Central Research Questions and Argument

Abstract

Since the 1980s, the structuring and functioning of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) public sector has undergone major shifts (cf. OECD 2002a; Pollitt and Bouckaert 2004). One of the most observed trends in public sector organization in OECD states is the shift from a centralized and consolidated public sector to a decentralized, structurally devolved and ‘autonomizing’ public sector, including the disconnection of policy design, implementation and evaluation (Christensen and Lægreid 2001a, 2006). Systems of public administration have been disaggregated into a multitude of different kinds of (semi-)autonomous organizations, denoted as ‘agencies’ or ‘quangos’ (cf. Flinders and Smith 1999; Pollitt and Talbot 2004). This disaggregation through ‘agencification’ is the result of a process of vertical and horizontal specialization, based on geography as well as on different types of purposes, tasks, customer groups or processes (Christensen et al. 2007; Roness 2007). In this process of agencification and autonomization, the responsibilities and autonomy of public organizations are redefined (structural aspect). Moreover, the way that they are controlled by government, including the mechanisms of accountability, are redesigned, mostly from ex ante to ex post, and from input to results based rationals (functional aspect).