Participatory Governance – From the Inside Up (original) (raw)

Governing without Collaboration: State and Civil Society Relations in Jamaica

This study finds infrequent collaborative action between state and civil society actors in Jamaica. Jamaica’s predominant institutional structure is authority-based. Relations between state and civil society actors may be considered consultative, at best. The Jamaican case sits in contrast to a collaborative governance scholarship largely focused upon successful collaborative cases. Theoretical development within collaborative governance research might benefit from more developing-country case studies, greater attention to historical explanations, and a broadened collaborative continuum. The presence of a consultative (but not collaborative) relationship may indicate a country’s location at a midway point between authority-based and collaboratively-governed systems. Postulating about why a state has non-collaborative relationship will deepen our understanding of what is required for collaboration to occur.

Beyond Actor Network Theory to the Marriage of Moments

International Journal of Actor-Network Theory and Technological Innovation, 2016

In 2004, the Government of Jamaica and the Confederation of Trade Unions signed a social partnership agreement or Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), which maintained the size of the public sector and wage expenditure, in exchange for no redundancies. The implementation of the Agreement unearthed unanticipated implications for the practice of power within the partnership. The ontology of Actor Network Theory, conceptualizes the MoU as an actor which, through the mechanics of translation, creates its own actor network that it seeks to inscribe with its own discourse to attain a ‘black box' status. The inclusion of discourse as a moment and use of Critical Discourse Analysis provides for the penetration of the impenetrable black box of network interaction and analytical possibilities. The paper argues for the recognition of discourse as a moment in ANT which strengthens it and affords a mode of analysis to deconstruct or explore inner distributions of power.

Misalignment of interest: An actor-network analysis of a government budgeting practice

Asian Journal of Accounting Perspectives, 2021

Research aim: This paper aims at finding an explanation as to why a government budget operates as a ritual, as has been observed in the Sri Lankan Government budgeting practice and many Less Developed Country (LDC) accounting studies. Design/ Methodology/ Approach: Designed to be a historical study, this study illustrates the government budgeting practice referring to the Sri Lanka Railway Department (SLRD), benefitting from Actor-Network Theory (ANT) using data from archival sources, content analysis of documents, published materials and interviews. Research finding: This research finds that accounting and control practices dysfunction when they do not support the aligned interests of the underlying actor-network. Theoretical contribution/ Originality: This paper focuses on the 'aligned interest' of an actor-network, tracking changes of human and non-human actors of a ruling network over three ruling regimes within 1815 to 2019, illuminating the use of ANT in analysing how ...

Governance as Network: Contradictions and Dilemmas. A reflexive perspective

Governance is a term that has come into being recently. It usually indicates practices and procedures that challenge the states’ competences and power. The interest in governance is growing across different social spheres: from economy to politics, crossing environment issues, civil society, and international contexts. Moreover governance seems to be more than a simple trend: actually, according with social sciences, it expresses the transition from a model based on the national and central government, with its forms of hierarchical control, to market and networks, deliberative and organizational processes based on the participation of stakeholders and private actors, as well as public ones. All of these processes arise in a virtual space: the network. Here relationships are horizontal and governed by informal rules; they are organized by cooperation and coordination: all the stakeholder rationally participate to the decision-making-processes, sharing knowledge, power, and means. Does it mean that a governance without government is possible and desirable? The theory of governance as network is fascinating because it gives the idea that in a shared place (the network) it is possible to solve problems through cooperation and coordination amongst actors. Notwithstanding its effectiveness and efficiency, the governance approach poses some problems and dilemmas concerning above all its asserted democratic nature. Can the theory of reflexivity manage these contradictions by developing a serious self-regulation and a responsible and rational metagovernance?

Toward a Model Code of Corporate Governance for Public Bodies: A Case from the Caribbean

The Estey Centre Journal of International Law and Trade Policy, 2017

This article explores the genesis and implementation of a Caribbean (Jamaican) approach to improving corporate governance (CG) among public bodies. Public bodies (PB) are integral to the success of public management and administration vis-a-vis development and implementation of key policy objectives. There is the need for these state-controlled entities across the Caribbean to be accountable and fully compliant with several statutory requirements. In response to these challenges, the Government of Jamaica has sought to clarify the governance framework within which public bodies must operate by establishing a Corporate Governance Framework for Public Bodies of Jamaica. The article benefits from a mixed methodology of qualitative and quantitative streams of data collection and analysis. The key objectives in presenting these findings are to improve accountability and compliance and to achieve a more efficient and effective public service.

2013. Governing without Collaboration: State – NGO relations in Jamaica

Abstract: This study finds infrequent collaborative action between state and civil society actors in Jamaica. Jamaica’s predominant institutional structure is authority-based. Relations between state and civil society actors may be considered consultative, at best. The Jamaican case sits in contrast to a collaborative governance scholarship largely focused upon successful collaborative cases. Theoretical development within collaborative governance research might benefit from more developing-country case studies, greater attention to historical explanations, and a broadened collaborative continuum. The presence of a consultative (but not collaborative) relationship may indicate a country’s location at a midway point between authority-based and collaboratively-governed systems. Postulating about why a state has non-collaborative relationship will deepen our understanding of what is required for collaboration to occur.

Unpicking the Managerial Stitches: Strengthening Critical Action in the Public Sector Workplace

Journal of Workplace Rights, 2008

This article draws on research and education with public sector managers in the UK health and social care sector to expose the intensity and rapid spread of private profit within public services. It conceptualises this spread as key to "high managerialism," which, rather than improving public services, enables the incursion of capital into the public realm with corrosive impacts. These include the perverse results of performance targets, distorted priorities, and dehumanised practices, which impact crucially both on public sector workers and on the public. We chart the shift from control through direct performance management techniques to the use of more nuanced, discursive resources for control. These include market structures and assumptions and "morphing" of public services into new forms akin to corporate models. Key contours, from the international arena to the individual manager, are interpenetrated by market discourse; this can "stitch" managers into a "common sense" notion of how to act within the structures of high managerialism: a business mindset held in place through fear and silence. The article describes how through our role in management education we draw on managers' possibilities and motivations to challenge this "common sense," using three interlinked strategies to work with them and help "unpick the stitches." These strategies challenge the normalisation of market assumptions; name and connect what is usually implicit and disconnected; and take a campaigning approach to action. Our work focuses on supporting the agency of individual managers who lead 115

A precarious balance: Neoliberalism, crisis management, and the social implosion in Jamaica

Capital & Class, 2005

This article examines the process of structural adjustment in Jamaica, and the various ways in which the contradictory tensions embedded in the current order are being contained. Although political, economic and social realities are deeply inequitable and potentially unstable, there are serious barriers to understanding, dialogue, organisation and optimism among the poor, which have produced implosive intra-class dynamics. Assessing these barriers provides insight into the challenge of re-inspiring alternative imaginations and collective opposition to class structures in Jamaica, as well as in other adjusted and heavily-indebted countries where a neoliberal fatalism is contributing to social atomisation, rather than to mobilisation.