The essay is a contribution to the iconoclastic spirit of IRSPM. We ask a range of questions about governances and suggest some conceptual answers that invite debate.
Our questions are structured by the argument that public governance has become so conceptually inflated that is use is becoming redundant. Is the idea of public governances is a becoming a placebo drug claiming to solve every problem from improving performance, collaboration, better outcomes, improved strategies, creating trust, user involvement and co-creation and enhanced democracy and civic society?
We ask, what problem did/does the idea of public governance address? Considering as we do that governances are a technology (Dewey 1921; Arthur 2015), we discuss the extent to which governances is a useful paradigm or thought-corridor and has instead become obfuscation for austerity and the hollowing-out of the state. Our paper discusses how the paradigm has been used in public management literature since Osborne’s (2010) key text. The study presents a systematic literature review.
We challenge the claim that governances are neutral i.e. that if user outcomes are met all governances are equal; arguing that state provision provides superior planning, efficiency and equity than large scale privatised public services. We argue that processes and outcomes (ends and means) interlink and that this is especially so when encouraging co-production of services and innovation in services.
Taking the perspective of complexity (public services as ecosystems, within ecosystems) we argue that focus on governances draws attention to arrangements at a particular moment in time; when emergent new governances are continually occurring in the dynamic ecosystems delivering public services. In short that governances can be reduced to a static equilibrating concept.
Additionally, since governances prominently features how created value is distributed in a service system, there is a danger that governances focuses on relationships mediated by money; distracting attention from relationalities, especially those between service providers and users. In this sense, governances as a thought-corridor can be the antithesis of co-creation.
Arthur WB, 2015, Complexity and the Economy, OUP, Oxford.
Dewey J, (Ed Boydston JA), Middle Works 1921-1922, Carbondale and Edwardsville, Southern Illinois University Press, IL.
Osborne SP, 2010, New public governance: emerging perspective on the theory and practice of public governance, Routledge, London.
Value co-creation, co-design and co-production in public services
