Abstract
The case illustrates how governance is interpreted and enacted through the lens of old, dominant institutional logics. In the analysis of empirical data three frames are distinguished: a legalist frame organizing the perception of participation around legal rules and procedures, a managerialist frame using private sector-inspired rhetoric, and a frame of representative democracy attributing responsibility for decision-making and problem-solving to elected officials and councillors. It is shown how, with the use of these frames, decision-makers systematically exclude dissenting voices, thus turning the decision-making process into a linear procedure where everything is known and planned beforehand. Within this process, there is no place for reflection and governance learning. Eventually governance ended up as an institution reduced to a quasi opinion survey.
Why don’t we turn the gymnasium, into a supermarket, the eating areas and part of the school building into a hotel? We could group the children into remaining areas of the building. This will make the school profitable and self-sufficient!
School principal, minutes of the Municipality Council Meeting, February 2012
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Notes
- 1.
Until 2009, the law did not allow for the possibility of transforming the Local Government Unit—public schools run by local government units into public schools run by non-public entities. However, there was a loophole. It was possible to delegate the management of a school in two stages: firstly, by closing down the public school, and then by establishing in its place a public school run by a non-public entity.
- 2.
The local board of education issued a negative opinion on the plans to entrust the management of the third school to an external entity, as the number of pupils (79) was greater than permitted by the regulation (up to 70). The board refuted the argument that 10 students lived outside of the school’s catchment area.
- 3.
Consultation processes have been documented since 2014. The most recent one (the design of a developmental strategy for the municipality) breaks the rule of ‘yes’ or ‘no’ questions and offers open-ended questions. Citizens are asked to choose three areas of action where they would like funds to be allocated, and incited to express their opinion about the municipality’s strengths and weaknesses.
- 4.
Although this frame can also have participatory versions, in which clients as service users are encouraged to participate in the development of public service (co-production in public sector reference).
- 5.
Formal reasons presented in the explanation.
References
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Yanow, Dvora. 2009. Ways of Knowing: Passionate Humility and Reflective Practice in Research and Research. The American Review of Public Administration 39 (6): 579–601.
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Strumińska-Kutra, M. (2018). How Framing Transforms Governance: Public Dispute over the Closure of Three Small Schools in a Rural Community. In: Democratizing Public Management. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74591-6_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74591-6_4
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