account giving, usu-
ally consists of at least three elements or stages. First of all, the actor must
feel obliged to inform the forum about his conduct, by providing various
sorts of data about the performance of tasks, about outcomes, or about
procedures.
Secondly, the information can prompt the forum to interrogate the actor
and to question the adequacy of the information or the legitimacy of the
conduct (debating phase). Thirdly, the forum usually passes judgement on
the conduct of the actor. In case of a negative judgement the forum may
impose some sort of sanctions on the account or. These may be formal, such
7
Interestingly, the initial reference to the forum concept does not cite Bovens’s 1998
work, but rather Christopher Pollitt’s use of the concept in his 2003 The Essential Public
Manager. Pollitt, however, is using the concept quite different—that is, to describe the delib-
erative arena in which public managers are operating. See Pollitt 2003, pp. 84-85.
as fines, disciplinary measures, or dismissal, but they can also be implicit or

informal (such as negative publicity). The three projects will ascertain to
what extent the various accountability regimes entail each of these stages of
an accountability process, and will study the relevant processes to examine
how they unfold, and what pattern of relations between accountor and
accountee exists (Bovens, ‘t Hart, et al., 2005, p. 6).
By 2007, Bovens was able to present the model as “a parsimonious

analytical framework that can help to establish more systematically whether
organization or officials, exercising public authority, are subject to account-
ability at all” (Bovens, 2007, 448, emphasis in original).8 Bovens empha-
sizes that the ‘framework’ is intentionally narrow and analytic in its explicit
focus on ‘account giving,’ which he defines as a relationship involving ‘the
obligation to explain and justify conduct’ to a forum. While acknowledg-
ing that the framework does overlap with principal-agent models, he
emphasizes that the actor-forum relationship can be quite different (a
point recently made explicit by two members of the Utrecht project group
(see Schillemans & Busuioc, 2014), and he offers a seven-point summary
of what constitutes the ‘social relations’ at the heart of the model as well
as a graphic representation of the model’s relationships (Table 3.2 and
Fig. 3.1):
The four-year research project based on the forum model generated a
number of empirical studies (e.g., Brandsma, 2013; Bovens, Curtin, & ‘t
Hart, 2010), as well as further development of the model itself. For exam-
ple, two members of the Utrecht group—Thomas Schillemans and Gijs
Brandsma—recently published a more elaborate version (termed the
Table 3.2 Accountability as a social relation (Box 1 in Bovens, 2007, p. 452)
A relationship qualifies as a case of accountability when:

1. there is a relationship between an actor and a forum
2. in which the actor is obliged
3. to explain and justify
4. his conduct;
5. the forum can pose questions;
6. pass judgment; and
7. the actor may face consequences.
8
See also Schillemans & Bovens 2011; Bovens 2010; Bovens, Schillemans, & ‘t Hart
2008; Bovens 2007.
Fig. 3.1 Accountability (Figure 1 in Bovens, 2007, p. 454)
Fig. 3.2 The accountability cube (Figure 1 in Brandsma & Schillemans, 2012)
‘accountability cube’: see Fig. 3.2) that attempts to enhance its usefulness

as an analytic tool by transforming the three dimensions of the original
formulation (information, discussion, and consequences) into opera-
tional measures.
3.2.3 Assessing the Forum
As one of the only explicit attempts to develop a framework for analyzing
accountability relationships, the Bovens forum model might also be
regarded as the basis for a theory of such. However, while we think the
model has proven its value as an analytic framework, we are concerned
that its analytic success can restrict the development of a credible theory of
relational accountability.
The basis for our argument is, in part, found in the developmental path
of the model:
1. Accountability is conceptualized as a relationship, thus narrowing

the model’s focus and making alternative views (accountability as
mechanism, function, or behavior) of secondary relevance.
2. The focus is further narrowed when the actor–forum interaction is
established as the core relationship. In the process, consideration of
other forms of accountability relationships is put aside.
3. Within the actor–forum relationship, three process factors are

emphasized (e.g., informing, discussing, judgment/sanctioning,
etc.) to the minimization or exclusion of other, often more substan-
tive, situational factors (e.g., norms, values, rules, etc.).
To be clear, there is nothing inappropriate or wrong with that develop-

mental path—and in fact, the very process of modeling necessarily involves
the selection and highlighting of certain factors and the winnowing out of
others. It is in the nature of model development to narrow one’s perspec-
tive, which is why methodologists are quick to warn of the possible draw-
backs of overcommitment to any such construct (Kaplan, 1964, ch. 7).
Another source of concern for us involves the inherently metaphorical
nature of the forum model. Technically, the Bovens group regards the
forum per se as just one factor among several in their model (i.e., as syn-
onymous with the ‘accountee’ in the relationship).
Nevertheless, their use of the forum factor is pivotal and critical to the
model, and few would argue against calling the construct the ‘forum
model.’ But this labeling can prove problematic, for the notion of a
forum is tied into a range of different meanings and contexts. Even
within the Bovens group (as well as in Bovens’s initial use of the concept,
as quoted above), strict adherence to the idea of ‘forum = specific
accountee’ is rare, and they (like all of us) are easily drawn to the image
of forum as a place or venue—a physical or virtual space within which the
action is taking place.
A major attraction of the ‘metaphorical style’ in model and theory
construction is its capacity to make difficult and abstract concepts and
ideas come to life through more familiar forms.9 Moreover, metaphors
often act as an intellectual stimulant, allowing analysts to extend their
understanding of a subject further and deeper than that was intended by
developers of the initial model.10 At the same time, the fertility and rich-
ness of metaphors can prove counterproductive when they function as
(pardon the metaphor) blinders or constraints on theory development
and analysis.
As we hinted at in the introduction above, it is our sense that the forum
model/metaphor is proving so inviting that it may be undermining the
development of a more elaborate and credible theory of relational account-
ability. Models, as valuable as they are to enhancing our understanding of
complex subject like accountability, are not theories. Oftentimes, they play
key and critical roles in the process of theory development, but they can
also act as distractions and diversions when they block consideration of
alternative constructs that might prove more fruitful.
In the case of the forum model and its success, we seem to be on the
verge of over-commitment. The metaphor of the forum is a powerful one,
and fits well with the conventional view of accountability. Our sense is that
the forum model, for all its insights and analytic power, is lacking when it
comes to theoretical credibility. It describes much, but at this juncture
explains little.
And yet, we are intrigued by the forum metaphor itself, for in establish-
ing the idea that accountability relationships occur within a certain con-
text, the model has led us to consider and contrast alternative metaphorical
contexts within which account giving takes place.
9
Kaplan 1964, pp. 259–262, elaborates six different ‘cognitive styles’ through which mod-
els are applied (literary, academic, eristic (propositional), symbolic, postulational and for-
mal), and treats metaphors separately as a problematic (pp. 265–266). During the 1970s and
1980s, however, a ‘metaphorical turn’ occurred among methodologists and those who study
the history, sociology, and philosophy of science (see Marshak, 2003), and there is little
doubt that Kaplan would have included ‘metaphorical style’ in an updated list.
10
For example, see Leary 1990.
3.2.4 The Relational
Our plan in the remainder of this chapter is to broaden the relational per-
spective on accountability. Without at all suggesting that they represent an
exhaustive overview of possible accountability relationships,11 we do so by
pointing toward two accountable relationships that might emerge in pub-
lic administration, where accountability emerges in particular kinds of
venue and toward specific others. These are the ‘agora’ and the ‘bazaar.’12
While the forum’s overlap with principal-agent models in Bovens and
others lies in its focus on appraisal and action, it is possible to distinguish,
as we see it, its relational underpinning from its principal-agent derivation.
Bovens’s emphasis on the investigatory or confessional character of the
forum ought not to diminish his perspective of it as relational. What this
means, however, cannot simply be formulated with reference to process:
the relational is by necessity a negotiated space, both requiring social
imagination on the part of both account-holders and accountees.13
The forum’s juridical character is investigatory, relying in the first
instance upon a sympathetic engagement between accountor and
accountee.14 This provides us with a crucial distinction between the forum
11
In fact, we suggest four possible relationships elsewhere (see O’Kelly & Dubnick, 2014)
though we expand on only two in this chapter. The two relationships that are missing from
this chapter are the ‘cathedral,’ a space bound by hierarchies, rituals, and rules, and the ‘mon-
astery,’ a stable space defined by ‘thick’ relationships founded on shared norms.
12
We employ these terms, as we say above, in order to assist some complex concepts and
ideas to come to life. The first thing to note, given this, is the overlap between the Greek
‘agora’ and the Latin ‘forum’: both in reality denoted the same or similar public spaces,
where people gathered for trade (drawing in parallels with the Persian (through Italian)
‘bazaar’). We draw the following distinctions (in brief): forum as juridical and historiographi-
cal, ritualistically aimed at reconstructing reasons and states of mind behind actions and then
at producing some form of action in response to the perspectives that emerge; agora as the
foundational space within which—fleeting and contingent perhaps—publics emerge through
fundamental social interactions; and bazaar as a space through which people use exchange in
order both to pursue objectives and to ‘thicken’ their social ties.
13
The forum, as we see it, through its procedures and rituals, seeks at its best to construct
a kind of ‘historical knowledge,’ as Collingwood would call it, that requires a ‘re-enactment’
of some event (see Collingwood, 1946, p. 282). For an historian, this requires that ‘past
thought [be] rethought by means of the critical scrutiny of contemporary evidence’
(Browning, 2004, p. 74) in order to bring past thought into the present (see Collingwood
1944 [1939], p. 73; and Collingwood, 1946, 302 in particular). In the forum’s case, the
production of knowledge requires the soliciting of evidence from events, documents, and,
most significantly, from the accountee him or herself.
14
Sympathetic in Adam Smith’s (2009 [1759], p. 21) sense, as in a route into an under-
standing of the other’s ‘sentiments.’
in the Bovens model and the principal-agent model, which is led far more
by power and contract.15 Whereas the forum must by definition begin
with the relationship, the principal-agent model brings the event that is
under investigation to the fore, linking it primarily to a principal’s (not
necessarily unchanging, as Schillemans and Busuioc (2014) point out)
interpretation of contract and seeks to allocate consequences on that basis.
The forum, in other words, is interpretative, in the first instance at least.
The principal-agent relationship is punitive. What Schillemans and Busuioc
call ‘forum drift’ (Schillemans & Busuioc, 2014, p. 11) is more likely a
drift in principal intent with the necessary discourse inherent in the forum
as we describe it being weak or absent.
A distinction between the forum and the principal-agent perspective is
important because it helps place the forum as a subset of and as reliant on
the multiplicity of other accountability spaces through which people live
their lives and do their work. Bovens’s use of the forum metaphor—assist-
ing him in taking an important step away from mechanistic perspectives—
still underplays the negotiated and the social in the relational form. The
forum relies upon a pre-exiting sympathy between actors, whereas the
principal/agency model places a far greater emphasis on force or on the
threat of force. That said the forum as described in the Bovens model is
narrowed by its focus both on the actor–forum interaction and, within
that, by the emphasis on the process factors. The remainder of this chapter
seeks to broaden our understanding of accountability beyond that point.
One final remark on this matter: it is important to note, as we also say
below, that each of these metaphors and types point to distinct traits that
can be discerned in actually existing administration. They do not exist in
isolation. Each of the spaces we describe is in fact one component of a
single phenomenon: the everyday ground-level experience of accountabil-
ity in administrative work. When we speak of conditions of multiple,
diverse, and often conflicting expectations under which actions and deci-
sions are made—of accountability as a kind of second-personal ‘practical
reason’—we are interested in the constant flux of normative reflections,
social relationships, practical bargains, expedient compromises, and m yriad
other maneuvers that people construct in order to get through their day
with their personal integrity and their social milieu more or less intact.16 So
15
Although an archaic form of contract that lacks the relational elements identified in
socio-legal scholarship (see MacNeil, 2001; Fried, 1982; Fried, 2012).
16
When we speak of practical reason, we mean the construction of reasons for action:
resolving the question of ‘what one ought to do.’ See Darwall 2006; Wallace 2014.
isolating one element is rather like isolating a person’s heartbeat from the
flow of their blood for scrutiny, or a city’s traffic from its streets. It is useful
but we must always remember that it is one part of a whole.
In the next section, where we discuss both the agora and the bazaar, we
broaden the relational account through a focus on that which underpins
all ‘relationality’ (agora) and through a focus on an alternative account-
ability space that might emerge (bazaar).
3.3 Two Accountability Spaces
3.3.1 Agora
Let us begin with a discussion of the ‘agora.’ We are concerned with the
agora—in our context—as a fluid, contingent, and localized accountability
space, founded on an unending cascade of social situations and the rela-
tionships that these situations inform. Following Norton (2014), we take
the situations and relationships that emerge within such spaces as our ‘pri-
mordial unit of analysis.’ The agora, that is, is the fundamental social
milieu from which reasons, purposes, and norms emerge, not because that
is the agora’s aim, but because, such a space is required if these things are
to emerge.
Taking ground level administrative work—as with any other collabora-
tive spheres—as fundamentally and inherently social, we see human social-
ity and, following Smith (2009 [1759]), reciprocal sympathy as the
foundation of practical reason. Such social spaces and their relationships,
that is to say, found our motives for action: they are inextricably linked to
the development of collaborative purposes. Motives for action are founded,
we argue, on the matrix of second-person standpoints within which we
live our lives (following Darwall, 2006). It is through these relationships
that people develop and contribute toward collaborative projects, under-
pinned by collectively derived norms that focus on the fairness of group
aims, and the internal fairness of the procedures that the group employs.17
Our model, following Tyler and Blader (2003, 116, for instance), is
that the general ‘toing-and-froing’ of people getting on (their ‘thick’ rela-
tions, so to speak), informs their standpoints toward relatively ‘thin’ orga-
17
On which, see Tom R. Tyler & Steven L. Blader 2000; Steven L Blader & Tom R Tyler
2003; also Tom R. Tyler 2010; Olkkonen & Lipponen 2006; Lind & Bos 2002; Tom
R. Tyler & Steven L. Blader 2000.
nizational procedures, managerial power, and the narratives of purpose

that are handed down through organizational structures. The metaphor of
the agora, as such, constitutes the crux of our distinctive perspective on
accountability because, rather than holding ground-level actors to be rela-
tively passive in the construction of reasons for action, or individual
motives, we hold these actors and their relationships as primary in the
construction of reasons for action.
To put this differently, our existence in these spaces help us “bridge the
gap” between “what can be immediately experienced about the other per-
son and that person’s psychological states” (Schilbach et al., 2013, p. 394).
These spaces, in bridging that gap, give us a place from whence we can
absorb the practices that help us get on. It is from there that common
purposes can emerge and develop in the context of people combining
their broader moral sentiments with the particular ethical requirements
and constraints they experience in their everyday lives.18 We see the devel-
opment of collective purpose, in other words, as being a function of more
fundamental sets of thick social interaction.
Stepping on from this, our idea of the ‘agora’ denotes the everyday,
ordinary, story of collective purpose emerging from people’s being
together. The special contribution of administrative, corporate, state, and
other organizational bodies is that they seek to exploit these social dynam-
ics in order to harness the productive energies that emerge from social
relations. Accountability, as we see it, describes the spaces produced
through these situations and relationships. This is significant, at the very
least, for more mechanistic accountability studies because such studies
tend to assume a collective purpose as given, as something that is available
to enforce (following Schillemans & Busuioc, 2014). ‘Unaccountable’
behavior and the like is, in such approaches, taken simply as a matter of
compliance.
18
This echoes Hegel’s conception of Sittlichkeit, described by Pinkard as ‘the system of
practices and institutions that surround the moral life.’ Sittlichkeit, in other words ‘furnishes
agents with a conception of what is good and best for them, and it trains them into a kind of
‘ethical virtuosity’ in discerning what is required for the type of person they are in the type
of situation in which they find themselves’ (Pinkard, 1999, pp. 226, 226). In some ways,
also, our outlook echoes that of Julia Annas’ discussion (2011, see also Rorty & Wong, 1993
and other essays in the same volume), from a virtue ethics perspective, of virtues as learned—
as skills—and as being in many ways subject to intelligent engagement (as opposed to being
simply handed down from authority).
Our argument is, first, that the kinds of hierarchical intent that under-
pin relationships within the Bovens model, and that are at the heart of
broader principal-agent mechanisms, is only one force being brought to
bear on collective purpose–and brought to bear very often with unfore-
seen consequences—and that the so-called ‘unaccountability’ is likely to
lie in the realm of the broader accountabilities we describe here rather
than in simply self-serving conduct or in shirking. Where accountability
studies places the forum at its core of a system through which hierarchical
will is disseminated and deviance is uncovered—a system of control in
other words—we see accountability as a far more pervasive matrix of
standpoints within which the individual negotiates their social existence,
the group develops purpose, and that purpose is normalized. This is not
simply a ‘black box’ that is irrelevant to accountability studies, and nor is
it a dynamic that accountability forums should aim to overcome.
Accountability in the broader sense, as the font of practical reason, both
limits or enables the forum’s reach, depending on the situation or on the
manner in which the forum’s power and message cohere with other pow-
ers and messages as people’s standpoints form and persist.
3.3.1.1 A Role for Moral Theory

Theories are not arguments, as David Schmidtz points out: they ‘are
maps.’ ‘Like maps,’ he writes ‘theories are not reality. They are at best
serviceable representations. They cannot be more than that (but they can
be less; some maps are useless)’ (Schmidtz, 2007, p. 433).19 Theories set
out to define a terrain—of justice, of ‘good work,’ or the like—and in the
case of moral theory are inextricably linked to everyday experience and the
hard questions we encounter every day.
In accountability’s case, such terrains have long been the subject of
moral philosophy.
We are particularly interested in the moral sociology of Adam Smith
(2009 [1759]; 1999 [1776]) and, as we mention on the pages above, in
the work of Stephen Darwall (2006, 2013).
19
Schmitz goes to say that no map represents the only reasonable way of seeing the terrain.
We would be astounded if two cartography students independently assigned to map the same
terrain came up with identical maps. It would not happen. Likewise, theorists working inde-
pendently inevitably construct different theories. The terrain underdetermines choices they
make about how to map it. Not noticing this, they infer from other theorists choosing dif-
ferently that one of them is mistaken and that differences must be resolved (Schmidtz 2007,
p. 433).
Smith’s contribution comes through his focus on sympathy and on the

social foundations of and the interaction between normativity, recogni-
tion, and esteem. Darwall, following from Smith, focuses on the ‘second-
personal’ character of norms and thus emphasizes their elementary,
emergent, and egalitarian bases.
So, while the metaphors scholars use as are useful in articulating and
illuminating complex concepts—in this instance the accountability’s rela-
tional character—we ought not to overlook their theoretical roots: that
through metaphor we are setting out a terrain through which moral the-
ory can be read into and applied to the ground-level experiences of
everyday work.
The Smithian perspective on practical reason, which acted as a precur-
sor to Kant’s more ‘internal’ perspective (see Fleischacker, 1991; Kant,
2005), focuses on the social considerations in the development of reasons
for action. Smith’s perspective is radically intersubjective. If we think
about it from the individual’s point of view, people develop reasons for
action, appropriate to the context they find themselves in, based on irre-
ducibly social considerations. They engage with questions of action in
terms that sit in the same conceptual arena as Smith’s ‘impartial specta-
tor’—that is, they consider their own position by developing a sense of
how they might appear to others. This is not a simple egoistical calcula-
tion, but a combination of contextualized norms, concern for their fellows
and concern for how their fellows see them.20 Such an endeavor would not
be possible, however, without the individual’s entry into society and with-
out the development and practice of everyday social relationships between
the individual and their peers. Moral self-examination is a skill and as such
it must be learned (see Annas, 2011, for similar points).
20
As Smith has it, when I endeavour to examine my own conduct, when I endeavour to
pass sentence upon it, either to approve or condemn it, it is evident that, in all such cases, I
divide myself, as it were into two persons; and that I, the examiner and judge, represent a
different character from that other I, the person whose conduct is examined into and judged
of. The first is the spectator, whose sentiments with regard to my own conduct I endeavour
to enter into, by placing myself in his situation, and by considering how it would appear to
me, when seen from that particular point of view. The second is the agent, the person who I
properly call myself, and of whose conduct, under the character of a spectator, I was endeav-
ouring to form some opinion’ (Smith, 2009 [1759], 135f).
See also Raphael 2007, esp ch. 5, for an account of how the idea of the impartial spectator
evolved across the various editions of Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments.
As Darwall (2006) has it, this ‘team-building’ skill is rooted in condi-

tions of mutual recognition between people as they regard each other in
various ways, as moral equals, as particular subjects of esteem, and as
authorities on particular modes of action. Note that, for Darwall’s devel-
opment of Smith, the authority of others is not initially a function of any
formal office they hold, but a recognition of them as moral equals acting
in a particular shared context, of which formal offices are one part. So, we
argue, as Sennett (2007) would have it, a formal office holder who was not
deemed deserving of their authority would have little capacity for influ-
encing social action.
The forum’s traction, as we see it, is filtered through such perspectives.
It is not separate from them. Its relational power comes not from its for-
mal processes but from a broader and partly emergent legitimation dynam-
ics that all social offices must both undertake and undergo (on legitimacy
and legitimation in political offices, see Barker, 2001). A relational ‘gram-
mar’ must emerge whereby the forum’s imperatives agree with broader
social expectations: otherwise, actors might well balk at the prospect of
obeying the forum’s demands. Any descriptor of action as ‘accountable’ or
‘unaccountable’ is in effect a call for particular ‘proper’ purposes over oth-
ers and is, we think, invariably taken as given within accountability studies.
In fact, as our perspective suggests, purposes emerge, evolve, and are
negotiated within social spaces at the ground level,21 in (invariably incom-
plete and contingent) answer to multiple, diverse, and often conflicting
social expectations (see Dubnick, 2014b, for a discussion) with externally
disseminated imperatives constituting but one force on people’s active
engagement with their conduct.
Of course, we do not discount the possibility of shirking or dishonesty
in administrative work. Nor do we dismiss the capacity of disciplinary
mechanisms for limiting opportunities for such conduct to take hold. Our
point is more that those mechanisms necessarily interact with people’s
more ‘primordial’ accountability spaces, often in unpredictable ways.
Consider, for instance, the problem of gaming in target systems, as
described by Hood (2006) and others (Bevan & Hood, 2006, for
instance), where attempts to deliver accountability with regard to perfor-
mance led instead to almost the opposite of what was intended.
From our perspective, the disruption is very often linked not only to
tension between hierarchical aims and ground-level dynamics but also to
See for instance Suchman and Edelman 1996, on such dynamics within law-making.
21
the effects that reinforced imperatives, ‘externally’ imposed (relative to

social dynamics), have on the internal politics of organizations.
Given this, for instance, we hold the forum’s effectiveness—the forum
as described by Bovens, etc.—to be in large part a function of the agora
rather than being an independent force in its own right. Both the forum’s
capacity to bring itself to bear on people’s conduct and its capacity to
comprehend the roots of ‘unaccountable’ conduct are rooted not so much
in hierarchical force and in the tools that the principal-agent model pro-
pose, but in the ground-level social dynamics that we describe above.
Whether these dynamics are described as ‘culture,’ or as ‘networks,’ or the
like, they come down to a relatively free-flowing, morally egalitarian set of
interactions, from which common purposes emerge.
The force that mechanisms bring to bear do not do so in a vacuum:
they do so in a context and the context determines the effect they will
have. Bovens notes that individual identities emerge ‘on the basis of exist-
ing ideas and in dialogue with others’ (Bovens, 1998, p. 99) but he is less
successful at extending this observation to the hierarchical power of the
forum itself. This matters because accountability (in its forum guise) tends
to regard itself both directly as monitor and indirectly as reason for action.
It constitutes the transparency that allows knowledge to be passed up the
hierarchy and as such is, post-factum, the vehicle for retribution and pre-
factum, the edifice that induces compliance (on pre- and post-factum, see
Dubnick & Frederickson, 2011). It is, in other words, necessarily hierar-
chical and coercive.
The forum is weak if there is no ground-level ‘fit.’ In practice, the
forum’s response to this weakness is invariably a reinforced turn toward its
principal-agent tools. When the principal-agent mechanism comes to the
fore, the focus turns to reinforced surveillance and scrutiny, reinforced
reward/penalty structures and reinforced narratives of admonition and
approbation. Again, however, the success or not of these tools depends on
the broader patterns of accountability that have emerged within
organizations.
3.3.2 Bazaar
Whereas the Bovens forum, as with all other accountability spaces, relies
upon the agora for its traction, other accountability spaces that pervade
public administration tend to be illegible to more formal or ritualized
spaces, or are treated with great hostility. We turn to the ‘bazaar’ here as
one such space. Bazaar describes the exchange element in the account-
ability space: the standpoints that emerge in situations where people
develop relationships—fleeting at times—rooted in their trading with oth-
ers in mutual pursuit of each other’s interests.
This section is crucial for us because it sets out an alternative and emer-
gent relational space, independent of—and illegible to—the forum,
through which both accountable relationships and seeming unaccount-
ability emerge. We suggest that the dynamics inherent in bazaar are funda-
mentally human, elemental, and inevitable (following Smith, 1999
[1776]) but also that they are fundamental to administrative work. That
the Bovens model cannot account for bazaar is striking, we think, because
it suggests the model’s narrow nature: it seeks accountability out in a space
largely defined by the principal-agent model but not by the social under-
pinnings upon which its relational precepts rely.
The section is broken down into two parts. First, we discuss what pre-
cisely we think is included in this kind of ‘thin/thick’ space. Second, we
discuss some characteristics of bazaar—its ubiquity and its contribution to
productivity and from there discuss the attitude of actually existing forums
toward the bazaar and what that tells us about the idea of accountability
itself. Our aim is as such twofold: to draw out the special characteristics of
this accountability space and to emphasize its centrality to actually existing
administration.
Note that we do not approach the forum as a moral problem primarily:
as we have it in the discussion below, exchange may well be used for good
reasons and bad. One can easily imagine the emergence of a kleptocratic
system as people trade on their insider power. What is hard to imagine,
though, is a social system where people do not trade on their positions to
some extent. It is not automatically the case that this must be deemed a
bad thing.
Our focus is on the emergent cascade of negotiations, exchanges, and
favors that come to the fore both in corporate and administrative environ-
ments. These sometimes fleeting instances of exchange, emerging within
the agora, assist people in developing reciprocal standpoints, committing
to arrangements and giving accounts of themselves to their peers. They
also help them to develop practical reasons and to act on the social foun-
dations that they (collaboratively) construct. Such arrangements are ‘thin’
in their fleeting nature, but ‘thick’ in the moments that they hold (drawing
on the thick-thin distinction that is brought to the fore in O’Kelly and

Dubnick, 2006).22
What we are interested in in this section, in other words, is the funda-
mental trait Smith outlines in The Wealth of Nations:
In civilized society [a person] stands at all times in need of the co-operation

and assistance of great multitudes, while his whole life is scarce sufficient to
gain the friendship of a few persons … But man has almost constant occa-
sion for the help of his brethren, and it is in vain for him to expect it from
their benevolence only. He will be more likely to prevail if he can interest
their self-love in his favor, and show them that it is for their own advantage
to do for him what he requires of them. Whoever offers to another a bargain
of any kind, proposes to do this. Give me that which I want and you shall
22
Let us begin by noting that we do not associate the core characteristics of the ‘bazaar’
accountability space with the dynamics that are associated with New Public Management
(NPM) and subsequent movements. New Public Management’s call to utilize the price
mechanism, market forces, and innovation to allow the state to steer public services rather
than provide them itself (Osborne & Gaebler, 1992). It is no coincidence that this major
driver in discussions of public administration has been positively correlated with the rise of
accountability as government’s core focus. NPM and its heirs are, after all, articulated pre-
cisely as being a solution to accountability failures in bureaucracy and as the route to weeding
out non-performance through accountability.
What does this form of accountability actually mean, however? Accountability here is a
form of exposure. NPM’s point, in a sense, was to create new, seemingly more constructive
problems and vulnerabilities for bureaucrats to focus on—competition, tendering, and the
like—in such a way that something called accountability would emerge (see for instance Beer,
Eisenstat, and Spector 1990 on ‘change management’ and the requirement to concoct new
pressures to force organizational reform).
This accountability would come either from the disciplinary effects of failure’s transpar-
ency, or from the more explicit standards set by ‘contractual’ governance. It relies, in short,
on the production of narrow principal-agent mechanisms. NPM aims to expose non-perfor-
mance and from there to develop metrics that will see performance improved (although the
link between this style of ‘accountability’ and administrative performance is tenuous at best,
on which see Dubnick, 2005). The actually existing switch to a more business-like public
administration, however, emerged not as marketized bureaucracy, but as a market for bureau-
cracies. The major thrust of the era has been the rise of ‘giant firms’ (as Colin Crouch, 2011,
has called them) that compete for relatively long-term contracts in the provision of public
services, be they in education, healthcare, administration of security or employment benefits,
and so on. As with the state, each of these firms is in many ways characterised by complex
lines of vertical and horizontal integration, and is subject to processes of a Weberian ‘milita-
rised’ discipline (Weber 1978, p. 1155) that seek to define and control the landscapes of
work.
have this which you want, is the meaning of every such offer; and it is in this
manner that we obtain from one another the far greater part of those good
offices which we stand in need of (Smith, 1999 [1776], pp. 118–119).23
The will to exchange ‘by treaty, by barter, and by purchase’ is a central

social trait, whatever the currency of exchange. Trade in reputation,
esteem, influence, access, gifts, or power is as compelling as more tradi-
tional commerce and it provides an important basis for cooperation in
organizational settings.
It is also worth pointing out, following Smith, that we do not necessar-
ily see this kind of trade, to put it somewhat pointedly, as the ‘feral’ pursuit
of some kind of solipsistic advantage. Exchange as Smith sees it can be
more related to prudence, a rational balancing of interests with the facts
and constraints of the exchange itself and a socializing influence on human
ambition (see Hirschman, 1997; also Macfie, 1967, esp ch. 4).
If this is the case, then exchange ought to be regarded as a far more
nuanced phenomenon than is generally the case. The relationships that
emerge in the ‘bazaar’ tend to be viewed as purely egoistical—borne
purely from unreasonable or non-reasoned self-interest. The perception of
informality around exchange, its association with individual gain, and the
whiff of corruption all lead exchanges invisibility in administrative ethics
literature except as a phenomenon that needs to be rooted out.
Contrary to this perspective, we look upon exchange as a crucial subject
of study in our field—for two reasons: its ubiquity and its underpinning of
organizational productivity. We discuss ubiquity and productivity briefly
below before moving on to discuss the relationships between accountabil-
ity within exchange and the accountability forum.
3.3.2.1 Ubiquity
In part, as Smith realized, exchange rooted in self-interest is a fundamen-
tal aspect of human society and requires a strong level of mutual respect
for each other’s dignity on the part of the persons involved (Darwall,
2013, p. 39). Although exchange does not rely on thick personal connec-
tions, people pursue their goals by shifting to the development of rela-
tively narrow connections, based on reciprocal commitments to pursue
23
This paragraph continues, famously, with Smith telling us that ‘It is not from the benev-
olence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their
regard to their own interest.’
agreed ends with their interlocutors, and on normative commitments, ‘for

example that the exchange is made by free mutual consent, that neither
will simply take what the other has and so on’ (Darwall, 2006, pp. 46–47).
Exchange, Darwall goes on to say,
… involves a reciprocal acknowledgement of norms that govern both parties

and presupposes that both parties are mutually accountable, having an equal
authority to complain, to resist coercion, and so on. (Darwall, 2006, p. 48)
This kind of exchange, in other words, is a necessary element in the

human condition and it is surely beyond the capacities of any organiza-
tional infrastructure to eradicate it. Where people work together toward
various ends, they will exchange favors, information, or esteem in pursuit
of those ends.
Exchange involves the development and maintenance of skills that
derive from familiarity with the rules and norms of a range of social prac-
tices (involving an (implicit) absorption both of ‘games’ and of ‘meta-
games,’ following Tanney, 2000). It is inherently social and, for those who
develop the skills, especially in ‘repeat games,’ where the same players
repeat their interactions numerous times, benefits follow.
3.3.2.2 Productivity
In fact, given that any work process must be necessary be incomplete, it
may well be that these kinds of relationship are necessary given the diffi-
culty both in fully anticipating the requirements of any task and in render-
ing work fully legible to managerial control. The travails of organizations
where employees ‘work to rule’ are proof of the reliance of organizations
on self-directed action by their workforce. While it is not the only aspect of
this, we place bazaar into this category—self-directed collaborative action
without which administrative organizations would simply not function.
In part, this is because the kinds of exchange we are interested in, often
as part of repeat games are crucial in the development (or not) of trust-
worthiness and in networks of trust. So, while bazaar in and of itself sits
between ‘thick’ and ‘thin’ in terms of social relationships (‘thick relations’
within ‘thin parameters’), repeated iterations of exchange may well lead to
some thickening of relationships as people establish their reliability and
bona fides and as more stable accountability spaces emerge.
Bureaucratic back-scratching. One instance of this was outlined by
Robert Goodin (1975) at level of bureaucratic agencies: ‘bureaucratic
back-scratching’ as he called it. Writing from a public choice perspective,

Goodin challenged the idea that bureaucratic interaction could be
explained simply in terms of clashing self-interest. ‘The traditional empha-
sis on conflict in the bureaucratic politics model is appropriate only in
certain circumstances,’ Goodin wrote. ‘Where high stakes are involved it
is likely to work well, but on the other side of some fuzzy threshold stakes
are low and rational bureaucrats would cooperate rather than fight’
(Goodin, 1975, p. 65).
For Goodin, the key dynamic in exchange of this type was toward coor-
dination and collaboration aimed at ensuring, not that all would compete,
but that all would get something that they wanted. It was inherently coop-
erative—a point that can be made in more general terms about markets
(Lindblom, 2002). And indeed, administrative systems can be highly effi-
cient in their development of dual trust-exchange dynamics between par-
ties (Williamson, 1975).
Tolkach. The Soviet system represents one—perhaps surprising—
administrative arena where exchange emerged in interesting ways. The
intensely top-down system through which the mid-twentieth Century
Soviet Union was organized relied upon Gosplan’s instructions and disci-
plinary capacities to drive production. The basic idea was that Gosplan
would concoct a matrix of inputs and outputs required to arrive at an
endpoint for production, that this would be disseminated to plants, distri-
bution points, and so forth, and that managers would implement the plan
in accordance with their instructions.
In fact, the system was sustained, to the degree that it was, through a
system of exchange that existed well below the official line of sight. This
system relied on ‘blat’—the exchange of favors, goods, and the like—and
especially on the tolkach (see Berliner, 1957).24
Present in most Soviet enterprises, a tolkach acted “as an expeditor,” as

Litwack puts it (for Berliner (1957, p. 209), a ‘pusher’ or ‘jostler’), whose
primary responsibility is to establish long-run personal relationships with
other organizations for the purpose of procuring needed supplies, particu-
larly in emergency circumstances. The presence of these informal relation-
ships is critical to the coordination mechanism of the economy itself”
(Litwack, 1991, p. 80).
24
See also Berliner 1952; Berliner 1957; Padgett and Powell 2012; Holden 2011;
Khestanov 2014.
The Soviet system, especially the vertical economic planning system

centered around Gosplan, the Soviet State’s economic planning commis-
sion, can be imagined as the ultimate realization of vertical integration, in
its case integration across the state as a whole. Importantly, though, it
could only have persisted as long as it did because of the informal institu-
tionalization of exchange at the ground level through the tolkach (on
Gosplan, etc., see Spufford, 2010; Shalizi, 2012).
Blat, of course, also extended into society as a whole. The delegitima-
tion of explicitly price-driven market institutions in Soviet economic life
simply served to displace exchange into informal—and invisible—arenas,
with exchange reconstituted as part of the broader workings of social life.
The truck and barter of everyday life, so to speak, serves to fill the vacu-
ums created within managerial orders. As the hero of Monika Maron’s
Flugasche, an East German novel of the 1980s, was chastised: ‘“You have
so many friends,” Aunt Ida always said, “and in spite of that everything in
your place always needs to be fixed”’ (Maron, 1986 [1981], p. 17). This
is where we find bazaar to be most interesting: it emerges as one part of a
broader social milieu: one set of expectations that sit in an unstable equi-
librium with other expectations in the accountability space. And it is inex-
tricably linked to the creation, management, and maintenance of
relationships between people.
So the lesson we can learn from the Soviet experience is this: no matter
how much exchange is discouraged, it can at best be displaced. It is not
only an essential part of human interaction but is, as Goodin points out,
irreducibly normative. It can of course be highly exploitative, where peo-
ple trade on their insider power—as gatekeepers, as service providers,
etc.—for their own benefit, but it is not necessarily so. It can equally
involve people trading on their insider power, with other insiders, in order
to get things done, to construct relationships of trust and to deepen pro-
ductive ties within or across organizations.
3.3.2.3 Hostility
The hostility with which bazaar is greeted in actually existing accountabil-
ity forums arises, we think, from two concerns. First and foremost, is the
concern about ‘trade as kleptocracy’: that is, that people might trade their
insider power in exchange for favors, goods, money, and the like. This is,
in other words, a concern about corruption, as commonly defined. The
second concern is a broader concern for the ‘illegibility’ of the kinds of
exchange we discuss above: that such exchange is not open to description,
or formal scrutiny or the like. That makes it seem either trivial—because it

is simply part of a ‘black box’ of everyday work—or sinister—because it
cannot be brought within the remit of the hierarchies that the forum seeks
to enforce.
The problem of corruption is of course undeniable, but we see it very
often as a distraction.
Our point is that an understanding of accountability must entail an
understanding of the ground-level environment through which people
construct their fields of action. Those environments involve the construc-
tion, management and maintenance of both thick and thin relationships
between people and most importantly they are the substrate through
which the productive character of work emerges. Accountability, under-
stood as a forum, is rightly concerned with corruption, but the study of
accountability must also be a study of performance, regarding which the
forum is simply not the only place to look.
For the same reason, the suggestion of triviality—that bazaar is not a
relevant subject for accountability studies—is misplaced. In constructing
the accountability space, that is, in developing a practical reason in the face
of multiple, diverse, and often conflicting expectations, the forum is but
one motivating factor among many. That is because people function in a
network of expectations and pressures to act and seek to form a path
through their working day in accordance with the imperatives the derive
from that network (including through broader concerns about purpose as
derived through the ‘agora’). ‘Third-personal’ hierarchies and their forums
are certainly important, but they are only one element in the pattern of
expectations. And apparently ‘unaccountable’ conduct from one—say
third-personal—perspective might well be accountable conduct from, say
a second-personal perspective. What’s more, what we privilege in the
third-personal perspective might well function best as a series of second-
personal perspectives as managerial force is translated into persuasion, col-
laboration and, as we see below, the collaborative development of the
corporate purpose.
3.4 Concluding Remarks

Drawing on Dubnick’s Situating Accountability (2007), Bovens discusses
the phenomenon of “political officials and public organizations sometimes
[free-riding] on [the] evocative powers of accountability” (2010, p. 949).
His point is that political actors recruit the term ‘as a rhetorical tool to
convey an image of good governance and to rally supporters’ (Bovens

2010, p. 950). We too find this to be striking and important, although we
suggest that the line from this view of accountability as ‘desirable’ to the
idea of it as ‘normative’ is complicated by the problems of power, ‘subser-
vience,’ and discretion that Bovens goes on to discuss.
It is important to emphasize the political content of public institutions
when we discuss the idea of governmental questions as being normative.
The ‘normative,’ in such environments, cannot simply be regarded either
as exogenous to the institutions, or as separated from the kinds of political
struggle that we associate with the political realm. The normative, in other
words, cannot simply be taken as given, introduced from outside our
sphere of interest. It is, rather, a territorial claim, designating the speaker,
or their favorites, as authorities who possess the right to define and enforce
specific organizational purposes.
In this context, the virtue statements contained in many accountability
discourses are better described as polemical rather than solely as norma-
tive. This means that we ought to push one step beyond the ‘ought state-
ments’ that make up much accountability talk and take note of
accountability’s utility in attempts to solidify and fix organizational pur-
poses toward specific ends. Official accountability discourses—the account-
ability forum, in other words—are at base rooted in questions of power
(on which, see O’Kelly & Dubnick, 2013).
Our core point is this: assertions about ‘unaccountability’ very often
reflect a failure to appreciate the fundamentally relational nature of
accountability. Those who use such assertions as bases for action aimed at
making situations, processes, or people ‘more accountable’ in fact seek to
assert or impose a certain form of relationship—one that is hierarchical
and monopolistic—and reflect therefore a drive to power and domination.
That this is rationalized as the quest to improve performance, democ-
racy, ethics ought not obscure its basic intent. The accountability forum,
driven by polemical claims, seeks to impose order and authority on the
social milieu within public organizations (and elsewhere) but it constitutes
only one form of accountability. It constitutes only one cascade of expec-
tations amongst an often conflicting and diverse multiplicity.
The Bovens model, with its emphasis on process, seems to regard it as
describing and enforcing a preeminent expectation that ought to override
the others, which is a way of saying that they tend to either assume (or
accept) the legitimacy of the forum’s claims. This is unfortunate because
it allows the forum to tack toward an emphasis on its principal/agent
components. A greater emphasis on the relational would take the forum’s

claims and authority as negotiated and as a contingent by-product of many
other commitments that people have made and (emergent) expectations
under which they work.
It is insufficient for any study of accountability, however, to simply
describe unaccountability as an absence of accountability and leave it at
that. Such an apparent absence, from the forum’s point of view, most
often describes a situation shaped by two factors, whether for good or ill:
1. The forum’s making a claim that runs, on balance, against the other
expectations through which people have shaped their working lives.
and thus
2. The forum’s disciplinary mechanisms either failing to overwhelm those
expectations or reconfiguring the paths people negotiate through their
expectations in unintended ways.25
So unaccountability is not a failure of people to ‘be accountable,’ or at

least that is not a useful description of their conduct. Unaccountability is,
rather a failure of power, and often a failure of force.
We say this without committing ourselves to the rightness or otherwise
of any path of conduct within organizations, although we are disposed to
approaching accountability failures sympathetically in the first instance.
Rather than assuming the decision-making autonomy of a homo eco-
nomicus, we treat people as irreducibly social in their motivations and in
their developing reasons for action. They are active agents in the construc-
tion of integrity, transparency, and the like. Organizational ends are in fact
negotiated at the ground-level and are not simply ’received.’ Those who
hold the formal power to shape ends, their purported agents and myriad
gatekeepers and middlemen all negotiate collection action on endless
bases having ‘come together as a [in this case relatively local] public’
(Habermas, 1989, p. 27) in—as we call it—an ‘agora.’ They do not do this
as a matter of policy or by organizational imperative. They do this because
the agora is a fundamental aspect of both governance and the human con-
dition. Administration, from this perspective, is just that: human before
anything else.
25
It is also possible that some apparent accountability failures might best be explained as a
forum style mechanism (the bonus system in large financial institutions perhaps) creating,
reinforcing, and even intensifying a social milieu that runs against outsiders’ interests.
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CHAPTER 4
Transparency Assessment in National Systems
Sabina Schnell
4.1 A Deeper Understanding of Transparency

From the exponential spread of Freedom of Information Acts (FOIAs)
since the 1990s to recent initiatives such as the Open Government
Partnership, efforts to increase government transparency have proliferated
over the last two decades. The popularity of ‘transparency’ is due, in part,
to its multifaceted nature, and to its framing as both an intrinsic demo-
cratic value (Birkinshaw, 2006) and an instrumental value (Heald, 2006).
While this multifaceted nature increases the popularity of transparency, it
also makes it difficult to assess actual government transparency and to
identify salient areas for reform.
To help address these challenges and deepen our understanding of
transparency as a democratic value, this chapter proposes a conceptual
framework that combines three related yet distinct perspectives on trans-
Originally published as: Schnell, S. From information to predictability:

transparency on the path to democratic governance. The case of Romania.
International Review of Administrative Sciences 84(4), pp. 692–710. Copyright
© 2016 by the Author. Reprinted by permission of SAGE Publications, Ltd.
S. Schnell (*)
The Maxwell School, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, USA
e-mail: dsschnel@syr.edu
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21522-4_4
82 S. SCHNELL
parency: (1) access to information (e.g. Meijer, 2013); (2) two-way

communication (e.g. Coglianese, 2009); and (3) predictability in deci-
sion-making (e.g. Hood, 2006). Each perspective represents an increas-
ingly complex interpretation, and each places increasingly strong demands
on governments, citizens, and civil society organizations (CSOs).
Moreover, although each perspective is discussed in the transparency lit-
erature, they are rarely, if ever, discussed in tandem.
By bringing these perspectives together in a conceptual framework, this
chapter provides an approach for assessing the democratic value of trans-
parency at the macro-systemic, governmental level. To illustrate the value
of this approach, the chapter uses the framework to inform a case study of
Romania, a relatively young democracy with a growing focus on transpar-
ency efforts. The findings suggest that a narrow focus on access to infor-
mation can obscure the broader democratic potential of transparency. If
this potential is to be realized, transparency researchers and activists should
consider how the principle of transparency is reflected in mechanisms for
citizen consultation, as well as in the broader system of rules and proce-
dures for public decision-making.
To this end, this chapter first details the conceptual framework by
exploring the three interpretations of transparency. It then uses the frame-
work to investigate the evolution of transparency in Romania over the last
decades. It concludes with recommendations for researchers and practitio-
ners who want to strengthen the nexus between transparency and
democracy.
4.2 Transparency in Government

Transparency, like other governance-related concepts, has a variety of
meanings that are often used inconsistently. Perhaps, the most concise
definition is ‘the ability to find out what is going on inside government’
(Piotrowski & Van Ryzin, 2007, p. 306).
Considerable research has focused on the micro-level of transparency
(i.e. how it is enacted in day-to-day administrative decision-making), but
less research has examined the macro-level of transparency (i.e. how it is
codified in laws and policies, and reflected in government behavior at a sys-
temic level), where the concept has the most power as a democratic value.
This macro-level is particularly relevant for ‘newer’ democracies, where the
idea of transparency as a public value and the legal and institutional infra-
structure supporting it are more recent than in established democracies.
4 TRANSPARENCY ASSESSMENT IN NATIONAL SYSTEMS 83
Transparency legislation is particularly important because it enshrines

transparency-related rights and obligations into law at the systemic level.
Such legislation includes, for example: FOIAs; asset, income, and conflict
of interest disclosures for high-level officials; Administrative Procedure
Acts (APAs) requiring public consultation in decision-making; Open
Meetings Laws (OMLs) or sunshine laws; and whistle-blowing protection
laws. Other transparency-related policies, regulations, and practices
include the general publication of government statistics (Islam, 2006),
elements of e-government (Wong & Welch, 2004), efforts to improve
budget and fiscal transparency (De Renzio & Masud, 2011), open data
initiatives (Huijboom & Van den Broek, 2011), and various mechanisms
for increasing transparency and accountability in service delivery (Kosack
& Fung, 2014).
However, actual transparency is difficult to achieve through legislation
alone. The adoption of legislation can be purely symbolic, resulting in a
‘transparency illusion,’ or only in ‘nominal’—as opposed to ‘effective’—
transparency (Heald, 2006, 2012). Many transparency laws get ‘lost in
implementation’ due to a lack of compliance from public agencies (Darch
& Underwood, 2009; OSJI, 2006). Even pro forma compliance can be
ineffective if agencies use tactics that undermine transparency while remain-
ing within the confines of the law (Heald, 2012; Pasquier & Villeneuve,
2007). Effective transparency requires active demand from the public to
‘find out what is going on inside government,’ and the capacity and willing-
ness of public agencies to comply not only with the letter, but also with the
spirit, of the laws (Darch & Underwood, 2009; Pasquier & Villeneuve, 2007).
Therefore, before effective implementation can take place, agencies,
public officials, CSOs, and citizens have to understand the meaning and
purposes of transparency, and its democratic potential. As noted earlier, this
can be difficult given the multifaceted nature of the concept. To address
this challenge and to help scholars and practitioners better assess the demo-
cratic value of transparency, the next sections present a conceptual frame-
work that unpacks three different, but related, perspectives on transparency:
access to information; two-way communication; and predictability.
4.2.1 Transparency as Access to Information

The most basic understanding of transparency is ‘not hiding’ information,
or, in a more ambitious formulation, ‘lifting the veil of secrecy’ (Roberts,
2006). Coglianese (2009) calls this ‘fishbowl transparency’ to highlight its
84 S. SCHNELL
passive dimension and its focus on already-existing information. A more

active interpretation calls for measures that improve access to information,
whether through legal provisions like the ‘obligation to publish’ in FOIAs
or notice obligations in APAs, or through other forms of proactive disclo-
sure, such as open data, information portals, and communication officers.
Measures that ‘force’ the release of information, such as ‘leaking’ or whistle-
blower protection, also increase access to information (Meijer, 2014).
This interpretation of transparency can be a powerful democratizing
element if based on the idea that ordinary citizens have the right to access
government information (Ackerman & Sandoval-Ballesteros, 2006). Yet,
if the result is only access to ‘raw’ government information, its democra-
tizing potential is limited. Large amounts of decontextualized information
are difficult to interpret and require high processing and interpretation
capacity from specialized intermediaries, such as the press, CSOs, or spe-
cialized institutions (Heald, 2012; Roberts, 2012). Moreover, various
actors may use the information selectively to pursue their goals and even
conceal important facts or intentions (Heald, 2012; O’Neill, 2006). If this
is the case, simply granting access to information does not improve trans-
parency, as citizens cannot really ‘find out what is going on inside govern-
ment’ (Piotrowski & Van Ryzin, 2007, p. 306).
In addition to the availability and accessibility of information, more
complex definitions also emphasize its comprehensibility, completeness,
and accuracy (Heald, 2012). The demand is not just for more informa-
tion, but for better information (e.g. IMF, 1999, 2007). However, even
these more demanding interpretations of transparency require only one-
way action, from the government to the public, treating ‘information as
detachable from communication’ (O’Neill, 2006, p. 81). This limits the
potential for effective transparency if ‘huge quantities of information are…
made public in order to meet transparency requirements, but a great deal
of it is not actually communicated to anyone’ (O’Neill, 2006, p. 81).
4.2.2 Transparency as Two-Way Communication

A second perspective on transparency focuses on two-way communica-
tion. For example, Coglianese (2009, p.537) advocates for ‘reasoned’
transparency, where the government goes beyond disclosing information
to explaining the reasoning behind its decisions and actions. Such explana-
tions require more than just ‘lifting the veil of secrecy’; they require sub-
stantive argumentation based on normative principles and empirical
evidence (Coglianese, 2009). Moreover, this substantive argumentation

cannot simply be top-down, there must be an exchange of arguments to
achieve a common understanding (Mercier & Landemore, 2012).
Thus, ‘reasoned transparency’ requires two-way communication, and is
reflected in the broader concept of open government, whose varying
interpretations couple access to information with participation, collabora-
tion, responsiveness, and similar values (e.g. McDermott, 2010; Meijer,
Curtin, & Hillebrandt, 2012). All these imply some ‘give and take’ or
exchange of arguments between governments and citizens. Examples of
this perspective on transparency include notice-and-consultation require-
ments in OMLs and APAs (Piotrowski & Borry, 2010), alongside a variety
of other so-called ‘transparency and accountability initiatives’ (Kosack &
Fung, 2014).
Transparency as two-way communication is more complex and demand-
ing than ‘just’ increasing access to information. In addition to informing
citizens about, and providing substantive explanations for, already-made
decisions (ex post output transparency in Heald’s (2006) terms), it also
requires informing them about ongoing decisions (real-time event trans-
parency) and providing space for dialogue with the government. Two-way
communication also has more potential for democratic development. It
not only increases the ability of citizens to find out what is going on inside
government; it also facilitates a better understanding of what is going on
and why, and empowers citizens to use this understanding to shape gov-
ernment decisions more directly.
However, limiting our understanding of transparency to this perspec-
tive also has its shortcomings. A more ambitious interpretation of trans-
parency considers not only the opportunity for citizens to know why
certain decisions are made, but also the ability to understand how decisions
are made—both retrospectively and prospectively. The idea of transpar-
ency as predictability reflects such a view.
4.2.3 Transparency as Predictability
By demanding clear reasoning behind public decisions, transparency as
communication puts the emphasis on their substantive legitimization.
Laws and regulations provide an alternative, procedural, basis for the legit-
imization of public decisions (Prechal & De Leeuw, 2007). These proce-
dures limit the scope for arbitrary—hence non-transparent—state actions
and decisions, thus increasing the predictability of administrative behavior.
86 S. SCHNELL
The perspective of transparency as predictability reflects this logic, empha-

sizing decision-making according to clear and publicly known or know-
able rules. This interpretation is the most complex and demanding, and
also the least well researched. This is, in part, because predictability is the
result not of ‘specialized’ transparency legislation, but rather of the overall
body of laws that regulate decision-making and implementation, as well as
of compliance with these by public authorities.
Transparency as predictability goes beyond access to information and
two-way communication to focus on the nature of the system of gover-
nance itself. For example, Hood (2006, p. 5, emphasis added) states that
‘transparency denotes government according to fixed and published rules,
on the basis of information and procedures that are accessible to the public,
and (in some usages) within clearly demarcated fields of activity.’
Transparency as predictability is linked to legal or procedural definitions of
accountability, that is, public officials acting in accordance with given
rules. Transparent administrations are those that behave in accordance
with formal—and thus publicly known—rules, as opposed to informal—
and thus ‘non-transparent’—practices.
Even more importantly, this perspective has important implications for
democratization because it embraces a substantively different view of fair-
ness. In the access to information and two-way communication perspec-
tives, transparency is a prerequisite for judging fairness—lack of transparency
creates the suspicion of wrongdoing. However, in the predictability per-
spective, transparency becomes an element of fairness. It highlights the
importance of equality (i.e. treating like cases alike) and impartiality (i.e.
objective decision-making) as fundamental principles of procedural justice
and rational-legal governance, which are, in turn, key foundations for
functioning democracies (Prechal & De Leeuw, 2007; Rothstein &
Teorell, 2008).
In sum, the framework outlined here suggests three main interpreta-
tions of transparency: access to information; two-way communication; and
predictability. Each of these is increasingly complex in terms of the demo-
cratic values they represent, and increasingly demanding in terms of the
capacity required to translate them into practice. Guidelines on ‘good
practices of transparency’ in different policy and administration areas
implicitly include all these perspectives—in terms of the information that
has to be made available (access to information), explanations that have to
be given (communication), and the clarity and publicity of rules and regu-
lations (predictability) (e.g. IMF, 2007; OMB, 2009).
Table 4.1 Perspectives of transparency
Perspective of Access to information Two-way communication Predictability

transparency
Content of State actions and Reasons for official Procedures for making
Transparency decisions are clear: decisions are clear: decisions are clear
citizens are informed public officials explain (transparent)
about what public decisions and engage in
institutions are doing dialogue with citizens
Related Ex post event Real-time process Process transparency
concepts transparency (Heald, transparency (Heald, (Heald, 2006, 2012)
2006, 2012); fishbowl 2006, 2012); reasoned can be seen as systemic
transparency transparency transparency (good
(Coglianese, 2009) (Coglianese, 2009) governance / rule of law)
Legislative FOIAs, open data OMLs, notice, and Body of laws regulating
tools, policies provisions, the consultation provisions decision-making and
publication of official in APAs, public implementation—
statistics, etc. participation, and social clarity of de jure system
accountability initiatives of governance
Transparency Official responses to Actual public Compliance with the
in practice information requests; consultation and body of laws regulating
the quality, participation in decision-making and
comprehensiveness, decision-making implementation; clarity
comprehensibility, and of de facto system of
accessibility of official governance and
data and information resulting predictability
of decision-making
Table 4.1 summarizes: the three interpretations of transparency and

related concepts from the literature; the typical policies and legislative acts
through which they are codified; and their reflection in broader patterns of
political and administrative behavior. Together, the three perspectives pro-
vide a useful framework for exploring government-wide transparency. To
illustrate this, the next sections apply the framework to the case of Romania.
4.3 Case Study: Government Transparency

in Romania
Romania, a relatively young democracy, is a particularly relevant case for

showcasing how the framework can be used. The former regime was
among the most repressive ones in the former communist bloc. When
democratization began in 1990, Romania had weak democratic institu-
tions and values, including an entrenched tradition of secrecy, and a weak
88 S. SCHNELL
understanding of the role of transparency as a public value. While chal-

lenges remain, Romania has achieved significant progress in democratiza-
tion over the last 25 years. Thus, it is particularly suitable for applying the
conceptual framework to investigate the evolution of transparency as a
democratic value.
The case-study research question is thus: How have the three perspec-
tives on transparency evolved in law and in practice as democracy deep-
ened in Romania? The focus is on cross-cutting transparency-related
legislation that affects both the central (executive) and local governments.
Data were collected in the autumn of 2011 and spring of 2012 from two
sources: public documents on transparency in Romania; and key infor-
mant interviews. The document review included: (1) legislation and offi-
cial government strategies, reports, and statements; (2) statements and
reports from CSOs and think tanks engaged in transparency policy in
Romania; (3) reports from international governmental and non-
governmental organizations; and (4) media reports and news articles on
transparency from leading Romanian national newspapers.
The document analysis was complemented with semi-structured inter-
views, carried out between November 2011 and February 2012. Using a
snowball sampling technique, interviewees were selected from among cur-
rent or former government officials (six interviews, coded G1 through
G6) and civil society actors (12 interviews, coded C1 through C12)
involved in the development and implementation of transparency legisla-
tion. Three main interview questions informed the study: (1) ‘What are
the main laws and policies for advancing government transparency?’; (2)
‘What is the current status of their implementation?’; and (3) ‘What are
the major challenges that these policies face?’ Based on these sources, the
case study first explains the general framework for the evolution of trans-
parency in Romania, and then investigates how the three perspectives are
reflected in Romanian law and practice.
4.3.1 General Framework and Evolution of Transparency

in Romania
Article 31 of the 1991 Romanian Constitution enshrines the right to
information as a fundamental citizenship right, but a law operationalizing
this right was not adopted until 2001. This indicates that while acknowl-
edged as a democratic value in theory, transparency was not a key concern
of the first post-communist governments in Romania. Instead, transpar-
ency rose up the political agenda as part of the anti-corruption drive in the
late 1990s and early 2000s.
In Romania, as in most countries, there is no ‘transparency policy’ per
se, in the sense of a deliberate government strategy or set of related actions
and goals (C1, C2, C4, C6, C7, C8, C9, G4, G5). Rather, there are a few
key transparency laws. The most important ones are the 2001 ‘Law on
Free Access to Public Interest Information’ (FOIA) and the 2003 ‘Law on
Decisional Transparency’ (OML). These laws clearly reflect the first two
interpretations of transparency: access to information and two-way
communication.
Moreover, these two laws introduce an element of transparency as pre-
dictability in how government agencies interact with citizens by specifying
the rules, procedures, and boundaries of transparency. As one interviewee
put it, ‘both laws were a reaction to civil society pressure against chaotic
decision-making by government, Parliament, the political class, and the
public administration’ (C6). For example, civil society activists who pushed
for a FOIA critiqued not the absence of public information, but the fact
that access to it was erratic and determined by ‘connections,’ bribery, and
leakage of information to discredit opponents (cf. Mungiu-Pippidi, 2001).
While well-connected parts of the media were able to obtain ‘scandalous’
information, routine government information useful for citizens, such as
parliamentary votes, budget data, property records, statistics, and so on,
was missing or hard to obtain (Mungiu-Pippidi, 2001).
In addition to the two core transparency laws, other government strate-
gies also include measures that reflect the three perspectives of transparency.
Romania’s anti-corruption strategies (GoR, 2001, 2005, 2008, 2012)
emphasize the need to increase access to information, strengthen consulta-
tion requirements in regulatory processes, and provide clear, streamlined,
and predictable regulations and administrative procedures. Likewise, the
2008 ‘Strategy for Better Regulation’ includes measures to increase consulta-
tion (and thus transparency) in decision-making (G4), and Romania’s Open
Government Partnership (OGP) Action Plans focus heavily on improving
access to information via strengthening open data systems (GoR, 2011, 2014).
As noted earlier, however, legislation is necessary but insufficient for
achieving effective transparency. To realize their democratic potential, trans-
parency laws and provisions need to be consistently implemented, and the
principles they embody need to be followed in practice. The next sections
investigate whether this is the case—both in terms of compliance with FOIA
and OML, and in terms of broader patterns of access to information, consul-
tation, and predictability in decision-making.
90 S. SCHNELL
4.3.2 Transparency as Access to Information

The adoption of an FOIA, following an intense campaign by CSOs, was
considered a breakthrough for democratic values in Romania (Mungiu-
Pippidi, 2001). After the government adopted the implementation norms
in 2002, FOIA compliance rates and response times improved markedly,
especially between 2002/2003 and 2006/2007 (APD and TI Romania,
2007a; also C1). Romania’s FOIA also performed well in international
comparison. In 2006, it had among the highest compliance rates and con-
sistency of answers out of 14 countries studied (OSJI, 2006). The use of
the FOIA is also substantial. In 2008, Romania ranked sixth internation-
ally for annual FOIA requests per 100,000 inhabitants (Vleugels, 2009).
While some observers report a decline in FOIA use and compliance after
2008 (GIR, 2008, 2010; also C1 C8), the FOIA seems to have been insti-
tutionalized and routinized to a significant degree (World Bank, 2012;
also C10, G2).
This is not to say that the FOIA functions seamlessly. However, lack of
uniform compliance across public institutions and types of requests (CJI
& IPP, 2009; also C12) is not unique to Romania (OSJI, 2006). Even in
established democracies with longer FOIA histories, public agencies have
many strategies at their disposal to avoid compliance (Pasquier &
Villeneuve, 2007). Furthermore, in a context of low administrative capac-
ity, problems such as lack of training, lack of financial and human resources,
and weaknesses in internal communication and information management
systems create additional hurdles for implementation and compliance—
especially at the local level and in rural areas (Dragoş, Neamţu, &
Cobârzan, 2012).
Beyond compliance, the more profound question is whether the FOIA
has generated a shift in how public administrators relate to citizens. This is
difficult to ascertain due to a lack of data on the democratic values of pub-
lic servants. Inconsistency in FOIA implementation has often been attrib-
uted to a ‘culture of opacity’ (C2, G1, G3, G4) and a tendency toward
secrecy and reliance on informal, personalized communication (CJI &
IPP, 2009). Anecdotal evidence also suggests that paternalist, top-down
attitudes persist among some public officials, who see citizens as ‘subjects’
rather than ‘owners’ of government information. For example, in 2004,
public institutions asked for a justification for 70% of the FOIA requests
placed by CSOs, even though such justification was not required by law
(APD & IRIS, 2004).
Yet, there are signs of improvement. In a 2007 follow-up survey,

requests for justification were no longer a problem (APD & TI Romania,
2007a), and, as noted, routine FOIA compliance functions relatively well.
Perhaps the most illustrative story comes from a local civil society activist
(C10). As he explained, the initial public reaction of local authorities to a
FOIA request was confusion, fear, and resistance: he had to wait outside
the building while the local official, who doubted such a law existed,
looked it up and got approval from his supervisor to communicate the
information. Yet, by 2011, local authorities ‘had gotten used to it,’ and
answering simple and non-sensitive FOIA requests had become a rou-
tine activity.
While FOIA led to an improvement in access to ‘raw’ government infor-
mation, there seems to be less progress in proactively publishing relevant,
comprehensive, and clear information in a number of policy areas (G2).
Budget transparency exists in theory, but the information released is difficult
for citizens to use (GIR, 2008). Despite the obligation to publish all regula-
tion in the Official Gazette, only 52% of legal acts were published in 2007
(APADOR-CH & SAR, 2008). Even the OGP action plan shows significant
weaknesses: only five out of 15 commitments of the first action plan were
specific, relevant, transformative, and completed on schedule (Open
Government Partnership—Independent Reporting Mechanism, no date).
4.3.3
Transparency as Two-Way Communication
The ‘twin’ transparency law to FOIA is the OML, which requires public
institutions to: (1) publish information on legal acts under development;
(2) allow interested parties and citizens to formulate comments and pro-
posals; (3) organize public hearings; and (4), since 2010, offer reasons for
rejecting proposals made during the consultation process. At the time of
its adoption, the OML represented a significant step forward from previ-
ous legislation, which forbade public employees from disclosing any infor-
mation during the drafting process (Ristei, 2010).
Surveys of OML implementation show low compliance over time, both
from central and local-level authorities (APADOR-CH, 2007; APD & TI
Romania, 2007b; Dragoş et al., 2012). In some cases, the quality of the
local-level reports of OML compliance was so low that CSOs described it
as showing ‘outright contempt for the law and the citizens’ (APADOR-CH,
2007, p. 40). CSO activists were sometimes denied access to meetings
that were supposed to be public (APADOR-CH, 2007). Citizens rarely
92 S. SCHNELL
made comments and suggestions on proposed local laws or decisions, and

even when they did, local authorities rarely took these into account
(APADOR-CH, 2007; Dragoş et al., 2012).
Interviews with CSO and government representatives confirmed that
the OML is only weakly used in practice, not just because of resistance
from public agencies, but also because the demand side is weak (C2, C9,
G5). At the local level, especially outside of the capital city and a few other
urban centers, few CSOs are capable of representing citizens and engaging
in public decision-making processes (C1, C2). Even where such organiza-
tions exist, they have difficulties mobilizing the public to participate
(C2, C10).
Even at the central level, one of the most enduring criticisms of the
Romanian government is that it acts in haste and does not allow enough
public consultation and debate on important legislative measures
(APADOR-CH, 2012; ARC, 2012; also C2, C6, C11). The lack of con-
sultations has been criticized not only by CSOs, but also by ‘technocrats’
concerned with the quality of decision-making (G4, G5). While govern-
ment agencies comply relatively well with formal requirements for pub-
lishing draft legislation on their websites (G5), they rarely engage in
consultations in earlier stages of policy development, such as problem for-
mulation or assessment of policy options (G4, G5). The top-down
decision-making style is aggravated by a lack of policy analysis and impact
assessment, which further limits the potential for substantive debates
about policy proposals (Mungiu-Pippidi, 2010; also G4).
In sum, while the intent behind the Romanian OML was to promote
transparency as two-way communication, its democratic potential has not
been fully realized. Not only is the implementation of the OML weaker
than that of the FOIA, but neither public authorities nor citizens seem to
be strongly invested in putting the principle of transparency as communi-
cation into practice. The result is a lack of communication in the develop-
ment of legislation (C6, G4, G5). As argued in the next section, this also
reduces the predictability of decision-making.
4.3.4 Transparency as Predictability
As noted earlier, both the FOIA and OML lay out procedural require-
ments, and thus introduce the concept of transparency as predictability.
Indeed, increasing predictability in decision-making was also among the
central reasons for the adoption of the OML (C6, C11). As one inter-
viewee pointed out, if more consultation were carried out during the
development of legislation, there would be less need for frequent revisions
of legislation after adoption (G5). A comment from a Romanian business-
man sums up this challenge well: ‘The problem is not just that the laws
change…. It is that the government never explains itself. If you want peo-
ple to endure hardship, you have to involve them in the decision making
process.’ (Dietrich, 2000, p. 20).
Frequent, unexplained changes in laws—and thus lack of transparency
as predictability—have been highlighted as a key overall problem of public
decision-making in Romania (Mungiu-Pippidi, 2010). However, even in
areas where laws are relatively stable and clear, administrative behavior is
marked by unpredictability. For example, as noted, even compliance with
the two main transparency laws themselves—the FOIA and OML—is
inconsistent and dependent on both the particular public agency and spe-
cific individuals involved.
Beyond specific legislation, the high level of corruption in Romania is
itself an expression of inconsistent compliance with the overall legislative
framework regulating administrative behavior. As Mungiu-Pippidi (2003,
83, emphasis added) argues,
Abusive treatment by the various state administrations is not universal. It is

simply arbitrary and unpredictable, as summed up by the answer to the
question ‘How often do you have to bribe?’ To this, 53 per cent of
Romanians … answered: ‘Depends on the civil servant you encounter.’
Thus, corruption itself is an expression of unpredictability in the behav-

ior of public officials, and a form of ‘non-transparency.’
The arbitrary and non-transparent nature of decision-making is also
visible in the often-criticized politicization of personnel policies, especially
for top- and middle-level management (Ioniţa & Freyberg-Inan, 2008;
Mungiu-Pippidi, 2010). Some reform proposals emphasize the need not
only to limit political appointments in the public sector, but to do so in
consultation with political parties so that this is ‘supported by everyone
openly and transparently, and regulated accordingly’ (Tudorache in Pantazi
2016, emphases added). The goal is to ensure compliance with regula-
tions in order to achieve ‘a level of predictability that allows the adminis-
tration to function well’ (Tudorache in Pantazi 2016, emphasis added).
Another area that illustrates well both the progress achieved on trans-
parency as predictability, and the challenges that still exist from this per-
94 S. SCHNELL
spective, is the relationship between local and central government. As part

of the transition process to democracy, the roles, responsibilities, and allo-
cation of funds between central and local government have been progres-
sively clarified through a series of laws and administrative acts. Ioniţă
(2004, p. 25, emphasis added) argues that in 1998/1999, ‘new legislation
dealing with local finance instituted for the first time in Romania the sys-
tem of resource sharing based on automatic formulas, thus making the
local budgetary process more autonomous, transparent and predictable.’
Nevertheless, discretionary behavior is still widespread. Key decisions
about the allocation of equalization transfers between counties and local
councils are often made in a non-transparent manner, and the impact of
clientelism and patronage is still high (Ioniţă, 2005). Even the term ‘local
barons’ (local political and economic power-holders), with its semantic
reminiscence of feudalism, highlights that the predictability embodied in
rational-legal governance is still weak in Romania.
In sum, while there have been improvements over the last decades,
transparency as predictability seems to be the least understood and least
practiced among public officials. This is not particularly surprising given
that this perspective is the most complex and challenging to implement.
Thus, despite the fact that various laws and regulations have been
established to guide decision-making, decision-making practices often

remain arbitrary and unpredictable.
In conclusion, Romania has seen some significant progress on transpar-
ency over the last decades. Transparency—in its three interpretations—has
gained a more prominent place in public discourse, and is being prescribed
through an increasing number of legislative acts and provisions. The adop-
tion of the FOIA and OML represented a significant break from the past.
However, challenges remain. Transparency as access to information is
the most established, but administrative practice centers more on routine
FOIA compliance than on the proactive publication of high-quality infor-
mation. Transparency as two-way communication is enshrined in the
OML, but public officials rarely embrace public consultation. Transparency
as predictability is the least well established, and decision-making is often
arbitrary. Corruption, civil service politicization, and clientelistic alloca-
tions of funds between levels of government are broader reflections of the
weak embeddedness of transparency as predictability in the Romanian
political and administrative system. Table 4.2 summarizes the three per-
spectives on transparency in Romanian law and practice.
Table 4.2 Transparency in Romania: Key legislation and patterns of behavior
Perspective Access to information Two-way Predictability

communication
Romanian Institutional Decisional No explicit translation.
Interpretation transparency (codified transparency Implicit: progressive
through FOIA) (codified through clarification of the roles,
OML) rights, and
responsibilities of public
institutions
Implementation Increasing compliance Low(er) compliance Not applicable / some
of core with the FOIA over with OML, difficulty compliance with
transparency time, some use by of mobilizing public legislation developed in
legislation citizens / CSOs. to participate post-communist /
transition times BUT…
(see the next cell)
Patterns of Weak transparency in Lack of transparency Widespread
transparency in other areas (e.g. and consultation in discretionary behavior
decision making budget transparency, the development of in many institutional
and open data), limited national legislation, and policy arenas (e.g.
implementation quality, many public officials personnel policy,
comprehensiveness, do not see a reason financial transfers
and comprehensibility to explain their between levels of
of information released decisions, let alone government, corruption
consult the public or in general, local barons)
interested parties
4.4 Discussion and Conclusion

The previous sections provide a number of insights. First, they illustrate
that access to information, two-way communication, and predictability
represent three related, but distinct and increasingly complex and demand-
ing, perspectives on transparency. Second, they show how differentiating
among these interpretations can deepen our understanding of how trans-
parency is both preached and practiced. Finally, they reaffirm the limita-
tions of trying to achieve effective transparency through legislation alone.
Effective transparency is likely to remain elusive unless public officials,
CSOs, and citizens accept it as a fundamental democratic principle and
develop the skills and capacities to supply and/or demand it. This is par-
ticularly challenging in transitioning or developing countries with a rela-
tively recent history of democracy, where transparency provisions
are new(er).
96 S. SCHNELL
The framework and the findings of the case study also have implications
for advocates of greater transparency as a way to strengthen democratic
governance. They suggest that access to information is a necessary but
insufficient condition for effective transparency, and that improved two-
way communication and predictability are also needed. Measures to
increase transparency as two-way communication include OMLs, sunshine
laws, or notice-and-consultation provisions in administrative decision-
making. Such measures must also be accompanied by efforts to strengthen
the communication and consultation capacity of public authorities, CSOs,
and citizens.
Transparency as predictability is perhaps the hardest to support through
specific measures. It is largely achieved through the progressive definition
of the roles and responsibilities of public institutions, including rules for
decision-making, accompanied by measures to increase compliance with
legislation and reduce informality in the public sector. That said,
transparency as predictability is a broader feature of a functioning rational-
legal system of governance, and can only emerge as part of the general
process of political, economic, and administrative development. Still,
understanding the principle of transparency as predictability can help offi-
cials and activists also strengthen its practice.
The framework and the case study also provide directions for further
research. First, they illustrate the value of combining multiple perspectives
on transparency. Normatively, such a definition captures the richer essence
of transparency compared to a narrow focus on access to information. This
is especially important when discussing the democratic importance of
transparency. Considering whether the reasons and procedures for making
decisions are ‘visible’ and ’comprehensible’ to the public can shift the
debate from a passive—and easily manipulated or ‘gamed’—form of trans-
parency, to one that places more emphasis on how transparency facilitates
a better understanding of what the government does and how it does it.
Second, from an empirical perspective, they highlight the need for
more research on transparency at the country level, in addition to the cur-
rent focus on organizational transparency. While there are a number of
success stories of individual transparency initiatives in developing coun-
tries, as well as some of failures (Kosack & Fung, 2014), there is less evi-
dence on the impact of systemic transparency measures, such as cross-cutting
or sector-specific transparency legislation (Gaventa & McGee, 2013). Yet,
it is unlikely that individual successes are sustainable if the broader political
and administrative system does not reflect the value of transparency.
Exploratory in nature, the case study generates some preliminary ques-

tions and hypotheses for further research on macro-level transparency and
its role in advancing the overall quality of governance. The findings show
that the three interpretations of transparency are closely intertwined, and
that progress on one depends on progress on the others. Transparency as
access to information is perhaps the ‘easiest’ to achieve. Opening up
decision-making processes and behaving according to ‘clear and publicly
known rules,’ are more demanding—both for government and for citi-
zens. Investigating when, whether, and how progress on all three dimen-
sions happens across countries is challenging, as cross-national country-level
data on the three perspectives is limited, especially regarding de facto as
opposed to de jure transparency. However, applying the framework to
other country-level case studies can help overcome the limitations of
cross-national data and give us a richer picture of how transparency evolves
as systems of governance change. This can also help move forward the
research agenda on how ‘large forces’ shape the evolution of public admin-
istration (Roberts, 2013) beyond developed countries and established
democracies.
Acknowledgments The author would like to thank Tina Nabatchi, Jennifer

Brinkerhoff, and Gjalt de Graaf for their comments and suggestions.
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CHAPTER 5
Integrity and Quality in Different

Governance Phases
Leo Huberts
5.1 Governance
The concept of ‘governance’ has become very popular in many disciplines
that study power, authority, politics, policy, administration, government,
management, and organization. In addition to those in politics and public
administration, many other actors and organizations have become involved
in addressing public problems and challenges.
In this book—and in this chapter—governance is seen as ‘authoritative
policy making on collective problems and interests, and implementation of
these policies’ (Huberts, 2014, p. 68). Governance is about collective
problems and interests being addressed, possibly by one actor but also by
a network of public and private actors. The term ‘authoritative,’ refers to
the support offered and legitimization by the organization or community
whose problems and interests are addressed (in line with Easton’s (1953)
famous definition of politics as the ‘authoritative allocation of values’).
Policy making and policy implementation processes are characterized by
different aspects and phases. Classic system models of politics (Easton, 1979)
L. Huberts (*)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21522-4_5
104 L. HUBERTS
Fig. 5.1 System model of politics (governance)
point to input (demands, support), to throughput (how the political and

administrative system deals with input in order to establish o utput), the policy
output, as well as actual effects or results of the output (outcome). It is impor-
tant to keep in mind this distinction across input-throughput-output-outcome
in reflecting upon the integrity and the quality of governance, and the rela-
tionship between them (Fig. 5.1).
5.2 Integrity of Governance
5.2.1 Introduction: Integrity?
What is integrity? What characterizes the integrity of a person, function-
ary, organization? What characterizes, for example, politicians acting with
integrity, what is an ‘integrous’ politician? The extant literature provides at
least eight different views on integrity (Huberts, 2014), summarized in
Table 5.1. Four views may be considered ‘mainstream’: integrity as ‘whole-
ness, consistency, and coherence,’ integrity as ‘professional responsibility,’
integrity as a ‘(number of) value(s),’ and integrity as ‘accordance with
relevant legal or moral values and norms.’
The first, rather dominant, perspective is in line with the meaning of the
Latin integras: ‘intact, whole, harmonious,’ and sees integrity as ‘whole-
ness’ or completeness, as consistency and coherence of principles and val-
ues (Montefiore, 1999, p. 9). The second view sees integrity as professional
wholeness or responsibility (or quality) (Karssing, 2001, p. 3).
5 INTEGRITY AND QUALITY IN DIFFERENT GOVERNANCE PHASES 105
Table 5.1 Eight views on integrity
1. Integrity as wholeness

2. Integrity as being integrated into the environment
3. Integrity as professional responsibility
4. Integrity as conscious and open acting based on moral reflection
5. Integrity as a (number of) value(s) or virtue(s), including incorruptibility
6. Integrity as accordance with laws and codes
7. Integrity as accordance with relevant moral values and norms
8. Integrity as exemplary moral behavior
Other perspectives are more characterized by the relationship between

integrity and morals; in other words, what is right and wrong. One focuses
on a specific value or a collection of certain values (Dobel, 1999), for
example, incorruptibility, honesty, impartiality, accountability, and so on.
A view that fits into this category relates integrity to acting in line with
virtues such as wisdom, justice, courage, and temperance (van Tongeren
& Becker, 2009). Yet, other viewpoints see integrity more as an umbrella
concept, one that combines sets of values that are relevant for the official
being judged. Among these is the legal or constitutional view (Rohr,
1989, pp. 4–5) with its focus on ‘constitutional or regime values.’ A fur-
ther perspective argues that the ‘law’ does not offer a clear guiding prin-
ciple for many aspects of the actual decision-making and implementation
processes in government and governance, and therefore, offers an inter-
pretation in terms of ‘complying with the relevant moral values and norms’
(see e.g. Becker, 1998; Huberts, 2014; Thomas, 2001; Thompson, 1995;
Uhr, 1999). This interpretation, of course, comes close to ‘a general way
of acting morally’ and ‘morality’ (Brenkert, 2004, p. 5). The view that will
be leading in this chapter sees the relationship with ethics and morals, with
right and wrong, good and bad as crucial, with integrity as a characteristic
or a quality that refers to being in accordance with the relevant moral val-
ues and norms.
Moral values, norms, laws, and rules lie at the heart of the analysis of
integrity. A ‘value’ is a belief or quality that contributes to judgments
about what is good, right, beautiful, or admirable and thus has weight in
the choice of action by individuals and collectives (Huberts & Van der
Wal, 2014; Van der Wal, 2008). The more specific ‘norm’ tells us whether
something is good or bad, right or wrong, beautiful or ugly. Hence, for
types of behavior, these parameters answer the question ‘what is the right
thing to do?’ These values and norms, of course, also include a number of
106 L. HUBERTS
values and norms that are central in the other perspectives (such as whole-
ness, responsibility, incorruptibility, lawfulness). Integrity, however, does
not concern what is beautiful (aesthetics), what is conventional (etiquette),
or what works (technology). Rather, it focuses on ‘moral’ norms and val-
ues; that is, those that refer to what is right or wrong, good or bad.
Defining integrity in terms of relevant moral values, norms, and rules
requires precise understanding of what a moral value, norm, or rule is, of
what is meant by ethics, morals, and morality. Despite agreement that
both concern ‘right and wrong’ or ‘good and evil,’ different interpreta-
tions of the terms abound, especially in the realm of philosophy and the
study of ethics. Kaptein and Wempe (2002, pp. 40–42) distinguished six
features exhibited by moral pronouncements. They concern ‘right and
wrong’ (a normative judgment that expresses approval or disapproval,
evokes shame or pride), but they also appeal to the general consent, are
not a matter of individual taste, apply to everyone in similar circumstances,
involve the interests of others (interpersonal), and the interests at stake are
‘fundamental’ (2002, p. 42).
To summarize, integrity is about ‘moral’ norms and values, those that
refer to what is right or wrong, good or bad. The features also presuppose
a general consent from everyone in the same circumstances, giving the
meaning to ´relevant´ moral values and norms.
5.2.2
Values, Ethics, Integrity, and Governance
How, then, does integrity relate to ethics, morality, values, and norms? In
the view proposed, integrity is the concept that should be applied to the
behavior of the participants in agenda building, decision-making, and
decision implementation. That is, it does not concern everything in poli-
tics and business, or the content of government policy (or business strat-
egy); rather, it concerns behavior, process, and procedure (in a broad sense).
This is not to deny that many important ethical controversies and
debates concern policy content (output) and outcome. There are, and
always will be, intense feelings about the rights or wrongs of certain poli-
cies (e.g. on war and peace, abortion, euthanasia, etc.), and these are fre-
quently fueled by religious convictions. The focus on integrity, however,
should not distract us from the fact that all policy areas involve choices
about good and bad, about social equity, social justice, and other crucial
values. Policy ethics is about the content of decisions, policies, and laws,
and focuses specifically on the consequences or results of policy, which, of
course, are crucial for both citizens and society.
It is, however, important to distinguish between policy content (and

outcome) and policy process, and the ‘integrity of governance’ refers to
the policy or governance process: how policy is made and implemented.
This process includes the input phase of agenda building, the throughput
phase of policy preparation and decision-making, and the output phase of
decision-making and policy implementation (and evaluation). In all these
phases, the actors are guided by moral values and norms, operating within
an institutional framework that itself contains moral values and norms
about how to operate.
Values have become more prominent in the theory and practice of pub-
lic governance. However, the enormous number of relevant values makes
public values research highly complex, and this can lead to despondency in
the practitioners who must act on it. In addition, actors must deal not only
with complexity but also with contradictions between values, with the
problem of translating (competing) values into a decision or a behavior,
which Hood (2010) described as ‘an awkward endeavor.’ One aspect of
this endeavor is that different values matter in different contexts. For
example, transparency might be crucial for the relationship between gov-
ernment and parliament but less important for that between civil servants
and the public. The same applies to the relative importance of other values
in governance. Actors must cope with many values that cannot all be opti-
mized simultaneously. The chapters in this book clarify the meaning and
relevance of different values, including legitimacy, accountability, lawful-
ness, and effectiveness, also referring to their relationship. Hence, gover-
nance is all about managing conflicts between competing and sometimes
conflicting values, moral and otherwise. When we focus on governance,
therefore, different values will be involved in our reflections on such dif-
ferent aspects as policy making and policy implementation or the involve-
ment of different actors (e.g. politicians, civil servants, networks, citizens,
interest groups, etc.).
5.2.3 Integrity Violations
To further clarify the content of ‘integrity,’ it is useful to reflect on behav-
ior that violates the relevant moral values and norms, that is, on integrity
violations. Table 5.2 presents an idea of the types of behavior that can be
seen as integrity violations. The (validated) typology was developed, step
by step, building on several bodies of knowledge on police corruption,
integrity research, integrity of governance research, and, for example,
108 L. HUBERTS
Table 5.2 Types of integrity violations
1. Corruption: bribing

2. Corruption: favoritism
3. Conflict of interest (gifts, jobs etc.)
4. Fraud and theft of resources
5. Waste and abuse of resources
6. Breaking rules /misusing power (also when carried out for the organization)
7. Misuse and manipulation of information
8. Indecent treatment (intimidation, discrimination)
9. Private time misconduct
organizational misconduct research (Huberts, 2014; Lasthuizen, Huberts,

& Heres, 2011; Vardi & Weitz, 2004).
Why focus on a broad variety of integrity violations instead of focusing
on corruption, for example (Huberts, 2007; Huberts, Lasthuizen, &
Peeters, 2006)? The first and most obvious reason is that a focus on the
moral dimension in the behavior of individuals, organizations, and even
countries (as well as on the behavior that violates relevant moral values and
norms), by definition begs for a broad framework. Although it is certainly
worthwhile knowing more about corruption in government and adminis-
tration (bribery and favoritism), it is also important to discover more
about such violations as waste and abuse of (public) resources, discrimina-
tion, improper use of authority, and private time misconduct. It thus
seems advantageous to distinguish clearly between subtypes of ‘unethical’
behavior (or integrity violations), with corruption defined as the abuse of
office for private gain (Pope, 2000).
5.3 Quality of Governance
5.3.1 Introduction
In this section several approaches and bodies of knowledge are summa-
rized that seem relevant for reflection upon the content of ‘quality of gov-
ernance.’ First, the concept of quality is discussed, followed by a brief
sketch of the meaning of the concept in public administration. This is an
early indication that ‘good process’ as well as (later) ‘good outcome
according to citizens’ are aspects of the topics addressed. ‘Quality’ refers
to standards, criteria, and values, and the literature offers several bodies of
knowledge that seem relevant for clarifying the basic notion of quality of
governance. Secondly, there is a focus on the public values (and public

value) that are recognizable in all interpretations of the quality of gov-
ernance. This is followed by the presentation and review of frameworks
that deal with ‘public value(s),’ ‘quality of government,’ and ‘good
governance.’ These are inputs to the next section which discusses the
relationship between the quality and the integrity of governance and
offers a potential framework for their study.
5.3.2
Quality
Quality is a rather complex concept, as already suggested in the first chap-
ter of this book. In the context of ‘quality of governance,’ the concept
refers to standards (of excellence) for governance and to criteria that dis-
tinguish between good and bad governance. In other words, quality refers
to the values that are relevant when judging governance. Löffler (2002)
addresses the topic of defining quality in public administration by sketch-
ing the changing interpretations and elements: respect of (formal) norms
and procedures, effectiveness of services, and customer satisfaction.
Bovaird and Löffler (2003) describe the move in the public sector during
the 1990s from concern largely with excellence in service delivery to a
concern for good governance, and they demonstrate that there is wide-
spread interest in measuring not only the quality of services but also the
improvement in quality of life and improvement in governance processes.
They also discuss how measures of good governance are being used in dif-
ferent contexts around the world. These publications illustrate that the
interpretation of quality of governance shifted from ‘good process’ to
‘good outcome according to citizens,’ with the additional note that pro-
cess quality nevertheless seems important when trust in government
is at stake.
5.3.3 Public Value
The focus on citizen’s satisfaction with government services can also be
recognized in a widely known ‘theory’ on public management that was
developed by Mark H. Moore in his Creating Public Value: Strategic
Management in Government (1995, p. 1), which sketched out ‘what pub-
lic managers should think and do to exploit the particular circumstances
they find themselves in to create public value’ (see also Benington &
Moore, 2011). For Moore, public value is to public management what
110 L. HUBERTS
shareholder value is to business, and managerial success in the public sec-

tor is related to (an increase in) the value of public-sector enterprises in the
short and longer terms. Hence, at its most basic, public value refers to
what the public values (in output and outcome of public policies and
services—see Alford & O’Flynn, 2009).
De Jong (2012) summarized Moore’s approach, stating that Moore’s
notions of an authorizing environment, operational capacity, and public
value proposition help map the landscape for public managers who seek to
make positive change. ‘There is political work to do (obtaining legitimacy
and support), there is a managerial task to fulfill (creating capacity), and
there is an entrepreneurial, imaginative dimension to the job (envisioning
public value)’ (De Jong, 2012, p. 56).
As this outline summary of Moore’s method clearly illustrates, its main
focus is on how public managers can get an idea of public value in policy
making and implementation while taking into account the logics of poli-
tics, policy content, and administrative implementation. Moore’s frame-
work thus focuses on the output and outcome of governance, in particular,
on ‘what the public values’ (which is reminiscent of the focus on ‘cus-
tomer or citizen satisfaction’ in ‘total quality management’). Moore did
not pinpoint the content of the values of citizens concerning the gover-
nance output and process, and this will be addressed later.
5.3.4
Public Values
An important body of knowledge concerning the quality of governance
has developed and is continuing to evolve through research on public
values. Many definitions and interpretations of the meaning of ‘value’
exist. Some speak about ‘values literature confusion’ (Agle & Caldwell,
1999, p. 327). Values can, at the most basic level, be perceived as ‘any-
thing good or bad’ (Pepper, 1959, p. 7) or ‘convictions,’ ‘standards,’ or
‘principles’ that influence individual and group choices among alternative
courses of action (e.g. Rokeach, 1973). In daily organizational life, values
address not only what ought to be but also what is; not only what is good
or desirable, but also what is simply the right thing to do in a decision-
making situation (in order to ultimately achieve what is good and desirable
from an organizational perspective). In accordance with Van der Wal
(2008, p. 10), a ‘value,’ is defined here as a belief or quality that contrib-
utes to judgments about what is good, right, beautiful, or admirable and,
as previously stressed, has weight in the choice of action by individuals and
collectives. The more specific ‘norm,’ in contrast, tells us whether

something is good or bad, right or wrong, or beautiful or ugly in a given
situation. Norms answer the question ‘what is the proper thing to do’ in a
certain situation.
Although the crucial values for public functionaries and institutions, in
various shapes and forms, have been much at the forefront of many recent
debates in public administration, the character of the debates on ‘public
values’ varies. Several scholars have addressed public values in general and
proposed sets of public values (Kernaghan, 2003; Van Wart, 1998) or
have derived specific sets of public values through empirical research (Beck
Jørgensen & Bozeman, 2007; Schmidt & Posner, 1986; Van Der Wal,
Pevkur, & Vrangbaek, 2008). As a result, the examples of public values
mentioned in the literature differ greatly (cf. De Bruijn & Dicke, 2006;
De Vries & Kim, 2011).
The literature thus deals with manifold values, a diversity well illus-
trated by literature reviews on values for the public sector (Beck Jørgensen
& Bozeman, 2007; Van der Wal, Huberts, Van Den Heuvel, & Kolthoff,
2006). Beck Jørgensen and Bozeman (2007, pp. 360–361) distinguished
seven categories, including ‘behavior of public-sector employees,’ ‘public
sector’s contribution to society,’ and ‘intra-organizational aspects of pub-
lic administration.’ These ‘seven constellations of public values’ thus refer
to different sets of values for different aspects and phases of the gover-
nance process. For each category or aspect of governance, a number of
central or nodal values are mentioned. For ‘Behavior of public-sector
employees,’ these are accountability, professionalism, honesty, moral stan-
dards, ethical consciousness, and integrity (Beck Jørgensen & Bozeman,
2007, pp. 360–361).
In a comparison of fourteen codes of conduct in different parts of the
world, Beck Jørgensen and Soerensen (2012) identified a very interesting
set of apparently global public values (which also happen to reflect ideals
from constitutionalism and rational bureaucracy): public interest, regime
dignity, political loyalty, transparency, neutrality, impartiality, effective-
ness, accountability, and legality. These values, they pointed out, match
the international code of the UN and the model code of the European
Council, as well as conceptions of good governance promoted by the
OECD, IMF, World Bank (WB), UN, and EU. Consequently, the authors
suggested, they constitute a set of global public values.
112 L. HUBERTS
5.3.5 Pluralism and Universalism of Public Values

An important problem is how the values relate to one another. Are the
values global and valid everywhere, as suggested in Beck Jørgensen and
Soerensen’s (2012) overview (universalism); are they in conflict, thereby
making management of tension and conflict essential (pluralism); or is
their worth fully dependent on the context (relativism)? A value list, as
such, offers no answers to these fundamental questions.
What characterizes the approach in this chapter? I tend to be most sym-
pathetic toward value pluralism (see also Chap. 1), with an additional
flavor of universalism. What clarifies this leaning? First, skepticism about
value relativism. To put it simply, values, as well as their prioritization in
relation to each other, are of course constructed in context, so the mean-
ing of incorruptibility and efficiency and their importance among other
values will differ between, for example, governance in an Indian village
and governance in the wealthy metropolitan areas of the world. To use, or
even prescribe, the same criteria and policies in both contexts would thus
be unrealistic and counterproductive. Yet, I nevertheless doubt whether a
poor Indian villager and a New York yuppie differ that much in their views
on a governance system in which the private profit of their ‘governor’
dominates over public interest. Hence, there do seem to be universalistic
values on governance. The poor farmer and the yuppie prefer incorrupt-
ibility above corruptibility, even though they are part of systems and con-
texts that will—understandably—produce very different types of behavior.
The discussion on the universality of governance values and quality
also has its parallels in discussions on universal human rights and develop-
ment. For example, Nussbaum (2011) argues that a number of aspects of
human development are universal (e.g. health), and Rothstein (2011)
supports that argument in his discussion on quality of governance with a
focus on policy outcomes. Although I agree, I tend to more explicitly add
governance values to their impressive work. That is, there still exists an
undefined universal idea of what ‘good governance’ is, even though the
alleged ‘capture’ of the good governance concept by the World Bank and
others is, with good reason, questioned by many. Not that I mean to
oppose, the pluralistic view that discussion and decision-making about
policy making and implementation will always require the management
of tensions between values, resulting in different outcomes in different
contexts. In that sense, value pluralism reflects the reality of actual gover-
nance processes.
5.3.6 Managing Conflicting Values

The variety of moral (and other) values makes public values research highly
complex, but it may also lead to despondency in the practitioners who
must act on it. In addition, actors must deal not only with complexity but
also with contradictions between values, with the problem of translating
(competing) values into a decision or a behavior, which Hood (2010)
described as ‘an awkward endeavor.’ Actors must cope with many values
that cannot all be optimized. Hence, governance is all about managing
conflicts between competing and sometimes conflicting values, moral and
otherwise (De Graaf and Van der Wal, 2010).
An important aspect of ‘managing values,’ then, is whether all values
deserve the same priority in the process. Rothstein and Teorell (2008), for
example, argued for ‘impartiality’ as the central value, but other scholars
have focused in their research on accountability (Bovens, 1998; Dubnick
& Yang, 2011; see also O’Kelly & Dubnick, this book), transparency
(Piotrowski, 2007; Schnell, this book), lawfulness (Rosenbloom, 2011;
Simonati, this book), or integrity. For now, I think it is premature to argue
against the importance of a set of quality of governance criteria, not least
because the concept of value by definition refers to something valued, and
hence inherently a ‘quality.’ In the end, the proof of the pudding will have
to be in the eating, meaning that we need research to establish the relative
importance of these criteria. One criterion that might be applied relates
conflict of values to ‘who is governed.’ That is, if public governance is
policy making on public problems and interests as well as the implementa-
tion of these policies, why not let the involved public ‘decide’ what quality
is, even when values are in competition or contradiction?
Hence, when we want to evaluate governance in terms of quality, the
relevant publics are at least an important ‘referee’ (in line with Mark
Moore’s approach: public value is what the public values, but then not
only on outcome but also on process…). This assumption, however, begs
the question that the members of the ‘public’ are able to referee, which in
turn presupposes their ability to come to an informed judgment. As a
consequence, when a country’s population considers robustness and deci-
siveness as more important than impartiality and incorruptibility, or
democracy and accountability, in distinguishing bad from good gover-
nance, that ‘actor’ as referee is important for reaching conclusions about
the quality of governance in that country. What is good or bad governance
in terms of the relative importance of the governance values thus differs in
114 L. HUBERTS
various contexts. Managing values in context and in accordance with what

the public considers good governance is, in the end, the proof of the pud-
ding for actual governance.
Another important and related discussion among public value scholars
is on the incommensurability of values. There seems to be agreement on
‘conflicting values,’ not all values can be optimized in policy and gover-
nance. But are values also ‘incommensurable,’ and it is therefore impossi-
ble to come up with a satisfying or compromise strategy in decision-making
(De Graaf & Van der Wal, 2017; Overeem & Verhoef, 2014)? Or are
procedural values, by definition, in conflict with performance or outcome
values (De Graaf & Paanakker, 2015). Incommensurability of values also
leads to the question of how governance actors can then cope. Thacher
and Rein (2004) explicitly address this issue and summarize their argu-
ment thus: ‘Policy actors do sometimes try to strike a “balance” among
conflicting values, but they often avail themselves of other strategies as
well: they cycle between values by emphasizing one value and then the
other; they assign responsibilities for each value to different institutional
structures; or they gather and consult a taxonomy of specific cases where
similar conflicts arise’ (2004, p. 457).
5.3.7 Quality of Government: Specific Values

Another framework is that proposed by the Quality of Government (QoG)
Institute in Goteborg Sweden, and summarized by Bo Rothstein, in
Quality of Government (2011). This framework positions impartiality as
the central characteristic of quality and relates it to the quality of the gov-
erned society (wealth, welfare and social security, health, education).
Hence, as Rothstein convincingly argued, impartial government leads to
better policies and more developed societies.
Rothstein’s analysis, however, raises crucial questions. Most especially,
in my view, it fails to consider the possible importance (in terms of quality
of life) of separating the quality of the governance process from the quality
of the policy outcomes. What this omission should lead to is reflection on
research and policy agendas and how they connect the quality of the gov-
ernance process and the quality of policies, in terms of the results for the
quality of society (see also Masters’ chapter in this book on bureaucratic
animosity, relating integrity also to outcome).
A second point for reflection concerns the dependent variable, the
quality of output and outcome, or the quality of society. I tend to agree
with Rothstein (2011) that the work of Nussbaum (2011) and Sen
(Nussbaum & Sen, 1993) on human development offers an intriguing
starting point for considering this issue because social outcome involves
not only wealth, income, and economy but also such factors as health,
education, and gender. Yet the question of how the quality of society
relates to the way society is governed is a topic that has not attracted the
interest it deserves.
A third point, and one of utmost importance, is the question of which
characteristics of the governance process actually influence the outcomes.
That is, there is little doubt that impartiality is a crucial characteristic, as
Rothstein has argued (Rothstein, 2011; Rothstein & Teorell, 2008), but
it is more doubtful (Longo, 2008) that it is the only aspect of the gover-
nance process that matters. Indeed, as suggested before, several values and
criteria are relevant for the ‘quality of the governance process’ and also
that this quality is decisive for appreciation of governance by society.
Quality of governance, therefore, although it does include incorruptibility
and impartiality, also has democracy, accountability and transparency, law-
fulness, effectiveness and efficiency, professionalism and civility, and
robustness as central values. Thus, there is a great need for valid research
on the relationship of those values, or on the quality of the governance
process in relation to policy quality and human development.
5.3.8 Good Governance
Both governance theory and practice offer many interpretations of ‘good
governance,’ most of which select a number of seemingly more prominent
values to distinguish between good and bad, or better and worse,
governance.
La Porta et al. (1999) empirically address the determinants of the qual-
ity of government in a large cross-section of countries. Quality or ‘good
governance’ was interpreted as ‘good-for-economic-development,’ using
measures of government intervention, public-sector efficiency, public
good provision, size of government, and political freedom. This focus led
to a number of conclusions about the conditions that influence quality:
‘We find that countries that are poor, close to the equator, ethnolinguisti-
cally heterogeneous, use French or socialist laws, or have high proportions
of Catholics or Muslims exhibit inferior government performance. We also
find that the larger governments tend to be the better performing ones’
(1999, p. 222).
116 L. HUBERTS
Fig. 5.2 Famous World Bank good governance values
That specific focus on ‘economic’ development is all but common in

the good governance literature. The most influential framework is that of
the WB, which sees good governance as participatory, consensus oriented,
accountable, transparent, responsive, effective and efficient, equitable and
inclusive, and in accordance with the rule of law (Fig. 5.2).
The WB also adds that it is important that corruption be minimized,
that the views of minorities be taken into account, and that the voices of
the most vulnerable in society be heard in decision-making. Good gover-
nance is also responsive to the present and future needs of society. This
also raises the question of how the WB framework relates to the previous
information on governance. Two observations are important. First, the
WB focuses on both the governance process and the outcome of the
resulting policies. The values ‘equitable’ and ‘needs of society,’ specifically,
refer to outcome. As previously argued, however, even though outcome is
of course very important, it is not self-evident that good governance in
terms of process is dependent on ‘good’ outcomes. Second, and more
important, by apparently presupposing that all the criteria must be opti-
mized, the WB is failing to recognize neither the tension between values,
nor the importance of context for the choices that must be made in actual
governance. This failure has led to widespread criticism of the WB policy
as limited and ‘Western,’ as imposing a framework that does not suit the
conditions in many (developing) countries.
Good governance thus concerns dealing with these often-conflicting
values on process and outcomes with a broader perspective than the
‘integrity’ of the process. That leads to intriguing discussions on national

and international policies and on how to stimulate good governance in
countries, but it also opens up a challenging agenda for research.
Rothstein (2011) argues that impartiality of government is the crucial
factor for societal progress. In contrast, Grindle (2004) presents the
concept of ‘good enough governance,’ acknowledging that many coun-
tries are not capable of fulfilling all good governance demands with
impartiality and integrity.
Other good governance frameworks exist, including one which refers
to four families of values (Bovens et al., 2007). In this paradigm, good
governance concerns (political) democracy and responsiveness, lawfulness,
effectiveness and efficiency (policy performance), and integrity (incorrupt-
ibility and accordance with professional ethics). A challenging aspect of
this paradigm is that integrity is part of the framework.
5.4 Quality and Integrity of Governance
5.4.1 Introduction
The previous sketch of the different elements and interpretations of the
integrity and the quality of governance offers food for thought on ‘integ-
rity’ and its relationship with ‘quality’. How does the suggested integrity
perspective fit into the broader approaches on the quality of governance?
And what is the significance of integrity in the views on quality of gover-
nance as summarized before? This automatically results in reflection about
both fields of study: how do integrity and quality relate, is there a frame-
work that links both concepts and perspectives? The last section will be
about the agenda for research.
5.4.2 Integrity (and Quality)

Integrity refers to relevant moral values and norms, to what is right or
wrong, good or bad, shared by the community and thus very important to
all participants in governance. It therefore concerns their behavior in mak-
ing, deciding, and implementing policies. Integrity violations point at
behavior that is in conflict with those moral norms and values, and there
are many types of violations, contravening different values and norms.
At first sight, this may seem a plausible and workable distinction but
what does it tell us about the ‘morality’ of the manifold values that were
118 L. HUBERTS
mentioned in the quality perspectives, such as democracy (including par-

ticipation), accountability and transparency, lawfulness, incorruptibility
and impartiality, effectiveness and efficiency (also addressed in different
chapters in this book), professionalism, and robustness?
One line of reasoning is that all values can be moral values when they
are seen as important for right and wrong in the governance process and
in the behavior of the governing actors under scrutiny. It then depends on
the process whether, for example, transparency is seen as relevant for good
or bad behavior in governance. If it is, one might argue that being trans-
parent is among the values to take into account when governance is evalu-
ated in terms of integrity.
Opposing that is a line of reasoning arguing that lack of transparency as
such is not always wrong or bad, because of the tension between transpar-
ency and the other values that matter in governance: protecting the pri-
vacy of actors, for example, or the necessity of secrecy in order to be
effective. That does not deny that lack of transparency can be morally
wrong when that behavior results from inappropriate goals or interests,
and that it thus conflicts with other (moral) values such as impartiality and
incorruptibility. In cases such as this, the context and the relationship with
other values must be examined in order to conclude that ‘secrecy’ does in
fact conflict with the standards for integrous behavior.
In research as well as in public debate, we seem to have different con-
ceptions of integrity: integrity as a specific value amidst others with rele-
vance for the quality of the governance process (behavior) and integrity as
the overall moral quality of the governance process.
There is an even broader third interpretation: integrity as the overall
moral quality of the governance process and the ethical quality of policy
and resulting societal outcomes.
This raises many questions, also more general ones on the quality of
governance framework. But first, it seems relevant to discuss another
aspect of the integrity perspective: the relationship between bodies of
knowledge on integrity violations and views on relevant values in quality
of governance research.
5.4.3 Integrity Violations and Relevant Values

Although seldom addressed, a question worth asking is which moral val-
ues and norms are at stake in those integrity violations that can be distin-
guished and observed (see, from: Huberts, 2014, pp. 211–214). There
seem to be two separate bodies of knowledge: one on ‘ethics and values’

and one on ‘violations,’ without the connections that one might expect
actually being made. When the ‘bright side’ of ethics is discussed, with
overviews of the many relevant (moral) values and norms, limited atten-
tion is paid to the types of behavior that violate those values. And in the
research on integrity violations and unethical behavior, the ‘dark side,’ it is
seen as self-evident that moral values and norms are violated, but with very
limited attention paid to which norms and values are at stake in the differ-
ent violations (corruption, fraud, conflict of interest, abuse of information
and power, discrimination and intimidation, etc.; see Table 5.2).
However, Table 5.3 offers a first idea on this neglected connection. It
is included because it provides food for thought on the particular overview
of values that is prominent in the public value and ethics literature (and in
this book). What is offered is not meant to be complete; it serves merely
to illustrate the topic. In most instances, it is not difficult to establish the
relationship between violations and the moral values violated; for example,
between corruption and the values of incorruptibility and impartiality,
with a reference to accountability and lawfulness. In other cases, it seems
Table 5.3 Number of integrity violations and impression of the values violated
Integrity violation Violated value
1. Corruption: bribery Incorruptibility and impartiality; accountability

and transparency; lawfulness
2. Corruption: favoritism (nepotism, Incorruptibility and impartiality; accountability
cronyism, patronage) and transparency
3. Fraud and theft of resources Accountability and transparency; lawfulness;
effectiveness/efficiency
4. Conflict of (private and public) interests Incorruptibility and impartiality; accountability
and transparency; professionalism
5. Improper use of authority Lawfulness; accountability and transparency;
robustness
6. Misuse and manipulation of Accountability and transparency; lawfulness;
information professionalism; robustness
7. Indecent treatment (including Professionalism
discrimination, intimidation, and
sexual harassment)
8. Waste and abuse of organizational Effectiveness/efficiency; professionalism;
resources robustness
9. Misconduct in private time Incorruptibility and impartiality; accountability
and transparency; lawfulness; professionalism
120 L. HUBERTS
less obvious and less convincing, particularly in the case of private time
misconduct and indecent treatment, although for different reasons.
That also raises the question of whether values are missing in the frame-
work (Huberts, 2014). One type of integrity violation that is difficult to
relate to the violation of those values previously highlighted is ‘indecent
treatment,’ including discrimination, intimidation, and sexual harassment.
Obviously, such behavior violates the value of ‘professionalism’; however,
discrimination and sexual harassment also contradict basic values for inter-
personal relations, meaning that such treatment goes beyond ‘unprofes-
sional behavior’ and brings to mind such issues as decency, civility,
humanity, and respect. Simply confronting this type of violation with the
panorama of values that features in our discourse seems to indicate that we
are missing something in our research on the moral values of politicians
and civil servants. This may result from the fact that such research tends to
focus on ‘functional’ values related to decision-making and decision imple-
mentation, to processes. As a result, it pays little attention, if any, to the
(inter)personal and private aspects of political and administrative behavior.
This may demonstrate an incomplete overview of basic moral values: in
particular, ‘civility’ or ‘decency’ seems to be missing.
5.4.4 Resulting Value Panorama

Public values are related to policy content (outcome), political democracy
(input), the governance process in general, and the different phases of that
process (input, throughput, output). Combining the values discussed in
the literature for aspects and phases of governance, including integrity
violations, and combining that with the previous analysis of values and
violations, the following central values of governance can be hypothesized
(Huberts, 2014, p. 213; see also Chap. 1 of this book):
1. ‘democracy with responsiveness and participation’—paying atten-

tion to social preferences and with the involvement of actors having
an interest (including citizens);
2. ‘accountability and transparency’—being open, honest, and willing
to account for behavior;
3. ‘lawfulness’—respecting laws and rules;
4. ‘incorruptibility and impartiality’—acting in the public interest

instead of self-interest or other inappropriate partial interests;
5. ‘effectiveness and efficiency of process’—acting capably in agenda

building and preparing, taking, and implementing decisions;
6. ‘professionalism and civility’—acting in line with professional stan-
dards and standards for (inter)personal behavior. For civil servants,
this means skillfulness (expertise), civility and respect, neutrality and
loyalty (including confidentiality), and serviceability. For politicians,
it entails reliability, civility, and trustworthiness.
7. ‘robustness’—being stable and reliable but also able to adapt

and innovate.
This overview shows a broader value panorama than the dominant lit-
erature takes into account, but also raises the relevant question of how this
relates to ‘integrity’? Integrity does not appear in this overview. How
should this be interpreted: is it in line with the information presented that
stems from the body of knowledge on the quality of governance?
5.4.5 Quality (and Integrity)

The concept ‘quality of governance’ refers to standards (of excellence) for
governance, to criteria that distinguish between good and bad gover-
nance, or in other words to the relevant values for judging governance.
Quality of governance is about good governance (in accordance with rel-
evant values) and bad governance (violating relevant values). This inter-
pretation first of all connects the concept of quality with that of (public)
value, defined as a belief or quality that contributes to judgments about
what is good, right, beautiful, or admirable and has weight in the choice
of action by individuals and collectives.
Manifold values are distinguished in the literature, as mentioned before,
and most authors compose a list of (public) or governance values, without
specific reference to the different aspects and phases of governance. The
framework of governance presented, however, distinguishes between
input, throughput, output, and outcome. All these phases of governance
seem crucial for reflection on the quality of governance, but this does not
deny the importance of distinctions between them, and this differs from
the position that ‘in the end’ only results matter.
The main argument against the focus on outcome is that, in the eyes of
citizens, the quality (and integrity) of the governance process matters as
such, independently of the results in terms of social outcome. Citizens not
only ‘value’ outcome, citizens also ‘value’ governance process. This is
122 L. HUBERTS
illustrated by research of the trust in governance by citizens and other

stakeholders, even though trust research is not easy to interpret because
citizens answer questions on trust almost identically to questions on the
quality or integrity or incorruptibility of systems of governance (Bouckaert
& Van de Walle, 2003; Van de Walle, 2008). Nevertheless, as research on
procedural justice has shown, those governed seem to appreciate the qual-
ity of how they are governed more than the results of the policies issued.
This observation raises the interesting research questions of whether this
finding of procedural priority remains valid for governance and which
(procedural) values contribute (most) to trust in governance. Are impar-
tiality and incorruptibility (Rothstein, 2011) the central values or are
accountability, civility, and robustness, for example, also important?
By no means is this interpretation of aspects of quality of governance
meant to neglect the importance of the quality of output and outcome.
Such values as, for example, the common good, social cohesion, social
justice, equity, equality, wealth, health, and sustainability are relevant to
addressing questions about the quality of society (as in the discussion on
Human Development, Nussbaum, 2011). These outcome values are very
relevant for ‘quality of governance’ in general, as is the prominent value of
‘effectiveness’: Are the effects of policies in accordance with its ambition
and goals? Nevertheless, it also seems very relevant that ‘differentiation
matters’ and that it will contribute to a better description, explanation,
and evaluation of governance. This ‘differentiation’ should also include
more attention to the values that matter for different levels within organi-
zations, as Paanakker’s chapter on public craftsmanship shows.
When we focus on the process, on input and throughput, a next ques-
tion is how integrity fits into quality. The overview of theory and research
on the quality of the governance process showed many different interpre-
tations. Often ‘integrity’ is not mentioned among the relevant values,
which does not exclude referring to such values as impartiality and incor-
ruptibility. Some researchers explicitly reflect on the meaning of integrity
within their framework. Beck Jørgensen and Bozeman (2007) offer an
interesting example. Among the values for public-sector employees, they
mention accountability and professionalism (work in a serious, reflective,
and competent manner), and, in addition, values such as honesty, moral
standards, and ethical consciousness. They add that honesty is related to a
number of other values such as objectivity, impartiality, openness, integ-
rity, and accountability, and:
It seems, however, that the central value in this group is integrity. A person
with integrity is a person who remains unmoved by personal motives, inter-
ests, bribery, popular opinion, changing fashions, smears, and so forth but
has sufficient backbone to stick to a certain point of view or principle. A
person with integrity has a solid core. Integrity is also one of the values that
relate to a large number of other values because it takes so many words to
define the meaning of integrity: honesty, dignity, fairness, ethical conscious-
ness, moral standards, professionalism, openness, impartiality, and regime
loyalty. The latter may sound surprising but is included because a person
with integrity has to remain loyal to the system within which he or she
works—or resign. (Beck Jørgensen & Bozeman, 2007, p. 368)
This view illustrates the struggle of many researchers with the concept
of integrity within a broader quality framework that has many interrelated
values. Integrity seems crucial, the central value for public-sector
employees, but connected to other values and many different aspects of
governance.
5.4.6 How to Combine Integrity and Quality?

Concepts are almost always contested: there are different interpretations
and definitions, and this makes it important to be clear about one’s inter-
pretation. For now, different options are on the table. The quality of gov-
ernance framework raises the question of how the ‘integrity’ of governance
relates to the ‘quality’ of governance.
1. Is Integrity More or Less Synonymous with Quality, in the Sense that It

Refers to Being in Accordance with all the Values that Matter?
This chapter offered two arguments against that position. First, quality
of governance concerns all aspects and phases of governance, including
the content of policy and policy outcomes (and whether they are in accor-
dance with values). Integrity, though, concerns the behavior of gover-
nance actors in that policy or governance process. Second, integrity refers
to the moral quality of that process and focuses on the behavior of actors.
When governance actors operate not (very) efficiently or responsively or
robustly, the quality of governance is at stake, not, by definition, their
integrity. Integrous behavior and integrity violations concern such values
as incorruptibility and impartiality (inappropriate personal or family/party
interests versus public interest) and civility in personal behavior.
124 L. HUBERTS
2. Is Integrity Synonymous with the Moral or Ethical Quality of

Governance (Actors)?
Again, it is important to distinguish between aspects and phases in gov-

ernance. The ethical quality of governance output and societal outcome is
a crucial aspect to consider for the quality of governance (good gover-
nance), but integrity refers to the governance process (in accordance with
the relevant moral values and norms). But for that process and behavior,
the question of how moral values and other ‘quality’ values relate is rele-
vant. In other words, are there qualities other than moral quality? There
is, for example, ‘democratic quality,’ which refers to the involvement of
interested publics and whether policies are responsive to their preferences,
and ‘technical quality’ related to the methods and practicalities of the pro-
cess (decisiveness, robustness). These qualities and values may be seen as
essential for ‘good and bad’ by the relevant public(s). A rather inefficient
or unresponsive mayor will be criticized by citizens, but how and when
does this relate to the mayor’s integrity, and result in doubts about their
integrity?
3. How Does Integrity Relate to the Relevant Values for the (Moral)
Quality of Governance (Actors)?
The moral quality of governance (actors) refers to ‘good and bad,’

‘right and wrong’ in the eyes of relevant publics. An inefficient politician
or disrespectful public servant thus violates values and norms that relate
also to the moral quality of governance. Does this entitle the public to
doubt the integrity of the public servant? Two different views seem rele-
vant. The first can be summarized as ‘all bad behavior raises questions
about integrity’; the second presupposes extra aspects to ‘integrity,’
relating it to the reasons and background of that behavior. Public servants
can do stupid things, but when is their integrity questionable?
4. When Do Governance Actors Lack Integrity Amidst Many

Relevant Values?
Governance actors operate within a complex context with many criteria

and expectations for how they operate. Many values are important: they
are to be effective, responsive, transparent, integrous, etc. Integrity seems
to be a crucial value, with many interpretations of how to behave, decide,
and implement with integrity when many values conflict. More clarity
concerning ‘integrity’ seems crucial for governance practice as well for our
research (and for this book on Quality where there are many relevant val-
ues presented). As food for thought, for what is work in progress, a num-
ber of remarks seem relevant.
The integrity of governance is an important value within the framework
of quality of governance. Whereas quality of governance refers to the
many relevant values for all aspects and phases of governance, integrity
focuses on the moral quality of the behavior of actors. The exact meaning
of integrity in relation to quality needs clarification, given the many views
and interpretations presented. For now, though, it seems promising to
build on the view that integrous behavior and integrity violations concern
such values as incorruptibility and impartiality (inappropriate personal,
family/party interests versus public interest) and civility in per-
sonal behavior.
Whether that interpretation is adequate is to something for discussion
and reflection, but it might lead to greater clarity within the broader qual-
ity of governance framework. Of course, when a politician or public ser-
vant acts inefficiently or undemocratically, the quality of their governance
is at stake, but someone’s integrity is at stake when inappropriate interests
and/or behavior come into play.
5.4.7 Agenda for Research
The general mission or goal in the study of governance is to describe,
explain, understand, and improve governance. The last, more normative
part of that ambition, to evaluate and improve, is the most disputed. An
evaluation by definition brings in criteria or norms or values for evaluation
(and improvement). This may seem self-evident for researchers interested
in normative questions, but many others consider this reflection as
non-scientific.
These scholars will probably doubt even more whether quality is a rel-
evant concept for scientific description and explanation. In my eyes, this is
not very surprising and not only because of the basic differences within the
scientific community as to what ‘science’ is all about. Another reason is
that ‘quality’ frameworks have to be specified and translated in order to
make them relevant in empirical research into the causes and effects of
agenda building, policy making, and policy implementation. When ‘qual-
ity’ is about values, an important question becomes whether the values of
126 L. HUBERTS
actors and institutions are useful or even necessary to describe and explain
governance. In order to find out, we need to compare the significance of
those factors for governance processes and outcomes with the significance
of other factors, such as the self-interest of actors, power and power rela-
tions, and organizational rules and procedures.
Answering these important questions will require an empirical turn in
our research on values and quality. That empirical turn to the actual sig-
nificance of integrity and quality in governance should also concern
research on the effectiveness of the many instruments and systems that
exist to promote integrity and quality and to prevent violations. What
really works is not very clear yet…
An ‘empirical turn’ in ethics and integrity research will possibly (and
hopefully) contribute to an ‘ethics and integrity turn’ in contemporary
research on governance. Individual and organization (moral) values and
norms deserve more attention in our field of study and deserve to be part
of all the research that tries to explain and understand governance
processes.
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CHAPTER 6
The Multi-interpretable Nature

of Lawfulness in a National Framework
Anna Simonati
6.1 Lawfulness, Rule of Law and Typicality

of Administrative Action
The principle of lawfulness belongs to the deepest tradition of the demo-

cratic legal systems, and it is considered a direct consequence of popular
sovereignty (Guastini, 1990, p. 99; Tarello, 1989, p. 345; Cattaneo, 1987:
260; about democratic legitimacy, see also Buckwalter & Balfour, this vol-
ume). Notwithstanding that value pluralism has been chosen as the start-
ing point for this collective research (Paanakker, Adams, & Huberts, this
volume), lawfulness may be considered as a cornerstone, at least from a
methodic point of view, and it represents an aspect of integrity and quality
of governance (Huberts, this volume; but see the interesting caveat on the
importance of the context by Masters & Paanakker, this volume). In other
words, even though values are necessarily flexible, lawfulness as a principle
that requires the legal rules to be respected is expected to be a stable foun-
dation of administrative action.
A. Simonati (*)
University of Trento, Trento, Italy
e-mail: anna.simonati@unitn.it

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21522-4_6
132 A. SIMONATI
In Italy, art. 97 of the Constitution makes clear that ‘public offices are
organized according to law, so as to ensure good functioning and impar-
tiality of administration.’ Hence, lawfulness means compliance with the
rules in force (Giannini, 1970, p. 82); the principle works by making
invalid those acts issued by public powers that are not compatible with the
statutes. Its function is basic, especially when the protection of individual
rights and interests is concerned, but it has a general value. A normative
reference is contained in art. 1, Law no. 241/1990 (the general statute
about administrative action and procedure), where it is held that adminis-
trative action pursues those aims determined by the legislator.
The perception of the binding strength of lawfulness for administrative
action has changed over time. At the beginning of its history in demo-
cratic legal systems, a ‘formal’ notion of lawfulness seemed to be enough,
and was intended to compel the executive power to respect ‘the law.’ This
refers to the primary-level sources of law; in the Italian system in force,
Parliamentary and Regional statutes, as well as primary sources created by
central government, either by Parliamentary delegation—the legislative
decrees—or in case of necessity and urgency and under ratification by a
Parliamentary statute—the law decrees.
In a more modern conception, however, the principle of lawfulness also
has to do with necessary compliance with the general principles and with
all the rules in force (bearing in mind their different nature and legal
force), in a more substantial perspective. In legal systems where the
Constitution is rigid and not flexible, then, the principle is connected not
only with the expression of executive (and, of course, judiciary) power,
but also with the exercise of legislative power, in accordance with the hier-
archy of the legal sources (Guastini, 1993; Guastini, 1992, p. III;
Zagrebelsky, 1991, p. 8; Zagrebelsky, 1992). In Italy, the (rigid)
Constitution lays down the basic purposes to be pursued by the institu-
tions, and ordinary legislation imposes more specific rules aimed at achiev-
ing specific objectives; at the same time, the pursuit of objectives that are
incompatible with the Constitution is not permitted. The exercise of
administrative power (which is separate from the legislative and the judi-
cial) is normally subject to the control of special courts that verify compli-
ance with the rules in force.
There are at least three different conceptions of the principle of lawful-
ness. In a ‘weak’ view, administrative measures should be compatible with
the rules, which still allows praeter legem acts (Zagrebelsky, 1992, p. II).
In a second view, administration is allowed to issue measures when a rule
6 THE MULTI-INTERPRETABLE NATURE OF LAWFULNESS IN A NATIONAL… 133
expressly permits it and affords the corresponding power, at least in gen-

eral terms. Finally, the principle may mean that a rule of law must d
etermine
the structure and content of the administrative measures (Guastini,
1993, p. 86).
The first view fits more easily with administrative regulations, which are
expression of normative administrative power (Carlasarre, 1966, p. 113;
Carlasarre, 1988, p. 621; Carlasarre, 1990, p. 2; Zagrebelsky, 1991,
pp. 49–54). In fact, in art. 4.1. of the preliminary rules to the civil code,
it is held that regulations may not be contrary to statutes. If they are, not-
withstanding that they cannot be directly challenged before an administra-
tive court, administrative courts may decline to apply them in a specific
case (Macchia, 2013, p. 261). Consequently, public authorities are allowed
to produce regulations—the so-called ‘independent’ regulations, described
in art. 17.1, c, Law no. 400/1988), the issuing of which nevertheless
requires that the general principles are respected (Pizzorusso, 1987,
p. 330; Cheli, 1990, p. 53; Amato, 1962, p. 15; Carlasarre, 1988, p. 626;
Zagrebelsky, 1991, pp. 299–300)—even in the absence of a specific stat-
ute in the same field, if the subject is not covered by a rule of law.
There are two routes that can be followed in establishing the rule of law
in Italy. Sometimes the Constitution requires that a subject is covered
completely by a statute or a primary-level source (the so-called ‘absolute’
rule of law). But at other times, the statutes simply must determine the
general legal scenario, while the details may be ruled on by secondary
sources, such as executive (and also ‘independent’) regulations: this is the
so-called ‘relative’ rule of law.
The consensus is that in light of art. 97 of the Italian Constitution,
administrative action is covered by a ‘relative’ rule of law. There are other
points in the Constitution where the rule of law has to be applied in vari-
ous fields connected to a greater or lesser extent with administrative action:
at least, in art. 23 (where the rule of law is required to impose personal and
financial obligations), in art. 95 (where the legislative power to rule the
government is set out), in art. 101 (where it is made clear that courts are
subject only to the law), and in art. 113 (according to which anyone may
protect his/her rights and legitimate expectations before an ordinary or an
administrative court, especially by challenging administrative measures).
None of these rules is sufficient in itself, but the whole system represents
the basis by which the principle of lawfulness is applied to administrative
action (Carlasarre, 1966, p. 148; Giannini, 1970, p. 83; Amato, 1962,
p. 129). In particular, the principle of the justiciability of administrative
134 A. SIMONATI
measures plays a fundamental role in taking lawfulness to the Constitutional

level. It is clear, in fact, that the subordination of administration to legal
rules is needed to allow for judicial review of administrative action, in
order to have a measure quashed when it has been issued in breach of the
law, in the absence of a specific power or with excess of power (art. 21 octies,
Law no. 241/1990).
The Constitutional Court has held that administrative power may never
be assigned to the competent authority without specifying the criteria to
be followed in taking decisions (Constitutional Court, no. 32/2009;
Ead., no. 272/2005; Ead., no. 307/2003). Therefore, the principle of
lawfulness in the field of administrative law also binds the legislator, who,
while allocating administrative powers, must indicate their purpose, condi-
tions for implementation, content and legal effects (Constitutional Court
no. 35/1961).
Depending on which idea of lawfulness (weak or strong) is accepted,
the role of the legislator will change. Sometimes, it is enough that an
administrative power is given to the competent authority: in such a case, if
the administrative act is undertaken by the competent subject, this assures
its lawfulness. But where the issuing of individual administrative measures
is concerned, the statutes normally must indicate how administration may
act in the different fields. In other words, the categories of administrative
measures that may be issued by each public authority, their legal effect,
and the conditions, which allow and/or compel the intervention, are
decided by the legislator; so, the administrative act is lawful if it respects all
the elements specified. This is the principle of the typicality of administra-
tive measures (recently, Cons. St.,1 IV, no. 3700/2016 and Id., V, no.
3674/2016; Id., V, no. 4147/2015), which (together with the principle
of the separation of powers) forbids the administrative courts to issue
administrative measures on their own (recently, Cons. St., VI, no.
3194/2016).
The exceptions to this principle (as a corollary of lawfulness) must also
be typical (Cons. St., III, no. 3048/2013).
One of the most relevant examples is the power of mayors and the
prefects to issue emergency ordinances: in this case, the conditions for
the legal issuing of the administrative measure are very broad, because it
1
The Consiglio di Stato is the Italian supreme administrative court; the first degree admin-
istrative courts work at the Regional level and are named Tribunali Amministrativi Regionali
(T.A.R.).
is enough to be facing imminent danger (Pedrabissi, 2014, p. 409;

Rissolio, 2012, p. 2183; Brocca, 2012; Marazzita, 2011, p. 55; Furlan,
2010, p. 141).
From another perspective, there is a further example in the debate
about the existence of implicit administrative powers (Bassi, 2001). In
the past, it was commonly held that the powers that had been expressly
given to public authorities automatically yielded some other, related
administrative powers (even though these powers were not explicitly
granted, and only under the condition that they were closely connected
with the initially granted exercise of powers). Later on, in the 2005 legis-
lative reform of Law no. 241/1990, the legislator decided to rule for the
first time a number of such powers, especially with reference to the issu-
ing of ‘secondary degree’ measures, such as those aimed at removing an
act because it is voidable or not proper any more, and those aimed at
keeping an act valid when it ought to be voided by correcting it and mak-
ing it compatible with the statutes in force. This legislative choice has
produced relevant systemic effects. In fact, in the past, while using the
power to issue ‘secondary degree’ measures, public subjects were not
required to comply with detailed rules (as happens at present), but merely
with the general principles of fair administration (but compliance with
the general principles for the issuing of ‘secondary degree’ measures is
still important: Cons. St., VI, no. 3659/2015, Id., III, no. 3452/2013
and Id., VI, no. 3963/2011).
The need for strong administrative measures allows them to have
direct effect even if invalid, until they are quashed. The only exceptions
are those measures that lack the essential elements, those issued in abso-
lute lack of power or adopted in breach or in avoidance of a judgment:
they are therefore null and void (art. 21 septies, Law. no. 241/1990).
The same need is particularly important when the act requires to be
implemented by the addressee with a practical behavior. In such a case,
the aim of economy and speed of administration takes precedence,
empowering the issuing authority to unilaterally enforce the private
recipient to make the measure effective, without applying to any court
(art. 21 ter, Law no. 241/1990). However, this is possible only in accor-
dance with a specific rule of law (Cons. St., VI, no. 2565/2013 and Id.,
IV, no. 2431/2013; Grüner, 2012; Continella, 2010; Pagliari, 2007;
Raffaele, 2007).
136 A. SIMONATI
6.2 Lawfulness and Plurality of Legal Sources:

The ‘Traditional’ Scenario and the Relationship
Between Statutes and Regulations
A general issue concerns the increasing multiplicity of the normative levels.
In art. 117 of the Constitution, those areas wherein legislative power is
reserved to the national legislator are indicated. In a separate list, art. 117
indicates the fields where legislative power is split between central and
regional legislators; in these fields, the state regulates the general princi-
ples, the regions regulate the detail. In all of the areas that are not men-
tioned, legislative power is fully owned by regional legislators. In addition,
public entities, in general, have autonomous normative power. Except
when an ‘absolute’ rule of law is spelled out in the Constitution, they may
produce regulations that implement the primary-level normative sources.
Art. 117 of the Constitution refers to regulation as the typical secondary-
level source of law. Hence, according to a doctrinal opinion, regulations,
as described in the statutes in force, are the only ‘lawful’ secondary sources
or at least the only ones with Constitutional legitimacy (Batistoni Ferrara,
2005; Bin, 2004; Cheli, 2003; De Siervo, 1992; Di Cosimo, 2005;
Modugno, 1993). However, at the same time, in light of art. 117, the
government may produce regulations only in the areas which are totally
reserved to the national legislative power. In the areas of concurrent com-
petence, the power to issue secondary-level sources of law belongs to the
regional legislators. Therefore, the governmental regulation model, whose
procedure of production is strictly described in Law no. 400/1988, is not
the only one. That model has been considered inefficient by public author-
ities, and as a result they have begun issuing different kinds of secondary-
level sources of law, without respecting those procedural rules (and among
the scholars discourse this phenomenon is known as ‘escape from regula-
tion’: Guzzetta, 2001; Moscarini, 2008; Padula, 2010; Marcenò, 2011;
Di Cosimo, 2005; Albanesi, 2011a, 2011b).
Another issue concerns the emission of very detailed statutes, because—
in light of the principle of separation of powers—a statute may not have
the same specific kind of content as an individual administrative measure
(Constitutional Court no. 241/1998, Ead., no. 267/2007, Ead. no.
271/2008). If such a statute directly and immediately were to have an
adverse legal effect on some individuals, then, it would contradict the
principle of justiciability, because statutes are not individual administrative
measures, and therefore, they may not be challenged by citizens. This last
point has been occasionally raised in the case law of the Constitutional
Court (Constitutional Court no. 271/2008), but the Court also held that
the Constitution does not fully forbid the issuing by Parliament of statutes
with specific content (Constitutional Court no. 347/1995; Ead. no.
267/2007). However, since the probability of breaching the principle of
equality is strong (Rescigno, 2007, p. 319; Rescigno, 2008a, 2008b), the
Court added that these kind of provisions could be subject to administra-
tive judicial review, to check their potential arbitrariness or unreasonable-
ness (Constitutional Court no. 492/1995, Ead. no. 195/1998, Ead. no.
429/2002; Ead. no. 364/1999; Ead. no. 2/ 1997, Ead. no. 241/2008;
Ead. no. 271/2008; Cons. St., IV, no. 1918/2014).
6.3 Lawfulness and Good Administration

Notwithstanding that the parameter of good functioning is expressly indi-
cated in art. 97 of the Italian Constitution, in the past there has been a
tendency to deny the existence of a real legal duty to provide good admin-
istration, because—similarly—there may not be a legal duty of legislators to
produce good statutes and rules (Casetta, 1957, p. 315). In this view, art.
97 had to do essentially with the efficient organization of public bureaux
and with the personal virtues of public servants, which cannot be legislated
for. More recently, however, awareness of the strategic importance of the
principle of good administration has grown and it is at present connected
with many different corollaries: not only efficiency, efficacy, and economy
of administrative action (Lillo & Festa, 2003; Melis, 2014; Pellegrino &
Manzo, 2010; Sortino, 2003), but also its ability to be understood by citi-
zens (Cons. St., III, no. 2497/2016), its affordability, the justiciability of
administrative decisions, accountability (as a sort of species of ‘responsibil-
ity’: O’ Kelly & Dubnick, this volume), openness, and fairness.
An important element—that is also closely linked to lawfulness and is
expressly ruled on in art. 118 of the Italian Constitution—has to do with
subsidiarity, both in the vertical sense (in the mutual relationships among
authorities) and in horizontal sense (in the relationship with private sub-
jects). In the former perspective, it is important to mention art. 120 of the
Constitution, according to which the statutes lay down procedures to
ensure that public powers are exercised in compliance with the principles
of subsidiarity and fair cooperation. In the perspective of horizontal
subsidiarity, participation by citizens in administrative action of course
plays a fundamental role.
138 A. SIMONATI
Another basic principle mentioned in art. 97 of the Italian Constitution

is impartiality. Impartiality of administrative action potentially has multiple
in relation to the principle of lawfulness. In fact, impartiality is a general
rule of behavior for public authorities, a consequence of the more general
principle of equality, ex art. 3 of the Constitution. Moreover, impartiality
corresponds to a precise duty of administration, in order to implement
parameters of good faith in its daily action (Benvenuti, 1975, p. 818;
Merloni, 2009; Spuntarelli, 2008; Cons. St., III, 10.6.2016, no. 2497).
An interesting point concerns the harmonization between lawfulness
and administrative efficiency: the latter, of course, is concerned not only
with costs, but also with the overall quality of governance. The two prin-
ciples must work together. The harmonization between lawfulness and a
results-based approach to administration (Iannotta, 2003; Perfetti, 2008)
is related to the evaluation not only of single measures, but also of the
wider view of public action that goes beyond the analysis of behaviors by
individual employees in individual procedures. The two levels have differ-
ent objects, aim at partially different purposes, and are based on different
methods. When it concerns single measures, the principle of lawfulness
may be easily redirected to the general criteria of legitimacy of administra-
tive acts. When it is used in a comprehensive perspective, compliance with
the general principles of planning, programming, and policy-making
action becomes more important. Moreover, rule-making is also involved,
as is demonstrated by the introduction to the Italian legal system of the
Analysis of Impact of Regulation (A.I.R) and Evaluation of Regulatory
Impact (V.I.R) mechanisms, both provided for in art. 14, Law no.
246/2005. Before the issuing of a normative act by government, the first,
Analysis of Impact of Regulation, studies reasons for its being issued and
its probable impact; the second, Evaluation of Regulatory Impact, makes
an analogue analysis after a primary period of implementation of the act
(Fracchia, 2016, p. 9).
The link between lawfulness and good administration and between
good administration and its main corollaries (primarily, efficiency, efficacy,
and economy of administrative action) has created a need for the evalua-
tion parameters of administrative action to be ‘translated’ into qualita-
tive terms.
This problem is evident in the case law created by the Constitutional
Court, where it is very seldom that the principle of good administration
alone has been the basis of a declaration that the Constitution has been
violated in a contested statute. In most cases, rather, the Court has recog-
nized the existence of a wide legislative power of choice when it comes to
how the principle should be implemented in practice. Good administra-

tion is normally referred to, in order to void primary sources of law,
together with the principle of impartiality, primarily at an ‘organizational’
level. For instance, some statutes were considered not compatible with art.
97 of the Constitution, because they requested that a number of political
appointees be made members of administrative boards that had technical
competences: the Constitutional Court held that provisions allowing a
majority of politicians rather than technicians to be included on a selection
panel for the recruitment of civil servants were not compatible with art. 97
(Constitutional Court no. 453/1990). Such a conclusion is considered a
consequence of the principles of good administration and of lawfulness of
administrative action. In light of the same principles, to be really impartial,
each administrative decision requiring a choice among various candidates
seeking a favorable measure must be based on an objective method of
selection. An effect of this is the separation of politics and administration:
if democracy is the legitimizing source of governments, the rules about
recruitment and career path assure competency, professionalism, and
expertise of public servants (Cons. St., V, no. 4192/2013, Id., V, no.
808/2014 and Id., V, no. 4139/2015; Monzani, 2014; Mascagni, 2012).
If good administration in itself cannot be the basis for an objective check
of the overall quality of administrative action, in various recent rulings the
principle of quality of administrative action has been mentioned. Of course,
the problem of how to measure the quality of administration is still open,
and the answer given by rules inevitably relies on quantitative criteria. For
instance, this happens in connection with public utilities (see, in general,
art. 11, Legislative Decree no. 286/1999) and in this field the Citizens’
Charter may be an instrument for proposing specific indicators. Further
proof of efforts to ensure quality of administration by imposing quantita-
tive criteria are found in the necessary respect for the terms under which the
procedures are concluded, which is ruled upon in Law no. 241/1990 (even
if, according to the case law, they are not strictly compulsory: Cons. St., V,
no. 4980/2013). Such an orientation is particularly evident, then, in
Legislative Decree no. 33/2013 (emended in 2016) about administrative
transparency, according to which some types of documents and informa-
tion must be published on the authority’s website or may be given to peo-
ple asking for it, in order to contrast corruption and maladministration. It
is, however, relevant that in these rulings great attention is paid to enforce-
ment and justiciability, both before the administrative courts and through
alternative dispute resolution mechanisms. This shows that the whole
140 A. SIMONATI
administrative and judicial system is involved to ensure compliance with the

rules that impose respect for the criteria of good administration.
Other relevant tools to assure good administration are provided for in
Law no. 241/1990. As already pointed out, this is the fundamental stat-
ute about administrative procedure in Italy; it has generalized principles
that previously had been implemented often by the administrative courts
(de Pretis, 2010).
Following the administrative procedure indicated in the statute not
only corresponds to formal compliance with the legal system, but also
ensures that all the relevant interests for the final decision are taken into
account by the competent authority. The fair execution of the procedure
is a method of granting that the principle of good administration, which is
a direct corollary of lawfulness in a broad sense, works to achieve efficiency
without causing an excessive or disproportionate sacrifice on the part of
the individual (Trimarchi Banfi, 2016, p. 361). From this perspective, law-
fulness of administrative action requires, in a ‘positive’ view, conformity to
reasonableness, correspondence with the facts and substantial equity (de
Pretis, 2010).
To provide just a few examples, one may say that the first important
procedural tool is described in art. 2 of Law no. 241/1990 and concerns
the duty to ensure each procedure produces an expressed act. This means
that the exercise of administrative power, at least when a procedure has
formally begun, normally corresponds to a duty of the competent author-
ity (Cons. St., III, no. 3827/2016). Hence, the principle of lawfulness
does not work only to prevent administrations acting in breach of the
statutes in force. It compels administrations to exercise their power and to
exercise it properly, fully respecting the rules and principles and within a
reasonable time. This is a consequence of lawfulness—in a ‘constitution-
oriented’ interpretation—as the source of a duty to pursue the public
interest. In other words, where the statutes assign an administrative com-
petence to fulfill a public interest, the owner of such a power can (but
must, as well) act to protect that interest.
However, rigidly interpreting this duty can produce excessive and inef-
ficient complications. As a result, sometimes there will be a legislative reduc-
tion in public authorities’ duty to exercise power, using a provision for tacit
decisions. This so-called ‘significant silence’ is lawful (as it has to be expressly
allowed by a ruling) and of course it makes administrative action simpler,
but at the same time it opens up some serious issues from the point of view
of good administration (Constitutional Court no. 245/2015). In fact, de
facto it allows administration not to examine the case in hand and, conse-
quently, not to take into account the interests involved (Bombardelli, 2016,
p. 758; De Clementi, 2016, p. 17; Scalia, 2016, p. 11; Certomà, 2014,
p. 322; Pastori, 2010, p. 267; Corso, 2010, p. 274).
Nonetheless, the duty of administration to protect the individual inter-
ests of private parties who are directly involved in administrative action is
of primary importance and is considered a direct consequence of the prin-
ciples of lawfulness and good administration (Cons. St., V, no. 4140/2015).
The link between lawfulness, good administration, and participation by
private parties is quite evident, even if, in recent years, the Constitutional
Court has not recognized the Constitutional relevance of the administra-
tive due process of law (Constitutional Court no. 13/1962, Ead. no.
143/1989, Ead. no. 344/1990, Ead. no. 103/1993, Ead. no. 57/1995,
Ead. no. 68/1998; later, the Court held that administrative participation
corresponds to a general principle: Constitutional Court no. 353/2001,
Ead. no. 133/2005, Ead. no. 397/2006; due process is imposed by art.
97 of the Constitution, instead, according to Constitutional Court no.
103/2007). It must be borne in mind that although on one hand partici-
pation is clearly useful for allowing an administration to undertake a com-
plete inquiry step, in order to get all the relevant factual and legal elements
to take the a decision; on the other hand, it also complicates things, both
from the point of view of administrative organization and from the point
of view of costs. The same may also be inferred with reference to institu-
tional cooperation, which is required when different public interests are
involved in decision making (Marzaro, 2016; Cons. St., IV, no.
4280/2014; Id., V, no. 5292/2012).
The potential conflict between efficiency, efficacy, and economy is only
sometimes directly solved in advance by the legislator (for instance, when
a specific provision permits ‘tacit decisions’ by the administration) (Cons.
St., IV, no. 2136/2005). In other cases, there is space for the exercise of
administrative discretionary power that is reserved to administrative
authorities and allows them to choose the best solution in the specific situ-
ation, in light of a balance between the interests involved (Cons. St., VI,
no. 6041/2013). Therefore, legal attention gradually moves from the
content of the final measure to the procedure. The former is seen as the
effect of the inquiry step. The real focus becomes the compliance with the
principle of due process, and administrative action is not seen as a mono-
lithic activity any more, on the contrary being based on bilateral or even
multilateral legal relationships.
142 A. SIMONATI
Finally, another basic general tool to ensure good administration is pro-

vided for in Law no. 241/1990 and is the duty of administration to give
reasons for each administrative final measure. The duty to give reasons is
the classical corollary of the principle of lawfulness, because it compels
administration to show what rules have been implemented and the deci-
sional path that has been followed in the inquiry stage (Cons. St., III, no.
1656/2016; Id., III, no. 5857/2014).
6.4 The Evolution of Lawfulness

of Administrative Action and the Judicial Review:
Brief Remarks
Due to the necessary synthesis of ideas in this chapter, it is only possible to
offer some basic information about the judicial review of administrative
measures (Romeo, 2012; Scoca, 2009, p. 118), and only with reference to
the Italian legal system and not to its links with the E.U. one.
Discretionary administrative power cannot be the object in its substan-
tive content of a judicial review; its exercise can be checked by the admin-
istrative courts, not on its merits, but only from the point of view of
whether it is in accordance with the aims indicated in the statutes. In other
words, judicial review is permitted to check whether or not the discretion-
ary power was correctly used: in the negative, the measures are vitiated
with excess of power. A fundamental parameter for checking whether an
administrative measure is voidable because of excess of power is the prin-
ciple of proportionality. This ensures that the desired result in the public
interest is obtained with the least sacrifice of private interests (Cons. St., V,
no. 4733/2012; Id., VI, no. 5615/2015; Id., VI, no. 287/2016).
Another parameter is the prohibition of unequal treatment: this cannot be
used to obtain a favorable unlawful measure, even if it has been already
applied to someone else (Cons. St., VI, no. 1298/2013; Id., VI, no.
3044/2011).
The rules governing possible reasons for voiding an administrative
measure have evolved, and at present, an act cannot be declared void
simply just because of formal procedural infringement of an individual’s
rights. Moreover (and in parallel), if there is no proof of a substantial
breach of an individual’s interests, the act may not be declared void in the
presence of certain procedural irregularities. In such cases, the autono-
mous relevance of public interest in compliance with the principle of law-
fulness is not enough; a voidable administrative measure may be quashed

if there is another (and further) public interest to eliminate it (Cons. St.,
IV, no. 4148/2013; Id., IV, no. 1216/2014).
Evidence of this evolution may be found in art. 21 octies, Law no.
241/1990, amended by Law no. 15/2005. According to this rule (as has
already been made clear), administrative measures are voidable if they have
been issued in breach of the law, without the specific powers required, or
are vitiated by excess of power. At the same time, when the breach of law
concerns rules about forms or procedure, the measure has just ‘formal
defects’ and it cannot be quashed if it is evident that its content should
have been the same in any case. Besides, an administrative measure is not
voidable if the breach consists in the failure to communicate to the inter-
ested private parties that the procedure has begun, if the authority shows
that the content of the final measure would have been the same, even if
those subjects had been allowed to participate. Therefore, notwithstand-
ing that in these cases lawfulness has been breached, what really matters is
the absence of an individual interest to be concretely protected. The need
for stability in administrative decision making is the dominant value. The
overall coherence of the legal system is saved, because the exception to the
general principle of administrative lawfulness is also ruled by a statute. The
administrative decision in this case is unlawful (even if not voidable), and
consequently, the way to a damages action may be open (de Pretis, 2010;
about the conditions for compensation of damages before an administra-
tive court, see recently in general Cons. St., V, no. 1584/2016 and Id.,
IV, no. 4375/2015).
6.5 Public Interest and Private Law: No More

a Dichotomy for Administrative Action
In Italy, the principles and rules about administrative action represent a

special branch of public law. Notwithstanding this, privatization has been
developing, especially since the 1990s, with various consequences.
First, privatization has determined the progressive withdrawal of pub-
lic bodies from certain fields, and their replacement by (at least formally)
private subjects. The direct involvement of private subjects in the fulfill-
ment of public interest is partially an effect of the growing legal and
economic integration—especially at the European level—with the supra-
national systems.
144 A. SIMONATI
The Italian legislator transformed numerous public entities already

involved in economic activity into public companies; in those areas, admin-
istrative involvement was no longer direct and became instead about rule-
making and supervising. At the same point, various independent authorities
were created and given regulatory powers; their constitution is an effort to
reduce the political influence in strategic sectors in accordance with good
administration, lawfulness, and impartiality. Hence, issues arise from the
perspective of protecting the public interest (Cons. St., VI, no. 1574/2012)
and avoiding maladministration in the interwoven with profit-oriented
activities. An indirect effect of privatization concerns the mutual approach-
ing of private and public law. Besides, the (so to say) ‘traditional’ principles
of fair administration, the new parameters involving reduction of costs and
good performance levels have been acquiring value. Such principles are
especially linked with service provision and customer satisfaction
(Margheri, 2009; Alagna, 2010; Nardozzi Tonielli & Carbone, 2011;
Nicodemo, 2014; about the possible role of public–private partnerships,
Reynaers, this volume).
This phenomenon has also produced some relevant effects on the prin-
ciple of administrative lawfulness. Art. 1 of Law no. 241/1990 provides
that when adopting non-authoritative measures, administration acts in
accordance with private law, unless a rule provides differently. The inter-
pretation of this provision is very complicated, but it is clear that it opens
up the use of private law by authorities when it is compatible with the
pursuit of public interest. Nonetheless, one must realize that private law
criteria are not completely extendable to public action, as the latter may
not be reduced simply to the fulfillment of economic benefits (Astone &
Martines, 2016, p. 109; Mazza Laboccetta, 2015, p. 633; Wright, 1994,
p. 137; Immordino & Police, 2004; Cons. St., IV, no. 326/2016; Id., VI,
no. 5617/2015; Id., VI, no. 3571/2015).
From another point of view, privatization has also been relevant to the
employment of public servants, who nowadays are normally subject to
private law for many aspects of their legal position, after their recruitment
(which is instead mainly ruled by public law; Polizzi, 2012; Romeo, 2010;
Battini, 2006; Carinci, 2006; Cons. St., III, no. 1017/2015).
Finally, privatization has worked with the aim of simplifying administra-
tive action, by removing direct competences from the public authorities
and replacing them with (partially or totally self-sufficient) interventions
by private parties, who are normally the subjects aiming at obtaining a
favorable administrative measure (in general, ex art. 19, Law no.

241/1990). In such cases, private subjects are allowed either to start their
activity immediately, or to start their activity after having sent all the rele-
vant documents to the competent authority. Then, the public power acts
ex post, to check the compliance with the legal system of the private action.
In the recent legislative evolution, however, this power has been progres-
sively reduced (especially with the provision for a strict timetable within
which the power should be exercised), in order to make it compatible with
the principles of legal certainty and of the protection of legitimate expecta-
tions. This may mean that, in this case, privatization is able to move the
balance point between lawfulness and other values, with a tendential sac-
rifice of the traditional role of public authorities as ‘sentinels’ of lawful-
ness, on their own as a first step and in cooperation with the courts
as a second.
6.6 Simplification v. Complication and the Pitfalls

of Lawfulness: Two Significant Examples
It would be a mistake to think that the age of reforms, begun in Italy

with the issuing of the 1990s statutes (especially Law no. 241/1990)
and still partially pending, has made the complex relationship between
lawfulness and good administration clearer and simpler. Certainly, the
aim was to introduce a new vision of administrative action, based on
transparency and the participation of the citizens (Pastori, 2009); none-
theless, the rules issued in recent years are often partial and fragmentary.
Consequently, it is necessary to have some ‘read across’ of the various
statutes in force to get a comprehensive view of how administration
really works or should work.
Besides, some subjects require a deep technical knowledge to be
properly ruled upon, and the legislator is not always able to express
detailed contents; moreover, technical and scientific rules frequently
develop and change, and they are hardly compatible with a static set of
binding legal sources. The typical example, from this point of view, con-
cerns the use of new technologies by public authorities, which, clearly,
has changed the techniques of administrative activity. Digitalization is
not considered as a principle or a goal in itself, but as an element of a
comprehensive strategy of reform, in order to make administration
more efficient (Cardarelli, 2015, p. 271; Civitarese Matteucci, 2016,
146 A. SIMONATI
p. 127). The rules are partly proposed in the so-called digital Code
(Legislative Decree no. 82/2005, later emended several times), partly
in other primary sources (such as Legislative Decree no. 33/2013,
focused on administrative transparency) and specific indications live
together with general principles, whose implementation requires an
effort at adapting them.
From another point of view, slightly paradoxically, complication may
be an effect of legislative reforms. One example is the discipline of the
principle of transparency, as a corollary of good administration. Basically,
the rules are contained in Law no. 241/1990 and in Legislative Decree
no. 33/2013 (which aim at preventing and contrasting corruption in
administrative action: Carloni, 2013, p. 34). In Law no. 241, the prin-
ciple of administrative transparency is mentioned, but it is not described
(Manganaro, 2012, p. 3; Marsocci, 2013; Occhiena, 2011, p. 143), and
so the legislator accepts the ‘traditional’ idea of transparency, which—in
general terms—compels administrative action to be comprehensible dur-
ing the procedure and checkable in its final results (Abbamonte, 1991,
p. 13; on the relationship between transparency and predictability,
Schnell, this volume). In this view, publicity is just one of the mecha-
nisms for obtaining transparency (Arena, 2006, p. 5945) and, in order
to be substantially transparent, the subjects acting in the public interest
have a general duty to make sure their measures are able to be fully
understood by the citizens (Spasiano, 2011, p. 89; Bonomo, 2012). At
the same time, according to Legislative Decree no 33/2013, transpar-
ency is closely allied with publicity, because it is intended as total acces-
sibility of information, in order to encourage widespread control of the
pursuit of the institutional duties and of the use of public resources. At
present, therefore, there Italy has two different notions of transparency.
The first, and traditional, one (implicitly but clearly accepted in Law no.
241/1990) essentially aims to grant to private parties information tools
for self-protection in their relationship with administration. The second
one (now expressed in Legislative Decree no. 33/2013) is essentially
based on publicity and despite the limits set by the protection of public
confidentiality, of an individual’s right to privacy and by administrative
efficiency, aims to give citizens broad control of public action. Ensuring
a fair and rational co-existence of the twin souls of the same principle is
a not simple mission for legal scholars and practitioners.
6.7 The Independent Authorities’ Guidelines

and the Acceptance of Atypical Legal Sources
as an Answer to the Crisis of ‘Traditional’
Administrative Lawfulness
In recent years, numerous independent authorities have been created,
with the role of actively cooperating in the issuing of rules, in technical or
specialized sectors. The legislator often provides them with the power to
issue guidelines to be implemented. This has the fundamental effect of
adding new legal sources in the administrative system.
For instance, interesting rules concern the joint action of the Data
Protection Authority and the National Anti-Corruption Authority
(A.N.A.C.), in the field of access to administrative documents and infor-
mation. After a participatory procedure, they indicate the groups of infor-
mation which may not be published or may only be published in part,
compatibly with the principles of proportionality and simplification (art. 3
and art. 5 bis.6, Legislative Decree no. 33/2013). Other relevant exam-
ples concern, first, the competence of the A.N.A.C. in the emission issuing
of guidelines related to the implementation of the ‘public procurement
code’ (Legislative Decree no. 50/2016) and, second, the issuing of guide-
lines by the Independent Authority for Data Protection in many fields
concerned with data processing
The integration of the legal framework with guidelines issued by inde-
pendent authorities is not in itself a breach of the ‘relative’ rule of law, con-
tained in art. 97 of the Constitution. In any case, notwithstanding that they
may be globally indicated as secondary-level sources of law, the various kinds
of guidelines are quite different from one another. In fact, while some of
them only have the status of indicating best practices to be followed, other
are legally binding (such as some of those issued by the A.N.A.C. in the field
of public procurement). Therefore, it is not correct to define all of them as
‘soft law’ measures, because their effect is not reduced to moral suasion
(Morettini, 2011). When they produce binding effect, they also determine
the abrogation of pre-existing regulations. This is not a problem when a
statute requires that they are approved with a decree of the competent
Secretary of State, because such a choice s ubstantially makes them Ministerial
regulations, with a clear place in the legal system. But, in the other cases,
they work as atypical legal sources. They are of course an answer to the need
for quick and flexible rules, and may be considered as the most advanced
paradigm of administrative lawfulness. At the same time, they must be very
148 A. SIMONATI
carefully looked at, because they allow public authorities—which are not
democratically legitimated and are often closely aligned with groups of pri-
vate subjects, holders of economically and socially strong interests—to cre-
ate binding rules. This could be in conflict with the basic corollaries of the
principle of good administration, such as impartiality.
Actually, the procedure for their issuing grants participation by the
interested parties, and their proper publication is also assured. But this is
probably not enough to regard them as regulatory acts (which are similar
to regulations in strict sense), sometimes issued by the independent
authorities in execution of specific statutes. In case law, such regulations
are commonly referred to as secondary-level sources (Cons. St., advice
14.2.2005; Id., VI, no. 2182/2016; Id., VI, no. 1532/2015; Id., VI, no.
4874/2014), based on a series of conditions: first, their frequent strong
supra-national legitimacy (often at the E.U. level); second, their technical
nature and the narrow dimension of the field of implementation; third, a
strong need that rule-making is independent of government and political
power, especially due to the primary relevance of the interests involved.
These conditions do not work (or, at least, do not work in the same way)
with guidelines (Morbidelli, 2007), and their full compliance with the
principle of lawfulness is thereby put in doubt. They are clearly a breach of
the ‘strong’ conception of the principle, while instead they are compatible
with a weaker idea of lawfulness, according to which the rule-making
action by the independent authorities is an expression of the ‘regulatory
role’ assigned to them by the legislator.
There is just one common point in the various views: guidelines are
unlawful when a statute allows their issuing only in pursuit of a broad goal
or value, and this is surely a too general reference. Opinion remains open
about their definition either as a new sort of normative act or as adminis-
trative acts with general content, addressed to the group of stakeholders
who are the subjects acting in the specific field of competence. In both
cases, they show that in recent years in Italy, the principle of lawfulness has
become much more flexible than it used to be.
6.8 Final Remarks

In Italy, administrative action is based on the (rigid) Constitution, on
some fundamental statutes and on a series of different sources of law
that have recently grown in number and in importance. It is not reduced
to the mere execution of the rules in force, because the principle of
good administration often requires that decisions are taken through a

discretionary evaluation of the concrete circumstances and interests
involved in the case.
While in the past one could think of the legal order as at a sort of
‘closed’ system, this is no longer possible. In addition to each rule, there
are now a number of exceptions. Moreover, the relationship between
administrative competence and private action has progressively become
more and more complicated and, in numerous fields, authorities simply
have a supervisory role in relation to the initiatives of individuals (espe-
cially, in economic and productive sectors; Bin, 2009). In summary, law-
fulness sometimes works through very specific and technical statutes and
regulations; at other times, it is based on general rules.
Complexity is evident from a procedural point of view. The compre-
hensible and proper desire to ensure that each relevant interest is taken
into account, either before the production of new rules or the issuing of
individual measures, determines the necessity of involving a number of
subjects, particularly when the public intervention concerns techni-
cal fields.
At the normative level, this metamorphosis is based on the progressive
replacement of ordinary statutes with emergency law decrees as primary-
level legal sources, and on the progressive abandonment of the ‘tradi-
tional’ executive regulations issued by government (their production is
considered too complicated from a procedural point of view) as secondary-
level sources. The other interesting element is the frequent emission of
guidelines by independent authorities, not only as soft law tools, but also
with real normative effect.
The result is that legal sources often require careful interpretation, to
be really understood and properly implemented. Consequently, the role of
scholars and of the courts has a primary relevance.
The courts are often able to have the last word. Even if in Italy their
voice has no legislative value, as it can have in other legal systems, it is
nonetheless listened to carefully.
In this perspective, one must keep in mind that the judicial system is
made up not only by the national courts, but also by the supra-national
ones, especially the European Court of Justice. Case law made by the
Luxembourg Court is normally binding for the national courts, and it
is also able to produce an indirect influence on the legislators (Della
Cananea & Franchini, 2017; Pepe, 2012). The scholars are influenced
by the supra-national rules and case law. Therefore, the parameters for
150 A. SIMONATI
a check on the lawfulness of administrative action have changed in

recent decades. In particular, the general principles of administrative
action are accepted as a product of sharing concepts and views in a
wide cultural and legal context. Clearly, such a method takes with it a
danger, which is a possible ‘legal colonialism’ in the field of the prin-
ciples of good administration by the E.U. member countries, whose
older and more settled tradition is considered (and objectively is)
stronger than another’s.
In conclusion, in light of all the elements indicated one could infer
that at present, and also in the view of the legislator, the ‘traditional’ idea
of lawfulness is too rigid and should be partly replaced with more flexible
rules that are the product of negotiation among various subjects, repre-
sentative both of the institutions and of the stakeholders in the specific
sector. In this perspective, lawfulness is becoming, so to say, ‘less author-
itative.’ Nonetheless, such a transformation is at present driving lawful-
ness toward a stronger conception of the protection of procedural rights,
in order to produce both normative acts and individual administrative
measures (Cons. St., VI, no. 2182/2016; Id., VI, no. 1532/2015).
Such “evolutional” conception of lawfulness may offer food for thought
for further research, in both empirical and comparative studies. In par-
ticular, in the dichotomy between clarity and confusion (Master,
Paanakker, & Huberts, this volume), one may say that as far as Italy is
concerned, the principle stays somewhere in the middle. This is because
the concept of administration itself is becoming increasingly compli-
cated, from both subjective and objective points of view. Nonetheless,
lawfulness still represents and will necessarily represent one of the main
reference points for good administration. It could be that some other
values could be added, and others might change their physiognomy in
the near future (think for instance of the views on accountability
expressed by O’ Kelly & Dubnick, and those on providing service quality
through public–private partnerships expressed by Reynaers, this vol-
ume). The principle of lawfulness seems to be a stable foundation for all
administrative systems, even though the content of the rules in force can
change over time. The potential transformation of the principle has
mainly to do with the enrichment and progressive flexibility in the num-
ber and typology of legal sources. Therefore, the physiognomy of lawful-
ness needs to be explored further, especially with the purpose of making
clear its relationship with other values.
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PART II
Translating Values in Practitioner

Behavior
CHAPTER 7
Mission Impossible for Effectiveness? Service

Quality in Public–Private Partnerships
Anne-Marie Reynaers
7.1 An Empirical Study of Effectiveness

and Quality
This chapter scrutinizes the effectiveness of public–private partnerships

(PPPs) in terms of public service and infrastructure quality. In relation to
the volume´s title (Values and Violations), it is assessed to what extent
PPPs improve or harm the value of quality. As such, this chapter is related
to theme 3 (see page v, this volume) of the research agenda of the QuGo
study group as it focuses on the quality of outcomes of governance
processes.
Service quality is understood to be related to the overall output and
outcome effectiveness of the PPPs. It is suggested (Klijn & Teisman,
2000) that organizational manifestations of the New Public Management
(NPM), for example, privatization, outsourcing, and PPPs, improve cost-
efficiency and quality of service delivery because of private sector involve-
ment and the use of private sector management tools such as performance
measurement and performance related pay (Osborne & Gaebler, 1992;
Osborne & Plastrik, 1997). In contrast, it is argued that private companies
A.-M. Reynaers (*)

Autonomous University Madrid, Madrid, Spain

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21522-4_7
160 A.-M. REYNAERS
will pursue financial profit precisely at the expense of quality (Box, 1999).
This assumption, known as the ‘quality-shading hypothesis’ (Domberger
& Jensen, 1997), has been scrutinized in the context of privatization
(Fumagalli, Garrone, & Grilli, 2007; Galiani, Gertler, & Schargrodsky,
2005; Van Slyke, 2003) and outsourcing (Chakrabarty, Whitten, &
Green, 2008; Jensen & Stonecash, 2005). However, whether this hypoth-
esis holds in the specific context of PPPs remains unanswered. Hodge and
Greve (2007, p. 549) indeed observe that despite the numerous and
often contradicting claims on service quality in the context of PPPs,
empirical evidence remains very limited. In order to shed light on the
question of whether service quality is shaded in PPPs and how this can be
explained, perceptions of project members in four PPPs in the Netherlands
are analyzed.
The structure of the rest of this chapter is as follows. First, the specific
type of PPPs considered in this study is defined. The quality-shading
hypothesis, the ambiguity of the quality concept, and the results from
prior research on the quality-shading hypothesis are discussed in Sect. 7.2.
Section 7.3 describes the research approach and explains the multiple-case
study approach, the use of semi-structured interviews, and the process of
data analysis through coding. Subsequently, the findings are presented per
case (4) and per quality dimension (2). The first dimension, ‘infrastructure
quality,’ refers to the quality of the construction of the public infrastruc-
ture, for instance, the construction of a water purification plant. The sec-
ond dimension, ‘service delivery quality,’ refers to the quality of the service
provided through the infrastructure, in this case the purification of waste
water. The cases are compared in the conclusion after which, in the discus-
sion section, the findings are contrasted with previous findings on the
quality-shading hypothesis.
7.2 Public–Private Partnerships

The term PPPs is used to refer to informal and horizontal alliance partner-
ships as well as formal and hierarchical concession partnerships (Sullivan &
Skelcher, 2003; Weihe, 2008). Long-term Infrastructure Contracts
(LTICs) from a specific type of the latter (Hodge, 2010). This study
addresses a specific and popular type of LTIC known as Design-Build-
Finance-Maintain-Operate projects (DBFMO) (Bult-Spiering & Dewulf,
2006) that are used in many Western countries for the realization and
7 MISSION IMPOSSIBLE FOR EFFECTIVENESS? SERVICE QUALITY… 161
operation of public infrastructure (such as highways, tunnels, and water

purification plants) and utility service buildings (such as schools, hospitals,
and detention centers).
In DBFMO, public procurers transfer the responsibility for the design,
construction, maintenance, financing, and operation of a facility to a pri-
vate consortium consisting of various private sector companies. This is
conducted through a long-term performance contract that may last more
than 30 years. Public procurers regulate consortia by the use of a long-
term performance contract that contains output specifications, perfor-
mance monitoring, and the application of fines when performance is not
as it should be. These projects consist of a preparation phase during which
the public procurer defines the output specifications and financial and
technical contract aspects, a realization phase during which the consor-
tium constructs the infrastructure, and an operational phase during which
the consortium provides services (Reynaers, 2014a, 2014b).
Pollitt (2002, p. 274) observes that it is somewhat surprising that many
countries have embraced NPM reforms before the credibility of claims of
improvement were even assessed. Given the increasing application of
DBFMO and the lack of empirical insight on the question of whether
quality is shaded or not, it is indeed time to assess the quality-shading
hypothesis in DBFMOs.
7.3 Quality-Shading, Quality, and Prior Research

As mentioned before, service quality forms an important dimension of
output and outcome effectiveness. The quality-shading hypothesis sug-
gests that the quality of services and products is at stake when service
production is transferred to the private sector (Jensen & Stonecash, 2005).
The first theoretical assumption underlying this hypothesis is that private
firms are expected to focus on productivity rather than on quality, given
that the first is measured more easily (Holmstrom & Milgrom, 1991).
Second, the use of incomplete contracts (see below) and the fact that qual-
ity is difficult to measure would allow private companies to lower quality
without procurers detecting it (Hart, Shleifer, & Vishny, 1997; King &
Pitchford, 1998).
The measurement of public service quality has received increased atten-
tion over the past few decades (Bovaird & Löffler, 2003). Conceptual
ambiguity and the lack of clear points of reference, however, make it a
162 A.-M. REYNAERS
challenging undertaking (Bovaird & Löffler, 2003; Domberger & Jensen,

1997; Howie, Heaney, & Maxwell, 2004; Maynes, 1976). With respect to
conceptual ambiguity, Bovaird and Löffler (2003, 314) suggest that ‘there
is no single view on what “quality’ means” and demonstrate that,
depending on the specific institutional context, quality is defined differ-
ently. Domberger and Jensen (1997, p. 74) furthermore show that it is
very difficult to verify whether quality has improved after—and because
of—contracting out, given that accurate data on previous quality is often
unavailable.
Despite these limitations, attempts to assess quality in the context of
contracting and privatization have been made, but results vary (Beuve &
Chever, 2014). In the context of contracting, Ascher (1987) and Hartley
and Huby (1986) suggest quality is indeed at stake, while Domberger, Hall,
and Li (1995) conclude that it has been maintained or has even improved
because of the use of output specifications and the introduction of perfor-
mance monitoring. In the context of privatization, Van Slyke (2003) finds
that quality of social services has diminished, while Galiani et al. (2005)
conclude that service quality has increased in privatized water firms. In line
with this, after comparing service quality in the electricity industry,
Fumagalli, Garrone and Grilli (2007) conclude that privatization has not
led to a reduction in service quality. Andaleeb (2000) even finds evidence
for an increase in service quality in privatized hospitals.
Contract completeness and the ability of public managers to properly
implement quality management instruments are often mentioned as pre-
requisites for safeguarding service quality. Contract completeness refers to
the degree to which contracts define the rights and obligations of buyers
and sellers across future contingencies (Brown, Potoski, & Van Slyke,
2009). It is suggested that the more complete or specific contractual con-
ditions are in terms of outcomes and output, the less uncertainty will exist
around whether the contractor meets the contract terms (Brown, Potoski,
& Van Slyke, 2007). With respect to the ability of public managers to
properly implement quality management instruments, Peat and Costley
(2001) demonstrate that this has proven to be problematic in practice.
Indeed, various empirical studies support this finding and show that,
because of a decline in management capacity and a lack of financial, tech-
nical, or strategic knowledge, public managers struggle to adequately
apply such instruments (de Bettignies & Ross, 2009; Savas, 2000). It is
argued that the ability to manage quality through the use of quality man-
agement mechanisms may vary per context (Domberger & Jensen, 1997)
and that some governments may indeed be very well able to apply these
instruments correctly (Van Slyke & Hammonds, 2003).
Given the differences between outsourcing (a temporary and singular
principal–agent relationship in which the public partner defines what,
how, and by whom something must be done (Klijn & Teisman, 2000)),
privatization (defined as ‘any action that transfers some or all of the own-
ership and/or control of state-owned enterprises to the private sector’
(Hitt et al., 2000, p. 511)), and DBFMO (a long-term, multiple princi-
pal–agent relationship in which the execution of multiple tasks is trans-
ferred to a private consortia but ownership remains with the state), it
remains to be seen to what extent these findings are generaliz-
able to DBFMO.
7.4 Assessing Quality in DBFMO and Method

In order to shed light on the central research question of whether service
quality is shaded in DBFMO and how this can be explained, this study ana-
lyzes project members’ perceptions of quality in four PPPs in the
Netherlands. The following sections explain, respectively, why this chapter
focuses on perceptions, what quality refers to, and why the judgments of
project members rather than service users are taken into account.
Ideally, one could measure a service’s objective quality when defined as
‘measurable and verifiable superiority on some predetermined ideal stan-
dard or standards’ (Zeithaml, 1988, p. 3). It is argued, however, that such
objectivity does not exist given that determining quality always requires
subjective judgments, even when objective and quantitative performance
standards are used (Domberger & Jensen, 1997; Maynes, 1976).
Following this argument in combination with the fact that data on quality
prior to DBFMO do not exist, this chapter focuses on subjective quality
defined as a ‘[j]udgment about a product’s overall excellence or superior-
ity’ (Zeithaml, 1988, p. 3). The products under judgment in this chapter
are infrastructure and service delivery. The first refers to the construction
of the public infrastructure whereas the second refers to the provision of
services related to the infrastructure.
Judgments on the excellence or superiority of infrastructure and service
delivery provide insight into the perceived quality within each project.
However, they do not reveal whether quality has improved because of the
procurement through DBFMO. Although this study by no means claims
to provide statistically credible assertions on causality, project members
164 A.-M. REYNAERS
involved in public procurement before and after the introduction of

DBFMO were asked to compare their perceptions of quality. Moreover,
the explanations project members provided for their quality perceptions
were divided into DBFMO-specific and non-DBFMO-specific conditions.
DBFMO-specific conditions refer to conditions that are specific to the
DBFMO structure (e.g. the integrality of the procurement and the use of
output specifications). Non-DBFMO-specific conditions are conditions
(such as budget and cooperation) that can be of influence in projects other
than DBFMO projects exclusively. Again, although this does not allow for
inferring causality, it does provide empirical insight into the possible
explanatory power of conditions relating to quality that are spe-
cific to DBFMO.
The reason for assessing quality through the perceptions of project
members instead of citizen users is that unlike services that are priva-
tized—energy supply or public transport for example—the products and
services that are provided through DBFMO are delivered at a distance
from most citizen users. Given this distance and the relative complexity of
most products and services, waste-water plants, for example, and water
purification, it is unlikely that citizen users would be able to properly eval-
uate them. Of course, project members can be service users too. For
example, most project members in the case of the DBFMO project to
renovate the Ministry of Finance also worked in the building renovated
and operated by the consortium.
This study adopts a comparative case study approach involving four
cases. Scrutinizing multiple cases does not only provide more empirical
insight, it also allows for the comparison of findings and this reveals to
what extent results are ‘consistently replicated by several cases’ (Eisenhardt
& Graebner, 2007, p. 27). The selected cases were the only cases already
in operation at the time of case selection, a prerequisite given that service
quality is only visible during the operational phase. All cases are Dutch,
and this strengthens the internal validity of the results since the domestic
context of the cases is identical (Reynaers & Grimmelikhuijsen, 2015).
The fact that the same DBFMO structure is applied in other countries
contributes to the external validity, that is, the extent to which the findings
can be generalized to other DBFMO projects in other countries.
The first case concerns the construction of a highway for which the
procurer has signed a twenty-year contract with a private consortium, to
include the road’s design and construction, as well as maintenance of the
road and its infrastructure, for example, viaducts, lighting, and tunnels.
The second case concerns the design and construction of multiple new
water purification plants and the renovation of older water plants. The
thirty-year contract also includes the water purification process itself. The
third case concerns a detention center used to accommodate those denied
access to the Netherlands and illegal foreigners who do not return volun-
tarily to their country of origin. Besides the construction of the center
itself, the twenty-seven year contract includes the provision of infrastruc-
ture such as cameras and fire alarms, and services such as cleaning and the
supply of food. The final case concerns the renovation of the accommoda-
tion of the Ministry of Finance. This twenty-five year contract includes the
renovation of the building and the provision of services such as catering,
cleaning, waste management, and energy supply. Whereas the water proj-
ect and the highway are infrastructure projects, the detention center and
the Ministry of Finance are utility service buildings.
The data used in this study is derived from a broader research project
on DBFMO (Reynaers, 2014a, 2014b; Reynaers & Grimmelikhuijsen,
2015; Reynaers & Parrado, 2017). Sixty-six semi-structured interviews
were conducted with project members on the public procurer’s side (con-
tract managers and procurement team members), project members on the
consortium’s side (contract managers and consortium members), and
external advisors that either work for the consortium or the procurer (such
as lawyers and financial experts). Table 7.1 provides an overview of the
number of respondents per case and the case characteristics. Respondents
were invited to share their thoughts on infrastructure and service quality,
Table 7.1 Case characteristics and number of respondents

Highway Waste-water project Detention center Ministry of
Finance
Product Construction Construction, Construction Renovation and

and operation of renovation, and and operation of operation of
highway operation of water detention center headquarter
(infrastructure) cleaning (utility service Ministry of
installations building) Finance (utility
(infrastructure) service building)
Respondents State: 12 State: 4 State: 9 State: 10
Consortium: 5 Consortium: 5 Consortium: 2 Consortium: 8
External: 1 External: 3 External: 0 External: 7
Adapted from Reynaers and Grimmelikhuijsen (2015)

166 A.-M. REYNAERS
to compare these perceptions, if possible, with perceptions on quality

before the introduction of DBFMO, to explain their perceptions, and,
finally, to illustrate their perceptions.
The interviews had an average length of 90 minutes and contain valu-
able data on the interviewees’ perceptions of infrastructure and quality.
The interviews were transcribed verbatim (238,000 words) and analyzed
through the method of coding which refers to the labeling of text frag-
ments (Boeije, 2005; Miles & Huberman, 1994). Infrastructure and ser-
vice quality formed the main codes for categorization after which, during
the analysis, sub-codes such as ‘positive perception,’ ‘negative perception,’
and ‘explanation’ were added. The citations used in the findings section
represent the general findings unless explicitly mentioned otherwise.
7.5 Findings
7.5.1 The Highway
Infrastructure. Although the road is not perfect and thought to be a bit
bumpy, the procurer is satisfied with its overall quality. A contract manager
from the procurer’s side described the situation: ‘If you overlook the man-
agerial mess around the contract and you take your car and drive the road,
then I say: It’s perfect. We didn’t do anything and it works. The road is
bumpy [b]ut we’ve constructed very bumpy roads before: that’s almost
inevitable.’
Initial distrust of the consortium made the procurer use higher quality
standards than usual and this may have improved the overall quality of the
infrastructure. A contract manager explained: ‘I don’t like to admit it, but
on reflection we should not have tried to create a heaven on earth by
demanding more of the consortium then we asked of ourselves. [I] have
to concede, we became overenthusiastic and began exaggerating.’
The relative straightforwardness and generally clear output specifica-
tions seem to have influenced infrastructure quality positively. A procure-
ment team member explained: ‘I think it was quite clear what we expected.
It is, in that sense, also a simple product: a road, a bridge, and a tunnel.
It’s not rocket science.’ However, discussions about whether or not the
consortium provided the requested quality did take place. These discus-
sions were not always concerned with a risk to quality, but rather with the
discrepancy between what was offered by the consortium and the expecta-
tions of the procurer. A consortium member illustrated the point: ‘They
[the procurer] have a fixed idea of what it must look like and anything
different becomes the subject of discussion. When this happens, we are
not talking about quality but about whether a purple bridge is more beau-
tiful than a yellow one.’ Reasonable solutions provided by the consortium
were sometimes overruled by the procurer even though they met the qual-
ity requirements. A procurement team member explained: ‘Sometimes
they [the consortium] had very good solutions that were perhaps even
better than ours. But we are proud and we do not always want to recog-
nize that private parties might be a bit smarter.’
Finally, as this project was a pilot it provided an opportunity for the
consortium to build a strong reputation and that might have had a posi-
tive influence on the quality of the infrastructure. A procurement team
member explained: ‘I think they [the consortium] want to deliver a good
product because their reputation is at stake. If this project is a success, they
might win other tenders. If this project fails, they can forget about that.’
Service delivery. Because of the integration of tasks, it is suggested that
the consortium might do to a better job with respect to road maintenance,
resulting in less disruption for road users and greater road availability. A
contract manager from the procurer stated: ‘[w]e must admit they do it so
much better than we do. Before, we would send a different guy for all the
different tasks. Now they have invented a type of car that carries out all
those tasks automatically in one trip.’ The consortium also seems more
capable of rapid problem solving. A project team member argued: ‘They
work as a company and time is money, so the sooner things are solved, the
better. [W]e don’t have that stimulus, so we do things a bit slower.’
Notwithstanding all of this, the procurer is not always satisfied.
Discussions on whether or not service quality is as expected often arise
because of ambiguous or incomplete output specifications. A contract
manager from the procurer argued: ‘Sometimes it is just very difficult to
formulate your demand on paper. So you try, but it remains vague. And
that always causes trouble in a contract relationship. If your service level is
not clearly defined, you will get into trouble.’ Because of this ambiguity,
the services provided by the consortium did not always correspond to the
procurer’s expectations.
On occasion, fines were applied in order to stimulate the consortium to
provide the quality expected, and the possibility of doing this was consid-
ered a useful instrument for assuring quality. A contract manager from the
procurer’s side explained: ‘Sometimes, the output specification is not
enough and when repeated requests to improve quality also fail, I at least
168 A.-M. REYNAERS
have the financial mechanism to spur them into action. So when it’s not
going the way we want it to, I look at how we can hurt them financially.’
It was suggested, however, that the effectiveness of the use of financial
incentives depends largely on the quality of the calculations made by finan-
cial experts during the project preparation. Several respondents expressed
their concerns in that respect.
Finally, service quality was suggested as depending on the available
budget. An apparent lack of budget made the consortium provide service
levels that were not always in line with the procurer’s expectations. A con-
sortium member argued: ‘Many people think that we are responsible for
quality, but it is the procurer itself that decides what it wants and how
much that might cost. [I]n the Netherlands, they let us compete on price
but not on quality. So if I offer them a Fiat and they are fine with that, they
should not complain later that I didn’t give them a Ferrari.’
7.5.2 The Water Project

Infrastructure. The procurer is satisfied with the quality of the renovation
and construction of the water plants with the exception of floating roofs
that caused odor problems at the start of the operational phase. As a pro-
curement team member put it: ‘We have had hardly any questions about
the quality of their work and we are very happy with the quality they
deliver.’ It was even suggested that, because of a lack of stimulus for tech-
nical optimization, infrastructure quality wouldn’t have been as good if
the procurer itself had been responsible for coordinating the design and
construction phase. A procurement team member said: ‘PPPs is a great
stimulus for technical optimization. I think that if we had done it our-
selves, we would not have been able to deliver what they have. We miss
that stimulus, while a commercial party always searches for an optimum.’
Service delivery. With the exception of an odor problem caused by float-
ing roofs that did not close the water basins sufficiently, the procurer is
satisfied with the quality of the operation. A procurement team member
explained: ‘We had scarcely any problems with the operation. There may
be problems with it in other projects but the operational side is our pri-
mary process so we invested a lot in its preparation.’ The fact that the
consortium started relatively early on preparation for the operational phase
seems to have had a positive effect on service quality. A procurement team
member illustrated: ‘What was quite unusual in this project was that the
operating team started work about three months after the project started
while their first deadline was not be for 18 months. I think they realized
that the operational stage had to be prepared carefully.’
The fact that the process of water purification is not directly connected
to users might have positively influenced the procurer’s opinion on the
quality of the operation. A procurement team member explained: ‘In PPP
projects concerning public utility buildings [such as a detention center],
the perception of the user is very important. The users judge whatever the
consortium does. Some like the coffee, others do not. In this project, you
don’t have that user involvement. It is much more objective. We measure
the quality of the water that enters and the quality of the water that goes
back into the sea again.’
The technical character of the operation in allowing for the use of
quantitative output specifications provided relatively little room for inter-
pretation and discrepancy between the procurer’s expectations and the
consortium’s performance. As a procurement team member pointed out:
‘The fact that it concerns a simple product, a simple organizational struc-
ture and a technical process that allows for standardizing output norms
has had a great influence on the overall quality.’
The level of fines used by the procurer has been low throughout the
project and this might indicate that the consortium, indeed, provided the
requested service quality. As a consortium member put it: ‘Once in a while
they receive a fine. In general, they are not that high and [I] know the
procurer is satisfied. Sometimes little problems are exaggerated but in gen-
eral, they are pleased and we also communicate that to each other.’
Finally, the apparently good relationship between the procurer and the
consortium seems to have had a positive effect on service quality. An exter-
nal advisor argued: ‘As far as I can see, and I have not shared this with oth-
ers, this project has the best relationship between procurer and consortium
that I have seen in the last ten years and that determines the overall quality.’
7.5.3 The Detention Center

Infrastructure. Although the procurer is satisfied with the overall func-
tionality of the asset, it is less satisfied with its esthetics. Ambiguous output
specifications that allow for multiple interpretations and/or a lack of seri-
ous effort by the consortium are the cause of this dissatisfaction. A pro-
curement team member explained: ‘We cannot complain about the quality
in general but I think they could have done a better job. [Y]ou expect a
certain quality and you think you have expressed that clearly in the output
170 A.-M. REYNAERS
specifications. But when I look at the building, some parts look ten years
old yet we have only been using the building for two years.’
Service delivery. The quality of service delivery, especially at the start of
the operation, was considered disappointing although it improved over
time. Complaints vary from what was asked for not being delivered to the
malfunctioning of installations. A procurement team member explained:
‘The quality of the operation was very bad in the beginning. Recently the
consortium has hired extra people to improve all of this, but that
took a while.’
The problems that arose might have stemmed from a lack of attention
to how the actual operation would be organized. A procurement team
member explained: ‘I think that much more attention is given to design
and build then to maintenance and operation. If you pay more attention
to that latter part, the service delivery will be better.’
Ambiguous output specifications that do not reflect the precise expec-
tations of the procurer provide a second reason for dissatisfaction. Whereas
the procurer thought the specifications would make the consortium
deliver the solutions they had in mind, this was not always the case. A
contract manager working for the procurer explained: ‘Security is our pri-
ority so we stipulated that there should be a recovery time of zero seconds
to fix a security camera. This implies that they will be fined immediately
when a camera fails. In stipulating this we hoped to encourage the consor-
tium to place two cameras on every corner. But they didn’t. Then I won-
der, haven’t we been clear?’
The application of fines did not always improve service quality. One of
the procurer’s contract managers admitted: ‘I was too naive in thinking
that with fines of a hundred thousand euro they would improve service
delivery. That is not true in this case.’ The effectiveness of the financial
incentive system was undermined because of inconsistent application. A
procurement team member explained: ‘At the beginning we were tolerant
about fines. We played with the fines to get what we wanted. I do not
know whether that was smart and I know that in other projects, they are
stricter with this.’
Despite these irregularities, improvement was visible too. For example,
the procurer was very satisfied with the way in which the consortium orga-
nized food supply. A digital supermarket was developed that allows detain-
ees to buy and pay for groceries themselves. This was considered an
improvement compared with the way in which groceries were traditionally
ordered and distributed.
Increase of service quality was not only the result of innovation, how-
ever. Initial fear of losing control over service quality increased the pro-
curer’s demands and their effort to control quality. As a procurement team
member put it: ‘We sometimes demand much more than we would
demand of our own organization. But because you give away control, you
want to make sure things are done perfectly.’
Finally, the available budget seems to influence service quality. A pro-
curement team member explained: ‘I have been involved in many projects
and we almost always select on price. If there is relatively little money
provided for the operation, then it is logical that the operation will be bad.
If we want quality, we should select on quality and not on price.’
7.5.4 The Ministry of Finance

Infrastructure. Despite some imperfections, the procurer is pleased with
the quality of the renovated building. A procurement team member com-
mented: ‘There was a lot of resistance but when we saw what they deliv-
ered, we were all very happy: a showcase building that was even more
beautiful than we could have imagined. It’s not perfect but in the end, it
is a very pretty building.’
Since it was the first DBFMO pilot, the procurer invested a great deal
of time and money in the preparation phase during which the output spec-
ifications were developed. This relatively intensive preparation seems to
have increased the procurer’s expectation of quality compared with other
projects and this, in turn, seems to have had a positive influence on the
quality of the delivered infrastructure. A consortium member put it: ‘I
think this procurer formulated its expectations very well. With other proj-
ects, we have had much more to criticize in their preparation, and we are
often surprised at what is being asked for. [I]n this project we haven’t seen
those mistakes because they gave much more thought to what they were
asking for.’
The integrated tender approach seems to increase quality in compari-
son with traditional ways of procuring. As a consortium member outlined
the difference: ‘[T]here was a positive synergy in that respect. For exam-
ple, we have floors wired for computer throughout the entire building,
which means that whenever the layout changes, the floor doesn’t have to
be lifted. So there you see the construction and technical people working
together. Normally we keep to our own little world and don’t seek to
cooperate like that.’
172 A.-M. REYNAERS
Cooperation between the consortium and procurer during the con-

struction phase also seems to have helped the quality of the renovation.
The procurer and consortium shared a construction shed and that made
constant communication and fine-tuning easier. A procurement team
member recalled: ‘I think there was a physical component to the success
of the construction. They [procurer and construction company] were one
team and sat next to each other on the construction site. They shared their
ambitions and their vision for making this a successful and exciting project.’
Finally, the procurer’s and the consortium’s motivation to create a
good reputation during this pilot project also seems to have had a positive
influence on infrastructure quality. A procurement team member explained:
‘If this weren’t the first pilot, and didn’t involve the Ministry of Finance,
then some things would never have been achieved. This was an excellent
opportunity for the consortium to show what it was capable of. If it were
successful, it could win other tenders.’
Service delivery. In contrast to infrastructure quality, the quality of ser-
vice delivery was considered to be less successful and this may be related
to the lack of attention paid to this phase during earlier stages of the proj-
ect. A consortium member explained: ‘We have underestimated that com-
pletely in this project and we do it differently in other projects. Normally
we think about the operation during the construction phase whereas in
this project, we thought about it when the construction was almost fin-
ished.’ Whereas both the preparation and construction phase were consid-
ered highly important, the operational phase seemed to be taken for
granted. As a procurement team member put it: ‘We were very focused on
a good tender process and on the renovation. After these two peaks, our
attention wandered. We honed in on the technical norms and there was
little attention paid to the transition to maintenance and operation.’
Conflicts about service quality were often the result of ambiguous out-
put specifications. Solutions provided by the procurer did not therefore
always fit the procurer’s expectation. A consortium member explained:
‘The procurer has a definite idea of how the final product should be but
the output specifications do not always directly reflect that idea. We inter-
pret the specifications in our own way so there is always the chance that
the procurer’s expectations and ours don’t match.’
The ability to use fines when the quality delivered is not as expected,
and hence the desired goals compromised, is considered to be an
improvement. A procurement team member described: ‘If the building
demonstrates deficiencies, they are not paid, so it is a big stimulus to
deliver good quality. We don’t have that stimulus with traditional proj-
ects.’ However, the effectiveness of the financial mechanism is not always
guaranteed. Inappropriate levels of fining and the inconsistent application
of the fining mechanism seem to have undermined the effectiveness of the
instrument. A procurement team member described the situation: ‘There
was a point at which the mechanism just didn’t work any longer. When we
reached that point, we decided it was time to hire a mediator.’ With respect
to the incorrect level of fines applied, it was suggested that it is very diffi-
cult to determine that correctly, given the lack of information on the con-
sortium’s costs and profit margins. An external advisor outlined the
problem: ‘You can estimate costs and prices but I think the financial mech-
anism is as soft as butter. Fines should hurt the consortium in such a way
that they feel obliged to do something about it. But if you have little
information about their financial housekeeping, how can you determine
an appropriate level of fine?’ With respect to the application of the system,
the procurer’s contract management team decided not to apply all fines
automatically. Instead, it was decided on a case-by-case basis whether a
fine would help improve service quality. An external advisor explained: ‘At
the Ministry of Finance I saw that they did not want to apply the fines too
strictly. I understand that, because it is a pilot. But eventually you ruin
your own service delivery because of it. If you give the consortium one
finger, they will take your hand and they will take advantage of that. The
procurer should not be too kind.’
7.6 Conclusion
The jury is still out on whether service quality is shaded in DBFMO. In
fact, the answer differs by quality dimension (infrastructure vs service
delivery, representing two different aspects of overall DBFMO effective-
ness), DBFMO type (utility service building vs infrastructure), and project
phase (design and construction vs operation). Table 7.2 summarizes the
DBFMO-specific and the general conditions that have influenced infra-
structure or service delivery quality, either positively, or negatively, in the
four PPPs under scrutiny in this study.
Although in none of the cases is it considered perfect, satisfaction with
infrastructure quality is fairly uniform across all four projects, especially in
the highway and waste-water cases (both infrastructure projects). Some
procurers even hint at a possible increase in infrastructure quality in com-
parison with traditional procurement, which would suggest a considerable
174 A.-M. REYNAERS
Table 7.2 Conditions influencing quality in DBFMO

Infrastructure Service delivery
Positive DBFMO Clear output specifications Integrality procurement (H)

(H) Application of fines (H, W)
Integrality procurement Quantitative output norms (W)
(W, M)
Non- Higher quality standards (H) Higher quality standards (D)
DBFMO Pilot (H, M) Careful preparation operation
Cooperation (M) (W)
Indirect user contact (W)
Good relationship (W)
Negative DBFMO Ambiguous output Ambiguous output specifications
specifications (D) (H, D, M)
Inconsistent application fines
(D, M)
Incorrect calculation of fines (M)
Non- Lack of effort consortium Tight budget (H, D)
DBFMO (D) Lack of preparation operation
(D, M)
H Highway, W Water, M Ministry, D Detention center
increase in effectiveness on this point. The integrality of the procurement

and use of clear output specifications are DBFMO-specific conditions that
have positively contributed to the quality of the infrastructure. The oppor-
tunity for consortia to build a strong reputation during the pilot projects,
cooperation between the consortium and procurer, and the use of higher
quality standards because of initial distrust are non-DBFMO-specific con-
ditions that have also had a positive influence on infrastructure quality.
Where infrastructure quality suffers, it can be attributed to ambiguous
output specifications (DBFMO-specific) and a lack of effort by the con-
sortium (non-DBFMO-specific).
Whereas the level of satisfaction with the infrastructure is fairly uniform
across all four projects, this is not true for the other aspect of effectiveness
that was examined: service delivery. Service delivery was considered disap-
pointing in the two utility service buildings (the detention center and the
Ministry of Finance), but is valued positively in the infrastructure projects
(highway and waste water). The integrality of the procurement process,
the application of fines, and the use of quantitative output norms are
DBFMO-specific conditions that have influenced service delivery posi-
tively in the infrastructure projects. The careful preparation of the opera-
tional phase, the absence of direct user contact, and the good relationship
between the procurer and consortium are non-DBFMO-specific condi-
tions that seem to have influenced service quality positively, especially in
the water case. The use of higher quality standards (non-DBFMO-specific)
positively influenced service quality in the detention center case. Where
service quality suffers, it can be attributed to the use of ambiguous output
specifications, the inconsistent application of fines, and the incorrect cal-
culation of fines (DBFMO-specific). Tight budgets and a lack of prepara-
tion for the operational phase of the consortium are non-DBFMO-specific
conditions that seem to have influenced service quality negatively, espe-
cially in the case of the detention center and the Ministry of Finance. The
detention center case demonstrates, however, that despite initial disap-
pointment, service delivery quality can improve over time. Moreover, it
shows that some aspects of the service delivery process were valued posi-
tively and considered to have improved when compared with service deliv-
ery before DBFMO.
In general, it can be concluded that the most vulnerable aspect is qual-
ity of service delivery and that utility service buildings experience more
irregularities with respect to service quality, and that irregularities with
respect to service quality are most prominent during the operational phase
of utility service buildings.
7.7 Discussion
Given the lack of empirical evidence on quality in PPPs (Hodge & Greve,
2007) and on the credibility of claims of quality improvement in organi-
zational manifestation of the NPM (Pollitt, 2002), this study addressed
the question of whether or not effectiveness in terms of quality is shaded
in DBFMO and, whether it is or is not, how the answer can be explained.
The findings indicate a general satisfaction with infrastructure quality
and an improvement of some aspects of infrastructure and service quality.
Despite irregularities (especially experienced in relation to service deliv-
ery), the findings do not provide indications that affirm the quality-shading
assumption. Service quality is contested, but not per se diminished, and
this differs from studies that report a reduction in quality (Ascher, 1987;
Hartley & Huby, 1986; van Slyke, 2003). Quality, whether of the infra-
structure or of service delivery, seems to be at least maintained or
sometimes even improved, which is in line with earlier empirical findings
in the context of contracting and privatization and adds to its overall effec-
176 A.-M. REYNAERS
tiveness (Andaleeb, 2000; Domberger et al., 1995; Fumagalli et al., 2007;

Galiani et al., 2005).
Although results from previous studies on quality in contracting and
privatization formulate definite conclusions about whether effectiveness
by means of quality has diminished, this study concludes that it is difficult
to provide a definitive answer in the context of DBFMO. Scrutinizing
quality in DBFMO is different from doing so in the context of contracting
or privatization, given that the long-term integrated project approach
unites different products during various project phases into one single
project over a long period of time. This provides a longitudinal (including
the different project phases) and multidimensional (including multiple
quality dimensions) perspective on quality which, as was shown, provides
a nuanced picture of quality in DBFMO that can’t be summarized with a
definite ‘yes’ or ‘no.’
With respect to the question of how quality could be explained, the
findings of this study coincide with earlier research stressing the impor-
tance of contract completeness (Brown et al., 2007, 2009) and of pub-
lic managers having the ability to adequately implement quality
management instruments (Peat & Costley, 2001). In relation to con-
tract completeness, the findings of this study show that incomplete or
ambiguous output specifications cause dispute in relation to quality.
Although public procurers could invest in writing more complete or
less ambiguous output specifications, it is very unlikely that contracts or
output specifications will ever be perfectly complete or unambiguous
(Brown et al., 2009). As such, public procurers should be aware of the
limitations of output specifications and anticipate possible disputes or
discrepancies.
With respect to the ability of public managers to adequately implement
quality management instruments, this study indicates that public procur-
ers do struggle with the construction and implementation of quality man-
agement instruments such as output specifications and the application of
fines (cf. De Bettignies & Ross, 2009; Peat & Costley, 2001; Savas, 2000).
This was particularly true in the case of the utility service buildings, thereby
confirming the suggestion of Domberger and Jensen (1997) and Van
Slyke and Hammonds (2003) that the ability of public managers to ade-
quately implement quality management instruments differs according to
context. Taking into account the fact that the four projects under scrutiny
are all pilot projects, it is understandable that mistakes have been made
with regard to the implementation of management instruments. However,
it is highly desirable that experienced people are assigned the challenging

task of managing DBFMO projects to ensure its effectiveness in the long
run. DBFMO does not guarantee success or failure by definition: it is what
people make of it.
Besides contract completeness and the ability to implement manage-
ment instruments correctly, this study has identified many more condi-
tions that either positively or negatively influence quality in DBFMO (see
Table 7.2). The ultimate question that arises, of course, is whether or not
DBFMO provides opportunities for effective infrastructure and service
quality. Table 7.2 demonstrates that DBFMO-specific conditions such as
the use of clear output specifications, the integrality of the procurement
process, and the possibility of applying fines do indeed provide opportuni-
ties for safeguarding, or even improving, quality. However, as suggested
earlier, the actual existence of these conditions is not guaranteed by the
DBFMO structure, but requires craftsmanship by public procurers. In
that respect, Table 7.2’s synopsis of conditions that have positive and neg-
ative influence might be useful to have at hand when developing or opti-
mizing this craftsmanship.
When reflecting on this volume´s title (Values and Violations), this
chapter demonstrates that values (and their possible violation) should be
studied in their specific context. That is, we cannot suppose that quality
will be harmed on theoretical (or perhaps) normative grounds only. PPPs
provide opportunities as well as threats when it comes to providing service
and infrastructure quality. Quality is not guaranteed by simply signing a
performance contract nor is it by definition at stake when administrations
collaborate with private sector businesses. It all depends on the specific
interaction between the public and private governance partners.
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CHAPTER 8
Professionalism and Public Craftsmanship

at Street Level
Hester Paanakker
8.1 Quality of Governance at Street Level:

Introducing Public Craftsmanship
Based on the profession of prison officers, this chapter will provide insight
into interpretations of public craftsmanship at the street level. As such, and
taking a slightly different angle than the previous chapters in this volume,
it will situate the public values debate in street-level discourse. It will scru-
tinize the role of public values in frontline public-service delivery and,
specifically, will examine professional divergence in values of craftsman-
ship. Craftsmanship is understood to represent ‘the desire to do a job well
for its own sake’ and brings together the skill and commitment needed to
do such good work, with continuous judgment and questioning of the
abilities required, in an overriding motivation for quality-driven work
(Sennett, 2008, p. 9285).
Numerous studies examine when governance is ‘good’ at the macro-
or meso-level, commonly highlighting one or more core values of gov-
ernance, without zooming in on what it means to be a ‘good’ performing
H. Paanakker (*)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21522-4_8
182 H. PAANAKKER
professional at micro-level. Some studies set out to determine the over-

all levels of impartiality (Holmberg, Rothstein, & Nasiritousi, 2009;
Rothstein & Teorell, 2008), integrity (Evans, 2012), or effectiveness
pertaining to a minimum set of delivered public services (Woods,
2000). Others fully acknowledge the pluralistic character of gover-
nance values, for instance, stating good governance is to be understood
as competence to handle a set of complementary values (Bovens, ‘t
Hart, & van Twist, 2011; De Graaf, Van Doeveren, Reynaers, & Van
der Wal, 2011) or the management of several simultaneously present
competing and conflicting values (Bozeman, 2007; De Graaf & Van
Der Wal, 2010; Spicer, 2009). What many studies specifically omit to
address is what these values mean to the officials who must put them
into practice.
Clearly, the value orientations of public professionals toward what pub-
lic craftsmanship is about bear substantially on policy implementation and,
ultimately, on public-service delivery. Research shows extensively that
public professionals’ individual orientations toward the values embedded
in policy visions and programs have an important effect on the final imple-
mentation of public policies (Kelly, 1994; Lipsky, 1980, 2010; Tummers,
Bekkers, Vink, & Musheno, 2015). Value orientations at operational level
shape bureaucratic reality and the way officials handle their work (cf.
Stewart, 2006). It is often thought that dealing with conflicting values is
at the center of what public officials do or ought to do: it represents the
daily reality of on-the-ground decision making (De Graaf & Van der Wal,
2010; Oldenhof, Postma, & Putters, 2014; Steenhuisen & Van Eeten,
2008). Understanding how public officials themselves express such values
to start with (similarly or differently) seems to be a fundamental exercise
that would advance future research.
We argue that views on what it means to be good at one’s job constitute
the core of public performance (and, ultimately, quality of governance).
The key to understanding the role of values in the eyes of street-level pub-
lic professionals lies in unraveling concrete value orientations in concrete
work contexts. Rather than using a fixed and predetermined list of values
considered to cover the public sector at large, we seek to explore the (wid-
est possible) range of concrete value orientations as brought forward by
public professionals themselves. We narrow this down further by looking
at values of public craftsmanship: key values of a context-specific and pro-
fessional nature that public officials deem relevant to their specific
work context.
8 PROFESSIONALISM AND PUBLIC CRAFTSMANSHIP AT STREET LEVEL 183
The purpose of this chapter is threefold. First, we explore and map the
value orientations that characterize public craftsmanship according to pro-
fessionals in the public-sector prison service. Second, we analyze the
principal value categories of public craftsmanship to which these value ori-
entations can be assigned and what patterns of prioritization can be
detected within such a homogenous professional group. Third, we assess
whether this analysis indicates a more—or less—shared value understand-
ing than one would typically expect from the rather one-dimensional use
of value labels in overarching policy frameworks and scientific studies. The
remainder of the chapter follows the structure of these three questions of
value interpretation, prioritization, and convergence. In the next para-
graphs, we address them theoretically, explain the methodology of research
and analysis, and then report the empirical findings on each aspect. The
central research question that we answer is: What value orientations do
public professionals have toward public craftsmanship and how convergent
are these orientations?
8.2 A Bottom-Up Approach to Sense-Making by

Public Professionals
Rather than simplifying things, adding the public dimension to the values
concept further complicates a clean line of theory and research (Van der
Wal & Van Hout, 2009). Values are usually abstract constructs, often con-
sidered hard to grasp or measure, but so are the confines of what public is
(Beck Jørgensen & Bozeman, 2007; Beck Jørgensen & Rutgers, 2015).
According to Rutgers (2008, 2015), studies on public values tend to have
a built-in ambiguity because they often omit to clearly, let alone unam-
biguously, define what they understand public values to be, and are conse-
quently about very different phenomena. We argue that, at the other
extreme, those that explicitly attach clear-cut definitions to the individual
values they use, methodologically harnessing a fixed interpretation of, for
instance, loyalty or effectiveness, may also suffer from ambiguity issues,
albeit of a different nature. Researchers might overlook the meaning their
research subjects attach to values, whether in their personal view or in
their work context. In this chapter, we approach values from the perspec-
tive of professions, regarding public professionals as frontline or street-
level workers with a shared occupation and expertise (see Lipsky, 1980;
Tummers et al., 2015).
184 H. PAANAKKER
For the purpose of this study, we understand values as ‘qualities that are
appreciated for contributing to or constituting what is good, right, beauti-
ful, or worthy of praise and admiration,’ which as such are ‘manifested
through behavior and action’ (De Graaf, 2003, p. 22). Public values, then,
refer to values that directly relate to desired public-sector conduct, pro-
cesses, and outcomes, or in Bozeman’s words, to ‘the principles on which
governments and policies should be based’ (2007, p. 13) and that are sup-
posed to guide public decision making in all its aspects.1 In the narrower
context of public craftsmanship, we understand values as the key qualities
that public professionals value in the context of, and toward, the object of
their work (e.g. education or, in this study, detention). Such qualities may
pertain to the qualities of individuals in the realization of public craftsman-
ship (for instance, treating detainees with respect), or to qualities of the
governance process by means of which public craftsmanship can prosper
(for instance, providing a safe work environment for employees in penal
facilities).
Of necessity, a value contains a normative disposition, and obtains
meaning from its observer: ‘a value can be any concept that expresses a
positive or negative qualitative (or evaluative) statement and has a ‘moti-
vating force,’ that is, it gives direction to people’s thoughts and actions’
(Rutgers, 2015, p. 5). Similarly, Van der Wal states that ‘their meaning is
derived not from the essence of the concept but from its usage […]: a
meaning that constantly changes and differs from context to context’
(2008, p. 21). Rather than treating values as abstract entities, ‘we must
remember that values first attain their actual significance in the concrete
situation’ (West & Davis, 2011, in Bøgh Andersen, Beck Jørgensen,
Kjeldsen, Pedersen, & Vrangbæk, 2012, p. 725). In her work on cross-
cultural value interpretation, Yang adds that ‘[t]he study of values there-
fore largely relies on how people interpret the values, which includes the
meaning of a value and how its importance differs from person to person,
from case to case, or/and from culture to culture’ (2016, p. 75). While
scholars are warned to be aware of and to make explicit (the criteria of)
their interpretations of values (Rutgers, 2008), the interpretations of the
professionals that have to deal with values in daily decision making seems
less prominently emphasized in empirical work.
1
See the work of Beck Jørgensen and Bozeman (2007) for an elaborate account of the
aspects to which the “public” in public values can refer.
In measuring public values, many empirical studies start from a prede-

termined set of values, and more importantly, a predefined set of values,
specifying to respondents how the values in question are understood by
giving them a brief description of each value (cf. Reynaers, 2014a; Van der
Wal, 2008; Van der Wal & Yang, 2015). Although such predetermined
definitions are very useful for demarcation purposes in research and to
produce reliable and face valid results, we argue that content validity may
actually be at stake. Predetermination of values may distort the portrayal
of reality since public officials may understand and explain such values very
differently, or perceive them differently in different settings, contexts, sit-
uations, or periods of time (cf. Haque, 2011; Rutgers, 2015; Witesman &
Walters, 2015; Yang, 2016).
Potentially, then, research might offer an exaggerated and misleading
image of value convergence. We aim to complement existing foci on value
rankings and value preferences among public officials by giving an in-
depth account of how public professionals themselves express values. We
deconstruct abstract notions of ‘good governance’ and broad public val-
ues into more tangible, context-dependent, concrete descriptions of how
values are embodied by professionals and how they matter most in the job
at hand. In line with Steenhuisen’s work (2009), this study harnesses a
bottom-up approach to values and explores at street level how profession-
als, in their own words, express the key qualities connected with their
work. The way individual public professionals make sense of the values
they bring to their work is the focus of the study. After all, as ‘the room for
interpretation of values is usually considerable […]. Surveys are generally
poorly suited for capturing differences in interpretations, and […]
uncover[ing] the multi-faceted interpretations in the time and space of
public values’ (Bøgh Andersen et al., 2012, p. 725).
8.3 From Value Sets of a General Public Nature

to the Specific Work Context
Studies that examine the normative role of public values in administrative

reality can be grouped under the umbrella of what Beck Jørgensen and
Rutgers call Public Values Perspective (PVP) research. Here, diverse
approaches are connected by the generic view that processes of, and in,
public administration are ‘guided or restricted by public values and are
public value creating: public management and public policy-making are
both concerned with establishing, following and realizing public values’
186 H. PAANAKKER
(2015, p. 3). We would like to add that many public professionals at oper-
ational level are just as involved in creating public value. They willingly act
as craftsmen: they possess the skill, motivation, and commitment to pursue
quality-driven work in a sociable way—that is, by focusing on mentoring,
knowledge transfer, and setting standards in such a way that they are com-
prehensible to the lay person as much as to expert colleagues (Sennett,
2008, pp. 248–249). They ‘equally make and repair’ and ‘in turning out-
ward, they hold themselves to account and can also see what the work
means to others’ (Sennett, 2008, pp. 248–249). In doing so, they are the
ultimate agency for handling, shaping, and transmitting values in practice.
Different bodies of literature prompt us to focus on values in specific
work contexts and these inform our framework of public craftsmanship.
Street-level bureaucracy and policy implementation literature place a
strong emphasis on the role of public employees in policy execution and
on what practices they develop to translate policy or professional principles
(cf. Lipsky, 1980; Tummers, 2013; Tummers & Bekkers, 2014), but they
generally fail to address the more normative question of whether public
employees feel this constitutes good performance or not, and whether
appreciative views differ among them. It seems fair to state that this cate-
gory of literature is independent of public values literature (2015). Studies
on public-service motivation focus on what motivates public employee
personally, pinpointing the set of values that drives the behavior of public-
sector employees (Perry, 2000; Witesman & Walters, 2015), but they
neglect broader considerations of what those employees believe their pub-
lic performance should look like in its optima forma.
Lastly, and most closely related, much PVP research tends to use quite
broad and generalized sets of values that are presumed to be applicable to
all public professionals across the whole of the public sector. Commonly
cited values are loyalty, accountability, transparency, democratic legiti-
macy, lawfulness, and integrity, to name but a few (see also O’Kelly &
Dubnick Schnell, Buckwalter & Balfour, Simonati, and Huberts in this
volume). In 2009, Van der Wal and Van Hout noted that ‘almost all
authors (ideologically) assume that there is a distinct and consistent set of
public values’ (2009, p. 222). Of course much work has been done since,
but the predisposition that ‘one set of values with undisputed meanings’
(Van der Wal & Van Hout, 2009, p. 227) exists, and can be used to char-
acterize public-sector conduct in general when conducting public values
research across different governance settings and groups, still leads in
many studies. Examples include Reynaers’ (2014a) set of five predefined
values in four different case studies on public–private partnerships or Van

der Wal and Yang’s (2015) list of 25 predefined values in a questionnaire
among Dutch and Chinese public administrators from different
occupational fields. We are curious to see if restricting the focus to bounded
professions produces values of a different or more differentiated nature.
Therefore, in contrast, the approach of public craftsmanship explores the
values that public employees deem relevant in the specific context of their
professional lives.
Of course, the call for context-driven analysis of values in governance
(and even from a professional angle) is not new. According to Rutgers
(2008, p. 109), public administration values only acquire their meaning in
relation to the specific context they are found in, that is, ‘their very pur-
pose in time and place.’ Conventional wisdom holds that it is undesirable
to use, impose, or prescribe particular governance values as blueprints in
very different national and cultural contexts when discussing quality of
governance (Huberts, 2014, pp. 213–214; Van der Wal, 2016, p. 2).
Likewise, other authors state ‘[w]e know that public values are ultimately
context-dependent and that classifications can only be exclusive and com-
prehensive in a given context (2012, p. 716) and ‘there are no inherently
prime values, or no indisputable self-evident truths’ (Beck Jørgensen &
Bozeman, 2007, p. 373). However, relatively few studies however depart
from this notion as their main analytical focus.
Subsequently, and despite these acknowledgments, most studies pro-
ceed with attempts to systematically order the public values spectrum in
multidimensional classifications from the belief they ‘must be sorted to
allow stringent analysis’ (2012, p. 716). Long lists of universalistic
approaches to (categories of) values are the result (Haque, 2011; Charles,
De Jong, & Ryan, 2010). For instance, Huberts contends that the overall
importance and meaning of his seven core governance values (democracy
with responsiveness and participation, accountability and transparency,
lawfulness, incorruptibility and impartiality, effectiveness and efficiency of
process, professionalism and civility, and robustness) is essentially and
inherently universal by nature, even if corresponding behavior and policies
may differ slightly according to the specific context at hand (2014,
pp. 213–214). This assumption of universality is strongly disputed
throughout this volume (see the in-depth analyses of O’Kelly and Dubnick
on accountability and Simonati on lawfulness, to name a few).
There are many other generic value constellations: those based on
public-versus-private spectra (Van der Wal, 2008; Van der Wal, De Graaf, &
188 H. PAANAKKER
Lasthuizen, 2008), different value sources (organizational, individual,

public, and so on, Van Wart, 1998), different scopes of impact (such as
democratic values and ethical values, Pollitt, 2003), different modes of
governance and corresponding organizational designs (such as user-
focused values and rule-abidance values, Bøgh Andersen et al., 2012),
inherently different types of values (performance versus procedural values,
De Graaf & Paanakker, 2015, or Hoods’ families of thèta, lambda, and
sigma values (1991)), and many other categorizations (see Rutgers, 2008).
The most frequently referred to seem to be Beck Jørgensen and Bozeman’s
seven public values constellations, that include values associated with the
relationship between public administration and politicians, values associ-
ated with intra-organizational aspects of public administration, and, the
focus of our analysis, values associated with the behavior of public-sector
employees (2007, pp. 367–368). We add the perspective of public crafts-
manship in specific professional work contexts to narrow this down fur-
ther. To capture the full range of value orientations among public-sector
officials, an applied and work-specific approach that includes contextual
professional values can add to our knowledge on which values matter most.
The professional angle is also touched upon by many scholars. For
instance, Van Wart (1998) distinguishes the profession as one of the
sources from which important public-sector values emerge. More recently,
Bøgh Andersen et al. found professionalism to be one of seven key value
dimensions in public-sector organizational designs, consisting of indepen-
dent professional standards, having professional drive, and professional com-
mitment as a motive (2012, p. 721). Likewise, Beck Jørgensen and Rutgers
found, in an empirical examination of central public values in Dutch and
Danish job advertisements from 1966 to 2008, that the value of merit,
also verbalized as expertise or professionalism, ‘is and continues to be the
most important selection criteria, but the meaning of merit explodes in
several directions’ (2014, p. 59). Pollitt (2003, pp. 134–135) also explic-
itly identifies ‘professional values’ as a main category but restricts its mean-
ing primarily to the singular interpretation of impartiality. In a similar vein,
numerous studies mention ‘professionalism’ or ‘expertise’ as one value
amongst many (Beck Jørgensen & Bozeman, 2007; Van der Wal, 2008;
Van der Wal & Huberts, 2008; Huberts, 2014; Van der Wal & Yang,
2015; Trommel, 2018). Definitions, again, typically delineate this value as
‘acting in line with professional codes and standards’ (Huberts, 2014,
p. 213) or ‘act[ing] with competence, skill, and knowledge’ (Van der Wal
& Yang, 2015, p. 418), indicating that many different types of (sub) val-
ues may fit under this broad umbrella. None of these studies reveal what
is precisely entailed by those interpretations of professionalism, or, to put
it differently, what exactly qualifies as public craftsmanship.
8.4 Studying Public Craftsmanship Value

Convergence
As argued, many public-values studies focus on detecting, mapping, and
classifying public values, for instance in elaborate literature reviews, large
civil servant surveys, or by means of case studies of their role in public–pri-
vate partnerships (Beck Jørgensen & Bozeman, 2007; Reynaers, 2014b;
Van der Wal, Nabatchi, & De Graaf, 2015; Yang & van der Wal, 2014). A
smaller sample of studies concentrates on identifying and explaining value
differences, most notably between public and private sector logics,
between administrative morals in different countries, or a combination of
both (Van der Wal, 2008; De Graaf & van der Wal, 2008; Jelovac, van der
Wal, & Jelovac, 2011; Yang & van der Wal, 2014; Van der Wal & Yang,
2015; Yang, 2016).
Gradually, research on value differences is expanding to include more
qualitative work on differences or conflicts between values themselves, and
how public officials cope with conflicting value sets in their daily work
practice (Steenhuisen & van Eeten, 2008; Koppenjan, Charles, & Ryan,
2008; De Graaf & Paanakker, 2015; De Graaf, Huberts, & Smulders,
2016). In an empirical article on organizational values of Dutch govern-
ment ministries and semi-autonomous executive agencies, Van Tiel and
Van der Wal (2010) discuss differences within the public sector, juxtapos-
ing very different types of organizations. In-depth research on value dif-
ferences within more homogenous groups of public officials, and down
professional lines of public craftsmanship, is scarce.
Whether to expect high- or low-value convergence within professions is
unclear. There is no doubt that professional groups make up a large—and
therefore not to be overlooked—part of public-sector employees, and
often share a common mode of operation and work ethos:
In Western Europe, the relevant group is often a profession; that is, an occu-
pation with intra-occupational norms and specialized, theoretical knowl-
edge in the given area. The professions enforce the professional standards
(norms within the profession) via peer review, and the desirable is compli-
ance with intraoccupational norms, making professional commitment very
important (Bøgh Andersen et al., 2012, p. 717)
190 H. PAANAKKER
In this definition, norm diffusion and homogenization are key charac-

teristics of a professional group. Whether a similar collective logic also
extends to value orientations is less well understood. A few studies indicate
that, in the public sphere, different actors may have different understand-
ings of values (cf. De Graaf & Paanakker, 2015; Reynaers & Paanakker,
2016; Yang, 2016). For example, Yang (2016, pp. 78–79) found that
Chinese and Dutch civil servants attached six different meanings to the
value ‘loyalty,’ including ‘loyalty to the organization and colleagues’ and
‘loyalty to the country, to the political party, or to the laws and regula-
tions.’ Some clear patterns of divergence emerged with the majority of
Dutch officials endorsing the first interpretation and Chinese ones the
latter. Furthermore, interpretations also diverged within sub-categories.
Dutch officials interpreted ‘loyalty to the superior’ in terms of being loyal
to ‘the bigger picture of the vision and mission of the organization,’ whereas
Chinese officials understood ‘superior’ in terms of obedience and subordi-
nation to their manager (Yang, 2016, pp. 78–79). Finally, also within each
of the two groups responses were scattered across the different meanings
(Yang, 2016, pp. 78–79). Likewise, views on what public craftsmanship
values precisely entail, or to put it differently, what it means to be a good
civil servant, may differ from professional to professional.
Alternatively, theories of social learning and organizational socialization
theory suggest that public officials, especially in smaller sub-groups, are
socialized into group norms and values (Bandura, 1977, 1986; Kohlberg,
1969), and this would suggest high-value convergence (Chao, O’Leary-
Kelly, Wolf, Klein, & Gardner, 1994; Feldman, 1981). Through encul-
turation processes, shared organizational values create internal integration
but also guide external adaptation and are strong catalyzers of behavior in
the work context (Schein, 1985; Paarlberg & Perry, 2007). Interestingly,
Bøgh Andersen et al. (2012) establish empirically that core value differ-
ences between public sector organizations correspond largely to the pro-
fessional focus of such organizations. They found that, compared to
managers in regulating or administrating organizations, ‘managers of ser-
vice providing organizations had higher scores on professionalism (clan
[mode of governance]) and user focus (market [mode of governance])’
and ‘[i]n line with this, managers of lower-level organizations scored lower
on balancing interests, rule abidance, and budget keeping and higher on
user focus and professionalism compared to higher-level authorities’
(Bøgh Andersen et al., 2012, p. 725).
In an empirical study among 182 city-level public administrators,

Witesman and Walters also found that public officials use a limited number
of well-defined context-driven values in their professional decision making:
they selected specific subsets of values that were relevant to the specific
work situations they were confronted with (2015, p. 90). Besides the sug-
gestion that a distinct type of values could be deemed relevant in specific
professions, the question arises of whether these values are assigned similar
meanings or not. Even in the earlier cited work of Yang (2016), respon-
dents generally attached no more than five different meanings to a value.
Although these respondents represented public administrators in different
policy domains (and hence, different occupational groups), could this
demonstrate the occurrence of patterns that are indeed varied, but at the
same time have a limited scope of variance? And would these value orienta-
tions be even more similar within more homogenous professional groups?
This provides interesting leads for further research on the uniformity of
public craftsmanship values. To date, the level of value convergence in
specific work contexts in terms of demarcated professions, and among
frontline workers specifically, remains an unexplored field of research.
8.5 Values and Craftsmanship in the Prison

Context
In the literature on prison dynamics, the presence of strong values that
underpin penal logic and point penal behavior and practices in a clear
direction is widely acknowledged. Many scholars stress how the incapaci-
tation of detainees is inextricably tied to the prioritization of security at the
expense of other goals of imprisonment (DiIulio, 1987; Sykes, 1958). In
prisons, security as a value is linked to the deprivation of liberty and exer-
tion of authority and tight control (Craig, 2004), and these are regarded
as the core objectives of incarceration, ‘for the prison constitutes a place of
domination’ (Liebling & Arnold, 2004, p. 442). Others contrast the focus
on security values with their predominantly procedural nature (such as the
strict enforcement of rules and regulations, control, order and stability,
routine, authoritative action, and coercion) with values of a relational
nature (Liebling & Arnold, 2004, pp. 435–442; Molleman & Van der
Broek, 2014, p. 35). Liebling and Arnold assert that, in day-to-day prison
practices, these so-called harmony values are as essential—if not even more
so—as security values, and relate to human dignity, respect, fairness, and
trust in detainee–employee interaction and relationships, as well as to
192 H. PAANAKKER
detainees’ personal support and development (2004, pp. 435–442, see

also Molleman & Van Ginneken, 2015). He states that striking a balance
between two such inherently different values, no matter how complicated,
is the ultimate key to ensuring quality in prison performance (Liebling &
Arnold, 2004, p. 442), and hence constitutes penal craftsmanship. Others,
still, argue that rehabilitation of the offender has been part of the Western
penal system for over a century, often as part of a humane form of punish-
ment (Craig, 2004; Molleman, 2014). These three goals or values are also
explicitly incorporated in the mission of the Dutch prison system, which
reads: ‘We ensure a safe and humane detention and work with our adja-
cent organizations and the inmate, toward reintegration’ (DJI, 2009). If,
and how, Dutch prison officers mirror these abstract values in their views
on craftsmanship is unknown.
Scientific studies on the real-life role of prison officers in the United
States or the United Kingdom, for instance, produce long lists of required
competences that indirectly reflect on craftsmanship in the penal domain
(Gilbert, 1997; Liebling, Price, & Shefer, 2010). They underline how
much of prison work is about operating routines effectively; how prison
officers share characteristics such as being resourceful, loyal, self-confident,
and proud; how complex it is to cater to the needs of a highly unpredict-
able group of beneficiaries; and how utterly important is the ability to
balance security and discipline on the one hand and highly developed
people-skills on the other (Liebling et al., 2010). Peacekeeping seems to
be a recurring characteristic of penal craftsmanship: ‘Being a good prison
officer involves being good at not using force but still getting things done,
and being prepared to use the various power bases officers can draw on
when necessary’ (Liebling et al., 2010, p. 205).
8.6 Research Methods and Analysis

To allow for in-depth qualitative analysis of the way public craftsmanship
is subjectively understood and characterized, we incorporate the results
of semi-structured interviewing in a case study among Dutch prison offi-
cers (N = 18). Because of the closed setting of detention facilities (which,
in Goffman’s (1968) words, would be characterized as total institu-
tions), this research concerns a very specific and homogenous group of
professionals. They are also public professionals, since all detention facili-
ties in the Netherlands are fully publicly run. Respondents were working
in the same penal facility in Amsterdam, the capital, with identical job
Table 8.1 Respondent characteristics

Prison officials (N = 18)
Gender Male 15
Female 3 <10 2
Age 30–35 1 10–15 6
36–40 2 Years of service 16–20 0
41–45 2 21–25 3
46–50 4 26–30 5
51–55 4 >30 2
56–60 5
descriptions (running the daily detainee programs and taking care of the
detainees) and highly similar target groups (male detainees awaiting the
verdict on their case, prior to potential conviction), but at different
departments throughout the facility (including those with special empha-
sis on heightened medication use or repeat offenders). Table 8.1 lists
respondent characteristics. Men are overrepresented, which is a distin-
guishing feature of the prison officer population in general. Older
employees with a considerable length of service are also overrepresented,
an accurate reflection of this particular facility. Many of them have been
working here their entire employable lives. All respondents were typical
street-level bureaucrats, directly interacting with detainees, doing their
work with a considerable level of discretion, and in charge of implement-
ing and shaping prison policy on the frontline (see Lipsky, 1980, p. xvii;
Tummers et al., 2015, p. 1099, 1105).
Using an inductive approach, interviewees were asked for their view on
what constitutes a good prison official. To avoid any bias (toward certain
types of values), we did not ask for specific values, but purposefully asked
broad questions such as ‘what does a good prison official look like?’ to
bring to the surface value orientations toward public craftsmanship. The
word ‘values’ itself was avoided, as it proved too vague a concept for
respondents. Several control questions were asked in order to eliminate
socially desirable answers, for example, questions about perceptions of
ideal penal policy, descriptions of the job of prison officer, and questions
about when they felt they were doing their job well. Respondents were
entirely free to elaborate and to raise topics themselves in response to, and
in addition to, the questions. Interviews were recorded and transcribed
verbatim (131.706 words).
194 H. PAANAKKER
The data analysis consisted of a systematic content analysis through

software-supported (MAXQDA) coding: a process of attaching distinct
labels to data segments to organize, classify, and conceptualize the inter-
view material (Friese, 2014; Miles & Huberman, 1994). In the belief that
‘a properly developed code is more than just a descriptive label’ (Friese,
2014, p. 94), the coding system was developed largely inductively, using
two-stage coding to build categories from the bottom up (see Bazeley,
2007; Kuş Saillard, 2011; Friese, 2014). During the first stage, open cod-
ing was applied to the data to explore and create sub-categories of values
that provide ‘a good description of heterogeneity and variance in the data
material’ (Friese, 2014, p. 113). We united data segments with similar
content into mutually exclusive codes to create a methodological hierar-
chical coding system that reflects the data in all its facets (Friese, 2014,
pp. 130–131). Next, we set out to find common denominators by renam-
ing, modifying, and integrating sub-labels into larger overarching coding
categories (Friese, 2014, pp. 130–131). ‘Going back and forth between
data and codes’ (Weiss, 1994, p. 156), this validated version was applied
to the data set at large and allowed us to grasp the subtleties of value ori-
entations and compare them between respondents.
Concretely, this means that qualities as mentioned by respondents were
inductively aggregated and classified into four main categories of values:
humanity, security, reintegration, and task effectiveness. The overarching
value categories are described thus:
• Humanity orientations refer to the idea that detainees are to be

treated as humanely as possible, with a detention climate and staff
approach that first and foremost sees the person behind the detainee.
• Security orientations contain the key notion that detention should
first and foremost be executed safely and should be aimed at maxi-
mizing safety and security for both employees and detainees and at
minimizing occurrences of aggression, violence, and crime within
the penal facility.
• Reintegration orientations were depicted as a direct investment in
stimulating detainees’ rehabilitation so as to obtain a life(style) free
of criminal activity in the long term.
• Task effectiveness orientations can be defined as being granted the
time and means to conduct everyday business effectively, without
unnecessary unrest, distraction or time constraints getting in the way
and salting the game.
These four values accurately and inclusively capture the common charac-
teristics among the different qualities. With the exception of task effective-
ness, respondents also named these more abstract, singular value labels
spontaneously themselves. For example, the category ‘humanity’ features
concrete value orientations such as ‘personal care and support of detainees’
and ‘treating and approaching detainees with respect and dignity,’ but the
word ‘humanity’ itself was specifically mentioned as a key quality of crafts-
manship by respondents and included as a separate sub-category (‘literally
mentioning ‘humanity of detention’ or ‘humane treatment of detainee’).
In addition, prioritizations were analyzed. Respondents were not explic-
itly asked to rank or prioritize their orientations—rather, we made sense of
that in the analysis and coded rankings into their responses, depending on
how much weight or emphasis the respondent put on the quality men-
tioned and its relationship to the other qualities mentioned. For instance,
if respondents argued their work should mainly revolve around contact
with detainees and getting to know them, and, that, in addition to this,
security in the facility is also important, then ‘humanity/personal contact
with detainees’ was listed as the number one ideal value orientation and
‘security/security of detention’ was coded as the number two ideal value
orientation. This resulted in a top five or six of value orientations per
respondent (very few respondents named more than six different value ori-
entations), and these formed the basis of the findings reported below.
8.7 Findings
8.7.1 Craftsmanship Among Prison Officers: Prioritizations

Alike, Varied Interpretations
Findings show that an impression of varying interpretations of craftsman-
ship is given initially. However, the overarching types of values they
describe, and the prioritization of these overarching values, demonstrate a
remarkably consistent pattern. The table below lists all value orientations
mentioned by respondents in their ideal portrayal of prison work
(Table 8.2). It indicates which value orientations, according to respon-
dents, should ideally play a central role in detention and the way it is orga-
nized and provided by the prison officers themselves. At aggregated level,
three types of values stand out: humanity, security, and reintegration
unequivocally constitute the core of what prison officials feel public crafts-
manship in the Dutch prison sector is about. The following sections
discuss the variance of value orientations reported, patterns of prioritiza-
tion, and the level of professional convergence, respectively.
196 H. PAANAKKER
Table 8.2 Overview of prison officers’ reported value orientations toward public
craftsmanship
Public craftsmanship according to prison officers (N = 18)
Main value Value orientations No. of

category respondents
mentioning
this
Humanity (45) Individual care and support of detainees (helping out 15

practically and emotionally)
Treating and approaching detainees with respect and 7
dignity (being polite and acknowledging as fellow man)
Literally mentioning ‘humanity of detention’ or ‘humane 6
treatment detainee’
Treating and approaching detainees with empathy (being 5
sympathetic to moods and behavior resulting from stress
and personal problems)
Motivational treatment 3
Monitoring detainee behavior 3
Personal one-on-one contact with detainees 2
Treating and approaching detainees honestly (keeping 2
one’s promises)
Stimulating detainees to assume personal responsibility in 1
regulating prison life
Belief in the ability of detainee to change 1
Security (26) Security of detention and/or for detainees (reducing or 11
preventing aggression, violence, unsafe atmosphere)
Treating and approaching detainees from a disciplining 9
perspective (setting clear boundaries to desirable and
acceptable behavior)
Security Awareness (managing tensions through contact) 4
Security of Employee (keeping oneself and colleagues safe) 1
Sentencing as punishment 1
Reintegration Changing mindset and behavior of detainee during 10
(24) detention
Contributing to detainees’ return to society 6
Teaching detainee life skills (work, education, etc.) 5
Contributing to long-term public safety 2
Reducing recidivism 1
Task Ensuring daily peace and quiet 6
Effectiveness (9) Getting daily tasks done 3
Variance of Prison Officers’ Value Orientations

8.7.2
Humanity. The first set of value orientations is clustered into the category
of humanity in detention provision (see Table 8.2). As shown by the spe-
cific qualities mentioned, humanity refers to the idea that detainees are to
be treated as humanely as possible, with a detention climate and staff
approach that first and foremost sees the person behind the detainee. Value
orientations in this category refer, without exception, to qualities in the
individual professional and focus on how detainees should be approached.
In total, ten variations of this value cluster were coded. One variation
stands out. First and foremost, prison officers state they ought to be there
to handle individual requests for help and assistance, both practical (e.g.
with filling out forms or managing distribution of food, soap, or clothing
at the department) and emotional (e.g. putting stressful detainees at ease
or referring inmates to social workers). ‘You are some sort of spokesman for
the detainees. They come to you with all sorts of requests for help […]. Basically,
I am the filter for them to the rest of the facility’ (respondent 13). Besides
such personal and tailor-made care and support for individual detainees
(the most frequently mentioned, with 15 out of 18 respondents mention-
ing it), the most important key quality of the prison officer is said to be the
deployment of a treatment style toward detainees that is founded on
respect and dignity (mentioned by seven respondents) and empathy (men-
tioned by five respondents). Or, in the words of a respondent: ‘c’est le ton
qui fait la musique’ (respondent 5). This respondent provides the example
of the quality of the first contact in the morning when waking detainees to
go to labor. One can open the cell door by saying ‘Good morning, time for
labor, would you like to go to labor, did you manage to get some sleep?’ or by
snapping ‘Labor!,’ which evokes an entirely different dynamic. Other
respondents mention offering ‘an almost tailormade detention climate’ by
being sensitive to detainees’ personal problems or stress and allowing an
extra phone call or providing basic emotional guidance accordingly: ‘But
also […i]nsecure boys that don’t know what to expect, for them I am a center-
piece to at least explain to them what is coming and how to cope with that’
(respondent 12) and ‘I just approach them as fellow human beings and I do
not approach them as a piece of dirt’ (respondent 7).
Other value orientations in this category were mentioned far less fre-
quently but are nevertheless evidently related to the provision of support
and the style of treatment, such as the monitoring of detainee behavior
and treating detainees honestly by not making false promises and by keep-
198 H. PAANAKKER
ing one’s word (each mentioned by three respondents), or personal one-

on-one contact with detainees (mentioned by two respondents). Also
mentioned explicitly three times was motivational treatment, a label for a
prison-taught approach to detainees and based on motivational interview-
ing: ‘Staff members who use this method encourage inmates to participate
in activities, help them make plans for when they have served their sen-
tence, and try to hold up a mirror to them’ (Molleman & Van der Broek,
2014, p. 35). This does not mean other respondents found these value
orientations irrelevant. Rather, it means they do not seem to consider
them as a key indicator of public craftsmanship (or, at least, it did not come
spontaneously to mind).
Being the first port of call and most important point of contact is a
shared characteristic that runs across the value orientations centered
around humanity. With that comes a perceived need and obligation to pay
genuine attention, to use listening skills (letting detainees blow off steam)
and to treat detainees as human beings rather than as mere criminals. In
addition, prison officers aim at yielding behavioral change by doing so, as
is exemplified by the following quotes from respondents:
Well before my time they only hired prison officers that measured 2 by 3
meters and who only had to shut the door and open it and could just throw
them inside. My tranche is selected on the bases of a more social interaction
and talking and being interested. I do think there is the way of showing peo-
ple, I mean detainees, like: if I behave…that is also an option. (respondent 11)
Respect is the basis of everything, or else you can’t get close or be around
because you will be rejected. […] I treat people the way I want to be treated.
If you go sour…. You just have to remain normal and friendly. If you stand
broad-shouldered and give orders, it evokes aggression. They say: bugger
off mate! What you give is what you get in return. (respondent 6)
A good prison officer, well, provides care. A good prison officer, to me, is
someone who has contact with the detainees regularly, who is often on the
work floor, who hears and sees, the vibes I just mentioned, who can detect
if someone is slipping off and anticipates in that: ‘what’s going on, this is not
how I know you’. You know, who is eyes and ears on the floor. (respondent 9)
Clearly, professional behavior based on humanity orientations repre-

sents an important exemplary role and spurs a give-and-take dynamic that
is illustrative of penal craftsmanship. Here, important linkages with the
other two key values of security and reintegration emerge and are dis-
cussed below.
Security. A second set of value orientations can be grouped around

security of detention. Although many respondents do not stress security
aspects as much as they stress humanity aspects, the majority describes it as
an important conditional value. Security is a prerequisite of their work and
should always be warranted and never be compromised: ‘Yes that’s very
simple, that’s guarding order, peace and quiet, and security within the facil-
ity, that’s of course the slogan that comes first’ (respondent 13 in response to
what the essence of the job of a prison officer is).
Five variations of security orientations can be identified from the data.
Again, one specific orientation dominates: over half of the respondents
(11 in total) specifically mention ‘security of detention’ as playing a role in
their conception of ideal public craftsmanship. They emphasize that this
refers to the general notion of guaranteeing safety within the facility,
meaning a safe environment for detainees during incarceration and the
minimizing of incidents of aggression, violence, and an atmosphere that is
conducive to such incidents—only one respondent extends this focus
directly to the safety of employees. This is as much a quality of the gover-
nance process (think of an adequate employee–detainee ratio or prison cell
inspections to check for weapons or drugs) as a professional quality of the
prison officers who, according to respondents, should actively steer on
security. It is well captured by the value orientation of ‘safety awareness’
through which respondents report important spillover effects from the
safeguarding of humanity to the safeguarding of security: knowing one’s
detainees well (which includes clear humanity orientations such as close
monitoring of behavior and anticipating (potentially) divergent behaviors
by entering into dialogue) directly enables security to be preserved.
Tensions are managed by means of contact and involvement. Although
only four respondents mention this relational security explicitly, it was
hinted upon by many others. Examples include,
What is security about? [..] About being on your own floor with the crooks
you know, with the activity program you know. […] So security has to do
with: how much contact and influence do you have with respect to your
environment. […] Because if [the prison officer] feels safe, he also creates
safety. (respondent 14)
Security is not just doors open and shut or having 3 guys on the prison yard,
but security is also: in what state does the detainee reside behind that door.
(respondent 5)
200 H. PAANAKKER
…. if that boy explodes and ends up in isolation while you could’ve also just
talked to him. You will take away a lot of tension for such a person. […]
listening to what he has to say, a bit of safety, protection. Seems odd to say,
but that they feel at ease here, so to speak. (respondent 1)
A second, often-mentioned security orientation relates to the behav-

ioral disciplining of detainees. Almost half of the respondents perceive a
disciplinary attitude toward detainees to be part of their craftsmanship,
either as opposed to the treatment styles clustered under humanity, or as a
complementary treatment style, necessary to obtain a healthy balance
between loose and strict employee–detainee interaction. These respon-
dents feel that a good prison officer sets clear boundaries to undesirable
and unacceptable behavior from detainees as a way of disciplining them to
behave more appropriately. The punitive character of detention permeates
in this value orientation and is notably less clearly captured by the value
orientations mentioned (for instance, sentencing as punishment is men-
tioned as an ideal feature only a single time). The disciplinary approach is
well illustrated by the following quotes:
Crooks do not fear prison. Detainees have too much space to shit on the
system. If I touch them they can sue me. I say: if you shit on me, I will shit
on you, puke on you, etcetera. Then they know what time it is. (respondent 6)
I am fairly rigid. I am fairly ‘no’ and as soon as you come to me and say ‘I need
to do this and this’, then you can forget about it. You may ask politely ‘can I,
do you have some time for me’ or whatever. I do not work for you. You are
not the one that pays my salary, so I don’t owe you shit. (respondent 12)
Reintegration. The third set of value orientations toward craftsmanship

is focused on efforts to reintegrate detainees into society. Although these
value orientations resonate well with the humanity perspective, their char-
acter is clearly distinct. Certainly, reintegration efforts can be attributed to
humane rather than restrictive and punitive detention climates. However,
whereas humanity orientations here focus on the nature and quality of
direct employee–detainee interaction and the types of attitudes adopted
by prison officers, orientations clustered in the category of reintegration
focus on the attainment of long-term effectiveness—the purposeful com-
mitment to elicit change through detention. These values represent what
prison officers’ work is ultimately aimed at and is meant to accomplish. In
the words of one prison officer: aim for detainees to ‘come out better than
they came in’ (respondent 5). Another stated: ‘I believe just punishing is of
no use. […] I believe that just locking up, that’s not it. You have to do some-
thing with them’ (respondent 11). Hence, reintegration orientations are
more outcome oriented than output and process oriented, and the value
of reintegration not only represents a quality in the individual but also
revolves around concrete governance tools to realize that objective.
As in the previous two categories, one value orientation predominates
here: for ten respondents, detention is ideally characterized by aiding the
reintegration of detainees through changing their mindset and behavior
during detention. As mentioned, this pedagogical conviction is strongly
related to the humane and disciplining treatment styles that were put for-
ward. It was only coded under ‘reintegration’ when respondents explicitly
signaled that prison work should be about teaching, coaching, or even
developing detainees to become better citizens. Descriptions remained
rather abstract, but some examples were provided, such as teaching detain-
ees discipline, providing a better daytime–nighttime routine, or a different
perspective on the appropriateness of criminal behavior and how to make
a living. Terminology such as contributing to ‘detainees’ return to society’
(mentioned by six respondents), ‘contributing to public safety’ (men-
tioned by 2), and ‘reducing recidivism’ (mentioned by 1) is very main-
stream in penal policy and execution and was also mentioned in a rather
abstract sense. Lastly, five respondents named the teaching of concrete life
skills: giving detainees a course in Dutch language, teaching them a spe-
cific trade, or providing other types of training to smoothen their post-
incarceration reintegration into society. In general, when talking about
reintegration efforts, respondents referred to the use of institutionalized
policy instruments such as in-house reintegration centers, in-house dis-
pensing of psychological or psychiatric support, or involving chain part-
ners to deal with post-detention matters such as housing, social security
disbursement, and employment.
Task effectiveness. The final set of value orientations is a relatively small
one and was labeled ‘task effectiveness.’ In contrast to humanity, security,
and reintegration, this overarching label was not given a name as such by
respondents. This category features two value orientations: six respon-
dents named ‘ensuring daily peace and quiet’ in their ideal portrayal of the
prison officer, and an additional three respondents named ‘getting daily
tasks done,’ which typically refers to clearly circumscribed tasks like con-
ducting cell inspections, sending detainees to their activities on time, and
conducting the weekly mandatory amount of mentor conversations with
202 H. PAANAKKER
detainees. This particularly includes being granted enough time to man-

age those core tasks.
With respect to upholding peace and quiet on the floor, this was men-
tioned five out of six times in combination with security, in the expression
well known to prison officers ‘orde, rust en veiligheid’ (order, peace and
quiet, and security): a phrase taught to them as a guideline for performing
their job and for creating the right climate on the floor. As an ideal of
craftsmanship, it seemed to have relatively little concrete meaning to them
and appeared to be more of an automated response than a sincere substan-
tive characterization, other than as a means of avoiding unnecessary hassle
and unrest on the floor that would have been a distraction from the job in
hand. Besides the obvious relationship with security (unrest between
detainees themselves or between employees and detainees can invert to
insecurity), maintaining order and peace and quiet may also refer to being
organized in terms of having enough personnel on the floor and having at
your disposal all the materials required to run the daily programs effec-
tively (functioning showers, kitchen equipment, sufficient cleaning mate-
rial, access to detainee files, being able to reach other in-house personnel
when needed, etc.). In both instances, the value orientations of task effec-
tiveness have a short-term focus. They refer to managing concrete tasks in
the prison officer’s daily work context. As such, task effectiveness means
short-term effectiveness and contrasts with the perspective of the reinte-
gration category that centers on contributing ultimately to long-term
(partially post-) detention effects.
8.7.3 Patterns of Value Prioritization Among Prison Officers

Table 8.2 unequivocally shows that, overall, the three values of humanity,
security, and reintegration are referred to most frequently by respondents,
in that order: together, the 18 respondents mentioned variations of these
values 45, 26, and 24 times, respectively. Although prioritization of these
values differs slightly depending on the respondent, these three values are
remarkably recurrent in each respondent’s listing of the ideal values of
public craftsmanship. The prison officials interviewed give elaborate
accounts of the importance of humanity (160 coded segments), reintegra-
tion (57 coded segments), security (44 coded segments), and task effec-
tiveness (34 coded segments), meaning that they gave numerous examples
of how and why these values mattered in the daily practice of their work.
This is confirmed when accounting for the mutual positioning of these

values. No fewer than 17 out of 18 respondents mentioned humanity as
an ideal value: it was coded in the top 3 of all of these 17, and 13 respon-
dents even gave it as their number one top priority value. Humanity ori-
entations by far outnumber the others, which indicates that respondents
clearly find humanity the most important value that the ‘good’ prison
official ought to adhere to. Reintegration and security vie for second place,
with no definite winner. Reintegration recurred as an ideal value among
15 out of 18 respondents, and for 11 of them it was in their top 3. Security
was mentioned as an ideal value by 14 out of 18 respondents, and again
for 11 of them, coded in their top 3. When looking at values coded num-
ber one, security-related orientations were coded as the most important
quality four times, and reintegration orientations only once.
The only exception to the pattern is task effectiveness, the value cate-
gory representing the prison official’s ability and—perhaps even more
so—opportunity to get daily tasks done. This contains as many as 34
coded segments but occupies a far less prominent spot in the prioritiza-
tions. Task effectiveness is coded in the respondents’ top 3 only 4 times—
the other five who mention it do so almost as an afterthought at the end
of their enumeration of the key qualities of public craftsmanship. Its posi-
tion is explained by the fact that the nine respondents who mentioned it,
mentioned it quite frequently and elaborately. And, as mentioned before,
five of them quoted this as part of the fixed and automatically coming to
mind line ‘order, peace and quiet, and security’ and seemed to attach far
less priority to it in relation to some of the other value orientations.
8.7.4 Convergence in Variance: How Prison Officers Interpret

Craftsmanship
If we combine our findings on which value orientations emerged and how
they were prioritized by prison officers, we can address the second part of
the research question on whether there is convergence of views on crafts-
manship within a distinct group of public professionals. On one hand, the
results yield an image of variance and, on the other, convergence within
that variance.
1. Detainee care, safety, and behavioral change are key and mutually
interdependent
204 H. PAANAKKER
Our analysis illustrates that, despite a relatively large degree of variance

in value orientations, respondents also have some obvious shared under-
standings of the ideal prison officer. On average, the main categories of
values that were distinguished harbor five associated yet different value
orientations, increasing to ten variations in the case of humanity orienta-
tions. Within the categories of humanity, security, and reintegration how-
ever, examination of the relative positioning of orientations shows that, for
each category, one particular orientation stands out. This reveals an inter-
pretation of craftsmanship that fosters the individual care and support of
detainees (humanity), keeping the detention environment safe for detain-
ees (security), and changing detainees’ attitudes and behavior (reintegra-
tion). Coincidentally, these orientations happen to represent the most
frequently mentioned single orientations too (by 15, 11, and ten respon-
dents, respectively). Hence, respondents spontaneously denoted a mix of
different types of values but exhibited similarities in their emphasis of the
most important key qualities. Many respondents also agreed on the inter-
dependency of these values, with humanity as an important catalyzer and
breeding ground for security and reintegration, and named these three
values in the same breath when describing the (aspirational) prison officer:
My job entails supporting and treating detainees well. That goes by ten
[detainees] and is in the first place about security surrounding the detainees
on your floor. (respondent 2)
My job is just that I have to guarantee security and order and peace and
quiet on the floor and that I provide guidance to the patients or clients in
their say day-to-day concerns. Giving information on certain matters. [..]
for them to be able to return to society. You should focus on the boys, on
their future. (respondent 18)
2. Humanity of detention has top priority
It is in the analysis of the values that underpin concrete orientations

that convergence can be most clearly observed. Despite the multiple varia-
tions, prison officers’ orientations could be clustered in no more than four
overarching values—an extremely narrow and uniform scope considering
the range of public values generally mentioned in PVP studies. None of
the qualities cited by respondents fell outside the scope of the four catego-
ries of humanity, security, reintegration, and task effectiveness: they cap-
tured exhaustively the (common characteristics of the) concrete qualities.
Furthermore, these four values were similarly prioritized, with human-

ity taking the ultimate lead as most important pillar of craftsmanship.
Respondents prioritized either security or reintegration next, and almost
uniformly put task effectiveness last (if they mentioned it at all). The clear
majority of respondents maintained that a combination of some manifes-
tations of the first three values characterized public craftsmanship in the
prison sector, pointing to a clear commonality, albeit of a disparate nature
due to different sub-interpretations.
3. Different emphasis and different combinations
However, the level of convergence should not be exaggerated. None of

the concrete value orientations was unanimously mentioned by all respon-
dents, and of all value orientations mentioned, only three were mentioned
by more than half of respondents. Apart from these three orientations of
detainee care, safety, and change, orientations were more scattered. They
received far less uniform credit and were mentioned by nine or (more
often) far fewer respondents.
Despite the variations within the overarching categories sharing a com-
mon underlying value base, each does constitute a change of emphasis with
potentially very different professional performance as a result. Orientations
toward security differed most: envisioning security in terms of sentencing
as punishment, putting the safety of employees first, or building security
awareness through as much detainee contact as possible all constitute truly
different meanings. Orientations toward humanity were more closely
related. But even then, a humane treatment style primarily based on respect
triggers slightly different behavior from one based primarily on honesty or
empathy (e.g. being polite does not necessarily mean never breaking prom-
ises, and one can be very honest and straightforward without showing any
empathy). Of course, such orientations can also exist alongside each other,
or even complement each other. Finally, with respect to reintegration
efforts and task effectiveness, far less divergence was found. Essentially,
reintegration efforts can be reduced to two interpretations: a quality of
prison officers themselves to engineer change within the detainee, or a
quality of the detention process to organize detention in a way that assists
the detainee to get to grips with his post-incarceration life through in-
house training and with the help of relevant external chain partners. Task
effectiveness seems to contain the most convergent orientations and refers
to the coherent notion of there being not too much chaos and having suf-
ficient time to fulfill the daily tasks of a prison officer.
206 H. PAANAKKER
In addition, there can be different combinations of value orientations

that may further obscure the illusion of a highly uniform interpretation of
craftsmanship. For instance, individual care and support of detainees was
outlined by the vast majority of respondents, yet very different treatment
styles were suggested to describe how this support was to be provided.
Some advocated a disciplining perspective founded on the display of
authority and preservation of distance toward detainees, others opted for
an emphatic approach founded on sheer equality and purposeful employee–
detainee proximity and leveling. Several respondents also recognized that
the concept of a homogenous penal craftsman was not feasible, and some
explicitly said this was undesirable: ‘There is no such thing as the ideal prison
officer, rather you need a mix of people, and people themselves are also a mix
of various aspects’ (respondent 14).
8.8 Discussion and Conclusion

This chapter examined value orientations and consequent value conver-
gence toward public craftsmanship among frontline professionals in the
Dutch prison sector. It concerns the classification of meanings and the way
corresponding value orientations are expressed to fit public officials’ own
ideas and the professional framework of craftsmanship. In their concep-
tions of ideal craftsmanship, prison officers exhibit both similarities and
differences.
First, the prison officers demonstrate remarkable convergence on a
more aggregated level of abstraction and prioritization, that, in addition,
reflects well on the Dutch penal mission. Clearly, prison officers have
internalized the values that underpin it and mirror them in their concep-
tions of good craftsmanship. Respondents adhere to the same (types of)
values of humanity, security, reintegration and, to a lesser extent, task
effectiveness, and prioritize them in a similar way. Contrary to much prison
literature, reintegration is a distinct category alongside direct interaction-
oriented humanity orientations, and task effectiveness was identified as
another category. Rather than security, humanity triumphs as most impor-
tant determinant of craftsmanship. This may be considered characteristic
of the Dutch penal climate, which, in comparison with some other coun-
tries, puts a notably strong emphasis on humane treatment in relation to
repressiveness, punitiveness, and retaliation. Security and reintegration
were cast as the second most important things in good job performance,
followed by task effectiveness as a much smaller category.
Interestingly, few of the standard public values we usually find in PVP

studies surfaced among prison officers in the Netherlands. Values such as
integrity, professionalism, lawfulness, or responsiveness, which are associ-
ated with the behavior of public-sector employees and their relationship to
citizens, for instance by Beck Jørgensen and Bozeman (2007, p. 361),
were simply not mentioned as such by our respondents when reflecting on
public craftsmanship in prisons. Arguably, some of these values, such as
honesty and transparency, were brought into other value orientations, for
example, an honest treatment style toward detainees, but only in a way
that was applied to the distinct context of prison work. At the very least, it
indicates that the prison service has a vocabulary of its own that is less
compatible with the terminology of general public-values research. What
is more, it accurately reflects the logic and language of the penal profes-
sion, and how this relates to characterizations of doing the job well. As
such, in reflecting on the general context of the professions, the values of
public craftsmanship would seem to offer a more conclusive picture of
which values matter most in the specific profession under study.
Second, prison officers demonstrated a convergent perception of value
interdependency. The symbiotic relationship between the values of human-
ity and security was confirmed, but their inherently conflicting nature was
not. Rather, respondents report a positive interdependence in which the
safeguarding of humanity directly and inevitably leads to more security,
and to a better consolidation of reintegration efforts. In addition, high
levels of task effectiveness directly enable prison officers to properly pay
tribute to those three core values. Finally, the clear majority of respon-
dents mentioned at least three types of values in combination. Hence,
none of the four main values of penal craftsmanship is a stand-alone value:
evident interlinkages exist between them and they are to a large extent
mutually influential and reinforcing.
Lastly, far more divergence was found in the sub-levels of value orienta-
tions. When mapping the concrete specifications of ideal qualities, a rela-
tively large variation was seen. Interpretations of how security is to be
safeguarded differed most substantially, followed by differences in empha-
sis on the humane treatment of prisoners and the achievement of reinte-
gration. It is on these specific qualities that prison officers concretely base
their behavior. They are highly contextualized and detailed accounts of
good craftsmanship and demonstrate the uniqueness of individual prison
officers, or at least of different types of prison officers, possibly impacted
by factors such as age, character, or years of service. Prison officers differed
in the emphases they put on specific qualities, in the way they combined
208 H. PAANAKKER
qualities within each category and in the way they combined qualities
from different categories. This may produce very different behaviors.
This variance suggests that the one-dimensional use of overarching
value labels, often prominent in scholarly debates and policies, does poor
justice to the complex professional (in this case penal) reality and those
navigating it. It represents a call to move away from currently dominant
sets of values that focus on macro-level governance to apprehension of the
meaning of values in the specific work context, and from broad, predefined
and prearranged value sets to concrete articulations of values and recogni-
tion of the disparate nature of their actual application. The perspective of
public craftsmanship might offer some interesting leads. It sets out to
address and absorb the crucial values in a given public profession—values
that may not be generalizable to the public sector at large but are e ssentially
shaping the public job at hand and determine how the public employee
thinks, acts, and performs.
Future research into the scope of craftsmanship values is needed, both
with respect to a larger and more diverse sample of prison workers and in
comparison with other types of professions. Is the prison officer unique in
the limited scope of values that are put center stage and the disparate
nature of the specific qualities attached to those values? Or is this dynamic
endemic to the bounded spaces of all professions? Does it go for all profes-
sions that there are dozens of different approaches in practice to the
implementation of these values? Another interesting locus for future
research is how values might converge within the hierarchy of positions,
how the values of street-level workers compare with their immediate supe-
riors and senior managers. As professional colleagues, do they adhere to
the same types of values and hold similar ideas on corresponding qualities
of craftsmanship? Finally, more empirical work needs to be done on the
effect on professional practice of the views on public craftsmanship that
are held. How do these views translate to public performance, and if there
are strongly divergent views on what craftsmanship entails, does this have
a negative effect on public performance?
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CHAPTER 9
Robustness and the Governance Sin

of Bureaucratic Animosity
Adam Masters
9.1 What It Means to Be Robust

We expect our governance systems to be robust. When they are challenged
by internal or external actors, ideally they are sufficiently flexible and
appropriately thought out to cope and function for the betterment of
society. A governance system incapable of resisting challenges is soon
replaced—or so we would hope. Unfortunately, lived experiences for
many find that bureaucratic inertia gives a new meaning to robustness—
the system survives and continues to roll on despite its flawed integrity.
Robustness as a value thus has two interpretations—it is good when it
protects the processes of governance from spurious challenges; and
robustness is bad when a techno-rational mindset violates the integrity of
governance to cause harm to the governed (see Adams & Balfour, 2012).
Robustness (n.) The condition or quality of being robust (in various senses);
sturdiness, hardiness; strength. (OED)
A. Masters (*)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21522-4_9
216 A. MASTERS
This chapter conceptualizes a new type of integrity violation—bureau-

cratic animosity1—locates it within Hubert’s (2012, 2014) framework
concept of quality of governance, and in turn uses it as a mirror to reflect
further on the concept of quality of governance. In particular, bureau-
cratic animosity reveals the flaws in robustness as a value.
Robust has specific meaning in the pantheon of public values. According
to Beck Jørgensen and Bozeman (2007), robustness is part of the value set
within the constellation of intraorganizational aspects of public adminis-
tration (p. 360). They further allocate a set of sub-values to robustness—
adaptability, stability, reliability, and timeliness. To explain further, these
authors frame their approach to this value as ‘[o]rganizational robustness
[being] all about a suitable combination of stability and adaptability, about
being immune to outside influences, and about the ability to flow with the
tide when necessary’ (Beck Jørgensen & Bozeman, 2007, p. 366, empha-
sis added). On the surface, this frames robustness as a positive value—yet
the frame limits our thinking to the robustness of an organization. In
these terms, robustness comes into conflict with their constellation of val-
ues associated with the behavior of public-sector employees (Beck
Jørgensen & Bozeman, 2007, pp. 367–368). In essence, these are the
values of the individuals who collectively make up any public organization
with the value of accountability resting on the sub-values of professional-
ism, honesty, moral standards, ethical consciousness, and integrity. The
latter being the key with Beck Jørgensen and Bozeman describing a per-
son with integrity as someone ‘unmoved by personal motives, interests,
bribery, popular opinion, changing fashions, smears, and so forth but has
sufficient backbone to stick to a certain point of view or principle’ (Beck
Jørgensen & Bozeman, 2007, p. 368, emphasis added).
This locates a significant degree of robustness at the individual rather
than the organizational level, pointing out the idiosyncratic dimension of
robustness as a personal characteristic embedded in public servant behav-
ior. It is this level that this chapter examines robustness on. Specifically, a
critical eye is casted on the challenges posed to robustness in individual
public servant behavior. In this respect, Beck Jørgensen and Bozeman
provide an interesting lead. In their explanation of the values associated
with the behavior of public-sector employees, they go on to specifically
1
Acknowledgements: The concept of bureaucratic animosity grew from a conversation
between professor’s Glen Withers and Adam Graycar at The Australian National University,
later related to the author. It was further developed for the International Institute of
Administrative Sciences (IIAS) Quality of Governance (QuGo) Study Group meetings.
9 ROBUSTNESS AND THE GOVERNANCE SIN OF BUREAUCRATIC ANIMOSITY 217
discuss regime loyalty as an important related value to integrity, with the

option for a public servant resign if they cannot follow the regime require-
ments (Beck Jørgensen & Bozeman, 2007, p. 368). While the public ser-
vant involved can justify their actions within the value expectations of
integrity toward their organization, it also creates a space for individual
acts of bureaucratic animosity—the systemic or overzealous application of
rules, regulations, and the law to the point of harm to individuals and busi-
nesses (citizen/clients)2—to occur.
While organizational stability is a positive, as is the ability to adapt, resist
external influences and be flexible, they can also become a negative when
applied to the governance processes that an agency is wholly or partially
responsible for administering. Unless all the sub-values apply consistently
and evenly when required, the interaction between values can lead to friction
and poor quality of governance outcomes. For example, a stable organiza-
tion that fails to adapt in a timely fashion to changing social values may result
in harm to those within the organization, or whom it is meant to serve—
think of the US military policies toward gay and transgender service person-
nel. Going further, individuals within an organization may fail to adapt to
unique circumstances, or be acrimonious for a variety of reasons toward citi-
zen/clients relying on strict interpretations of laws, regulations, policies,
guidelines, or rules resulting in real harm. This is bureaucratic animosity.
Governance is a complex and contestable term. Supplementing this
with a defining concept—that of quality—opens an entirely new can of
worms and results in the conceptual question, what is quality of gover-
nance? At first glance, our Study Group IV of the International Institute
of Administrative Sciences (IIAS) paraphrased the famous line from for-
mer US Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart on pornography—we don’t
know how to define it, but we know it when we see it. In the main, this
volume explores the positive values associated with quality of gover-
nance—accountability (O’Kelly and Dubnick, this volume), democratic
legitimacy (Buckwater & Balfour, this volume), quality itself (Simonati,
this volume), transparency (Schnell, this volume), integrity (Huberts, this
volume)—as well as the more problematic areas of values conflict
(Paanakker, this volume). This chapter also explores poor quality of gov-
ernance using bureaucratic animosity as the dark mirror to reflect upon
what quality of governance may be.
2
The term citizen/clients captures the concept of people and organizations subjected to
bureaucratic animosity in both the singular and plural forms. The term also includes entities
that interact with bureaucracies who are not strictly citizens of the state running the bureau-
cratic system.
218 A. MASTERS
Bureaucratic animosity covers a range of governance sins that do not

meet the threshold of criminal or corrupt behavior, but nevertheless violate
the integrity of governance processes and corrupts the robustness of public
institutions—sometimes with devastating consequences for individuals or
businesses. These consequences can include significant loss of capital or
income, business failure, and physical or mental harm. Working from an
Australian perspective, this chapter reveals how systems, public officials,
and citizen/clients contribute to bureaucratic animosity, and, as a result,
undermine robustness as a value of public servant behavior. The chapter
frames the concept of bureaucratic animosity within the developing litera-
ture on quality of governance (Huberts, 2012), and integrity violations
(Huberts, Anechiarico, & Six, 2008; Huberts & Six, 2012; Lasthuizen,
Huberts, & Heres, 2011), before proposing a further research agenda.
9.2 Quality of Governance: Integrity +?

Quality of governance presents two challenging concepts in one: gover-
nance and quality. Conceptually, a lot has been said on defining gover-
nance. For example, from a global perspective, James Rosenau differentiated
between governance and government by saying that ‘governance is a sys-
tem of rule that works only if it is accepted by the majority (or, at least, by
the most powerful of those it affects), whereas governments can function
even in the face of widespread opposition to their policies’ (1992, pp. 4–5).
Furthermore he suggested that governance is always effective, character-
izing it as ‘order plus intentionality.’ Bevir, on the other hand, narrows the
term to the specific description of the ‘changes in the nature and role of
the state following the public sector reforms of the 1980s and 1990s.’
(2009, p. 3). These definitions reflect a gulf between the various concep-
tions of governance variously shaped by their social, geographical, and
temporal context. Rather than getting bogged down in the ongoing
debate, this research builds on the work of Huberts, and therefore uses the
general definition he quoted that ‘“governance” refers to “authoritative
policy-making on collective problems and interests and implementation of
these policies”’ (2012, p. 6). This chapter concentrates on the implemen-
tation of these policies, or in other words, the processes of governance.
So what lies at the heart of the concept of quality of governance then?
The key ingredient is integrity—the moral values and norms that are in
accordance with the expectations of the organization, society, community,
or nation subject to the aforementioned governance processes. Note that
integrity here applies to the integrity of governance processes, not the
integrity of the individual described above. According to Huberts, there

are seven types of values that are important to the integrity of governance.
Within the concept of quality of governance, ‘quality means governance
that is democratic, accountable and transparent, lawful, incorruptible and
impartial, effective and efficient, professional and civil, and robust’
(Huberts, 2012, p. 12). These values are not necessarily prioritized, nor
are they necessarily equal. Also contexts of time and place influence the
interaction of values for analytical purposes. A simple example of the
uneven, context specific nature of applying/analyzing these values would
be the role of democratic values in an Iranian governance system com-
pared to one in the United States. Furthermore, it should be reinforced
that quality of governance is good or better when the system of gover-
nance and those administering it act in accordance with the value expecta-
tions of those governed. Governance becomes of poorer or bad quality
when governance processes fall short of value expectations. Therefore,
researchers need to be mindful that the governed are the best judges of the
quality of governance (Huberts, 2012, p. 13). While this chapter explores
bureaucratic animosity in terms of robustness, its negative influence on the
other quality of governance values requires consideration.
Having established the centrality of moral and ethical values of the pro-
cesses of governance to the overarching quality of governance, the chapter
turns to the integrity of governance and violations thereof.
9.3 Integrity of Governance

The section focuses on violations of integrity of governance within pro-
cesses of governance. Huberts (2012, p. 8, emphasis in original) expressed
his view on integrity (of governance) as:
the concept that should be applied to the behavior of the participants in

decision-making and decision implementation. That is, it does not concern
everything in politics and business nor even the content of government
policy (or business strategy); rather, it concerns behavior, process, and proce-
dure (in a broad sense).
This is not to say that integrity does not exist elsewhere in the gover-
nance cycle. For example, the democratic values of consultation and delib-
eration can contribute to the inputs of governance (Stevenson & Dryzek,
2012). Likewise, the final outcome of policy should be ethically appropri-
220 A. MASTERS
ate. The ethical considerations are the moral norms and values that accord
with public expectation and relate to the processes of decision-making and
implementation by public officials. When the behavior of a public official
is contrary to, or falls short of the ethical expectations, an integrity viola-
tion will have occurred (see Fig. 5.1).
Research into integrity violations broadens the focus of research into
public maladministration beyond the study of corruption. While corrup-
tion remains problematic, many other types of public activities that fall
short of expectations that do not meet the common definition of corrup-
tion—‘the abuse of public office for private gain’ (Pope, 1995, 2000).
Public administration scholars are understandably concerned about cor-
ruption and seek methods to understand its origins (Byrne, 2012; Uslaner,
2008), extent (Kaufmann, Kraay, & Mastruzzi, 2006), effects on politics
and societies (Byrne, 2012; Graycar & Villa, 2011) as well as suggesting
methods to reduce corrupt behavior (Graycar & Felson, 2010; Huberts,
Anechiarico, Six, & Veer, 2008; Kpundeh, 2008). Yet a closer look at the
actual work of agencies tasked by societies with deterring corruption
reveals a far broader range of behaviors than just corrupt activities.
Within Australia, there are a number of anti-corruption agencies at the
state and federal level. Yet a brief look at their annual reports reveals a rela-
tively low level of corruption as opposed to a relatively high number of
referrals of matters that fail to meet public expectations, yet do not meet
the corruption definition. For example, in New South Wales (NSW), the
Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) received some
2489 matters from the public or government agencies in 2016/17, yet
from these only 27 preliminary investigations were commenced and only
10 proceeded to full investigations; in the same period, only 11 findings
of serious corruption were made (ICAC, 2017, p. 3). These figures repre-
sent a bare fraction of 525,000 state and local government employees in
NSW (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2017). Broken down to sub-catego-
ries, the matters referred to the ICAC were partiality (20%), improper use
of records (19%), personal interests (15%), failure to perform required
actions (14%), improper use or acquisition of funds or resources (12%),
corrupt conduct related to investigations or proceedings (6%), intimidat-
ing or violent conduct (6%), bribery, secret commissions and gifts (5%),
and other corrupt conduct (7%) (ICAC, 2017, p. 90).3 Two things are
clear from this data. Firstly, there is a large gap between what is reported
3
Total percentages exceed 100% because the same matter can address multiple forms of
conduct.
as corruption and what is treated as corruption. Secondly, there is a broad

range of ethically or morally deficient behaviors that do not meet the
integrity standards of those members of the public reporting matters
to the ICAC.
Similar disparities between corrupt activities and other misbehavior can
be found with the NSW Ombudsman (2017), while internationally
Huberts (2012, pp. 4–5) research also showed a low level of strictly cor-
rupt behavior in the context of the Netherlands police, local government,
and US companies. Therefore, his argument to expand the field of inquiry
by public administration scholars from corruption to integrity violations
seems well justified. The first two columns of Table 9.1 outline the current
Table 9.1 Integrity violations and NSW ICAC matters

Violation Description Descriptors – NSW ICAC
Corruption: bribery Misuse of public powers for private Bribery, secret commissions,
gain; asking, offering, or accepting and gifts
bribes
Corruption: Misuse of public authority to favor Other corrupt conduct
nepotism, cronyism, friends, family, party, etc.
patronage
Fraud and theft Improper private gain acquired Improper use or acquisition
from organization (no involvement of funds or resources
of external actors)
Conflict of (private Personal interests (through assets, Personal interest
and public) interest jobs, gifts, etc.) interfere (or might
interfere) with public interest
Improper use of Using illegal/improper methods to Corrupt conduct related to
authority (for noble achieve organizational goals investigations or proceedings
causes)
Misuse and Lying, cheating, manipulating Improper use of records
manipulation of information, breaching
information confidentiality of information
Discrimination and Misbehavior toward colleagues, Partiality/intimidating or
sexual harassment citizens, or clients violent conduct
Waste and abuse of Failure to comply with Failure to perform required
resources organizational standards, improper actions / improper use or
performance, incorrect or acquisition of funds or
dysfunctional internal behavior resources
Private-time Conduct in one’s private time that Category not mapped to
misconduct violates moral norms, harms public ICAC data
trust
Source: Modified from Huberts (2014), Huberts and Six (2012), p. 160, ICAC (2017), p. 90
222 A. MASTERS
mapping of integrity violations, while the third column draws clear—

though not perfect— parallels between this map and the NSW ICAC
breakdown.
Each integrity violation degrades the quality of governance delivered to
citizen/clients scaling from individuals to society as a whole. Depending
on the jurisdictional context, most integrity violations are also breaches of
the law. Yet, there remains a broad gap between the number of reported
instances and the number of those that proceed to formal action by an
integrity agency. The fact that citizens are sufficiently motivated to report
matters indicates the quality of governance does not meet their individual
expectations. Integrity violations therefore open space to explore quality
of governance. Within this space, we can find another integrity violation,
that of bureaucratic animosity.
9.4 Bureaucratic Animosity

At times, poor governance causes enormous pain, social harm, and adverse
health consequences to citizen/clients. It is not corruption in the normal
course of events, but inconsistent or simply poorly executed regulation;
sometimes done maliciously, oftentimes not. Bureaucratic animosity is the
systemic or overzealous application of rules, regulations, and the law to
the point of harm to individuals and businesses (citizen/clients). Unlike
the integrity violations listed above, bureaucratic animosity occurs within
the rule of law and within the most seemingly robust of organizations, yet
any objective observer can see that it falls short of the moral and value-
based expectations of those subjected to it. Bureaucratic animosity occurs
in the processes of governance, can be mobile across government agen-
cies, and is multi-actored.
9.4.1 Bureaucratic Animosity in the Processes of Governance

Bureaucratic animosity occurs within the processes—or throughputs—of
governance, and is therefore a concept within the broader frame of quality
of governance. It cannot form part of the inputs, although inputs such as
poor system design, badly drafted regulations, or indifferent selection of
personnel to enact a process may exacerbate the problem of bureaucratic
animosity. Nor is bureaucratic animosity a part of outcomes or outputs.
Even when disastrous outcomes and outputs result, they are the end of the
process, where bureaucratic animosity is a feature of the throughputs.
9.4.2 Mobile Bureaucratic Animosity

In advanced societies, procedures to deal with perceived governance fail-
ures exist. Ombudsmans’ offices, for example, have been around for hun-
dreds of years as a place for citizen/clients to make complaint (Mulcahy,
2012, p. 12). When matters and cases are re-raised, reviewed, or re-
opened, the activity commences a new set of throughputs as a separate
part of the bureaucracy. However, bureaucratic animosity toward citizen/
clients can cross-over and influence the throughputs of the review process.
This could be because the review authority is not sufficiently independent,
such as often criticized cases of police investigating misconduct by police
(Landau, 1996). Alternatively, a fair review process may not achieve the
result sought by the citizen/client, leading them to exacerbate their cir-
cumstances by alienating the review agency (e.g. Jarrett, 1995). Thus,
bureaucrats and citizen/clients can cause bureaucratic animosity to travel
between governance systems.
9.4.3 Actors in Bureaucratic Animosity

By its very nature, bureaucratic animosity occurs at the point where and
when a bureaucratic system and those who operate it interact with citi-
zen/clients. Three groups of actors contribute to bureaucratic animosity:
the bureaucratic system itself, the bureaucrats within the system, and the
citizen/clients involved.
The system and the bureaucrats have direct or explicit control on
whether bureaucratic animosity occurs or not. Citizen/clients are not nec-
essarily neutral actors in cases of bureaucratic animosity, and can implicitly
or explicitly trigger the animosity of a bureaucracy. Table 9.2 frames the
actors with the elements of bureaucratic animosity and an explanation of
the interaction between actor and element.
Systemic Bureaucratic Animosity

9.4.4
Systemic bureaucratic animosity has five possible elements: (1) it can take
the form of a system that is contradictory in nature; (2) it may be out-
dated; (3) the system could provide too much discretion for the bureau-
crats who administer it; (4) the system allows too little discretion for
bureaucrats; or (5) the system socializes bureaucrats into working against
the interests of citizen/clients. A bureaucratic system that fails to meet the
224 A. MASTERS
Table 9.2 Elements of bureaucratic animosity

Actor Element Explanation
Bureaucratic Contradiction Legislatively or procedurally contradictory

system requirements within a bureaucratic system
Outdated The system demands bureaucratic processes
continue, despite being invalidated through
technological or societal change
Too much Bureaucrats can choose to either smooth or
discretion exacerbate a situation
available
Too little Bureaucrats are locked into a response,
discretion irrespective of alternatives
available
Rotten barrel A system that socializes new members toward
syndrome what an outsider would consider as unacceptable
behavior
Individual or Too much Acts within the framework of black-letter law and
groups of discretion regulation to maximize inconvenience for citizen/
bureaucrat exercised clients
Too little Bureaucrats have the discretion to resolve an issue
discretion but choose not to
exercised
Citizen/clients Aggression Immediate or progressively aggressive or
and their agents combative approach by citizen/clients toward the
system or the bureaucrats
Rights oriented Insistent on exercising rights or receiving an
instant solution (even though they may be
addressing it to the wrong area)
Poorly informed Citizens/clients interactions are misinformed or
poorly advised from other areas of the
bureaucracy, family or friends acting as armchair
lawyers, or even real lawyers.
Complainers Citizen/client either makes, or has the reputation
to make, regular and trivial or vexatious
complaints about bureaucrats or the system.
Source: Author
quality of governance expectations of the populace may contain any or all

of these elements in multiple combinations.
Many bureaucratic systems have become so complex and burdensome
as to become contradictory in their very nature. Oftentimes, this results
from an organizational pursuit of stability at the expense of adaptability,
with the sub-value conflict undermining the overall robustness of the gov-
ernance system. These systems make it difficult or almost impossible for

individuals or groups of bureaucrats to act ethically—no matter how
strong their desire to do so. An example of this is the Australian system of
processing refugee applicants. A policy requirement is that all refugees
applying to Australia must pass a security assessment. To complete this
function, inquiries are generally required in the person’s country of origin.
However, the catch-22 is that under the Migration Act (Cth) (1958. §
336F), which ratifies Australia’s obligations under United Nations refugee
conventions, migration officials are prohibited from making inquiries in
the country of origin, thus making it impossible for the system to be any-
thing but hostile toward refugee applicants. Of course, many thousands of
refugees are admitted into Australia annually under the existing policy;
therefore, it is clear that a certain amount of discretion is involved in
the process.
The refugee processing system in Australia is run by a bureaucracy that
spent the better part of the twentieth century enforcing what was known
as the ‘White Australia Policy.’ This policy deliberately discriminated
against non-British migrants, and later non-Europeans. The discretionary
power given to migration officers meant they could effectively bar entry
into Australia through such means as the infamous language test, which
could be administered in any language, with a requirement to translate it
to any other language (not necessarily English) (Marr & Wilkinson, 2004,
pp. 44–45). Thus, we can see that this particular bureaucratic system has
elements of contradiction and values conflict; variously too little and too
much discretion for those administering it; robustness without sufficient
flexibility; regime loyalty overriding individual rights; and has maintained
a socializing role that shapes bureaucrats’ attitudes toward excluding refu-
gees from entering Australia.
9.4.5 Animosity by Bureaucrats—Willing or Not

Individual street-level bureaucrats often have enormous powers over the
lives of citizens. Lipsky (1980) established the concept of street-level
bureaucrat and described the power they wield over citizen/clients decades
ago. A council ranger in NSW for example has broad discretionary powers
over a person’s behavior (e.g. littering, vehicle parking, noise emission
from parties or worksites, and use of firearms); their property (e.g. fire
hazard clearance and property fencing); and even pets (animal control)
(NSW Government, 1993, § 124). As a result, these officers have the abil-
226 A. MASTERS
ity to severely impact on a citizen/clients life while remaining strictly

within the law. Imagine coming home to find thousands of dollars’ worth
of fencing torn down and the family dog taken to the pound—all done by
council officers acting within the law. There may be recourse through legal
channels; however, the damage is done and then further exacerbated
through the stress of further bureaucratic and legal processes.
9.4.6
Citizen/Clients—Contributing to Their Own
Circumstances
The final group of actors involved in bureaucratic animosity is citizen/
clients. These actors are not always passive participants, nor are they neces-
sarily victims of state actions manifested through governance processes. In
many cases, they can contribute to their own circumstances. Lipsky (1980,
pp. 59–60) argues that individuals who engage with bureaucrats are re-
constructed as clients. This de-personalizing process can have long-term
adverse effects on both individuals as well as client organizations if they are
labeled as a troublemaking client. Aggressiveness when dealing with a
bureaucrat by a citizen/client can bring bureaucratic animosity on their
own head. A simple example of this is a motorist pulled over by police—if
they ‘fail the attitude test’4 they may find themselves subjected to a much
more rigorous application of black-letter law than what may otherwise
have resulted in a simple warning. This aggression often manifests in the
form of a rights-oriented approach. While a citizen/client may indeed
have the right to certain services from state employees and institutions,
demanding these rights from the wrong office of a bureaucracy can easily
result in the appropriate office being warned about the person through
internal networks. This warning may trigger bureaucratic animosity in the
appropriate office, thus demonstrating both the mobility of bureaucratic
animosity and contribution of citizen/clients to their own woes.
The demand for ‘rights’ to be exercised may often be poorly informed
by deeply held beliefs. The overwhelming depiction of US and British
police culture on television lead many Australians to believe that they have
been maltreated by police because they were not ‘read their rights’; or that
4
For an example of this, see YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8XLVKIW-
Ds, where in this case, the Irish police officer chose to de-escalate a problem rather than
engage in bureaucratic animosity—of course it must be borne in mind that the police officer
knew he was being filmed.
the rights they were informed of do not match the Miranda rights require-
ment of the US, or of those of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act
(1984) (UK). Perceived breaches of rights can also take other forms.
9.4.6.1 Complaint-Oriented Citizens

Citizen/clients who regularly make trivial complaints, with or without
justification, can earn themselves a reputation within bureaucratic circles
that results in them being treated with undue caution, and/or the subtle
exercise of unfavorable discretion by bureaucrats. A revealing piece of data
is the small number of complaints about the NSW Ombudsman (10 in
total) (NSW Ombudsman, 2017, p. 23). The citizen/clients in these cases
have come to the agency designed to impartially address failings in the
larger system of the NSW government, only to then lodge complaints
about the watchdog. These are not necessarily conspiracies, although they
might be, but the end result is that the citizen/client clearly feels sub-
jected to bureaucratic animosity.
A qualification is required here. This chapter recognizes the role citi-
zen/clients can have in instigating, initiating, and perpetuating bureau-
cratic animosity upon themselves. The paper does not intend to argue or
extrapolate this point into administrative evil (Adams & Balfour, 2005,
2009, 2012). To do so would be to suggest that victims of genocidal
action are somehow complicit in their own fate—this argument was made
by the Third Reich and other genocidaires (cf. Tatz, 2003). While indi-
viduals or groups may create or exacerbate their own circumstances of
bureaucratic animosity, they are ultimately not the ones who inflict need-
less or unjust pain and suffering as is the case with administrative evil. The
active participation of citizen/clients is not a necessary element in all
instances of bureaucratic animosity, and should therefore be assessed on a
case-by-case basis.
Citizen/client behavior can clearly trigger or exacerbate bureaucratic
animosity. Bureaucrats are people too, who have good days and bad days,
and even the most professional person has limits. This can be seen in any
hospital emergency department on a daily basis—an aggressive client with-
out serious medical issues can wait for much longer than necessary because
those operating the triage system can de-prioritize them in response to
their behavior. This can be done without presenting serious risk to the citi-
zen/clients physical health, but may result in exacerbating mental health
issues. This simple scenario combines at minimum the elements of client
aggression and the exercise of bureaucrat discretion.
228 A. MASTERS
9.4.7 Discretion Allowed and Disallowed, Used and Unused

The element of discretion is clearly at the heart of bureaucratic animosity.
It is arguable that a system is a neutral actor and should not be included
here as a system incapable of exercising discretion itself—that can only be
done by actors within the system. However, the system itself may provide
too broad a scope for bureaucrats to act in a manner deleterious toward
citizen/clients or one that is too narrow. How much available discretion is
exercised provides the link between systemic bureaucratic animosity and
the animosity of bureaucrats themselves.
Figure 9.1 presents the discretionary framework in which bureaucratic
animosity can develop. To begin with, all actions are assessed as occurring
within the laws of the relevant jurisdiction. Anything outside the law, as
mentioned, moves beyond the scope of bureaucratic animosity on the
scale of wrongdoing. Discretion plays a role in the decision-making of
bureaucrats irrespective of whether citizens/clients have endeared or
alienated themselves to the bureaucrat/s with whom they interact.
However, one could expect that human nature would take its course in
shaping the approach of the bureaucrats if they find themselves in the fir-
ing line of an aggressive or otherwise painful client (Lipsky, 1980,
Legal framework of society
Bureaucratic System
/ \
System enables Discretion No Discretion
/ \ |
Citizen / Client/s Endears Alienates N/A
/ \ / \ |
Bureaucrat/s Exercises does not Exercises does not no
discretion use discretion use discretion
discretion discretion
/ \ / \ / \ / \ / \
Ethically aligned Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes No
/ \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \
Outcome for
+ - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + -
citizen / clients
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
Bureaucratic
N N N Y N N N Y N N N Y N N N Y N N N Y
animosity
Fig. 9.1 Model of bureaucratic animosity and discretion

pp. 57–58). Thus, despite appearances, the likelihood of an even distribu-

tion of outcomes for citizens/clients is minimal, and it is to be expected
that those who alienate themselves will find discretion turned against their
interests.
Figure 9.1 represents a model of discretion within bureaucratic animos-
ity, with all activities taken to operate within the legal framework of soci-
ety. Therefore, criminal behavior by the system, bureaucrats, or citizen/
clients cannot be assessed by this model. The top three rows incorporate
the inputs into the processes of governance: systems, citizen/clients, and
bureaucrats. First, the system itself may or may not allow the bureaucrat to
exercise discretion. If no discretion is available, the actions of bureaucrats
and citizen/clients are not applicable in the processes. Second, citizen/
clients can endear themselves to the bureaucrats they are dealing with, or
they can alienate them. The actions of citizen/clients in endearing or
alienating themselves can occur at any point in the processes of gover-
nance. Third, bureaucrats with the ability to do so, exercise their discre-
tion that is either ethically aligned with societal expectations, or not. This
manifests through the action or inaction of the bureaucrats, or whether
the processes embedded within the system meet the moral norms of soci-
ety. The outcomes for citizen/clients are either positive or negative.
However, a negative outcome does not necessarily equate to bureaucratic
animosity.
While the chapter remains focused on the processes of governance, it is
the point where outcomes are received that allows citizen/clients to judge
whether they have been subjected to a bureaucracy that is meeting or fail-
ing to meet their needs. The judgment of citizen/clients is not the only
factor to determine whether bureaucratic animosity has occurred. For
example, the path of positively exercised discretion for a client that has
endeared themselves may still result in a negative outcome. This can be
seen when a triage nurse treats a polite client with speed and efficiency in
an attempt to do the right thing medically, yet the client dies. Despite the
tragic outcome, this is not bureaucratic animosity. Thus, the combination
of the outcome and negative ethical performance—through bureaucratic
discretion or the processes embedded within the system—is the determi-
nant as to whether bureaucratic animosity has occurred or not.
The solution to bureaucratic animosity and integrity violations in gen-
eral will not be found in the removal of all discretion from street-level
bureaucrats. Quite simply it is impossible for a policy formulation to cap-
ture all variations of citizen/client needs from government and any such
230 A. MASTERS
formulaic solution will often result in less than ideal service, or even greater
harm to those which the system is designed to assist. Yet from a values
perspective, Beck Jørgensen and Bozeman highlighted that ‘[o]rganiza-
tional robustness is all about a suitable combination of stability and adapt-
ability’ (2007, p. 366, emphasis added). Thus, the goal is to find the
suitable combination.
9.5 Bureaucratic Animosity and Integrity

Violations
Having outlined a concept of bureaucratic animosity, its elements, and the
role of discretion, the issue arises as to whether the element of discretion
is simply a different way of perceiving discrimination. In short, no it is not.
To illustrate this, we need to compare bureaucratic animosity with the
established integrity violations.
Table 9.3 presents the established integrity violations as conceived
above and whether they are necessarily related to the conception of
bureaucratic animosity. In the majority of cases, other integrity violations
do not need to occur for bureaucratic animosity to exist. However, the
apparent relationship between discrimination and bureaucratic animosity
warrants further discussion.
Impartiality is a central characteristic of ‘good’ quality of governance,
and when bureaucrats begin to discriminate against citizen/clients, qual-
ity declines. Hence, discrimination is an integrity violation. Lasthuizen
et al. (2011, p. 395–396) broke discrimination down into four subtypes:
discrimination against colleagues; sexual harassment of colleagues; inde-
cent treatment of colleagues; and indecent treatment of citizens and cus-
tomers. It is this last sub-type that closely matches an aspect of the
conceptualization of bureaucratic animosity. The integrity violation of
‘indecent treatment of citizens and customers’ falls within the concept of
bureaucratic animosity when initiated by bureaucrats, who choose to exer-
cise their discretion to the detriment of individual citizen/clients.
However, the broader conceptualization of bureaucratic animosity cap-
tures three key differences. Firstly, bureaucratic animosity can be exercised
to the detriment of organizational as well as individual clients. Secondly,
bureaucratic animosity can be systemic when processes are contradictory,
outdated, allow too much or too little discretion, or where bureaucrats are
socialized by the system to work against the interests of clients. Finally,
bureaucratic animosity recognizes the role of the citizen/client. Therefore,
while some types of bureaucratic animosity align with an existing integrity
violation, conceptually it is something more.
Table 9.3 Integrity violations and bureaucratic animosity
Violation Description Required element of bureaucratic animosity (BA)?
Corruption: bribery Misuse of public powers for private gain; asking, No—bureaucrats or the system do not gain
offering, or accepting bribes
Corruption: nepotism, etc. Misuse of public authority to favor friends, family, party No—friends, family, or party do not gain
Fraud and theft Improper private gain acquired from organization (no No—misappropriation of public property not a
involvement of external actors) necessary element
Conflict of (private and Personal interests (through assets, jobs, gifts, etc.) No—BA may be system generated, negating any
public) interest interfere (or might interfere) with public interest personal interest of bureaucrats
Improper use of authority Using illegal/improper methods to achieve No—technically speaking BA is conducted using
(for noble causes) organizational goals lawful and proper methods
Misuse and manipulation Lying, cheating, manipulating information, breaching No—as per the above, BA is lawful and proper
of information confidentiality of information
Discrimination and sexual Misbehavior toward colleagues, citizens, or clients No—because it is difficult to conceive of a system
harassment misbehaving, they behave as they were designed with
intentional and unintentional consequences
Yes—when exercised by an individual bureaucrat, BA
can be construed as misbehavior toward citizens, but
it can be strictly within the law
No—when citizen/clients trigger or exacerbate a
situation, the response of bureaucratic systems and
individual bureaucrats is not discriminatory in the
sense that it is ‘misbehavior’
Waste and abuse of Failure to comply with organizational standards, No—BA can be conducted efficiently and effectively
resources improper performance, incorrect, or dysfunctional in terms of resources
internal behavior
Private-time misconduct Conduct in one’s private time that violates moral No—BA does not require extra-curricular activity
9 ROBUSTNESS AND THE GOVERNANCE SIN OF BUREAUCRATIC ANIMOSITY
norms, harms public trust

231
Note: Violations and Descriptions from Huberts and Six (2012), p. 160
232 A. MASTERS
9.6 Conclusion
Robustness is an important value for quality of governance, integrity of
governance, and integrity violations that include bureaucratic animosity.
Yet, as this chapter has demonstrated, organizational robustness can be
problematic at the level of governance processes and lead to conflict
between individual bureaucrats, citizen/clients, and the organizations
responsible for the delivery of public services. Looking more deeply, the
discretion delegated to individual public servants can, when the sub-
values for robustness are unevenly applied, lead to bureaucratic animosity,
particularly when their discretionary flexibility fails to temper a public ser-
vant’s loyalty to an organizational regime. In short, the value demands of
robustness require balance, otherwise the values cocktail of robustness
becomes distinctly ‘un-robust.’ This chapter makes no claim to have set-
tled the debate on what quality of governance is; however, it makes a
strong argument that bureaucratic animosity is a concept that not only
warrants inclusion in the debate, but further research in its own right.
Bureaucratic animosity is not only an integrity violation, it is more in
two dimensions. Firstly, the concept provides a space to examine integrity
violations that are system generated by treating the system as an actor.
Recognition of systemic bureaucratic animosity in the first place may lead
to an unmasking of administrative evil, which is arguably present in
Australia’s refugee policy and system for handling boat arrivals. Secondly,
by treating citizen/clients as potential participants, bureaucratic animosity
recognizes that even the most robust systems operated by the best people
do not necessarily have to deal with the best society has to offer. It may
well be that this is a case of citizen/clients getting the governance that
they deserve. However, at the very least the concept of citizen/client initi-
ated bureaucratic animosity provides a fresh approach to analyzing the
other core values of quality of governance, and to a nuanced critical exam-
ination and interpretation of robustness as a governance value.
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Conclusion
CHAPTER 10
Reviewing Quality of Governance: New

Perspectives and Future Research
Adam Masters, Hester Paanakker, and Leo Huberts
10.1 Quality of Governance, and Values

in Context
Why is a better understanding of quality of governance values important?

What is the value of this book and further study of public values more
broadly? To answer this, we must remember that public values are the
benchmark for peoples’ expectations of their institutions of governance,
creators of governance instruments, and the practitioners of governance.
People believe in the importance of public values. Public officials, both
elected and appointed espouse them, legislators craft laws to meet public
A. Masters (*)
H. Paanakker
L. Huberts

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21522-4_10
238 A. MASTERS ET AL.
values—policies flow from law and embody public values, as do guidelines,

rules, codes of conduct, training, expectations, interpretations, and more.
Yet whenever an empirical eye is applied to a particular value—or in our
case a range of values—we find differences in understanding, interpreta-
tion, application, and in the effect values have on any given society.
Differences can be contextually driven from nation to nation—Simonati
aptly demonstrate this with the growth of administrative law shaped for
the Italian context, and Schnell also demonstrates the relevance of context
in Romania. Elsewhere differences can be shaped to suit institutional or
organizational needs or points of view—as was the case in Flint, Michigan,
addressed in Chap. 2. As Reynaers, Paanakker, and Masters showed, even
officials working in the same context can interpret values differently at the
individual level. So the complexity of values requires research to know
when they are applied to the satisfaction of the community which has set
them, when they are violated, or when they come into conflict. A better
understanding should improve the application of the values core to quality
of governance.
Our goal was to scrutinize notions of good and bad quality of governance
through a values-based analysis. The preceding chapters focused on a par-
ticular set of values and the contribution these values add to or detract from
to the overall quality of governance. Some interesting new perspectives or
themes can be identified that run across the different chapters and deserve
acknowledgment in this concluding chapter. These challenging perspectives
cover a broad scope both temporally and geographically, but do not exhaust
the field of values research. Our work peels back some of the mysteries in
this important aspect of public administration. Values remain central—as
Frederickson put it: ‘…that values inhabit every corner of government is
given. Who studies administration studies values and who practices admin-
istration practices the allocation of values’ (1996, p. 32). Such sentiments
apply equally to the broader study of governance and our closer examina-
tion of quality of governance—values are key. As our study is admittedly not
the final word, we must acknowledge that more scholarly energy needs to
be directed at not only normative thinking about values and quality of gov-
ernance, but empirical research to support scholastic notions which can
improve the lives of both administrators and the publics they serve.
Here, we offer some reflections on the preceding work to contextualize
its importance. How does this work reflect both quality of governance and
the relevant values associated with the concept? How do these values relate
to one another? Where does confusion lie—for both the academic and the
10 REVIEWING QUALITY OF GOVERNANCE: NEW PERSPECTIVES… 239
practitioner? Why is the variety of contexts an important consideration in

a values analysis? What influence do the various layers of governance exert
on values, and consequently the quality of governance? And finally, what
does the agenda for future values and quality of governance research look
like in light of this contribution?
10.2 Where We Have Been

But first of all, a brief recap of the work this book contains. In a set of case
studies from around the globe, this volume addresses which values matter
in governance processes and outcomes, how they matter in specific con-
texts, and what dangers arise when they are violated. As such, it offers a
unique and in-depth assessment of quality of governance and its contin-
gent and disparate nature. The contributions to this volume cover the
following values in part one: democratic legitimacy, accountability, trans-
parency, integrity, and lawfulness. These values consider values from an
institutionalized perspective, how these particular values matter to gover-
nance practices—policies, strategies, rules, regulations, etc.—or what is
being done to accommodate governance values. Part two concentrates
more strongly on who is implementing the values—the governance practi-
tioners. The second part opens with effectiveness (in terms of service qual-
ity), followed by an examination of professionalism—or public
craftsmanship. Finally, a careful examination of robustness as a value
reveals how conflict in values can lead to violations of what should other-
wise be seen as good. Combined, the contributions discuss the underlying
question of the relevance, limitations, and applicability of these specific
values to the overall quality of governance.
The first values chapter by Buckwalter and Balfour demonstrated that
an attack on democratic legitimacy could have perverse effects, both on a
range of other public values and on public outcomes. Their case study of
Michigan’s emergency response to a tainted water supply showed how
values conflict with each other in the reality of administrative practice. As
a key yardstick of quality of governance, democratic legitimacy was argued
to outweigh other values such as expertise, even (and perhaps especially)
in times of crisis. Chapters 3 and 4 demonstrated that both accountability
and transparency harbor an array of different, and sometimes conflicting,
meanings. From both O’Kelly and Dubnick’s American/Irish take on
accountability and Schnell’s Romanian perspective, they stressed that such
conflict may obscure clear-cut harnessing of these values. Conflicting
meanings may produce irreconcilable normative point of departures,

incompatible policies, or power struggles to the detriment of other values.
Yet at the same time, it can also open up opportunities to do justice to
these different meanings in theory and practice. Huberts then explored
incorruptibility and impartiality, approaching these values from the angle
of integrity and its meaning for the overall quality of governance. Part one
concludes with Simonati’s detailed examination in Chap. 6 of lawfulness
in Italy proved how both the executive and legislative powers flexibly
interpret this value, and imposes technical boundaries—strong and weak—
to running administrative systems efficiently and effectively, while uphold-
ing quality.
Reynaers opens part two by framing the value of effectiveness in one of
the key markers of governance—the public-private partnership (PPP), the
classic formulation of governments no longer rowing, but steering the
ship of state (Rhodes, 1996). Reynaers explains that effectiveness was
questionable at least: in different case studies service quality was neither
safeguarded nor a priori better protected with the involvement of a private
partner. Chapter 8 introduced the concept of public craftsmanship as a
way to look at street-level quality of governance, or street-level profession-
alism. Paanakker argued how case-based evidence in the Dutch prison sec-
tor illustrates the contingent and disparate nature of quality of governance
as a concept. Finally, Masters illustrates how the uneven weighting and
conflicting nature of the sub-values of robustness—at both the organiza-
tional level and that of the individual public servant—can create the condi-
tions for the integrity violation of bureaucratic animosity to occur.
It remains open for debate whether the panorama of values summa-
rized above is complete and adequate. The different chapters offer food
for thought on this point—on the one hand, the definition or interpreta-
tion of the values, and on the other—the focus on these values, and what
might be missing in the framework.
10.3 Values Interpretation—Clarity

and confusion
The starting point of the book was to include a ‘panorama’ of relevant

values with chapters that reflected on the content and importance of those
values in different contexts. A first insight to reflect upon is that the differ-
ent chapters clarify that challenging and different interpretations of the
values exist. Some chapters reveal clashing perspectives in our philosophi-

cal or theoretical conceptions of values—normative conceptions that
underpin policy and behavior, and that determine the direction of schol-
arly and administrative debates. Other chapters demonstrate how values
are differently translated to decision-making and behavior in administra-
tive practice. Some address a combination of both different theoretical
underpinnings and different implementation behaviors. Hence, attention
to and clarity about which conception we use is key to make sense of how
value debates evolve in theory and practice.
10.3.1 Clashing Perspectives
That theoretical and philosophical conceptions of values are contested is
hardly surprising. This volume is the latest attempt to add some clarity to
what values are, to give clarity to the practitioners who are guided by orga-
nizational and societal values as they implement the processes of gover-
nance. Yet this is not straightforward. For instance, O’Kelly and Dubnick
in Chap. 3 frame accountability as a metaphorical spectrum. Such a widen-
ing is necessary for us to better understand the relationship between the
value of accountability, and its darker reflection unaccountability—a viola-
tion of the core value. This forms the central theme of their argument—
the overzealous adherence to accountability can be a ‘bad’ quality of
governance value through signaling a struggle for power or domination
between the accountable and those they account to with respect to the
interpretations they opt for. Only when it is made clear and transparent
which interpretation of accountability is used and why, can it become a
‘good’ quality of governance value.
10.3.2 Translating Values into Action

The contributions on effectiveness and service quality by Reynaers in
Chap. 7 and professionalism by Paanakker in Chap. 8 shift our focus away
from the philosophical reflections toward empirical insights into the appli-
cation of values. Both Reynaers’ and Paanakker’s insights come from
interviews with practitioners. One cannot get further from theorizing
about values than to discuss it with those charged with their implementa-
tion. As Heclo and Wildavsky (1974, p. xiii), advised, ‘[t]he cure for igno-
rance about how something gets done is to talk with those who do it’. In
Reynaers’ case, the different public and private partners involved were
found to interpret service quality in different ways, and Reynaers argues

that it requires craftsmanship to make PPP’s work—craftsmanship that
takes into account different meanings, labels, and interpretations. The
importance of facilitating ambiguity is supported by Paanakker, who also
explains how practitioners make their own compilations of values of crafts-
manship. When considering Reynaer’s work with Paanakker’s chapter on
professionalism as a value, we can see the worth in centralizing value inter-
pretations during processes of change in public management and public
administration.
Another illustration of this point is Masters’ exposition on bureaucratic
animosity in Chap. 9 as the dark side of quality of governance, which also
highlights the clash of values perspectives. At the macro-level the pursuit
of lawfulness or rule compliance oftentimes leads to both intended and
unintended violations of integrity, effectiveness, or efficiency. Also at the
micro-level, adaptability conflicts with regime loyalty. His chapter also
frames the role of citizen/clients in the governance processes—in effect
giving due consideration to their role in the co-production of both ‘good’
quality of governance and ‘bad’ quality of governance.
In part two, Reynaers and Paanakker directly, and Masters indirectly,
share a common element in their empirical engagement with street-level
bureaucrats (defined by Lipsky, 1980, 2010), those practitioners charged
with the implementation of values, and focus on the level of differences in
their value conceptions and interpretations. These chapters demonstrate
that values are not fixed: the context shapes how we translate values into
action. Similarly, the chapters on democratic legitimacy, transparency, and
lawfulness show how context shapes values into institutional practices.
Getting quality of governance values right or wrong, as with all cases in
this volume, improves or degrades the level of success in both process
and outcome.
10.4 Many Values Matter for Governance: How

Do They Relate
Many values are addressed by the diverse research of this volume. The
importance of each separate value is argued convincingly, but a relevant
question that remains under-addressed is how do they relate to one
another. As the recap in this conclusion clearly outlines, although contri-
butions to this volume focused on one value at a time, all contributions
acknowledge the interdependency of values and mention, either explicitly

or implicitly, how a certain value interacts with some other values, stress-
ing their related nature, or the inevitable sequential impact of addressing
one value on another value. In short, context determines whether values
complement or compete with each other. The authors in this volume
unequivocally conclude that there is no such thing as a stand-alone value
in governance, and addressing quality inevitably means addressing values
in combination with each other. Unsurprisingly, this rarely led to explicitly
addressing the potential conflict with other values in the research pre-
sented here, as that fell beyond the scope of this volume, addressing a
particular value in each chapter. There are however many debates on value
pluralism, on conflicting values, and how these can, or should, be man-
aged. Some of these overarching debates are also touched upon in the
chapters. The clashing nature of values, for instance, is in particular
addressed in the chapters on robustness and bureaucratic animosity, which
points out potential conflicts between bureaucratic animosity (the sys-
temic or overzealous application of rules, regulations, and the law), lawful-
ness, and integrity, and the chapter on professionalism, which examines
conflicting (value) expressions of craftsmanship in the prison sector (for
instance, security versus humanity).
More in-depth research on how (conflicting) values relate in adminis-
trative praxis, and explicit attention to a broader spectrum of related val-
ues to account for ‘value spill-over effects,’ would advance our theoretical
and practical knowledge on how values matter. Can values reinforce each
other’s role and worth in governance processes and outcomes, and if so,
in what way and to what extent? What are the limitations to value enhance-
ment through value interdependency, for instance, through processes of
isomorphism between governance institutions, or through cultural insti-
tutionalization and socialization within organizations? And how can val-
ues function to undermine each other, exacerbating negative behaviors
and (side) effects within confined governance settings? In addition, more
detailed analysis of how conflicting conceptions are dealt with by public
officials, and how their modes of coping relate to the nature of the values,
the severity of the value conflict, the impacts administrators foresee in a
more consequentialist reasoning of public decision-making, or their
effectuated impact on public service delivery are promising research areas
that require more attention. Providing further insight into the manage-
ment of, and coping with, conflicting values offers a challenging agenda
for research.
10.5 Quality of Governance in Context

This volume explicitly draws attention to the importance of contextualiz-
ing the role and impact of values, and adherence to them. The chapters
unanimously illustrated that values always must be put in to context—as
context generates differences on how the values are interpreted and
applied by practitioners. The chapters illustrated the range of differences
almost by necessity, depending on the policy domain or policy topic, on
the sets of actors involved (public/private, politics versus administration,
etc.), on the national context, or on the profession at hand, to name a few
examples. However, regardless of contextual differences, it seems also
clear that the selected values have to be taken into account in advancing
knowledge on what matters for the quality of governance. Nevertheless,
theory and research on the quality of governance is still rather macro-
oriented and quantitative, with frameworks of values that suggest a com-
mon, universal meaning. The studies in this book illustrate that the
relevance and interpretation of the many values are context dependent, in
content and consequences. More specific knowledge taking into account
the context seems an important topic for future research, including mov-
ing toward more clarity about the characteristics of the context that seem
to matter, including the different phases and levels of governance.
10.5.1 Values in Different Policy Phases

Governance is about input, throughput, output, and outcome—and also
the connection with different types of values. The chapters address primar-
ily process, with challenging insights on accountability, transparency, legit-
imacy, lawfulness, integrity, professionalism, with attention at times for the
quality of the outcome (policy effectiveness, service quality). In addition,
though, it seems worthwhile for future research and theory building to be
more clear on the phases or aspects of governance that are addressed as
well as on the (inter)relationship between process and outcome values.
First, on the phases of the governance process. This process includes
the input phase of agenda-building, the throughput phase of policy prepa-
ration and decision-making, and the output phase of decision and policy
implementation and evaluation. In all these phases, the actors’ operations
are guided by values and norms within an institutional framework, which
itself also contains public values and norms. The different chapters in the
volume deal with all phases, but more differentiation per phase might be
worthwhile to reflect upon and take into account in future research. Is

legitimacy, accountability, and/or transparency equally relevant in all
phases of governance? Or does that differ for agenda-building, prepara-
tion of policy, decision-making, and implementation?—like Reynaers
addressed in her chapter on PPPs in different policy phases.
Second, on the relationship between the quality of the governance pro-
cess and the quality of the outcome. Both matter for the overall quality of
governance, but how they relate is a crucial topic to reflect upon more
explicitly. This also relates to issues addressed in other relevant bodies of
knowledge, including on ‘procedural and substantive justice.’ With, on
the one hand, attention for the quality of the process of decision-making
or governance and, on the other, the consequences of that for the legiti-
macy and acceptability of the output and outcome of the process. Van
Ryzin for example concluded that trust depends ‘not just on the extent to
which government succeeds at delivering outcomes to citizens, but on
getting the process right’ (2011, p. 755). Thus, the process of governance
might be more important for the legitimacy of government and gover-
nance than the output legitimacy. But what qualities and values of the
process do really matter then? Rothstein (2011) focused on the impartial-
ity of governance, for example, as the decisive process characteristic for
quality of outcome. We doubt that for now, also building on the relevance
of many values addressed in this book, but it is clear that impartiality leads
to a challenging empirical research agenda on the relationship between the
quality of the governance process and the societal quality of the outcome.
Process and outcome seem intertwined, more than our joint research on
the quality of governance seems to realize.
10.5.2 Different Value Scopes

Our research on good governance and the quality of governance often
focuses on the macro-level (comparing countries), sometimes also the
meso-level of organizations (as in this book), with relatively little attention
for the micro-level: how do individual public servants cope with the also
conflicting aspects and values of ‘good governance.’ The attention for the
micro-level seems to offer an inspiring and important contribution to our
reflection on the quality of governance (for example, Paanakker’s chapter
in this book). At all levels, values are important, but what is seen as quality
or good governance also seems to differ at the macro-, meso-, and micro-
level. More clarity about the different levels or scopes seems important,
also in research. How do they relate, and how do they influence one another?
10.6 Agenda for Research

Careful assessment and deliberation on what it is that constitutes quality
and what can be done to improve it remain, in our view, imperative for our
future research and its impact. The ideas presented are the state-of-the-art
research and theory building on the quality of governance, which offer
challenging insights to advance theory and practice in our field of study,
but of course also open up an agenda for future research. In line with the
themes outlined here, more research into concrete cases with attention for
(coping with) conflicting values seems important. As does research into
the interdependency of values and the way they complement and reinforce
each other in concrete cases.
In addition, empirical research on the actual application of values in
decision-making and policy implementation seems an interesting venue
for future studies. How are abstract values translated to actual behavior of
politicians, public administrators, and a variety of semi-public, non-profit,
or private sets of actors? This also relates to the relationship between ‘pro-
cess’ and ‘outcome’ values.
Governance cannot escape the rise of populism in recent years, and its
influence on public values. Commentators note this rise of both right-
wing and left-wing populism, which increasingly challenges core gover-
nance values such as democratic legitimacy (e.g. Albright, 2018, pp. 79,
81, 113). Such ingrained and extemporaneous claims—although useful in
their own right—have very little scholarly use when unsubstantiated by
research. This volume touches on populism—Buckwalter & Balfour show
that even in the most advanced economies democratic legitimacy can be
swamped by populism, which results in a deficit of legitimacy, as was the
case of Flint, Michigan. Populism further distorts public values like robust-
ness, favoring systemic efficiency over flexibility, as Masters’ reflection on
Australia’s governance of refugees shows. Yet populism can drive positive
change as well, Schnell’s analysis of the growing transparency regime in
Romania demonstrates improvement in public values, and consequently,
the quality of governance can be driven by popular demand. The contin-
ued rise of populism in the advanced economies provides license for a
rethinking of public values in other nations (see Albright, 2018; Trommel,
2018). Populism tends to challenge governance and governance values de
facto. A critical necessity for future research is normative and empirical

work focused on the public values that are relevant to, and lead the involve-
ment of populist movements and parties in public governance. Governance
practitioners and researchers need to look for more substantiated ways to
understand these challenges, working within value frameworks rather than
rejecting them in advance to win popular vote.
Another topic that needs more attention is the relationship between the
‘quality of governance’ at the macro-, meso-, and micro-levels. How do
societal, organizational, and personal values relate in decision-making and
policy implementation? These questions remain an important challenge as
we try to better understand quality of governance, identify areas for
improvement, and try to shift governance toward the quality expected
from the increasingly diverse societies of the twenty-first century.
References
Albright, M. (2018). Fascism: A warning. New York, NY: HarperCollins.
Frederickson, H. G. (1996). The spirit of public administration. San Francisco,
CA: Jossey-Bass.
Heclo, H., & Wildavsky, A. (1974). The private government of public money:
Community and policy inside British politics. London: Macmillan.
Lipsky, M. (2010). Street-level bureaucracy 30th ann. ed.: Dilemmas of the indi-
vidual in public services. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.
Rhodes, R. A. W. (1996). The new governance: Governing without government.
Political Studies, 44(4), 652–667. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-
9248.1996.tb01747.x
Trommel, W. A. (2018). Veerkrachtig bestuur: Voorbij neoliberale drift en populist-
ische kramp. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Boom Besterkunde.
Van Ryzin, G. G. (2011). Outcomes, process, and trust of civil servants. Journal
of Public Administration Research and Theory, 21(4), 745–760. https://doi.
org/10.1093/jopart/muq092
Index1
A Actions, 48, 58, 60, 62, 64

Abuse, 119 administrative, 139
See also Violations, integrity collaborative, 68
Access, 67 Activists, 89, 91
Accountability, 4–6, 17, 241 Actors, 9, 63, 88
agora, 59–61 Bovens model, 52 (see also Citizen/
bazaars, 64–67 clients)
conflicting values, 113 conflicting values, 113, 114
cube, 54 integrity and quality, 107, 118,
democratic legitimacy, 35 124–125
hostility, 70–71 political, 71
integrity and quality, 115, 116, 120 robustness, 223, 228
lawfulness, 137 transparency, 58, 60, 84
productivity, 68–70 Adaptability, 216, 217, 224, 242
professionalism, 186 Administration, 33, 137–142, 144,
public values, 111 188
quality, 122 Administrative action, 131–135, 144
relational, 55, 57–59 Administrative power, 133–135, 140
robustness, 216 Advisors, external, 165, 173
transparency, 86 Agenda-building, 244
ubiquity, 67–68 Agendas, 106, 107, 114
Acknowledgement, reciprocal, 68 Aggression, 226, 227
Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21522-4
250 INDEX
Agora, 59–64 Bureaucratic animosity, 217, 218, 222,

Aims, 48, 63 242, 243
Ambiguity, 161, 167, 172, 176, 183, actors, 223
242 bureaucrats, 225–226
Andaleeb, S. S., 162 citizen/clients, 226–227
Anticipate possible disputes, 176 discretion, 228–230
Appointments, political, 93 governance processes, 222
Appropriateness, 173 integrity violations, 230
Arguments (argumentation), 84 mobile, 223
Ascher, K., 162 systemic, 223–225
Assistance, 197 Bureaucratic back-scratching, 68–69
Attitudes, 48, 200 Bureaucratic distortion, 36–40
Australia, 220, 225 Bureaucrats, 225–226
Authority, 46, 63, 68, 108, 206 See also Bureaucratic animosity
B C
Balfour, Dan, 17 Capacity, 162
Bargains, 58, 66 Capitalism, 34
Bazaars, 64–67 Care, 198
hostility, 70–71 See also Detainees
productivity, 68–70 Certainty, legal, 145
ubiquity, 67–68 Chief security officers (CSOs), 83
Beck Jørgensen, T., 111, 112, 122, Choices, 138
185, 188, 216 Citizen/clients, 223, 226–229, 242
Behaviors, 50 See also Bureaucratic animosity
discretionary, 94 (see also Discretion) Citizens (public), 5, 113, 124, 222
See also Violations, integrity democratic legitimacy, 33, 34, 37
Bias, 193 integrity and quality, 106, 109, 110,
Blat, 69, 70 121
Bøgh Andersen, L., 188, 190 lawfulness, 136, 137, 146
Boundaries, 89, 200 transparency, 83, 84, 91
Bovaird, T., 109, 162 transparency as two way
Bovens, M. A. P., 5, 46, 53, 64, 71 communication, 85
Bovens model, 51–55 transparency in Romania, 89–92
Bozeman, B., 122, 184, 188, 216 Citizen users, 164
Breaches, 135, 142, 143, 148, 227 Civility, 6, 115, 120, 121
Bribery, 89, 93, 123 Codes (coding), 111, 188, 194
Brown, Michael, 40 Coercion, 64, 68
Buckwalter, Neal, 17 Coglianese, C., 83–85
Budgets, 39, 91, 168, 171 Collaboration, 69, 85
Bureaucracy, 29–30, 32 Commitment, 35, 186, 200
INDEX 251
See also Morality; Professionalism Contracting out, 162

Communication, 143, 169 Contract manager, 166
See also Transparency Contracts, 58
Communities, 35, 103, 117, 218, 238 Contradictions, 107, 113
Compensation, 143 Control, 36, 171
Competency (competence) Convergence, 203–206
lawfulness, 136, 139, 148, 149 Cooperation, 66, 67, 69, 137,
professionalism, 182, 188 171–172
Complaints, 223, 227 Coordination, 69
Compliance, 242 Corruption (anti-corruption)
accountability, 60, 64 accountability, 47, 67, 70, 71
lawfulness, 132, 145, 148 democratic legitimacy, 34, 35
lawfulness and good administration, integrity and quality, 108, 116, 119
140, 141 lawfulness, 139
transparency, 83, 86 robustness, 220, 221
transparency in Romania, 90, 91, 93 transparency in Romania, 89, 93
Compromises, 31, 58, 114 Costley, 162
Confidentiality, 6, 121, 146 Costs, 144, 173
Conflict of interest, 119 Craftsmanship, 19, 195–197, 206–
Conflicts, 69, 117, 172, 189, 243 208, 242, 243
integrity and quality, 113, 114 sense-making, 184
lawfulness, 141, 148 values, 188, 189, 197–202
robustness, 224, 225 (see also Value See also Prison officers;
convergence) Professionalism
Consciousness, 111 Craftsmen, 186
See also Ethics Creating Public Value: Strategic
Consensus, 5, 116 Management in Government, 109
Consistency, 90, 217 Crises, 36, 37, 39, 40
Consortia, 161, 166, 167 Criteria, quantitative, 139
Constitutional Court, 134 Cultures, 64, 90, 226
Consultation, 89, 92, 93 Customer satisfaction, 109, 144
Content, political, 72
Contexts, 242, 244–246
accountability, 51, 56, 62–64 D
conflicting values, 114 Damages, 143
effectiveness, 162, 175, 177 Darwall, Stephen, 51, 61, 63, 68
integrity and quality, 14–15, 107, Data, 52, 83, 89, 147, 194, 220
109, 116, 118 effectiveness, 162, 163, 165
pluralism, 112 Data Protection Authority, 147
professionalism, 184, 187, 190 De Jong, G. J., 110
robustness, 218, 219, 222 Decision-making, 58, 83, 86, 106
transparency, 55 accountability, 45, 46
Contract completeness, 162, 176 transparency in Romania, 89, 92, 93
252 INDEX
Decisions, 85 Efficacy, 137, 141

See also Legitimization Efficiency, 5, 6
Decisiveness, 113 integrity and quality, 115–117, 121
Democracy, 5, 113, 115, 117 lawfulness, 137, 138, 140, 141, 146
See also Legitimacy, democratic Emergencies, 69, 134
Democratic legitimacy, 4, 6, 17, 242 Emergency financial managers
See also Legitimacy, democratic (EFMs), 38, 40
Democratization, 86, 88 Empathy, 197, 205
Design-Build-Finance-Maintain-Operate Employees, 68, 123, 193
(DBFMO), 160–161, 175–177 public, 186, 188, 216, 220
assessing quality, 163–166 Empowerment, 85, 135
Detainees, 203–204, 206 Enforcement, 60, 72, 139, 189
See also Prisons Environments, 65, 71
Detention center case study, 169–171 Equality (equitable), 86, 116, 138, 206
Detention centres, 161 Equality, moral, 63
Development, economic, 115 Esteem, 62, 63, 67, 68
Differentiation, 95, 122, 187, 244 Ethics, 35, 51
Digitalization, 145 integrity and quality, 118, 119, 122,
Dignity, 41, 67, 191 124
Disasters, 39, 41 robustness, 216, 220, 221, 225
Disciplinary measures, 53 values, 106–107, 111
Disciplinary mechanisms, 63, 73 European Council, 111
Discipline, 34, 51, 192, 200, 206 European Union, 34
Discrepancy, 166, 169, 176 Evaluation, 4, 138
Discretion, 72, 141, 193, 225, 227 Evidence, 175
bureaucratic animosity, 228–230 Evil, administrative, 227
Discretion, executive, 46 Exchanges, 65, 67
Discrimination, 108, 119, 120, 225, See also Hostility
230 Expectations, 145
Dissatisfaction, 170 accountability, 48, 58, 70, 71
Divergence, 190, 207 dentention center case study, 170
Domberger, S., 162, 176 effectiveness, 166–168
Domination, 47, 72, 191, 241 Ministry of Finance case study, 171,
Dubnick, Melvin J., 17, 71, 241 172
moral theory, 63
public, 220
E robustness, 219, 222
Effectiveness, 4–6, 19, 175–176, 241 water plant case study, 169
integrity and quality, 109, 116, 117, Expert intervention, 36–40
121, 122 Expertise, 139, 188
professionalism, 200 Experts, financial, 168
values, 111, 115 Explanation (explain), 53
Effectiveness, task, 194, 201–203, 205 Exploitation, 35, 70
INDEX 253
F quality, 109
Failure, 170 specific values, 114–115
Fairness, 59, 86, 137 Governments, quality of, 5
Favors, 65 Great Recession, 39
Financial mechanisms, 168, 173 Greece, 34
Fines Grilli, L., 162
accountability, 53 Grindle, M. S., 9, 13, 117
detention center case study, 170 Guidelines, 147–148, 202
effectiveness, 161, 176
highway case study, 167
Ministry of Finance case study, 172, H
173 Hall, C., 162
water plant case study, 169 Hammonds, C.A., 176
Flexibility, 225 Harm, 217, 222
Flint, 17, 39 Hartley, K., 162
Food supplies, 170 Heclo, H., 35, 241
Force, 58 Help, 66, 197, 198
Forum, assessment of, 55–56 Hierarchies, 49, 61, 64, 71, 132
Forums, 49–51, 55 Highway case study, 166–168
Fraud, 119 Highways, 161
Free-riding, 71 Honesty (dishonesty), 63, 111, 122,
Friction, 217 197, 205, 216
Fumagalli, E., 162 Hood, C., 63, 86, 107, 113
Funds, allocation of, 94 Hospitals, 161, 162
Hostility, 70–71
Huberts, Leo, 5, 6, 18, 187, 218,
G 221, 232
Galiani, 162 Huby, 162
Games, 68 Human development, 112, 115
Gaming, 63 Humanity, 120, 194, 197–198,
Garrone, 162 202–205
Gatekeepers, 70 Human rights, 112
Germany, 36
Gifts, 67
Goals, 45, 67, 148, 172 I
Governance, 5, 7, 9–12, 103–104, Impartiality, 5, 6, 188, 230, 245
106–109 good governance, 117
accountable, 49–50 integrity and quality, 120, 122
conflicting values, 113–114 lawfulness, 138, 139, 144, 148
good, 115–117 transparency, 86
pluralism, 112 values, 111, 113, 115
public values, 109–111 Impartial spectators, 62
254 INDEX
Implementation, 83, 90, 148 Interpretations, 4, 84, 169, 172, 183,

Imputation, 49n2, 51, 52 184, 190
Inclusivity, 5, 116 Interrogation, 52
Incommensurability, values, 114 Interventions, 38, 39, 48, 115
Inconsistency, 170, 173 Interviews, 88, 92, 166
Incorruptibility, 6, 113, 115, 120, 122 Intimidation, 119, 120
Indecent treatment, 120, 230 Ioniţă, A.L., 94
Independent Authority for Data Italian Constitution, 132, 133, 136
Protection, 147
Individuals, 140, 141
Inequality (unequal), 142 J
Influence, 67, 223 James Rosenau, 218
effectiveness, 167, 171, 172, 174 Jensen, P., 162, 176
integrity and quality, 110, 115 Judgment, 135, 163, 229
Information, 52, 146 accountability, 52
See also Transparency integrity and quality, 113, 121
Infrastructure Judicial reviews, 134, 137, 142–143
detention center case study, Justice, 47, 86, 106
169–170 Justiciability, 133, 136, 139
infrastructure, 168 Justification (justify), 51, 53, 217
Ministry of Finance case study,
171–172
public, 161, 163 K
Insiders, 65, 70 Kleptocratic system (kleptocracy), 65,
Institutions, public, 72 70
Integration, 147, 190 Knowledge, 162, 186
Integration, vertical, 70 Kooiman, Jan, 9
Integrity, 4–6, 18, 104–106, 186
combining with quality, 123–125
governance, 117–118 L
quality, 122 La Porta, R., 115
research agenda, 125–126 Language, metaphorical, 46
robustness, 216, 218 Lasthuizen, 230
values and ethics, 106–107, 111, Lawfulness, 4–6, 18, 131–135, 144,
113 186, 242
violations and values, 107–108, good administration, 137–142
118–120 independent authorities’ guidelines,
Interactions, 64, 177, 200 147–148
Interactions, social, 60, 198 integrity and quality, 113, 115, 117,
Intermediaries, 84 120
International Institute of judicial reviews, 142–143
Administrative Sciences (IIAS), legal sources, 136–137
217 pitfalls, 145–146
INDEX 255
Lawmakers, 37 Morality
Law, rule of, 131–135 integrity and quality, 106, 111, 118,
Laws, 89, 93, 143–145 122, 124
Leadership, 40 robustness, 216, 220, 221
Leakage (information), 89 Moral theory, 51, 61–64
Legality, 111 Motivation, 186
Legal (rule of law), 116
Legislation, 47, 83, 88, 93, 132
Legislators, 134–137, 141 N
Legislature, 37 National Anti-Corruption Authority,
Legitimacy, 30, 138, 148, 186, 245 147
Legitimacy, democratic, 28, 30–32 Negotiation, 30, 65, 150
See also Democratic legitimacy Netherlands (Dutch), 192, 221
Legitimization, 85 Networks, 64, 68, 71
Li, E.A.L., 162 Neutrality, 6, 111, 121
Life, quality of, 12, 109, 114 Norton, 59
Lipsky, M., 225, 226 Nussbaum, M., 112, 115
Listening, 198
Local barons, 94
Löffler, E., 109, 162 O
Loyalty, 111, 123, 186, 190, 217, Objectivity, 122, 163
225, 242 Official Gazette, 91
Officials, 34, 47, 88
O’Kelly, Ciarán, 17
M Ombudsmen (Ombudsmans’ offices),
Maladministration, 139, 144, 220 223, 227
Management, 162 Open data, 83
Managers, 162, 190 Open Government Partnership
Managers, emergency, 37–39 (OGP), 89
Market values, 34–36 Open governments, 85
Masters, Adam, 20, 242 Openness, 122, 137
Media, 89, 226 Outcomes, 52, 162, 229, 245
Mediators, 173 integrity and quality, 112, 114–116
Mentoring, 186 Output, 162
Merit, 188 Output specifications, 166
Metaphors, 56 detention center case study, 170
Michigan Emergency Manager Law, 36 effectiveness, 161, 162, 176
Ministry of Finance case study, highway case study, 167
171–173 Ministry of Finance case study, 171,
Minorities, 116 172
Misconduct, 108, 120, 223 water plant case study, 169
Models (modeling), 50–51, 55, 56 Outsourcing, 159, 163
Moore, Mark H., 109, 110 Ownership, 163
256 INDEX
P Procedures, 52, 60, 89, 140, 143,

Paanakker, Hester, 19, 122, 238, 241, 219
242 Processes, 49, 114, 116, 121, 245
Participation, 5, 52 Procurement, 69, 164
integrity and quality, 116, 120 Productivity, 68–70, 161
lawfulness, 137, 141, 143, 148 Professionalism, 4, 6, 19, 181–183,
transparency, 85, 92 241, 243
Peacekeeping (peace and quiet), 192, craftsmanship, 195–197
199, 201–204 integrity and quality, 111, 115,
Peat, 162 120–122
Peers, 62, 65, 189 lawfulness, 139 (see also Prison
Penalties, 48, 64 officers)
Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act, public craftsmanship, 189–191
33 public professionals, 183–185
Perceptions, 163, 164 research, 192–195
Performance, 115, 144, 229 values and context, 185–189
accountability, 47, 48, 52, 63, 71 values and craftsmanship in the
effectiveness, 163, 169 prison context, 191–192
monitoring, 161, 162 Project members, 163
Phases, 107, 161, 172, 244 Public Act 4, 39
Pluralism, 12–14, 112, 131 Public agencies, 11, 83, 90, 92
Poisoning, lead, 40 Public authorities, 92, 96, 133, 135,
Pollitt, C., 161, 188 148
Power, 145, 148 See also Lawfulness
accountability, 46, 47, 58, 60, 67, Public companies, 144
72 Public consultation, 83, 92, 94
democratic legitimacy, 34 (see also Public employees, 186, 187, 208
Emergencies; Lawfulness; Public health, 37, 39
Managers) Public infrastructure, 160, 161, 163
Predictability, 85, 86, 89 Public interests, 111, 141–145
Principal-agent, 49, 50, 53, 61, 64 Publicity, 146
Prioritization, 195, 202, 203 Public Law 72, 40
Prison officers, 195–197, 206–208 Public officials, 83, 90, 189, 190, 220
craftsmanship, 203–206 See also Value convergence
patterns of value prioritization, Public Perspective(PVP), 186
202–203 Public-private partnerships (PPPs),
value variance, 197–202 160–161, 175–177
Prisons, 191–192 Public servants, 144, 216
Privacy, 146 Public services, 7, 182, 186
Privatization, 143–145, 162, 175, 176 Public values, 110–111, 120–121,
Proactive disclosure, 84 183–185, 187
Problem solving, 167 Public Values Perspective (PVP), 185
INDEX 257
Publishing (publication), 83, 91, 92, Bovens model, 52, 53

139, 147, 148 effectiveness, 167, 169
Purposes, 59, 60 hostility, 71
integrity and quality, 107, 118
productivity, 68, 70
Q transparency, 94
Quality, 9–12, 18, 109, 121–123, 161, Reliability, 68, 216
177, 243 Reputation, 67, 167, 172, 227
combining with integrity, 123–125 Research, 113, 114, 118, 246–247
DBFMO, 163–166 Resistance, 39, 92, 171
research agenda, 125–126 Resources, 90, 108, 146
Quality of Government: Corruption, Respect, 67, 109, 120, 198
social trust, and inequality in Responsibility, 49, 51
international perspective, 114 Responsiveness, 5, 52, 85, 116, 117,
Quality-shading, 161–163, 175 120
Quest for Responsibility: Retribution, 46, 64
Accountability and Citizenship in Reviews, 223
Complex Organisations, The, 51 See also Judicial reviews
Questioning (questions), 52, 193 Reynaers, Anna-Marie, 19, 186, 241
Rights, 226
Robustness, 4, 6, 20, 113, 115, 121,
R 215–218, 232
Reasoned transparency, 84 bureaucratic animosity, 222–230
Recognition, mutual, 63 bureaucratic animosity and integrity
Recruitment, 139, 144 violations, 230
Referees, 113 integrity of governance, 219–222
Referendums, 39, 40 quality of governance, 218–219
Reflections, 58 Romania (case study), 87–88
Reforms, 47 framework and evolution, 88–89
Refugees, 225 transparency as access to
Regime dignity, 111 information, 90–91
Regions, 136 transparency as predictability,
Regulations, 85, 89, 133, 136–137, 92–95
222 transparency as two-way
Rehabilitation, 192 communication, 91–92
Rein, 114 Rothstein, Bo, 112–115, 117, 245
Reintegration, 194, 200–203, 205 Rule-making, 138, 148
Relationships Rules, 35, 68, 222
accountability, 47, 50, 55, 56, 58 lawfulness, 137, 147
agora, 59, 61 transparency, 86, 89
bazaars, 67 Rutgers, M. R., 183, 185, 187, 188
258 INDEX
S Socialization, 190, 243

Safeguarding, 40, 162, 177, 199 Social relations, 53, 60
Sanctions, 52, 55 Societies, 114, 116, 122
Scandals, 35 Soerensen, D. -L., 111, 112
Schillemans, Thomas, 53, 58 Sources, legal, 132, 136–137,
Schmidtz, David, 61, 61n19 147–148
Schnell, Sabina, 18 Soviet Union, 69
Schools, 37, 38, 161 Spain, 34
Scrutiny, 17, 46, 64 Stability, 40, 68, 143, 216, 217, 224
Secrecy, 84, 87, 90, 118 Stakeholders, 12, 14, 46, 122, 148,
Security 150
craftsmanship, 191–192 Standards, 166, 186, 188
detention, 198–200 Statutes, 133, 136–137, 140, 142
detention center case study, 170 Stiglitz, J. E., 35
professionalism, 202, 203, 205 Subordination, 134, 190
research, 194 Subsidiarity, 137
Self-governance, 36–40 Supermarkets, digital, 170
Self-interest, 67, 69 Surveys, 91
Sen, A., 115 Sustainability, 34, 35
Sense-making, 183–185
Service delivery, 83, 109, 163,
167–168 T
detension center case study, Task effectiveness, 194, 201–203,
169–170 205
Ministry of Finance case study, 172 Tasks, 167, 201–203, 205
water plants case study, 168–169 Teaching, 201
Service providers, 70, 144, 190 Team-building, 63
Service quality, 4, 6, 19, 175, 241 Technical optimization, 168
See also Effectiveness Technologies, 52, 145
Services, 109, 161 Tenders, 171, 172
Service users, 163, 164 Tensions, 63, 112, 116, 118, 199, 200
Sexual harassment, 120, 230 Teorell, J., 113
Shirking, 61, 63 Thacher, D., 114
Significant silence, 140 Theories, 50, 56
Simonati, Anna, 18 Thin/thick spaces, 65
Situating Accountability: Seeking Timeliness, 216
salvation for the core concept of Tolkachs, 69–70
modern governance, 71 Tools, 48, 54, 64, 140, 142
Skills, 60n18, 68, 95, 186, 188, 201 See also Statutes
Smith, Adam, 59, 61, 67 Trade (trading), 65, 67
Snyder, Rick, 39, 40 Training, 90
Social interactions, 57n12, 198 Transcriptions, 193
INDEX 259
Transparency, 4–6, 18, 186, 242 V

access to information, 83–84 Value convergence, 189–191
accountability, 45, 52, 64 Value differences, 189
in government, 82–83 Values, 4–9, 106–107, 183, 187–188,
integrity and quality, 111, 113, 115, 240–243
116, 118, 120 conflicting, 113–114
lawfulness, 139, 146 specific, 114–115
predictability, 85–87 See also Public values
two-way communication, 84–85 Van der Wal, Z., 110, 184, 186, 187,
Treatment, indecent, 120, 230 189
Trust (distrust), 35, 245 Van Hout, E.T.J., 186
democratic legitimacy, 35 Van Ryzin, G.G., 245
effectiveness, 166, 174 Van Slyke, D. M., 162, 176
integrity and quality, 109, 122 Violations, 17
Trustworthiness, 35, 68 integrity, 4, 107–108, 117–120
Tunnels, 161 Voidability, 135, 142, 143
U W
Ubiquity, 67–68 Walters, L.C., 191
Uncertainty, 36, 162 Water plants case study, 168–169
Understanding, 85 Water purification plants, 161
United Kingdom (British), 192, 226 Water sources, 40
United Nations (UN), 111 Wealth of Nations, The, 66
United States of America (US), 32, Wildavsky, A., 241
35, 192, 221, 226 Witesman, 191
Universalism, 112 World Bank (WB), 112, 116
Useful instrument, 167
Users, 169
Utility services, 161, 176 Y
Utrecht group, 52, 53 Yang, L., 184, 187, 190, 191

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Quality

ISBN 978-3-030-21521-7 ISBN 978-3-030-21522-4 (eBook)

About Study Group IV—Quality of Governance

1. Quality of Governance: good and bad governance in context.

values relate to ‘relevant publics’ (e.g., citizens, politics and admin-

Box 1 IIAS Study Group IV: Activities 2012–2018

Finally, no book is possible without the support of those involved in the

Nijmegen, The Netherlands  Hester Paanakker

1 Quality of Governance: Values and Violations 3

Part I Institutionalizing Values in Governance Practices 25

2 Democratic Legitimacy in Bureaucratic Structures: A

3 Dissecting the Semantics of Accountability and Its Misuse 45

4 Transparency Assessment in National Systems 81

5 Integrity and Quality in Different Governance Phases103

6 The Multi-interpretable Nature of Lawfulness in a

Part II Translating Values in Practitioner Behavior 157

7 Mission Impossible for Effectiveness? Service Quality

8 Professionalism and Public Craftsmanship at Street Level181

9 Robustness and the Governance Sin of Bureaucratic

10 Reviewing Quality of Governance: New Perspectives

Value Chapter Authors

Ciarán O’Kelly is Lecturer in the School of Law at Queen’s University,

Fig. 2.1 An array of values to uphold democratic legitimacy 30

Table 2.1 Governors triggering emergency financial manager or

Quality of Governance: Values and Violations

Hester Paanakker, Adam Masters, and Leo Huberts

1.1 Topic of the Volume

© The Author(s) 2020 3

1.2 Values Covered in This Volume

very well constitute the core of governance processes in the late-modern

1. ‘democracy with responsiveness and participation’—paying atten-

. ‘lawfulness’—respecting laws and rules;

Huberts (2014) underlines that future research will have to demonstrate

1.2.1 The Good and the Bad: Examining Both Sides of Values

The concurring shifts to examining quality of governance on the one

highlights the complementary importance of single values and stresses

1.2.2 Defining Governance and Quality

may assert the authoritative role of safeguarding values in governance,

… a high quality public administration must not only be able to increase

The way this reverts to the importance of guaranteeing quality in how

endorse, we feel an in-depth exploration of the essential parts is a helpful

1.2.4 Contextual Relevance of Values

norms, customs, and institutions and eliminate them—and directly or

1.2.5 Contributions to This Volume

practices (Part I), and quality: translating values in practitioner behavior

1.3 Part I: Quality—Institutionalizing Values

Democratic Legitimacy in Bureaucratic Structures: A Precarious

Dissecting the Semantics of Accountability and Its Misuse Subsequently,

Transparency Assessment in National Systems Sabina Schnell uses Chap. 4

Integrity and Quality in Different Governance Phases In Chap. 5, Leo

The Multi-interpretable Nature of Lawfulness in a National Framework In

1.4 Part II: Quality—Translating Values

Mission Impossible for Effectiveness? Service Quality in Public-Private

Professionalism and Public Craftsmanship at the Street Level In Chap. 8,

values. She concludes that conceptions of good craftsmanship ultimately

Robustness and the Governance Sin of Bureaucratic Animosity In Chap. 9,

of this volume, which also identifies important (theoretical and practical)

Slovakia: Network of Institutes and Schools of Public Administration in Central

Steenhuisen, B. (2009). Competing public values: Coping strategies in heavily regu-

Democratic Legitimacy in Bureaucratic

Democratic societies are based on legitimacy, which itself is largely based on

N. D. Buckwalter (*) • D. L. Balfour

© The Author(s) 2020 27

Nijmegen, The Netherlands Hester Paanakker

1 Quality of Governance: Values and Violations 3

Part I Institutionalizing Values in Governance Practices 25

2 Democratic Legitimacy in Bureaucratic Structures: A

3 Dissecting the Semantics of Accountability and Its Misuse 45

4 Transparency Assessment in National Systems 81

5 Integrity and Quality in Different Governance Phases103

6 The Multi-interpretable Nature of Lawfulness in a

Part II Translating Values in Practitioner Behavior 157

7 Mission Impossible for Effectiveness? Service Quality

8 Professionalism and Public Craftsmanship at Street Level181

9 Robustness and the Governance Sin of Bureaucratic

10 Reviewing Quality of Governance: New Perspectives

Fig. 2.1 An array of values to uphold democratic legitimacy 30

decision-makers. It has instead developed ever-more-complex mecha-

3.3.1.1 A Role for Moral Theory