Global Equity in Administration

Nervous Areas of Governments

Susan Gooden, Susan T. Gooden

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9780367519780
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000091397
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Education Theory & Practice
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Governments around the world face the challenge of espousing principles of fairness but practicing inequity in their administration. Issues of equity and justice are fundamental concerns of government, and thus to public administrators, who constantly struggle to evaluate a country's social climate and ensure equity in governance. Such evaluation is unlikely to occur in a serious way, however, if government actors are fundamentally too uncomfortable to directly engage the topic. The result, this book argues, is a context of 'nervousness,' which unless squarely acknowledged and addressed, can become debilitating and thwart progress toward achieving social equity.

This volume explores and expands our understanding of the concept of nervousness in the administration of government services around the world, demonstrating the ways in which such an emotional and physical reaction can debilitate government actions that are needed to promote social equity and justice. Each of the chapters in this edited volume focuses on a single country and examines a specific nervous area of government, highlighting important historical and political considerations, as well as specific evidence of promising progress. It considers the complexity of nervous areas of governments around the world, while identifying encouraging approaches and initiatives. Global Equity in Administration is required reading for all practicing and aspiring public servants concerned with fair and equitable provision of public services around the world.

1
Nervousness in a Global Context

Susan T. Gooden

Global Nervousness

Governments around the world face the challenge of espousing principles of fairness while practicing inequity in their administration among particular groups. This zone in which they operate is best understood as the “nervous area of government.” “The nervous area of government is how an organization considers, examines, promotes, distributes, and evaluates the provision of public justice in areas such as race, ethnicity, gender, religion, sexual orientation, class, and ability status” (Gooden, 2015, 9). Nervousness is an emotional and physical reaction that can interfere with one’s ability to perform critical tasks. Both individuals and organizations can experience nervousness. In government, it becomes harmful when it debilitates actions that are needed to promote social equity and justice.

The nervous area of government often involves considerable discomfort because it addresses difficult systemic inequities. Nervous areas of government are commonly described as uncomfortable, difficult, challenging, or sensitive. Such descriptions, however, fail to recognize a more important concern. The first consideration should not be how comfortable (or not) individuals, organizations, or systems view these areas, but rather how essential, vital, and necessary successfully engaging nervous areas of government is to affected marginalized groups, as well as to the ultimate thriving of the polity at-large.

Issues of equity and justice are fundamental concerns of government, and thus to public administrators, who constantly struggle to evaluate the country’s social climate and ensure equity in governance (Akram, 2004). Such evaluation is unlikely to occur in a serious way if government actors are fundamentally too uncomfortable to directly engage the topic. The result is an important, taken for granted, but unacknowledged context of nervousness, which unless squarely acknowledged and addressed, can become debilitating and thwart progress toward achieving social equity. Simply put, working effectively within the nervous area of government is the only way to shorten the distance between equity in principle and equity in action. Equity in principle makes us feel good. Equity in action confirms that our governments are actually doing good.

As detailed in my earlier book, Race and Social Equity: A Nervous Area of Government, the nervous area of government is grounded in an extended application of organizational justice. Issues involving organizational justice involve some person or group benefitting or harmed in a manner that is unfair. The dominant concern is how the organization provides public justice rather than solely individual justice. Public justice is the larger organizational value within which issues of social equity reside. Although public justice is similar to social equity, the latter is more concerned with the delivery of public services, whereas the former is more value-oriented. In some instances, achieving equity requires treating everyone the same; in other cases, it means treating groups differently based upon current and/or past inequities. Importantly, the implementation of equity is context based—determining what is fair is dependent upon understanding a complex array of historical, political, and social factors.

Despite the long-standing commitment to fairness as an administrative principle, administrators must be humbled by the realization that they contributed to the discrepancy and in many places helped to institute inequality in the past by enforcing discriminatory laws and using their broad discretion to advance exclusionary social mores.

(Smith, 2002)

“A primary managerial means to achieve social equity includes a managerial commitment to the principle that majority rule does not overturn minority rights to equal public services”

(Frederickson, 1980, 47 original emphasis). As Frederickson later explained,

It is time for public administrators of all kinds to ask the so called second question. The first question is whether an existing public program or proposed program is effective or good. The second question is more important. For who is this program effective or good?

(2005, 36)

Hence, social equity is “the fair, just, and equitable management of all institutions serving the public directory or by contract, and the fair and equitable distribution of public services, and implementation of public policy, and the commitment to promote fairness, justice, and equity in the formation of public policy” (National Academy of Public Administration, 2000). As Shafritz and Russell (2002) explain, “Fairness in the delivery of public services; it is egalitarianism in action—the principle that each citizen, regardless of economic resources or personal traits, deserves and has the right to be given equal treatment by the political system” (395).

United Nations and an International Equity Framework

How are international standards for social equity determined, particularly given the vast differences in history, social norms, and cultural values? Herein, I contend that the United Nations (UN) offers the best (albeit far from perfect) international social equity framework. Following World War II, the UN was established in 1945 as an international organization designed to promote international peace and security. Currently comprised of 193 member states around the world, the mission of the UN is guided by purposes and principles contained in its founding charter. Article I of this charter details four primary purposes of the UN. Item 3 is fundamental to social equity: “to achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion” (United Nations Charter, 1945, emphasis added). Executing the mission of the UN involves intentional work by all member states toward these core principles—each operating within its own particular historical and social context which operates as a nervous area of government.

Importantly, there are critical trade-offs to fulfilling the mission of the UN. All countries maintain their sovereignty, and there is hierarchy within UN member states, with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council—China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States—having important veto power. And, ultimately given each member states’ recognized sovereignty, the UN has limited ability to enforce principles and sanctions. Despite these limitations, however, the actions of the UN remain critical in providing a global social equity framework, exposing humanitarian inequities, and aiding in countries improving their equity performance.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Within an international context, social equity is advanced through the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) of the UN.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is a milestone document in the history of human rights. Drafted by representatives with different legal and cultural backgrounds from all regions of the world, the Declaration was proclaimed by the United National General Assembly in Paris on 10 December 1948 as a common standard of achievements for all peoples and all nations. It sets out, fo...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Contributing Authors
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Nervousness in a Global Context
• Part I Gender & Sexuality
• Part II Race & Ethnicity
• Part III Religion & Community
• Index