the art of judgment: geoffrey vickers

8/12/2019 The Art of Judgment: Geoffrey Vickers

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THE ART OF JUDGEMENT: A STUDY OF POLICY MAKING

Sir Geoffrey Vickers.Centenary Edition. Advances in Public Administration series.Sage Publications, 1995. xxiv + 284pp. 16.50 (paper)

RETHINKING PUBLIC POLICY-MAKING: QUESTIONINGASSUMPTIONS, CHALLENGING BELIEFS. ESSAYS IN HONOUR

OF SIR GEOFFREY VICKERS ON HIS CENTENARY

Margaret Blunden and Malcolm Dando (eds.)Sage Publications, London, 1995. 233pp. 28.50 (cloth)

Geoffrey Vickers has become a non-religious Western guru and prophet, attracting a smalland loyal following to his message that the whole Western world took a wrong turning atthe time of the Enlightenment (ironic term), and is on a path which will lead to its destruction.The mind-set it learned then focusing on individual autonomy rather than the responsibilitiesof membership of one another, on the pursuit of private satisfactions rather than the mainte-

nance of social relations spells disaster in an increasingly complex and interdependentglobal village.Doomsday messages were then in the air (J.K. Galbraith, Donald Schon, Gordon Rattray

Taylor, Theodore Roszak), and now reactions to Reaganism and Thatcherism, such as thecommunitarian movement, or the social responsibilities of business campaign, arrive at similarprescriptions without necessarily knowing about Geoffrey Vickers work. Vickers distinction,for the readers of this journal, is his interest in the processes of public policy making.

He was no academic: he called himself a professional, and began writing in his retirement,after a remarkable career: highly decorated soldier, classics undergraduate, solicitor, top civilservant, nationalized industry executive. In his spare time, as chairman of the Research Com-mittee of the Mental Health Research Fund, he read himself into familiarity with psychology,

anthropology and social science, and like many keen minds of the time, was captivated bysystems thinking. This came, he said, as a liberation; it gave him a language in which tomake sense of his varied and perplexing experience.

The first book under review is a reissue of Vickers 1965 classic, with a Foreword by threeAmerican devotees, and a biography by Margaret Blunden. The heart of Vickers thought isthe rejection of analytic reductionism and of billiard ball causality in human relations, andan insistence on the synthesizing, holistic, moral, and subjective character of all choice aboutanything at all. The key word is judgement, based on an appreciation. An appreciationhas three facets: a reality judgement, about what the facts are; a value judgement, compar-ing those with what could or should be the case; and an instrumental judgement, about whatmight be done. But these facets are not all separate or sequential: each is loaded with theothers, like the weft and woof of a net.

Value judgements incorporate the entire life-history, and also the dreams and ideals, of the

Public Administration Vol. 75 Autumn 1997 (587600) Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1997, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street,Malden, MA 02148, USA.


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appreciators their appreciative system; the more closely woven and coherent the net, thegreater the disturbance wrought by change. We are social animals, and learn to appreciatethe appreciative systems of others; we develop expectations of how they will respond, as theydo about us. The interplay of these expectations produces norms, settings of these relationswhich we would prefer to see maintained. Maintaining relations over time in changing con-texts is what Vickers calls regulation the use of instrumental judgement to bring realityinto line with preferences. All decision makers are regulators of their social environment.

Appreciative systems and settings can be discerned not only at the level of the individualperson, but also in the ethos of an organization and the tenets of a culture. No two appreciativesystems are identical; but a degree of commonality is what creates and keeps together a group,a family, a community, a profession, an organization, a country.

These definitions are then applied in the analysis of a number of case studies. Some of thesecond half of the book is dated, as one would expect; but the analysis (as for example in achapter called Political Choice and Market Choice) predicted the now-emerging effects. As inall Vickers writing, the texture is rich with intellectual ornament and metaphor, derived from

his own varied experience and reading (for example, expectations, like walls, are improbablestructures, ultimately self-supporting and much more easily levelled than raised; and policiesdepend upon expectations (p. 242)). These magic cross-disciplinary parallels and homologiesare wholesale in the Yearbooks of the Society for General Systems Research, of which Vickerswas an early member, and president in 1970.

The book ends with a chapter on The Human-Ecological System. This, says Vickers, is self-regulating. War, famine, and disease have adjusted populations to their living space manytimes before, and they can be relied on to do so again. If humans were to succeed in makingthe planet uninhabitable by man, other species (the cockroach is favoured) would colonizethe vacant space, and the earth, relieved of its most destabilizing element, would soon assumea new ecological balance (p. 255). Vickers later developed this theme in Freedom in a Rocking

Boatand other publications. Needed in a rocking boat is not freedom but shared responsibility.That is the main preoccupation of the second volume under review.

This was originally published as a special issue of theAmerican Behavioral Scientist in 1994,with the addition of a Foreword by R.A.W. Rhodes. There are thirteen contributors, six ofthem British, the others American, each bringing us up to date in an area of Vickers thinkingand wide interests. Rod Rhodes excoriates the New Public Management, Nevil Johnson otherrecent administrative reforms in Britain. Margaret Blunden expounds the critique of liberalism,and the difficulty of resetting the entire appreciative system of Western society. Guy Adamsand Bernard Catron describe modern communitarian thinking, and suggest that, if the worldis to be saved from itself, greater intrusions upon individual autonomy by authority may be

necessary. John Forester develops Vickers views on the failings of social science, and on plan-ning as education. Peter Checkland does a Vickers on 1950s systems theory, introducing hisdistinction between hard systems (which think of systems as existing in the world), and softsystems theory, which sees the world as made up of problems, but the process of inquiry asorganizable on a systemic basis.

Nancy Milio and Patrick Pietroni deal with recent reforms in health care, respectively inthe US and British health care systems. It was Vickers who invented the concept ofcommunitymedicine, and had the confidence, with no medical standing whatsoever, to criticize theassumptions that in-patient medicine is the only real medicine, and that all doctors are trainedin hospitals. Alvin White takes up Vickers interest in informal education, and describes thedevelopment of humanistic mathematics. Malcolm Dando applies Vickers thinking on con-

flict management and the responsibilities of membership to events in Yugoslavia. Scott Cooktackles the problem of plural moral systems: how can we stabilize the rocking boat when thereis no shared concept of what responsible conduct would be? Finally, Lynton Caldwell askswhether an expectation of systemic social responsibility is realistic, and expresses scepticismthat modern society can save itself from itself, except by recourse to iron government.

Each book has a splendid index, the second covering 35 pages.What is our judgement on Sir Geoffrey Vickers, as a policy theorist, as a philosopher of

Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1997


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history? As is remarked in these books, he was appreciated more in America than in his nativeland, even though or perhaps because the American dream was to him an awful warning.Among political scientists, however, appreciative system is a term which, like Simons satis-ficing, has not quite passed into the language, and is always cited with a reference unlike,say, incrementalism or pluralism. On anti-individualism and the need for community (a themenow heard rather nervously even on the British hustings, as an emphasis on duties as wellas rights), Amitai Etzioni is much more cited than Vickers, and Mary Douglas cultural theoryis probably a more accessible product than Vickers theorem that in human societies all lineardevelopment is eventually self-destabilizing.

It may be that the intellectual basis which attracts many devotees to Vickers his foundationin systems theory and, to a lesser extent, cybernetics is also that which has hidden hisgreatness from other eyes. British political science, on the whole, distrusts systems thinking,or at least can very well do without it. Of the world-wide membership of the General SystemsSociety in 1960, only 2.4 per cent were English (no Scots, Welsh or Irish), and 91 per cent wereNorth American. Vickers, though he applied systems thinking, did not noticeably develop it;

and he was odd on control theory, in his insistence that the word control should be used tomean monitor or check only, in the French and German sense (as in frontier controls). Henever attempted to give a systems or cybernetic understanding of his key concept of optimiz-ing-balancing. So he probably does not earn a place in the systems pantheon either, alongside(from this country) Ross Ashby and Stafford Beer.

Yet, like Rod Rhodes, I remain a fan, for he was a prophet, and his writing is always anintellectual delight and stimulation.

Andrew DunsireUniversity of York

RE-STATING SOCIAL AND POLITICAL CHANGE

Colin HayOpen University Press, 1996. 207pp. 10.99 (paper)

This is an ambitious, sometimes difficult, but always challenging and perceptive book, whichdeserves careful reading. Its author sets himself two main tasks. First he aims to show the

importance of state theory to the analysis of contemporary society and politics. The book isliterally an attempt to re-state social and political change. It incorporates the state into itsanalysis of social and political change and it sets out to show how changing understandingsof the state have themselves been fundamental to social and political change. Second, and inthat context, the book seeks to present a convincing analysis of British society and politicssince the war. It concludes by setting out an agenda for the future.

The book seeks to show the value of state theory in practice by developing a persuasiveoverall analysis of Britains post-war experience. Hay starts by outlining his own understand-ing of state theory, and concludes with an analysis of Thatcherism and its consensual continu-ation, which he calls Blaijorism. It is to his credit that the steps between the most abstractformulations at the start of the book and the analysis of contemporary practice at the end

seem to follow coherently and convincingly. There is no sharp disjunction between the theoryand the discussion of practice.

Each of the core chapters of the book is concerned with a particular moment of Britainspost-war political history. Chapter 2 focuses on the post war settlement. Hay redefines andclarifies this settlement in terms which locate its main defining characteristics in the periodof war-time coalition, rather than the Attlee government. It was consolidated by the Attleegovernment, not initiated by it. In chapter 3 Hay explores the notion of post-war consensus.



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He distinguishes between governments which set out to transform what he calls the contoursof the state and those which do not seek significantly to challenge the structures they haveinherited. Periods dominated by governments of the latter sort can be understood as periodsof consensus. In chapter 4 Hay goes on to interrogate the notion of citizenship which underlaythe mythology of the Keynesian welfare state.

In chapters 5 and 6 Hay explores the political crises of the 1970s. He conducts a carefuldebate over definitions of crisis alongside a painstaking exploration of the break up of thepost-war settlement and its stunted legacy in the form of the social contract. In chapter 7 heturns to the analysis of Thatcherism as a state project, and begins to explore the extent towhich Thatcherism has overseen a profound structural transformation of the state (p. 153).On balance Hay believes there have been fundamental changes and in chapter 8 he sets outhis vision of a post-Thatcher settlement (with similar status to the post-war settlement) witha consensus based around what he calls Blaijorism. He concludes by briefly outlining the needfor an alternative model, although he is rather pessimistic about the likelihood of its beingtaken up.

It would be a great pity if Hays explicit focus on state theory and his ambition to re-state(or reintroduce the state into discussions of) social and political change were to put off moremainstream readers. The state theorizing is sometimes heavy going, but it is worthwhile per-severing, not only because it underpins the argument and analysis, but also because of theway in which it encourages the reader to reconsider his or her own conceptions of the state the easy assumptions which put clear boundaries between the state (public) and the privatesphere. Hay, effectively questions many of those divisions, showing what it means to under-stand the state as a socially constituted set of relations, rather than simply as a set of govern-ment and judicial institutions.

Allan CochraneThe Open University

THE WHITEHALL READER. THE UKS ADMINISTRATIVEMACHINE IN ACTION

Peter Barberis (ed.)Open University Press, 1996. 294pp. Price not known

The civil service has long since been a hot subject in the study of British government, and,indeed, of the old trinity around which the academic study of public administration used tobe organized the civil service, local government, and the nationalized industries it seemsthe most durable. This is not to say that the pace of change in the civil service has beenother than remarkable in recent years, and certainly the output of material, whether officialor interpretative, has been daunting in scale.

So, we need a guide book and here is one edited by Peter Barberis of the Manchester Metro-politan University, and very good it is too.

Only the bravest of the brave would attempt an introductory essay on the subject of White-hall since the Fulton report within the 20 pages, but Barberis brings it off, and then presentsa range of material under six further headings.

The Whitehall Machine: Structure and Process includes synoptic pieces by Peter Hennessyand Patrick Dunleavy, and analytical work, inevitably that written by Hugo Heclo and AaronWildavsky, and, more recently Colin Thain and Maurice Wright.

Civil Servants and Ministers: Power, Influence and Public Policy naturally includesmaterial from both sides of the divide, which means Barbara Castle, Michael Heseltine andJames Callaghan in the case of the politicians. Only Heseltine had much interest in civil ser-vice reform.



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Callaghans remarks are those that he made to the Treasury and Civil Service Committeein 1993 about Whitehall under long-run Conservative rule. Mrs Castles ramblings remind usof the previous situation. Nobody talks about Mandarin power now, surely. From the civilservice side, Sir Patrick Nairne and Sir Kenneth Stowe make contributions, and there ismaterial too from William Plowden, Anthony King and Richard Rose.

The next section deals with Loyalties, Responsibilities and Ethics and contains the Arm-strong Memorandum as included in the Civil Service Management Code, and a draft civilservice code as produced by the Treasury and Civil Service Committee. There is material alsoby Clive Ponting, Peter Jay, and a thoughtful piece by Barry OToole about T.H. Green, theEdward Heath of political philosophy.

The section on Reforming Whitehall I: Hopes, Visions, and Landmarks contains two piecesby Sir Robin Butler, as well as extracts from the Next Steps report, the Citizens Charter andthe Treasury document on Competing for Quality, and an overview from William Waldegrave.Just to cheer everybody up, there is an extract fromReinventing Government, the Peters andWaterman of its day.

Then the critics have their say: Richard Chapman, Vernon Bogdanor, Patricia Greer and soon. It is all good stuff, and an incisive piece by Sir Peter Kemp stirs things up.

The last section deals with Civil Servants, Parliament and the Public, and valuably includesthe Osmotherly Rules, and an interesting contribution from Sir Frank Cooper. In the pretendradical stakes there is a piece from Tony Benn, which serves as a reminder that things maybe bad but they have been worse.

An admirable bibliography sets the seal on a carefully organized Reader, which providesan informed guide to a period of rapid change and full value for those studying public admin-istration.

Geoffrey K. FryUniversity of Leeds

CIVIL SERVICE SYSTEMS IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE

Hans Bekke, James Perry and Theo Toonen (eds.)Indiana University Press (UK distrib. Open University Press), 1996.346pp. 31.50 (cloth), 15.50 (paper)

Comparative politics is as comparative politics does. While methodologists continue to debatethe finer points of strategy, practitioners get on with the job of comparing political institutions,adopting whatever approaches seem best suited to their particular task. This is as it shouldbe; after all methodological innovation is as likely to emerge from engagement with substanceas through formal consideration of research strategy. So one way of looking at this comparativestudy of civil services is to ask what it reveals about the use of the comparative method incontemporary political science.

The answer is clear: comparison has become a suite of techniques rather than a singlemethod. Just as comparative politics has itself dissolved into numerous subfields, so the com-parative method has also become a covering term for a range of related research strategies.

Thus, four distinct approaches can be discerned in this book: comparative history, configur-ation analysis, diffusion research and the case survey. In a postpositivist era, this methodolog-ical diversity should be considered a strength rather than a weakness.

Comparative history is represented in Raadschelders and Rutgerss impressive chapter onthe evolution of civil services, primarily in Europe. Configuration analysis is adopted by FerrelHeady who seeks to distinguish between ruler trustworthy, party controlled, policy receptiveand collaborative civil services. Diffusion research is represented in Halligans examination of



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the mechanisms through which reforms such as the introduction of a Senior Executive Servicewere diffused both among the Australian states and between Australia and other countries.And the case survey, finally, is used by Hood to explore variations between countries in theextent of public management reform.

The remaining chapters (and there are 15 in all, making the paperback good value) are lessexplicit in their methods. They take a particular theme for instance, internal labour markets,politicization or the representative bureaucracy and explore its significance in a broadlycomparative way. Nothing wrong with this, of course, and nearly all the chapters are worthreading. But the overall effect is somewhat disjointed. While methodological pluralism is desir-able, the best comparative research still needs a tight geographical and thematic focus. As itstands, this book is an original contribution to the study of civil services which will also attractpolitical scientists with a general interest in comparative government. But the next volume(and the editors do hint at more to come) promises to dig deeper into the ground broken bythis initial work.

Martin HarropUniversity of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

DELIVERING CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM

The Constitution UnitUniversity College, London, 1996. 101pp. 10

The reform of Britains semi-modern constitution would be an immense task for even the mostradical and prepossessed administration, never mind a Labour Party with a historical penchantfor playing policy on the hoof. It will take tremendous political will and procedural endur-ance to complete the task and obstacles will emerge at every turn. It is thus timely that aproject has emerged that deals in specifics rather than declamatory statements which merelyextol the virtues of constitutional reform. The Constitution Unit provides a much needed wayforward from the visionary monographs written by David Marquand, Ferdinand Mount,Anthony Wright and Will Hutton, which all succeeded in exciting but failed to furnish uswith amodus operandi.

The Constitution Unit was set up in April 1995 to conduct an independent inquiry into the

implementation of constitutional reform in the UK. The unit aims to analyse current pro-posals for constitutional reform; explore the connections between them; and to identify thepractical steps involved in putting constitutional reforms in place. This review deals with thefirst of a series of reports which have been published by the unit during 1996.

Delivering Constitutional Reform is organized into five chapters. The first chapter maps outthe case for consitutional reform emphasizing the interlinking nature of reform measures. Todeal with this, the unit proposes the creation of a minister in charge of constitutional reformto provide, central strategic leadership from a senior Cabinet Minister (p. 5). The ministerwould receive administrative and strategic support through a Strategic Policy Committee.

In chapter two the unit reviews the forces which, they argue, will drive and shape thereform process highlighting the historical and constitutional framework for reform. Chapter

Three moves on to consider whether Whitehall is equipped to deal with wide-ranging consti-tutional innovation and assesses what changes might be needed to enable the system to dealmore effectively with such a programme. First and foremost the problem of procedural timeis considered. Historically, constitutional bills have been reviewed by Committee of the WholeHouse. On average, past bills have taken up between 100 and 200 hours of floor time out ofthe 400 hours allocated to each session. This would mean that under existing procedure onlytwo constitutional bills could be reviewed per session. It is unlikely therefore that a wide-



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ranging programme of constitutional reform could be introduced in the lifetime of one govern-ment. The unit thus identifies procedural reform as a prerequisite for further constitutionalinnovation. Three measures are proposed: the partial referral of bills for full debate to a stand-ing committee hence minimizing time spent on the floor; advance timetabling of bills to ensurethat all parts are subject to scrutiny and debate and thus minimizing incentives for filibus-tering; and thirdly, the selective use of carry over to maximize procedural time.

Chapter four draws further lessons from successful attempts at constitutional change thiscentury, while chapter five considers the mechanisms that might be used to build consensusand ensure consultation around constitutional reform drawing on UK and international experi-ence.

What can we learn from this first report that the existing literature doesnt tell us already?First, that the study of constitutional reform has hitherto tended to focus on the substance ofreform rather than the means of achieving it. In doing so it has failed to formulate an appropri-ate methodology of constitutional reform. Second, it draws attention to the need for a potentialLabour government to carefully plan the implementation process of constitutional reform. As

Peter Hennessy has argued elsewhere, the Labour Party must not fall prey to its historicalpropensity for being ill-prepared for power. Third, it also demonstrates that in order for consti-tutional reform to be successful the job needs to be seen through to the end. Piecemeal reformmay only serve to entrench the Westminster Model still further. Finally, it is clear from thisreport that anybody who is interested in constitutional reform succeeding must pay attentionto the minutia of implementation.

What are the reports shortcomings? First, it demonstrates a certain imbalance in its treat-ment of other reform options. In particular, it is too quick to dismiss the possibilities that theproposals for a constituent assembly (pp. 579) and a constitutional commission (p. 63) mightbring to the process. Second, while the units commitment to developing a methodology ofconstitutional reform should be praised, they do not provide one in this report. Perhaps this

will come later. A consideration of the structure of power and authority in the British statewill clearly be required here, since a constitutional blueprint must provide an adequate powermap of the political system. British citizens must be aware once and for all of the boundariesof legitimate and illegitimate statecraft. Third, the unit presents a choice between the BigBang approach associated with the Liberal Democrats and the Charter 88 folk, and a gradual-ist approach akin to Ferdinand Mounts evolutionary perspective on constitutional reform.The unit uses the problem of procedural time to bolster its support for the latter. Logical butahistorical advice. The momentum behind even a great reforming administration is alwaysshort lived and rarely survives into a second administration.

The report is at its weakest when dealing with issues of political culture and tradition. In

the penultimate section on Consultation, Consensus and Inquiry the unit falls into the trapof advocating the same top-down implementation processes which have failed conspicuouslyin recent British political history. The reform process should not purely be the preserve ofpolitical elites. Mechanisms for opening up the process to public debate, of extending theboundaries of the political, must be sought for beyond the formulaic treatments deployedthrough referenda. The unit could learn much from Chapter 88sCitizens Enquiry in thisrespect. This brings me to my final criticism. While reference to historical and comparativeperspective is very important, the unit relies too much on secondary materials. This is a uniqueopportunity to be imaginative, to craft new and distinctive working practices within the heartof the British parliamentary system. It is an opportunity that should not be missed.

Mark EvansUniversity of York



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RESEARCH IN PUBLIC POLICY ANALYSIS AND MANAGEMENT,VOLUME 7

Stuart S. Nagel (ed.)

JAI Press, Greenwich, CT., London 1995. 292pp. $72.35

This is the seventh volume in a series edited by Stuart Nagel. The series aims to presentresearch papers on topics which range from theory and methodology, research in the policysciences, as well as applied research on public management and policy analysis. Contributorsare a mix of both academics and practitioners from a range of disciplines in the social, behav-ioural, and management sciences. As a series it is orientated towards operations and designissues. This present volume is to be welcomed as making an important contribution to whatis an important set of books.

Volume 7 covers a good deal of territory. The various contributors provide excellent biblio-

graphies and each section constitutes a formidable guide to recent research. Part one is con-cerned with the analysis of goal-achieving means and focuses on incentives and privatization.Elaine Sharp examines the theoretical dimensions of using incentives as policy tool, whilstRichard Hula and Elizabeth Lyons discuss the use of privatization as a policy strategy. In parttwo the contributors are concerned with policy formation, implementation and the questionof accountability. Ralph Bledsoe gives a fascinating account of the management of presidentialpolicy and this is followed by an immensely valuable piece by Lester, Bowman, Goggin andOToole on implementation. If I had to give a student one article to sum up the state of playon this subject, and what the future of the field is all about, it would have to be this one.Equally useful on the issue of accountability is the article by Percy on the theme of the politicsof governmental rule making. The following section (part three) is concerned with methods

of policy analysis. Thomas Stanton gives an informative assessment of using p/ g% decisionaiding software to examine the issue of evaluating energy options in the state of Michigan, andGolembiewski addresses the topic of cutback management in relation to two super-optimumsolutions. In the same section, however, is a piece on professionalizing policy analysis byAguirre which nicely balances the technical orientation of the two other articles. This looksat the profession of policy analysis in the US and presents the findings of a survey on theissue, as well as making recommendations as to how policy analysts can arrest their declininginfluence. The penultimate section (four) contains two pieces on the theme of the ethics ofpolicy analysis. This is an issue which is growing in importance all the time in public adminis-tration and Bluhm and Edwards make signal contributions to this debate from the point ofview of policy analysis. In the final part of the volume Nagel sets out a powerful frameworkfor thinking about and researching super-optimal solutions by exploring the various optionsavailable to policy makers.

All in all, this is a collection which is an absolutely invaluable guide to current thinking inpolicy analysis and management.Research in Public Policy Analysis and Management deservesto be in every institution which is concerned with the theory and practice of public policy.

Wayne ParsonsQueen Mary and West eld College



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THE POLITICS OF QUALITY IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR

Ian Kirkpatrick and Miguel Martinez Lucio (eds.)Routledge, 1995. 280pp. 16.99

Abraham Lincoln is purported to have commented when asked his opinion of a particularbook those who like this sort of thing will find it the sort of thing they like.

I findThe Politics of Quality in the Public Sectorfalls into Lincolns categorization. The articlesare both well-researched and well-written and there is a pleasing breadth as well as depth inthe offerings with regard to their appreciation of the public sector. However, what is disturbingis a general lack of clarity with regard to quality management in the public sector in these stud-ies.

The tone is set in the Introduction where Deming universally known as W. Edwards Demingis referred to as William Deming and q f d or Quality Function Deployment is said to be

Quality Function Development.Acknowledged leaders of the quality movement world wide such as Deming, Juran and

Crosby each receive one citation, while other quality gurus such as Feigenbaum, Taguchi,Ishikawa, Imai, etc. receive no mention in either the text or bibliography. All of which bearstestimony to the essential insularity of this book.

I felt much more affinity with the arguments being presented when I examined the backcover which was headed How has Quality Management affected Change in the Public Sector?which appeared to get much closer to the target at which the book was aimed.

One interesting area which was touched upon in the Introduction but not really naileddown, was the ever-present debate between Quality Assurance and Total Quality Manage-ment. The proponents oft q m argue thatq a has little or nothing to do with quality becauseall the standards are internally set and the customer is not involved, whereas in t q m thecustomer is king. It is not, therefore, surprising that the British public sector chose the routeofq a , via for example its Citizens Charter initiatives which consciously excluded the partici-pation of its citizens in the framing of those charters as the one which was least threateningto government and the management of its public services.

One aspect of the worldwide quality revolution, is the emphasis that it places upon manage-ment. Indeed, Deming and Juran have independently suggested that as 85 per cent to 95 percent of all organizational problems may be laid at the door of management. It is not surprising,therefore, that some 80 per cent of all quality initiatives in the UK fail in the first twelvemonths of their introduction.

Several of the articles stress the potential oft q m to be an instrument of control placed inthe hands of management. However, it is more generally accepted that in terms of how thepursuit oft q maffects Human Resources Management,t q ms role is that of persuading andconvincing management to trust, value and ultimately utilize the creativity, innovation andinitiative of their workforce, while managements twin roles remain those of leading and plan-ning.

What I feel we have here is a major difference of opinion with regard to the role of qualityin the public sector. If quality is seen as a major means of management control, it can equallybe seen as a means to greater job enrichment, worker empowerment and process improvement;with the client/customer being the beneficiary of public services which exhibit enhancedefficiency, effectiveness and economy. I view the generally acknowledged use of the pursuit

of quality as being positive, as opposed to a negative means of management control.This book will undoubtedly arouse much interest and debate among public sector special-

ists, not least because many of the arguments presented are challenging and thought-provok-ing. I would particularly recommend those of Harris, Morgan and Potter and Kitchener andWhipp. The major constraint is the use of quality in the title and the need for most articlesto attempt to include it in their narrative. That the concept of quality is causing problems tothe contributors to this book is evidenced by the fact that more often than not the word is



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ring-fenced by quotation marks; as though the authors needed to hedge their bets, and seekacceptance by fighting shy of a firm definition such as that offered by Juran who definesquality as fitness for customer use.

There is a vast literature on the management of quality. Britain is by no means the firstcountry to try and embrace its tenets including the delivery of public sector services and thereare countless examples of both good and bad practice from which we could learn; but weappear ever unwilling to do so by resisting the temptation to enforce quality managementupon inappropriate and unresponsive public sector structures.

Bob HaighShef eld Hallam University

AGENDA FOR EXCELLENCE 2: ADMINISTERING THE STATE

B. Guy Peters and Bert A. Rockman (eds.)Chatham House Publishers, 1996. 192pp. 24.95

A frequent criticism of edited volumes is that they lack a co-ordinating theme. This cannotbe said for this book written as a celebration of the intellectual thoughts and personal influ-ences of the late Charles H. Levine. For the last decade and a half (and more) Levine was apowerful force in the American and international public administration communities. Thisbook sets out to celebrate both his academic contributions and his wider influences both onthe thinking and work of others and as an influential bridge between the academic and prac-titioner communities in US public administration especially in times when many of the valuesof the public service have been stressed and possibly placed under threat. Levines interestsand published work covered a wide range of areas and included pathbreaking articles onthemes such as cutback management (1979), agenda setting (1985) and the influences of polit-ical sub-systems on the policy process (1986). He was also an intellectual catalyst who stimu-lated others to think through and comment critically on recent changes in public adminis-tration and the consequences of these for systems of governance.

Here Levines friends and colleagues set out to celebrate his ideas. Leading off with anintroduction by Guy Peters and finishing with a thoughtful conclusion by Bert Rockman, theremainder of the contributions to the volume are drawn together under three separate themes:

first, the links between public administration and policy formation (chs. 3, 4); second thedilemmas posed by the rise of public management (chs. 5, 6) and finally the values of publicadministration and the possible need to invigorate these (chs. 2, 7). More specifically drawingon Levines work on policy agendas, Milward and Ward (ch. 3) offer a critical review of theliterature in this area, examine a number of specific case studies (ranging from the rise ofsupply side economics to child abuse) and use these to develop a model to explain agendasuccess. Policy making is also a key focus of Thurbers essay (ch. 4) on policy sub-systems inUS government where he seeks to develop earlier arguments put forward by himself andLevine into a theory of policy sub-systems that grapples with the dynamics of public policymaking in changing and evolving circumstances.

One of Levines seminal contributions was his 1978 article on cutback management in times

of fiscal stress. Here, Rubin and Ross (ch. 5) seek to step aside from deterministic models ofbudgeting and resource allocation to explore Levines ideas in an historical context. To do thisthey offer a carefully researched essay on the growth and contraction of municipal service inUS cities. This leads them to the conclusion that simple explanations linking the expansion ofservices to the growth of government should be rejected, being replaced with a model thatties the growth (and contraction) of urban services to a range of political and technical factors,not least the continued (if changing interests) of business elites.



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Levines interests also embraced what he saw as inherent tensions and dangers (especiallywith the rise of ideas of the new right and the expansion of public management) relating tothe politicization of the public service and threats to accountability. These themes are dealtwith in different ways by Derlien (ch. 7) who compares the degrees of politicization in USand European bureaucracies, Moe (ch. 6) who explores the paradoxes of privatization andcontracting and the rise of third-party government and Rockman (ch. 8) who examines cur-rent tensions in public services such as those between neutrality and responsiveness and offersthoughts on what might be required to modernize public administration theory in a chang-ing world.

The majority of the articles in this collection are well organized, thoughtful and well written.Many of them also succeed in raising pertinent questions on both the organization and practiceof modern public administration. By design, however, this is also a specialized volume focus-ing as it does almost exclusively on the practice and operation of government and publicadministration in the USA although this is not to deny the relevance and possible comparativeutility of some of the concepts and theoretical frameworks used. Yet, since the books major

objective is to celebrate the work of Charles Levine, it should be noted that it achieves thiswith distinction. Time and again the warmth and affection felt for Levine shine out from thesearticles that reflect him as an intellectual innovator, stimulus to and often friend of the writers.As Guy Peters notes, this book aims both to honour Levines memory and to provide somecommentary on the breadth and impact of his work. In this it memorably succeeds.

W.I. JenkinsUniversity of Kent

YEARBOOK OF EUROPEAN ADMINISTRATIVE HISTORY,VOLUME 5: BUREAUCRATISATION ET PROFESSIONALISATIONDE LA POLITIQUE SOCIALE EN EUROPE (18701918)

E.V. Heyen (ed.)Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 1993. 394pp. DM98.

The thirteen major essays in this collection focus on the crucial formative years of collectivistwelfare provision, designed to offset the social problems and political tensions resulting fromthe urbanization, industrialization and democratization of Western Europe. The case studies

include the history of local service delivery and labour market regulation in Germany andBritain; public health in France; broader developments in the Netherlands and Denmark; and,most welcome given the general neglect of Southern European welfare states, three chapterson Italy covering old age pensions, accident insurance and compulsory education. Most ofthe chapters are in German or French but an English summary of each is provided.

The organizing theme of the volume is the application of rational scientific answers to thesocial problem and their varying degree of success as a result of differences within eachcountry of institutional capacity, social traditions and vested interest. Despite the apparentconvergence of national responses to common problems, it is shown that these years saw thereinforcement and further development of the national divergences which continue to makea genuine harmonization of policy under, for example, the Social Contract so difficult.

Like so many similar volumes, an overarching introduction would have been beneficial either to provide a framework from the outset for all the papers or to draw together theircommon conclusions. This could, with advantage, have discussed the transmission of ideas(most notably from Bismarckian Germany) and provided a weighted analysis of the nationalreasons for resistance to rational administrative solutions. Here an examination of the varyingfiscal capacity of each country, recently and expertly analysed by Martin Daunton inPast andPresent150 (1996) could have been usefully added.



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The volume, nevertheless, provides valuable empirical evidence which will inform, andcorrect, the more generalized theories of comparative welfare systems devised by sociologistsand political scientists. Indeed the final chapter bemoans the lack of constructive collaborationbetween historians and students of public administration. To resolve this problem there isclearly a need for a further well-funded European initiative, preferably during the summer,towards the south and near the sea.

Rodney LoweUniversity of Bristol

POWER AND POLITICS IN THE CITY: BRISBANE IN TRANSITION

Janice Caul eld and John Wanna (eds.)

Macmillan 1995. 308pp. Price not known

With barely concealed excitement the two editors of this interesting collection announce: Bris-bane has experienced an important transformation over the last decade. The major city inQueensland not only hosted the 1982 Commonwealth Games and the 1988 World Expo, butexperienced rapid population growth and party political change. To the sceptical outsider,who might view such developments as inherently parochial and only of interest to citizensof Brisbane, Caulfield and Wanna counter that this city is, in fact, an ideal one for addressingthe core question of community studies: who holds power and how is it exercised?

Power and Politics in the City is a collection of case studies on aspects of these questions in

which the volumes contributors marshal evidence from Brisbanes politics and policy. Caul-field and Wanna contribute several chapters, including a useful history of the city, a discussionof the growth in the local economy, economic development strategies and planning policy.Other contributors discuss mayoral power (Doug Tucker), sand and gravel dredging in theBrisbane River (Ciaran OFaircheallaigh), community care policy (Emma Craswell and PatrickWeller), environmental politics (Robyn Davies), and community powerlessness (Glyn Davis).The chapters are of a high standard and collectively form a worthwhile volume.

The empirical material reported in the book is related by the editors to extant theories ofurban politics (though both regime and state-centred theory receive scanty consideration).They stress the need for a richer theory of local autonomy which can be accommodated withan appreciation of external pressures upon Brisbane. In concluding the volume, Glyn Davis

identifies a range of factors as determinative of politics and community power in Brisbane.These include: the role of global capital; federalism; the state government; the city council;and the community. Putting this set of variables together produces, in Daviss view, a predict-able hybrid, though not atypical of Australian cities:

the city turns out to be a crossroads, a point at which the economic, political and geographic meet.

The divisions of a federal nation are found within the city walls, along with the imperatives of local

economic growth and the influence, real or hoped for, of international capital. Interest groups, policy

communities, party, business and personal networks intersect, sometimes binding together the vari-

ous public and private spheres, more often reproducing their separateness (p. 279).

The question of community power may not be settled but this volume may prove helpful toother urban scholars interested in comparative trends.

Desmond KingSt Johns College, Oxford



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PUBLIC POLICY AND ADMINISTRATION SCIENCES IN THENETHERLANDS

W. Kickert and F. Van Vught (eds.)

Prentice Hall, Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1995. 350pp. Price not known

This book starts with an observation. Public policy and public administration sciences is taughtat 10 of the existing 13 universities in the Netherlands, and a substantial research output has

been produced (p. 9). Yet, Dutch contributions to this field of study appear to be relativelyunknown in other parts of the world. Indeed, quality control of university research in theNetherlands by the Association of Universities of the Netherlands assesses their research pro-grammes in political sciences, public administration and communication sciences as good fromthe point of view of passive internationalization but less so from the point of view of activeinternationalization. Dutch researchers are generally speaking better receivers than senders(vnsu 1996, p. 29). Therefore, the ambitions of the editors are to inform foreign scholars andto stimulate international co-operation.

Assuming that there is a relationship between on the one hand, the state, its public adminis-tration, and their evolution, and on the other hand, public policy and public administrationresearch (topics and methodology), it is necessary to describe context and history of govern-ance in the Netherlands at the general and central level (chs. 1 and 2), and at the local level(ch. 3). The second part discusses Dutch practices and theories used in the field of policysciences following the policy cycle: policy making and planning (chs. 4 and 5), implementation(ch. 6), evaluation (ch. 7), and contingencies and networks (chs. 8 and 9). Part four focuses on

particular fields of policies: education (ch. 13), health care (ch. 14), environment (ch. 15), and

welfare systems (ch. 16).The size of the third part on public management contrasts sharply with the size of the policy-

related parts. This third part focuses on financial management (ch. 11) and human resourcesmanagement (ch. 12). This lack of attention surprises also the authors of chapter 11 on publicmanagement and governance: one would expect to find a distinct public management andorganisation school in the Netherlands in addition to the policy science school. So far, thisdoes not exist (pp. 21213).

Overviews are dangerous, since comprehensiveness is almost impossible. Therefore it is apity, and the editors recognize this, that important international research in the Netherlandson informatization in the public sector and on crisis management is missing in this book. A

concluding chapter with lessons for a future research agenda (fields: public management;areas: European Union; theories (comparative methods and techniques) could have given thebook also a national relevance.

The assessment of the quality of research in the Netherlands is that the work is strikinglynon-comparative in the cross-national sense of the word. But in judging the internationaliz-

ation of research one should be aware that research in political science, public administrationand communication sciences is rooted in national society and also has a task in that society(vnsu 1996, p. 2).

Yet this book is useful and interesting for foreign scholars in general and Anglo-Americanscholars in particular, for several reasons. First, a lot of research in national languages whichare not accessible for many scholars. This book corrects one way traffic into tempered two

way traffic. Second, the Dutch practice of pillarization, corporatism, and consensus democracyprovides new contents for concepts and theories on governance, public management, and

public policies. Third, interesting theoretical and empirical research has been done on methodsand techniques on policy instruments which becomes more widely available for a broaderresearch community. Fourth, this book should make us think about more basic meta-theoreti-cal questions: is our research more generic or more contingent; is it possible to structure anaccumulation of research knowledge; how should we facilitate learning from other (national)



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practices and (culturally determined) theories. Therefore, it would be useful to have additionalcountry studies to compare with this one.

REFERENCE

Association of Universities in the Netherlands (v n su ). 1996. Quality Assessment of Research: Research inPolitical Sciences, Public Administration and Communication Sciences in the Netherlands 19901994.

Utrecht: v n su .

Geert BouckaertKatholieke Universiteit Leuven


the art of judgment: geoffrey vickers

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