![]()
1
Origins of Partnership Governance
It is the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) that those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.
(Darwin 1859, paraphrase)
In modern times, it is generally understood that 'governance' is the process by which public needs and services are identified, agreed upon, and pursued and that "the context of governance" is "[a] system for the legitimate direction of society" (Uveges & Keller 1998, p. 30). This is different from 'government,' which relates to the specific jurisdiction in which political authority is exercised. Governance points to a deep human agency and informs us of "a change in the meaning of government, referring to a new process of governing; or a changed condition of ordered rule; or the new method by which society is governed" (Rhodes 1996, pp. 652-3). It points to collaboration and partnerships, the need to organize and work together with others, participate in government, plan jointly, to learn from others, build trust and agreements, identify sustainable resources, and manage change and outcomes by social/political processes (Golembiewski 1977; Holzer & Gabrielian 1998; Saranson 1972; Uveges & Keller 1998). This is both a challenge and a demand for public managers (William 1994). Holzer and Gabrielian point out the challenge of governance, echoed in partnership and collaboration theories, that "the problem of theoretical reconciliation of conflicting paradigms is not an easy one" (Holzer & Gabrielian 1998, p. 52), chiefly due to the "complexity of human nature" (Holzer & Gabrielian 1998, p. 72). This is what Partnership Governance claims to do. In the context of public administration (and equally applicable to private sector administration), "governance is a broader term and encompasses both formal and informal systems of relationships and networks for decision making and problem solving" (Policy Consensus Initiative 2005). Partnership Governance is a term that organizes this process and its disputes and offers an avenue of solving and supporting the potential of democratic government in partnership with its citizenry; it is a collaborative process.
This book addresses the subject of Partnership Governance and management in public administration. "Modern network society is characterized, among other things, by interdependencies between actors. . . . It is not surprising that in public administration, many writers see a trend from government to governance" (Edelenbos & Klijn 2007, p. 25). Continuing along these lines, Partnership Governance refers to the evolution of government (Holzer & Gabrielian 1998) and, we believe, the organizing principle of "the new governance"âNew Public Governance (NPG) (Salamon 2002, p. vii). If you are an observer of government, it is apparent that there is an ongoing and fluctuating force¡a recurring, ebbing, and flowing "tide" of governmental reforms (Light 1997)âbetween command/control and collaboration/flexibility (dominance/actualization, conflict/cooperation) methodologies of public management. These nodes, (both) necessary to provide for and manage public interests, address social order in our civilization and require different methods of examination. These fluctuations are also at the heart of many debates regarding the purpose and performance of public administration in the context of governance. Even a casual glance at the history of government indicates that it has always been this way. So it is with 'Partnership Governance.'
Examinations of the fluctuations, mentioned above, reveal that one node eventually calls forth the other. As soon as one node is fully articulated, the other eventually demands attention in an ever-evolving manner. This is the circle of the life of governance. In practice, the nodes do not deny each other but, building upon each other, mingle and adapt to social evolution. Today, due chiefly to global boundary spanning, the relentless advance of information and communication technologies, and the democratization of markets, the tide is swinging toward collaboration/facilitation. This is the journey we will take and the following are the questions that launch this expedition. In relation to public organization and management, why is there a clear and present human need for collaboration and partnership in our thoughts and actions, and why is it so often neglected in just those ways? How are collaborations/partnerships working in public processes and government?
Partnership in Governance
Partnerships in governance may have been around since the beginning of civilization, and they act on specific multisectoral opportunities in modern public management. Partnerships have a functional aspect, but also a policy aspect. When we look at partnerships through the lens of policy, government looks different (Lowndes & Skelcher 1998). First, we see partnerships everywhere, they decentralize government, and they create multilevel production networks. Partnerships are found in almost every aspect of government, and they involve nonpublic actors beyond "iron triangles" (Vernon, Spar, & Tobin 1991) to public planning, management, and service delivery. Secondly, whether these partnerships are building a bridge, providing safe and clean environments, strengthening communities, or developing an economy, they tend to be pragmatic and results oriented. This alters or augments our understanding of governance. "Governance is ultimately concerned with order and collective action" (Stoker 1998, p. 17). As Blessett, Alkadry, and Rubaii (2013) state, "governance . . . speaks to the interactions and engagement of administrators with multiple constituents within varied environments" (p. 302). This tells us that governance often challenges the divisions and separations of government, and the same is true of public (and public-private) partnerships.
[T]he rise of "governance" as a theoretical perspective and empirical reality brought into play a competing organizational dynamic rooted in the private sector . . . in which government is one among many actors and in which government officials enjoy no presumption of primacy, even though they are democratically elected representatives of the people within governance networks.
(Kincaid & Stenberg 2011, p. 197)
Today, the rise of Partnership Governance describes the process of multisectoral engagement and can be appropriately associated with the evolution of democracy as a form of citizen action as well as the corresponding public management capacity. And yet, it is here, at these points of evolution, that we often find concern based on ideological aspirations when we might expect to find curiosity. Command and Control Governance and Partnership Governance are different strategies and perspectives. Fluctuations between the methodologies may appear to be reactionary but may be better understood as organic trends to meet evolving social expressions.
Charles Darwin may have seen collaborative phenomena in nature over 100 years ago, but the subject of governance can be aptly attributed, as it pertains to the study of present-day public administration, to H. George Fredrickson, as early as 1971, as a balancing weight to scientific management and, two decades later, the New Public Management (NPM) movement. His ideas continue to guide us today on public governance, decentralization, equitable partnerships, and cooperation within the changing arena and adaptive responses of modern society (Fredrickson 1971, 1999, 2012). In our society, this discussion takes us immediately to the reasons, purposes, and politics of our bifurcated social-economic system particularly between, of, and in the public and private sectors. Partnership Governance and collaborative government concepts are mutual "cross-sector concepts spanning the public, private, nonprofit, and citizen domains" (Purdy 2012, p. 410, summarizing the Policy Consensus Initiative in 2005) Fredrickson (1971) and later Bozeman (1987) make an important observation of this unifying system: designed as a public benefit. "The governance perspective also draws attention to the increased involvement of the private and voluntary sectors in service delivery and strategic decision making" (Stoker 1998, p. 19) This has not always been the way societies were intended to operate, and it remains a challenge, both at heart and at a distance, in the understanding and management of government in modern times.
From NPM to NPG: The Significance of Governance and the Emergence of Public Partnering
"The first message of governance is to challenge constitution/formal understandings of systems government" (Stoker 1998, p. 19). At the end of the 20th century, at the height of NPM and a growing disillusionment with government, arrived a call for better approaches to governance. The Fredrickson view of the 21st century includes the primacy of collaboration at the core of a new approach to governance. This is not only to further necessary equitable considerations for public management, citizen participation, and politics as essentially governance (Fredrickson 1971), but also to solve public problems peculiar to an advancing technological society. NPG emerges in defense of the strengths of communities and our citizenry in active democratic engagement but, again, also refers to the profession of public management that is less centralized, as prescribed by NPM privatization precepts (Osborne & Gaebler 1992; Savas 2000). It is also in reaction to public agency dissociated from everyday public processes (Agranoff & McGuire 2003; Salamon 2002).
For the NPG, the process of collaboration, i.e., the management of collaborations, is partnership regardless of the level or scope of collaboration (Gulick 1937). This is the theme we will build on in this paper. Jan Kooiman's (1993) view is that governance is fundamental to public management. Governance identifies the organizational nature of public processes, its partnering tendencies and evolution to higher levels of organization as institutional socioeconomic and political relationships in society. Myungsuk Lee points out that governance "also denotes government management capacities" (Lee 2003, p. 6), which is key to understanding the role of partnerships.
Lester Salamon refers to "the new governance" as a "framework" that "emphasizes the collaborative nature of modern efforts to meet human needs" (Salamon 2002, vii). If we can accept that there is a "collaborative nature," the primacy of partnership, rather than only the nature of disaffiliated competition, then we can see not only another view of policy development (planning), which requires partnerships, but also their implementation, which is an associated need to manage policy to achieve desired results (Pressman & Wildavsky 1973). Salamon uses the word "emphasizes," indicating that we are not inventing collaboration, but unconcealing it or further actualizing it, thereby recognizing that it is part of our nature and, even if minimized, is undeniable. From this point of view, it is reasonable to conclude that at every level of government, governance operates in a collaborative manner. At any time, government reaches across and participates with all sectors of society and economics (Fry & Nigro 1998), and this exposes the actions of governance. These sectors are fundamentally described as public, which is understood as government, and private, which is understood as business and citizenry. All elements and segments of society can be said to originate in one of these sectors, even as sectors continuously evolve, merge, collaborate, mingle, and operate at various levels of impact hierarchy. The management of these collaborations, formally and informally, consists of acts of governance. This idea goes back to the beginnings of modern public administration (Gulick 1937), because "public administration is a composite of many disciplines and fields" (Chandler 1998, p. 743).
Governance is derived from collaboration and is not the same as cooperation or competition, as it is defined by its "mutuality and organizational identity" (Brinkerhoff & Brinkerhoff 2011; Velotti, Botti, & Vesci 2012). Creating and managing mutuality and organizational identity defines partnerships as well. In public administration, the work of collaboration links partnering with governance. Governance and partnership are terms that can be used in both public and private realms but are distinct in public administration because they address interdependent public goods, values, and purpose rather than only independent individual agendas. Herbert Simon (1997) recognized the limitations of individual action, as did Dwight Waldo (1948) when he cited a need for "post-bureaucratic" modes of organization. These other modes are collaborative and partnering. Bozeman (1987) later talked about evaluating all organizations, both public and private, as to their "publicness." This publicness was not only a sense of transparency and accountability, but also the process whereby private citizens and businesses merged and blended their actions in creating societal values and defining and implementing public solutions that prevented the erosion of these values (Denhardt 1993). Governance implies partnerships. Partnerships, not only on a principal-agent basis, but also a collaborative basis, redefine the role of government and public management. Partnerships redefine how government and public structures operate intrinsically and extrinsically. Government stability, in a partnership system, relies on the success of each partner within the partnership as a whole.
A partnership operates as a complete phenomenon with a minimum of two partners as well as the (whole) partnership itself (partnerships, of course, can have more than two partners). Collaboration and network theory describe the processes of social interact...
