The government reform initiated by the Clinton administration in the United States involved disseminating the Reinventing Government policy, previously centred around local governments, to the federal government. This effort was carried out in pursuit of the concept of an entrepreneurial government popular at the time. The details are as follows.
Reinventing government
The movement to reinvent government began in the 1980s, but was firmly established in 1992 with the publication of Osborne & Gaeblerās best-seller Reinventing Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit is Transforming the Public Sector (Osborne & Gaebler, 1992). This book, as the subtitle explains, was about introducing entrepreneurship and management techniques to the public sector. The entrepreneurial government that is emphasized in this book is a government that values four principles: putting the customer first, cutting red tape, empowering employees to get results and cutting back to basics by producing better government for less. The authors regarded citizens as customers and provided ten principles of government innovation through case studies of various local governments, as summarized below from the bookās chapter subtitles.
1. steering rather than rowing
2. empowering rather than serving
3. injecting competition into service delivery
4. transforming rule-driven organization
5. funding outcomes, not inputs
6. meeting the needs of the customer, not the bureaucracy
7. earning rather than spending
8. prevention rather than cure
9. from hierarchy to participation and teamwork
10. levering change through the market
The authors argued that the introduction of entrepreneurial government was the way to reinvent government, and since then this logic has rapidly spread to various countries in tandem with the demands for a āsmall but strong governmentā. Entrepreneurial government was at the time sought as a countermeasure to the prevailing state of government bureaucracy, authoritarianism and fiscal deficits. Accordingly, it has led to a change in the paradigm of administrative service to focus on providing citizen-centred customer satisfaction.
Government innovation in the Clinton administration
In 1993, as soon as it took power, the Clinton government attempted to reform the government based on the Reinventing Government movement. In the 1980s, many Americans were afraid of big government, government insensitive to the demands of the people and that refused to change. Therefore, the pursuit of a relatively small but strong entrepreneurial government was adopted as a method of government innovation. Thus, the Clinton administrationās government innovation policy pursued four principles of entrepreneurial government, given below.
Putting the customer first
An entrepreneurial government seeks to satisfy customers by seeing them as ācustomersā rather than ācitizensā. In addition, entrepreneurial governments value results rather than rules and procedures. Therefore, the government investigates, publicizes and institutionalizes customer satisfaction. Specifically, the āCitizensā Charterā, first established in the United Kingdom, was transformed into the āCustomer Service Standardsā in the United States. As a result, in September 1993, many federal agencies defined target customers and created customer service standards to enhance administrative efficiency.2
Cutting red tape
The entrepreneurial government seeks to eliminate useless rules, regulations and practices. In todayās rapidly changing administrative environment, these rules and regulations force governments to remain as unproductive bureaucracies. Therefore, it is necessary to boldly eliminate the various control devices established based on the distrust of civil servants and citizens and to pursue the common sense government. Entrepreneurial governments have used strategies such as the elimination of regulations, sunset laws that are abolished if not re-approved, review commissions to eliminate unnecessary regulations or activities and zero-based budgets (ZBB). Specifically, they have greatly expanded the discretion and autonomy of public officials in the areas of personnel, budget and purchasing, thereby drastically reducing the time and effort involved in the work process.
Empowering employees to get results
The entrepreneurial government enlarges the autonomy of civil servants and pursues the subordination of authority. It also transfers much of its power to consumers, communities and non-governmental organizations. The strategy of enhancing this autonomy is to delegate the discretion in administrative operation to the lowest level. This approach ensures that the various executive functions are organized in separate offices and that the chief executives of these offices have discretion in independent accounting, personnel and financial operations, and are responsible for the provision of administrative services.
This principle was introduced early in countries such as the UK, Australia and New Zealand, but came somewhat later to the United States. Specifically, in 1994, the Government Management Reform Act for decentralized performance management was passed. The strategy that was pursued along with this was the promotion of performance evaluation and the commendation of innovative officers.3
Cutting back to basics: producing better government for less
Strategies for government innovation are largely divided into revenue-seeking strategies and cost-saving strategies. Revenue-seeking strategies can be achieved by increasing usage fees and the principle of paying the beneficiary. In the case of cost reduction, strategies can aim to eliminate duplication and waste. The integration and abolition of ministries is one of the oldest methods of cost reduction. The resulting reduction of manpower represents the largest share of such cost reduction.
In 1993, Australia and New Zealand drastically reduced manpower through the integration and abolition of ministries. The United States also substantially reduced its number of civil servants through the Federal Workforce Restructuring Act in 1994. Specifically, during the period from 1993 to 2000, 13 of 14 ministries were reduced in size. The ensuing abolition of 426,000 civil servant jobs and around 250 policy programmes and related agencies led to the formation of the smallest government since the Eisenhower administration in the 1950s.
Government innovation during the Clinton years was led by the National Performance Review, and e-government was the most important tool in the process of government innovation. Therefore, we next examine the activities of the National Performance Review.
