American Political Science Review, 64 4 , — Policy credibility and delegation to independent regulatory agencies: Journal of European Public Policy, 9 6 , — Asian Journal of Public Administration, 12 1 , 3— Exploring the Linkages and Patterns in Southeast Asia. Public Organization Review, 13 4 , — Public Administration, 69 1. The Executive Agency Revolution in Whitehall. Structural Devolution to Agencies. The Global Diffusion of Regulatory Agencies: Channels of Transfer and Stages of Diffusion. Comparative Political Studies, 44 10 , — Globalism and Comparative Public Administration.
Management of Hybrid Organizations: Governance of Quasi - Autonomous Executive Agencies. International Public Management Journal, 4, — Coordinating the government bureaucracy in Hong Kong: Governance, 18 4 , — The new public management reform and governance in Asian NICs: A comparison of Hong Kong and Singapore. Governance, 19 4 , — What is Comparative Politics?
An Introduction to Approaches and Issues. Autonomy and Performance of Agentification: Cases of Nine Independent Agencies in Thailand. From the positive to the regulatory state: Causes and consequences of changes in the mode of governance.
Government agencies: Practices and lessons from 30 countries
Journal of Public Policy, 17 2 , Two logics of delegation: European Union Politics, 2 1. Public Management and Modernisation in Britain. The relationship between the Government Office and the agencies in Sweden. Ambiguity in Policy Lessons: Public Administration, 84 4 , — The role of transformational leadership to reengineering public administration in the future.
Jurnal Kebijakan Dan Administrasi Publik, 3 2 , 41— Experiences of Pakistan and Tanzania Agency Models. Agencification and Public Sector Performance: A systematic comparison in 20 countries. Public Management Review, September , 1— The American Review of Public Administration, 41 4 , — Central Agency in Sweden a Report from utopia.
Analysis of an international policy fashion. Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice, 3 3 , — However, these capacities do not necessarily incorporate existing or new local adaptation knowledge; instead, it appears that expertise regarding national legal and technical requirements may have been strengthened at the expense of differentiated knowledge of specific local geographic and social conditions.
Duplicate citations
The merging of small firms within larger companies has created a new bias towards centralized building designs and standards. In the past, both builders and municipal authorities had expertise in building solutions well-adapted to local conditions, and their knowledge served to enhance outcomes synergistically during building projects. This synergism has largely been lost through the reform, and local adaptation is now more dependent on the expertise of the building companies.
Although we have limited data on change in the financial capacities of building companies since the reforms, there is some initial evidence that the larger companies with greater financial capacity and presence are now dominating the sector Eriksen and others , Prior to the building sector reforms, standards and approaches to construction design such as shape of the roof or the siting of the building in accordance with the prevailing wind direction to withstand local climatic conditions developed into local building styles and traditions.
This accumulated knowledge was institutionalized in local governments that were responsible for contracting builders and approving construction projects.
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Such local knowledge is critical for adaptation to climate variability and change because formal regulations alone, even if they are regionally differentiated, cannot sufficiently capture the local differences and changes in climatic conditions Eriksen and others Formal regulations can nevertheless contribute to retaining local knowledge by making climate change adaptation and geographically differentiated solutions a focus area and by ensuring that such considerations are required in any planning.
Other focus areas, such as fire safety and Universal Design accessibility considerations have, however, so far taken priority. In theory, NPM type reforms of the late s should increase use of local knowledge and provide greater flexibility in standards to suit local conditions through decentralization.
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In this case, however, the devolution of decision-making and the centralizing trend within the building sector have led building companies to become more dependent on information from sources other than the municipalities and local authorities. Eriksen and others observed large variations in knowledge about climate adaptation among local builders that are part of larger companies. Larger firms may have good access to new technology and information that can be used to strengthen local building solutions.
Where the distance is great, information flow tends to be top-down, and knowledge of centralised designs and procedures becomes more important than knowledge of local climate conditions and building solutions, inhibiting adaptive capacity. The shift in accountability from the municipal administration to the manufacturers has ostensibly clarified responsibilities, but has simultaneously introduced new problems.
Private actors are legally responsible for building according to existing regulations, but raising climate considerations with the customer is now only a matter of ethics. Most citizen-consumers have little insight into the most appropriate locally-adapted construction solutions and trust the builder to provide any necessary local adjustments. Individual consumers have tended to focus instead on aesthetic aspects such as the decoration of kitchen and bathrooms.
Without advocacy by municipalities and citizen groups, it is unlikely there will be a higher prioritization of locally adapted climate solutions in building design and construction. In practice, the NPM reforms have meant that the market is now indirectly driving building solutions and design. The emphasis on efficiency has led to a focus on the economics of building manufacture rather than social and public concerns associated with risk and adaptation to climate change.
In some cases local carpenters are making unauthorized and undocumented adaptations to changing climate conditions that may well lead to better adapted housing, but which could also produce faults and defects that may be difficult to identify at a later stage. Without a transparent and accountable process for addressing climate risk to housing in particular localities, local knowledge and experience may be lost, and any local adjustments are likely to be made in an ad hoc and unregulated manner, introducing new problems of accountability should such adjustments fail.
The Fox Administration — took up the baton of administrative reform, begun in the previous Zedillo Administration, calling for a more streamlined, transparent and efficient public service Cedujo Over the last two decades and in various contexts—ranging from civil protection to public utilities to poverty alleviation—diverse administrative and operational functions have been transferred to lower level governments, state agencies and municipal authorities. Efforts to enhance transparency and access to information has also become a priority for Mexican public agencies Cedujo , and most government agencies at the state and federal levels now have elaborate internet sites designed to facilitate the provision of necessary services and information to citizen-clients Klingner Features of the NPM paradigm have emerged as key characteristics of the s policies and reform programs implemented in the water sector, and, by extension, in flood-risk management.
Until the early s, flood management was primarily the responsibility of the Secretary of Agriculture and Hydrological Resources SARH , a highly centralized, technocratic and powerful federal agency. This new law was designed to improve water access and supply by recuperating more of the costs of water administration, and, importantly, by granting concessions for water-supply administration to municipal governments and quasi-private agencies Wilder and Romero Lankao Congruent with national water reforms, state water management policy aimed to be self-sustaining, using fees to generate financial resources, increase investment in water infrastructure, promote greater participation of the private sector in the construction of public works and eliminate the financial burden for water management on the state and municipios a political unit roughly equivalent to a U.
The findings of a study of flood management of the Upper Lerma Valley see Fig. The study evaluated the institutional capacity for flood-risk management in the Upper Lerma Valley in an effort to illuminate how policy-making, governance and disaster response interact to influence capacity for adaptation to climate change. The project involved 48 interviews with public officials in federal, state and municipal offices who were active in water, agriculture, civil protection, urban development and environmental administration.
For full details of the approach and methodology of this study, see Eakin and Appendini , Eakin and others While flooding has always been a concern in the Valley, the frequency of flood events increased significantly after the institutional reforms of the early s. The number of media reports of flood-related disasters in the state also more than doubled in the same period DesInventar, www. There is some evidence that rainfall has become more intense in the region Groisman and others , suggesting that precipitation may contribute to increasing flood risk in the future.
In face of the prospect of increased flood risk, the institutional context governing flood management and planning is likely to play a central role in enabling or diminishing adaptive capacity, particularly at the level of municipal authorities who are now in charge of designing local level interventions to reduce vulnerability from present, and ideally, future flood events. According to the new state and federal water laws, municipalities and quasi-private water service organizations have now added to their roles in water service provision and become primarily responsible for managing flood risk by undertaking such activities as infrastructure investment, canal dredging and drainage.
These agencies are also responsible for land-use planning, zoning and control of residential developments. Not surprisingly, these new responsibilities have been accompanied by technical, financial, and accountability challenges. To respond effectively to the changing nature of flood risk, local governments must maintain the hydrological infrastructure for which they are responsible proactively and effectively. Following NPM principles, the quasi-private water operating organizations, now in charge of water service provision, are intended to be semi-autonomous, recuperating their operating costs through water user fees, and investing these funds in infrastructure maintenance.
They also must pay the state for water allocated through the state water system which, in turn, has been purchased in block from the federal government. Interviewees in the federal National Water Commission CONAGUA and CAEM the state agency acknowledged, however, that very few of the operators have been able to recuperate the cost of service provision, let alone infrastructure investment and maintenance.
Even if local administrations had the financial capacity to engage in planning for climate change adaptation, they would need technical knowledge about hydrological and climatic trends and scenarios to inform the revision of technical standards for canal construction, sluices, bridges and dam operations. At the federal and state level, the reduction in operational activities of CONAGUA and CAEM has diminished the capacity for monitoring trends and changes in water resources just at the time when such monitoring is becoming increasingly important for climate-change adaptation.
In a region in which land subsidence is already a substantial problem and past events are less and less predictive of future hydrological behavior, inadequate technical knowledge and information exchange can result in maladaptive investments: Effective flood management under climate change requires knowledge not only about the past and current status of the socio-ecosystem, but also about ongoing and future changes of this system over time. While some of this knowledge is contained in available documents, plans, maps and information systems, much of it resides in the expertise of individuals and organizations.
One of the expected gains from decentralization was the ability of governments to tap into this local knowledge and experience. Yet if local administrations are constantly changing, leveraging this knowledge for policy development is difficult. Every three years the entire staff and leadership in a municipal administration is likely to change following new elections and the persistence of practices of patronage and clientelism locally.
While CAEM offers specific training programs in water management to the private operators who are increasingly responsible for infrastructure and service provision in municipios , these operators also rarely last for more than one municipal administration. Accumulated knowledge, experience and even basic data and monitoring information are typically lost in this process.
According to interviews, the water reforms that were intended to enhance transparency and participation in decision-making through decentralization and cost-recuperation , have not significantly changed the institutional culture of water management. In part, the lack of constituent participation in public administration may be due to a significant degree of historical distrust of local authorities.
Interviewees in two rural communities affected by flooding in revealed that residents were more likely to rely on the state government by activating historical channels of patronage personal contacts and political links rather the municipal authorities who had the official mandate for action on flood-risk mitigation e. Following the flooding, for example, affected residents who were more politically-connected submitted hand-written appeals for compensation directly to the state Secretary of Agriculture.
While the legal responsibility for organizing a public response to crisis lies with the municipal governments, the threat of protests by affected communities arrayed outside the door of the Secretary of Agriculture typically motivated the state agency to respond rapidly. The fragmented nature of flood interventions and water management thus raises important questions about what agency or group of agencies, and at what administrative scales, have the mandates, capacities and mechanisms of accountability to lead the region in enhancing capacity for adaptation to changing flood risk.
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Overall, the general goals of NPM the reforms adopted in the mids in the water management sector appear to be poorly aligned with the institutional needs and capacities for flood-risk management. The inadequacy of the NPM-reforms to address the social and ecological complexity of flood risk provides opportunities for the persistence of engrained institutional modes of operation. Other analyses of NPM implementation in Mexico have noted that expectations of public participation and client-oriented service provision are impeded by the lack of civil society organizations and inexperience with the democratic process Cabrero-Mendoza As a result, local governments may now have more responsibilities, but in many cases local leadership relies on private-sector consultants, officials at higher levels of administration or local political bosses caciques to compensate for deficiencies in capacity Cabrero-Mendoza Nevertheless, even if implemented as intended, it is not clear that NPM would be an effective approach for flood-risk management.
The implementation of NPM-type policy reforms in both Norway and Mexico reveal tradeoffs that militate against improvement in local adaptive capacity, and, particularly in the case of Norway, have potentially negative impacts. The greater efficiency of service provision that we describe in the two case studies—whether the service is economical housing built to clear regulations and standards, or water supply and management—were undoubtedly necessary in both countries. Nevertheless, the changes in policy and administration have not improved capacities for addressing the complex, inter-sector and cross-scalar concerns that are central to climate-change risk.
In Norway, NPM may well have reduced adaptive capacities to respond to climatic stresses in the housing sector. In Mexico, trends in flood disasters suggest that the new institutional arrangements have had no effect in reducing flood risk. In both countries difficult problems concerning accountability and the participation of different stakeholders in the adaptation process have arisen from NPM-type reforms.
Both cases illustrate problems of institutional fit, in which institutional reforms have restructured control over, and participation in, risk reduction in ways that do not match the spatial and temporal scale of the hazard Folke and others Because of the multiple social, ecological, political and economic factors that contribute to social vulnerability in particular places, coordination across scales and sectors is critical. In the Mexican case, the combination of decentralization of resource planning to local governments and quasi-private sector agencies has reduced interventions in flood-risk management to very limited, highly local problems: Broader social and ecological processes underlying flooding are no longer central to the mandates of any of the legally responsible agencies, and there is little evidence that the shift in responsibilities has resulted in an increase in economic efficiency.
In Norway, cutting the cost of housing production has taken precedence over enhancing flexibility and locally-adapted solutions. Public officials are now focused on filing paperwork rather than taking leadership in adaptation policy. While local responses to climate risk have been shown to be highly appropriate, the process of devolution—in principle to local entities— has conversely centralized standards and housing design in large national housing and construction companies.
In both contexts, as key regulatory and planning functions have been devolved to lower-scale administrative agencies and the private sector, decision-making has become fragmented. Such devolution and decentralization per se is not necessarily contrary to adaptation. It is generally agreed that adaptation needs to be enacted at the scale at which impacts occur, such that specific populations react to and anticipate climate-related impacts where they live and conduct their day-to-day activities Smit and Wandel Flood risk management, however, may well be an exception to this assumption.
Flooding is truly a system process, involving the interaction of factors at spatial and administrative scales that are often removed from the local site of flood damage. Where private economic benefits are clear, enhanced private-sector participation in decision-making and control over technology development might streamline adaptation processes.
In the cases presented here, however, the policy reforms have not allowed greater participation of vulnerable stakeholders in decision-making and, in the case of Norway, may have actually reduced such participation. The effect of NPM-type reforms have led to further concerns about the technical and human resources that are fundamental for enhancing adaptive capacity.
The devolution of responsibilities from public to private sectors in both case studies reduced technical and in some cases financial expertise in the public sector. In the Mexican water sector, the loss of staff in the state and federal water commissions has led to a reduction in a capacity for monitoring and anticipating system-wide changes in water resources.
There is a danger that water management is being reduced to day-to-day operational activities at the expense of longer-term anticipatory action. Similarly, in Norway the loss in technical expertise is evident as municipal administrations no longer assess the quality of housing in technical terms but merely check formalities in building applications. These findings reinforce concerns raised by Ivey and others and Few and others that transfers of resources and expertise often do not follow the shift in responsibilities from the state to local people and agencies.
The hollowing out of existing state capacities often associated with NPM Terry exacerbates the threat to adaptive capacity. Further problems arise from the high turnover in personnel in the public sectors in both countries that undermines institutional memory and reduces opportunities for learning. In both the Mexican water sector and the Norwegian building sector, the expertise that could be harnessed for adaptation is not an embedded characteristic of institutions themselves, but rather of the individuals who work in them.
Thus in Norway, the privatized and centralized regulation of construction and housing design has contributed to loss of local knowledge regarding building solutions that are adapted to particular climate conditions. The erosion of public-sector expertise has weakened the exchange of information between municipal administrations and private firms, an exchange previously critical for learning how to reduce risk in specific geographic contexts. The loss of local knowledge is a particular threat to adaptive capacity because reliance on formal regulation alone will not ensure the differentiated adaptation that is required.
Poor accountability and empowerment remain concerns in both countries, although, given the distinct institutional contexts, the problem emerges differently in each case. In Mexico, the National Water Commission no longer has the capacity for the research necessary to anticipate climate impacts on infrastructure, and it is not clear what agency will be meeting those needs in specific geographic contexts.
In the Norwegian housing sector, while the devolution of functions to the private sector has clarified and centralized responsibilities, the process appears to have diffused accountability. Customers do not have the expertise to ensure that housing as delivered is well adapted to local climate conditions, and municipal authorities are not responsible for ensuring that the constructed housing is appropriate. Some of the very local adaptations that do occur are therefore informal and not subject to monitoring, and national firms are unlikely to be responsible for any problems associated with such adaptations.
In Mexico, local governments now have more responsibilities, and as the political process became more democratic, participation in decision-making was expected to improve. However, reforms intended to enhance participation and transparency have not in practice changed the existing institutional culture of water management, and a long-standing distrust in local authorities persists. As Arellano-Gault , p. The result is a continued reliance on extra-legal avenues which essentially by-pass the local government, and perpetuate traditions of patronage, clientelism and ad hoc responses to climate-related disasters.
Thus, even when some populations are able to exert pressure and express demand for improved services, there is no guarantee that their interests are representative of a broader vulnerable public, or that the responses they elicit from the agencies responsible for service provision will address broader needs. These observations underscore previous suggestions that decentralization that does not deal with existing power structures and institutional weaknesses may reinforce inequities and fail to address the vulnerability of those most at risk Nelson and others ; Plummer and Armitage However, more effective and participatory decision-making will have little effect over adaptive capacity if the institutions that govern those decisions are inappropriate to the temporal scope and scale of the risks they face.
In the Mexican case in particularly, NPM appears to be an inappropriate model of institutional reform for managing the nature of flood risk. Beyond the specific domain of disaster-risk management, adaptation to climate extremes is a relatively new subject for public policy and public administration. As adaptation to climate change emerges as a concern of government at different scales, there is a need to evaluate how forms of governance can influence adaptive capacity. We do not argue that the principles of New Public Management are inherently averse to adaptation to climate change.
However, our case studies do illustrate that philosophies concerning the organization and structure of public administration can enable or impede adaptive capacity. As a result of two decades of evaluations of New Public Management-inspired policies in diverse geographic and socio-political contexts, NPM has evolved in ways that depart from its philosophical origins, and, in some contexts, has changed in ways that may actually enhance adaptive capacities by improving efficiencies and basic service provision.
If these problems are to be counteracted, solid institutional frameworks and accountability systems need to be put in place as part of any governance reform. Climate-change adaptation must be the explicit responsibility of a legal entity provided with sufficient financial and technical resources to carry out its responsibilities in practice and to develop networks for learning and partnerships for decision-making between fragmented public and private actors. The authors appreciate the helpful comments of the anonymous reviewers of this manuscript.
Some of the research forms part of the PhD-study of one of the authors within the Climate program. The authors gratefully acknowledge all construction industry partners and the Research Council of Norway. A special thanks to the interviewees and the Norwegian Joinery Manufacturers Association Boligprodusentene. The map for the Mexican case study was prepared by A.
Any opinions and interpretations expressed in this article are those of the authors and not of the funding agencies. Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author s and source are credited. National Center for Biotechnology Information , U. Published online Jan Author information Article notes Copyright and License information Disclaimer. Box , Aas, Norway.
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Received Sep 3; Accepted Dec Introduction Adaptation to climate change is already occurring in both the private and public spheres as different actors respond autonomously to the experienced and anticipated threat of climate change. Adaptive Capacity and Governance for Adaptation Central to the discussion of governance and climate change adaptation is the question of whether institutions and agencies are conducive to the creation, dissemination and processing of knowledge learning , and whether decision-makers have the legitimacy and accountability needed to take leadership in matters affecting such adaptation Adger and others New Public Management New Public Management emerged under the Thatcher and Reagan Governments in the United Kingdom and United States respectively as part of a broader neoliberal focus on policy and public administration taken place all over the world.
Open in a separate window. Climate Adaptation in the Pre-Fab Housing Industry of Norway The initiative to restructure public-sector administration and management in Norway began in the early s, emerging from a National Commission report Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Administration Reforms in the Building Sector Revised in , the Norwegian Planning and Building Act NPBA sought to clarify liability and responsibility of different actors in the building sector in order to reduce the number of building defects originating in planning, design and construction Eriksen and others Technical and Financial Capacities The transfer of responsibilities to the private sector resulted in a reduction of technical personnel in local administrations, which in turn contributed to a loss of accumulated experience and knowledge of building sector needs, vulnerabilities, and successful experiences with adaptation.
Institutional Memory and Knowledge Prior to the building sector reforms, standards and approaches to construction design such as shape of the roof or the siting of the building in accordance with the prevailing wind direction to withstand local climatic conditions developed into local building styles and traditions. Participation, Empowerment and Accountability The shift in accountability from the municipal administration to the manufacturers has ostensibly clarified responsibilities, but has simultaneously introduced new problems.
Technical and Financial Capacities To respond effectively to the changing nature of flood risk, local governments must maintain the hydrological infrastructure for which they are responsible proactively and effectively. Institutional Memory and Knowledge Effective flood management under climate change requires knowledge not only about the past and current status of the socio-ecosystem, but also about ongoing and future changes of this system over time.
Participation, Empowerment, and Accountability According to interviews, the water reforms that were intended to enhance transparency and participation in decision-making through decentralization and cost-recuperation , have not significantly changed the institutional culture of water management. Discussion The implementation of NPM-type policy reforms in both Norway and Mexico reveal tradeoffs that militate against improvement in local adaptive capacity, and, particularly in the case of Norway, have potentially negative impacts.
Conclusion Beyond the specific domain of disaster-risk management, adaptation to climate extremes is a relatively new subject for public policy and public administration. Acknowledgments The authors appreciate the helpful comments of the anonymous reviewers of this manuscript.
Footnotes 1 The state of Mexico is one of the 31 sub-national administrative units states within the country of the same name.
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