Public Private Partnerships: deciphering meaning message and phenomenon

__Abstract__ There is no doubt that Public private partnerships have been a dominant issue in governmental rhetoric’s but also in governmental practice. In many countries governments have turned to the idea of public private partnerships, or partnerships in general, as a vehicle to realize better policy outcomes, or to enhance investments in fields like infrastructure health or even social policy. However at the same time the concept and the idea of PPP has been a contested concept (see Hodge and Greve, 2005, Weihe, 2008). Even is we roughly define Public private partnership (PPP) as a “more or less sustainable cooperation between public and private actors in which joint products and/or services are developed and in which risks, costs and profits are shared” (Klijn and Teisman, 2003) we can still find many different forms under this heading. So PPP’s have been given many meanings, been used it quite a number of ways and we see many different manifestations. Now this is all very normal for many ideas and terms used both in the world of practice and in the world of science but in this case the confusion seems to even bigger than usual. In general we can find confusion on at least three areas, which of course are also connected to each other: - Confusion about the meaning of public private partnerships; not only do we find many different definitions but also many different appraisals and emotions. - Confusion about the argumentations and rationality of public private partnerships; there is a lot of discussion what precisely PPP’s should or could achieve (better value for money, more investments, innovations etc.) and these argumentations not seldom seems to be contradictory; - Confusion about what preferable or best form public private partnerships should have; both in the scientific literature and in the many policy documents that want to promote PPP we can find a wide variety of forms that are being seen as the best or the most workable form to cast the cooperation in. In this chapter we will elaborate on each of these confusions

It's the management, stupid! Over het belang van management bij complexe beleidsvraagstukken

De laatste jaren zien we steeds vaker politici vertellen dat we daadkracht nodig hebben en dat er nu eindelijk eens besluiten genomen moeten worden. Geluiden die gretig opgepikt worden door de media. Men zou zelfs met recht kunnen beweren dat de media zelf actief aan deze beeldvorming meedoen. Zo ontstaat wat inmiddels door verschillende commentatoren en wetenschappers is betiteld als een dramademocratie. Een democratie waarin politiek is gepersonifieerd en theater is geworden. Krachtige beelden en het regisseren van de voorstelling zijn voor politici belangrijker geworden dan de uitvoering van beleid. Deze dramademocratie staat echter op gespannen voet met de werkelijkheid van alledag, waarin complexe beleidsproblemen, zoals het herstructureren van een woonwijk, het realiseren van waterberging of het bevorderen van de kwaliteit van onderwijs, moeten worden opgelost. In die werkelijkheid willen betrokken partijen vaak andere dingen en zijn het niet eens over de aard van het probleem. Weten we ook vaak niet wat de goede oplossing is aan het begin van het proces en is kennis van het netwerk van partijen waarin de besluitvorming plaatsvindt, en van de uitvoeringsrealiteit onontbeerlijk. Cruciaal voor het vinden van goede maatschappelijke uitkomsten is het zorgvuldig managen van deze processen en het verzorgen van uiteenlopende vormen van democratische verankering. Dit vereist het betrekken van uiteenlopende partijen en een zekere toewijding voor het proces in plaats van krachtige, eenzijdige, politieke interventies. Professor dr. Erik-Hans Klijn is hoogleraar bestuurskunde bij de opleiding Bestuurskunde (Faculteit der Sociale Wetenschappen) van de Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam

Democratic legitimacy criteria in interactive governance and their empirical application

__Introduction:__ Governance and Democracy Whatever ‘governance’ is, it is certainly aimed at involving stakeholders. The literature gives various reasons for the necessity of involving stakeholders and thus why (interactive) governance can be more effective than more classical forms of steering. In general, they fall into three categories (see for instance Kooiman 1993; Kickert et al. 1997; Pierre 2000; Sorensen and Torfing 2007): 1. stakeholders have to be involved because governments are dependent on their resources (‘veto power’ argument); 2. stakeholders are involved because they have specific knowledge and can enhance the quality of the problem definition or even more so the quality and innovative character of the solutions (‘quality’ argument); 3. stakeholders have to be involved to enhance the democratic quality of decision-making in modern network societies (‘democratic legitimacy’ argument

Leven met onzekerheid: Besluitvorming over duurzame stedelijke ontwikkeling

Cahier Reeks duurzame stedelijke vernieuwin

Institutional Design

Within public administration and policy sciences the concept of policy networks nowadays is well accepted. Not much attention has been paid so far to strategies aimed at institutional design. Therefore, in this article, we develop a conceptual framework to study institutional design more thoroughly. We do this by specifying the nature and variety of institutional rules that guide the behaviour of actors within networks. Given this categorization of rules, we identify possible strategies to change network rules. Next, we focus on the strategic context of attempts to influence the nature of instit

The impact of contract characteristics on the performance of public–private partnerships (PPPs)

Four significant features of public–private partnership (PPP) contracts are analysed to understand their impact on performance. These are whether the contract allows sanctions to be imposed; its complexity; its flexibility; and whether renegotiation is possible. The effects of these characteristics were investigated by surveying participants in all of the PPP projects in The Netherlands. The only feature considered to have any significant impact on perceived performance was the possibility of imposing sanctions. The authors’ findings cast doubt on earlier research into managing PPP performance and suggest that researchers, governments and the private sector need to look beyond contract terms to prop

Partnership Arrangements: Governmental Rhetoric or Governance Scheme?

It has become popular to advocate partnership arrangements. Such partnerships may be seen as new forms of governance, which fit in with the imminent network society. However, the idea of partnership is often introduced without much reflection on the need to reorganize policy-making processes and to adjust existing institutional structures. In this contribution, we discuss the ambiguity of partnerships. An empirical basis is provided by means of an analysis of the policy making on the expansion of the Rotterdam harbor. This case indicates that although new governance schemes are being proposed and explored, they still have to comply with the existing procedures in which they are imbedded. Governments especially are not prepared to adjust to governance arrangements. Policy making continues to be based on selfreferential organizational decisions, rather than on joint interorganizational policy making. This raises questions about the added value of intended cooperative governance processes

Governance network theory: Past, present and future

__Abstract__ This article argues that governance network theory (GNT) has developed into a fullyfledged theory that has gained prominence within public administration. The emergence of New Public Governance opens up new challenges, however, and instead of governance networks and network governance replacing the traditional public administration model and New Public Management, hybrid practices will emerge. Addressing this topic, andother new challenges, will require GNT to further develop, and perhaps even reinvent itself. This is not without risks. If GNT evolves into a theory of everything, it will lose its explanatory power

Managing stakeholder involvement in decision-making

Initiatives to encourage and stimulate the involvement of citizens but also various societal organisations in decision-making can be seen in a wide variety of European countries. Citizens panels, citizens charters, new forms of participation and other forms are being used to increase the influence of citizens on decision making and to improve the relation between citizens and elected politicians. In the Netherlands a lot of local governments have experimented with interactive decision-making that is enhancing the influence of citizens and interest groups on public policy making. Main motives to involve stakeholders in interactive decision making are diminishing the veto power of various societal actors by involving them in decision making, improving the quality of decision making by using information and solutions of various actors and bridging the perceived growing cleavage between citizens and elected politicians. In this article six cases are being evaluated. The cases are compared on three dimensions: - the nature and organisation of participation - the way the process is managed (process management) - the relation with formal democratic institutions These organizational features (both in terms of formal organization and in terms of actual performance) are being compared with the results of the decision-making processes in the six cases. The article shows that the high expectations of interactive decision-making are not always met. It also shows that managing the interactions- in network theory called process management- is very important for achieving satisfactory outcomes