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

Constructing Co-governance between Government and Civil Society: An Institutional Approach to Collaboration

Public Organization Review, 2013

The aim of this paper is to analyze how civil society organizations (CSOs) collaborate with both developed and developing governments in Asia through institutional processes. It argues that in developed countries, institutional arrangements have a positive impact on collaboration. Favourable administrative governance can create collaboration between governments and CSOs. This paper reports on 3,944 studies of CSOs from 2004 to 2009 in Tokyo, Seoul, Manila, and Dhaka. CSOs in Tokyo have better combined collaborative and institutional processes than those in the other three cities. Governance in Seoul is more polarized than in the other cities, and in both Manila and Dhaka, despite there being a high degree of institutionalized relations between CSOs and the government, their collaboration is low. This research also finds that intermediary institutions between governments and CSOs play a role in co-governance.

Civil Society Organisations, Governance and the Caribbean Community

2019

Non-governmental public action (NGPA) by and for disadvantaged and marginalized people has become increasingly significant over the past two decades. This series is designed to make a fresh and original contribution to the understanding of NGPA. It presents the findings of innovative and policy-relevant research carried out by established and new scholars working in collaboration with researchers across the world. The series is international in scope and includes both theoretical and empirical work. The series marks a departure from previous studies in this area in at least two important respects. First, it goes beyond a singular focus on developmental NGOs or the voluntary sector to include a range of non-governmental public actors such as advocacy networks, campaigns and coalitions, trade unions, peace groups, rights-based groups, cooperatives and social movements. Second, the series is innovative is stimulating a new approach to international comparative research that promotes comparison of the so-called developing world, thereby querying the conceptual utility and relevance of categories such as North and South.

NGO – Government Collaboration: An Uneasy Alliance

NGO-Government Collaboration: An Uneasy Alliance

This is paper is part of a series of working paper: To cite: Sillah, Aminata (2016), NGO-Government Collaboration: An Uneasy Alliance An important but often overlooked consideration in NGO understanding is why NGOs choose to collaborate with government. Collaboration with NGOs in developing countries has been linked to an increase in failed states and the inherent lack of capacity to provide basic social services to citizens. Thus, NGOs are left to fill in the service delivery gap. NGO and state relations has never been an easy one in Africa; each is suspicious of the other, yet their collaboration is essential for the effective redevelopment of a failed state. The distrust and suspicious is attributable to differences in organizational structure, culture, forms, work style, and motivations of each actor. For collaborations to be successful, it must span power perspectives, values, resources, norms and cultures (Brown and Ashman, 1996). Despite the promise and benefits of NGO and government collaboration in developing countries, not much attention has been given to factors that affect NGO state collaboration. This paper attempts to answer the question: what are the factors that affect collaboration between NGOs and the state in developing countries?

ScholarWorks An Exploration of the Nongovernmental Organization-State Relationship Through a Postinternational Framework

An Exploration of the Non-Governmental Organization-State Relationship Through a Postinternational Framework, 2019

Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and the state contribute considerably to the unique state of Caribbean politics, yet their relationship is turbulent which prevents effective policymaking. Specifically, the problem this study addressed is the turbulent relationship between NGOs and the state in Trinidad and Tobago from a postinternational framework. The purpose of this research was to provide an explanation of the NGO-state relationship through the postinternational concepts of turbulence and distant proximities. Data for this study were acquired through open-ended surveys from 22 leaders of NGOs and publicly available documentation pertaining to the relationship between government and NGOs. These data theoretically coded and subjected to a thematic analysis procedure. The results indicated that the NGO-state relationship can be best described as turbulent and characteristic of a distant proximity, thereby implying that the relationship between the participants is characterized by a dynamic tension and the efficacy of the relationship is further exacerbated by distance and proximity. Further, there was evidence of advocacy coalitions (or non-advocacy coalitions) in the relationships and the state can be resistant to engage in participation. The positive social change implications stemming from this study include opportunities for further academic investigation and presents new knowledge of the NGO-State relationship in Trinidad and Tobago. This understanding enhances social change by offering direction in the creation and modification of public policies in the Caribbean.

Strengthening Local Governance in Developing Countries: Partnership as an Alternative Approach

Public Organization Review, 2015

One of the major current concerns in administrative science is the scarcity of partnership-based administration in developing countries, where the capacity of local government is generally weak. Due to the impact of globalisation, the growth of information technology and the rise of third sector organisations, public administration has adopted a new paradigm but given it different names i.e., partnership, public-private partnership, networking, sound governance, good governance etc. As a result, the notion of partnership has emerged as one of the key approaches to meeting the governance challenges of the new millennium focusing, in particular, on building and strengthening the capacity of local governance. As a model, the sustainability of a social system based solely on state capacity has failed in most developing countries. As such, this paper intends to analyse the prospects for partnership based local governance in the developing countries. We argue that there is no alternative to building partnerships at the local government level between the state, private and civil society in order to improve the capacity of local government, enabling it to better attain sustainability, ensure good governance and promote participation in an attempt to mitigate the problems of social exclusion and fragmentation in the delivery of services and products.

Strengthening Public Administration with Good Collaborative Governance (Government and Civil Society Organizations Relation for Development Countries in Decentralization Era: Case Studies in Malang Regency)

Proceedings of the International Conference on Public Administration, Policy and Governance (ICPAPG 2019), 2020

This article discusses the strengthening of the science of public administration in achieving the goals of the state by building an empirical model of the interaction and relations of civil society organizations with the government in the development of decentralization. The concept of collaborative governance that was raised was intended to overcome public problems, implemented by involving multi-stakeholders in planning, implementation, and evaluation through integrated collective agreements in a governance system. This study uses a qualitative approach, and the data are analyzed interactively to answer the issue of interaction and relations between civil society organizations and local governments, especially in Malang Regency, East Java, which has a high level of development dynamics with the heterogeneity of the population. The initiation of cross-stakeholder collaboration in development policy shows the openness of the government in the context of autonomy which can be used as basic capital to improve the quality of services to the community, especially in basic services. The existence of civil society organizations is not only a regional strategic partner but as an agent of development. Interaction and relationships that are built can strengthen the distributive role of government in public affairs. The involvement of civil society organizations as a node of local democracy in regional development can strengthen public administration based on values to realize social equality. Therefore, good collaborative governance which is held must uphold local values as a locomotive driving the formation of strong institutions in implementing the country's vision.

Do governance networks build collaborative capacity for sustainable development? Insights from Solomon Islands

Environmental Management

To build capacity for addressing complex sustainable development challenges, governments, development agencies, and non-governmental organizations are making substantial investments in governance networks. Yet, enthusiasm for establishing governance networks is not always matched by empirical evidence on their effectiveness. This gap challenges these groups to know whether investing in governance networks is worth their time and effort; a weighing-up that is particularly critical in contexts of limited resources. Through a qualitative case study in Solomon Islands, we evaluate the extent to which a governance network, called the Malaita Provincial Partners for Development, contributed to four dimensions of collaborative governance capacity: individual, relational, organizational, and institutional. We find that the network made moderate contributions to individual, relational and organizational capacity, while institutional capacity remained low despite the presence of the network. Based on these findings, we argue that governance networks are not a panacea. Continued efforts are needed to establish when, how, and in what contexts collaborative networks are effective for building collaborative capacity for sustainable development.

Collaborative public governance in African public administration contexts: Problems of realising joint actions in multi-agency arrangements

Policy implementation challenges still need to be addressed despite the recent adoption of multi-agency joint action in improving public administration performance. However, much of what we know about joint action challenges concerns European and North American experiences with African contexts remaining vastly under-reported despite the proliferation of similar institutional arrangements in most countries. This paper conceptually illuminates this void using a trust-embedded approach to understanding inter-agency collaborations in Kenyan contexts. It argues that common joint-action challenges reside in social process deficits undergirding inter-agency relations. The paper's discussions call for systematic training and incentivisation of public managers to devise sustainable collaborative policy networks to implement policy programs effectively.