Fluent Essays

Summary of the text on European governancePlease do not exceed 3 pages. times new roman 12. 1.5 spacing eu_models_of_governance.pdf Unformatted Attachment Preview European Models of Government: Towards a Patchwork with Missing Pieces BY JACQUES ZILLER PRACTITIONERS, politicians and academics in the field of social sciences use models in different ways. When presenting a model, the last try to describe and synthesise the most important features of a set of institutions and practices which might be located in space and time, but if they share the same concept of a model as a tool for analysis, they do not necessarily agree on the elements that are most relevant for a specific model’s content. A reference to the Napoleonic model of government is usually pointing out some of the most characteristic elements of France’s administrative system as established at the beginning of the nineteenth-century. But some authors only have in mind the system of three-level ‘territorial’ administration as organised around the prefect, while others would also include the specific type of judicial review exercised by the Conseil d’Etat or the organisation of the civil service in a large number of ‘corps’. A reference to the Weberian model of government might point to the ‘specifically modern form of administration’ which has been studied and summarised by Max Weber under the name of a ‘legal authority with a bureaucratic administrative staff’;1 it might equally be a reference to the specific forms of public administration Weber had observed mainly in Germany at the beginning of this century. Academics who are less familiar with Weber’s work would use the term as a short reference for the hierarchical organisation, based on specialisation at the level of small offices (i.e. bureaucracy without a pejorative connotation). When it comes to practitioners and politicians, the use of models is even more ambiguous. Not only is it difficult to know what the exact reference is about, but the word ‘model’ is often used with an everyday language connotation, as something that should be imitated or condemned. One of the most typical uses of this kind of concept of models is illustrated by the recurring temptation to look for so-called best practices in public management. Comparing experiences can be very fruitful if it is done according to a carefully designed programme, but it usually ends up at best in misunderstandings, at worst in used-car-salesmen attitudes that can lead to manipulations of foreign experiences by politicians or the press. Nevertheless, references to models of government have been currently used in order to promote or criticise reform programmes in the field of public management. They also have been used to a lesser extent to try and understand what is being planned and what is happening: this has been particularly the 쑔 Hansard Society for Parliamentary Government 2001 Parliamentary Affairs (2001), 54, 102–119 European Models of Government 103 case with the Napoleonic and Weberian models, both relating to the organisation and functioning of civil service, as well as with the Westminster model of government, which relates to the political institutions. The main argument of this article is that a number of recent or current reforms in public management are steps leading from what I would identify as a standard European model of government towards a much less familiar system, the Swedish model of government. Each model features a small number of elements, which are closely interlinked and make the system of government work. Comparing these two models allows a better understanding of a number of recent reforms and their prospects of success or failure. It shows how piecemeal reform can destroy the logic of a well-established accountability design, especially where institutions are imported from a foreign system without taking sufficient care of understanding the context in which they might have proven successful. The standard European model of government Most modern systems of public administration in Europe derive from the institutions and practices established at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries in France and Prussia. There are several important differences between the Napoleonic model and the so-called Weberian model, as well a number of common core elements. Max Weber did not include the structure and functioning of local as opposed to central government in his analysis; on the other hand, the Napoleonic model is a masterpiece of centralisation for the sake of efficiency. Weber gave a lot of attention to the use of rules, regulations and written law by the civil service but had little interest in the systems of judicial control associated to the Rule of Law; the Napoleonic system is based on a strict separation between government and the judiciary, leading to the establishment of special administrative courts. Weber gave a prominent place to corporatism in his analysis of the organisation, functioning and, indeed, reproduction of the bureaucrats, but his thoughts were mainly based on a form of centralised civil service relating to the German or British system; the French system of a fragmented civil service organised in ‘corps’ derived from the professional practices of engineers—a system only reproduced in Spain with the ‘cuerpos’—would give an even better illustration of the phenomenon Weber analysed, but he was probably not aware of its characteristics. Nevertheless, there are more common features than oppositions between those two models. As a reaction to the previous system of government of European monarchies, based on patrimonial administration, a vast number of intermediary powers resting on a council structure and on a complex and confused system of competencies, both the Prussian kings and the French emperor applied the principles and practices which made their armies so strong to the building of their civil 104 Parliamentary Affairs services. These were mainly based on a structure of linear hierarchy in order to facilitate quick and efficient top-down and bottom-up communication, and they derived their strength from unified decisionmaking at the top of government. These institutions have been designed in the framework of absolute —although enlightened—monarchy. Paradoxically, at first sight, they have proved to be particularly adapted to a parliamentary system of government. During the two centuries that followed the French Revolution, Britain kept its very complex system of local government—as opposed to the territorial aspect of the Napoleonic model. Both the structure of common law and the constitutional principle of the royal prerogative made it unnecessary to resort to the legally binding regulations in the management of the Crown’s civil service which are so typical of the Weberian model: until the last decades of the twentieth century, the numerous codes, handbooks, etc. of the British civil service were not subject to court review. But British government has very successfully adopted the core structural element common to the Napoleonic and Weberian models of government: their hierarchical structures. The main reason is that these structures of authoritarian origin perfectly fit the parliamentary system, although the latter should be anti-authoritarian. Contrary to an authoritarian or to a military organisation, where objectives are supposedly simple and easy to transmit, civil government works with changing objectives, subject to different interpretations, especially if established in the framework of a deliberative democracy. However, the key feature of the Westminster model also requires a hierarchical structure: government responsibility demands a unified structure in order to enable Parliament to locate accountability at the top of each ministerial department. In order to function, the Westminster model needs a well-organised hierarchical system, a professional and stable civil service using its own terms, and a management system based on precise top-down allocation of tasks to basic well-defined units: all the main elements of the Weberian model, which are also to be found in the Napoleonic model. Being so well adapted to the Westminster model of political institutions, the Franco-Prussian system of public administration was adopted for central government between the middle of the nineteenth century and the First World War, not only in Britain but in most western European countries except Sweden, where political circumstances and constitutional principles have the survival of a very different system of public administration together with a parliamentary democracy. Swedish exports in government systems The Swedish model of government remains largely misunderstood outside the Nordic countries. Some of the features that constitute the model are well-known, but are often wrongly associated with the welfare state period or even more recent reform. Only few English European Models of Government 105 language publications give a global overview of the system and a detailed account of its constitutional basis.2 Nevertheless, Sweden can easily be identified as the country of origin of three rather successful waves of institutional export. The first wave has been that of the ombudsman, first exported to Denmark in 1954, later to the United Kingdom, where it served as a source of inspiration in 1967 for the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration, to France, where the Mediateur was created in 1973, to Portugal and Spain, where the constitutions of 1976 and 1978 installed the Provedor de Justiça and the Defensor del Pueblo, to Ireland and the Netherlands, which established their Ombudsmen in the beginning of the 1980s, etc. The Maastricht treaty of 1992 followed the move in establishing a European Ombudsman. The mere fact that a number of governments have adopted the word ‘ombudsman’ without knowing a single word of Swedish is a clear sign of the fashionable aspect of the reform. Strangely enough to a French analyst, the English version of the Maastricht treaty also takes up the Swedish word, whereas the French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish versions show more language consciousness. Any Swedish dictionary shows that the word ombudsman means ‘agent’ in the sense given to that institution by common law. The Swedish ombudsman, an institution designed in the late eighteenth century, with a place in the Constitution since 1809, can only be understood in the context of his relationship with parliament—not so different from that of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration—but in the context also of a totally different civil service system. In the case of the European ombudsman, a quite reassuring element is the re-election of Jacob Söderman, the former Finnish ombudsman, who therefore knows exactly how the original institution works. However, the events of 1999 which led the Santer Commission to resign clearly show that the European Parliament does not share the Swedish concept of an ombudsman. The origins of a second wave of public management reform is also Sweden: that of open government, which came back to continental Europe after having been studied and adapted in the United States. Sweden is the first country to have passed legislation giving very broad access to official documents—and that at the end of the eighteenthcentury. It took almost two centuries for the other European countries to follow the same path, Britain being probably the latest to join the move. Discussions in the framework of the EU show how diverging attitudes and conceptions about open government remain, as Nordic countries keep complaining about the lack of transparency of European institutions. A third wave of reforms is also often described as an adaptation of the Swedish model: that of executive agencies. The 1987 ‘Next Steps’ Ibbs Report3 clearly indicated that the Swedish experience of independent agencies was one of the sources of inspiration for further reform in 106 Parliamentary Affairs the United Kingdom. Other countries have followed this trend in the nineties, including the Netherlands, but also Italy and the European Union. A deeper look into those experiences shows however how different the constitutional bases and institutional context may be. All three waves have in common that, when imported, Swedish institutions are transformed in order to adapt to the local context. This is rather reassuring. What is more confusing is that often the Swedish origin is not acknowledged, or totally misunderstood, as institutional structures dating back two centuries are associated with the welfare state or even later attempts to modernise management within agencies. The real problem with this kind of approach is that opportunities for understanding the logic of one’s own reform are lost through a lack of in-depth study. This is why it seems useful to present the Swedish system of government as a whole. The Swedish model of government When Sweden joined the EU, a number scholars interested in comparative government had to study the Swedish system more thoroughly than before and in the process revise their ideas about Nordic countries. This led me to try and establish the features central to the model and to discuss it with Swedish practitioners who encouraged me by saying it combined a good understanding of the system with an original approach because it made links between elements they themselves were not accustomed to consider together. To my view, there are six major features in this model: they fit together and all need to be considered in order to understand why the system works. (1) the rule of law. As all other western European models of government, the Swedish model is based on the Rule of Law. It is necessary to keep this in mind when examining its other aspects. However, there are no substantial differences between Sweden and other countries on this point. Sweden is to be placed in the group of countries headed by France where a special set of administrative courts —separate from the rest of the judiciary—are responsible for reviewing government action. As such, Sweden is quite different not only from the United Kingdom but also from Denmark, which has a unified system of courts, and closer to France than possibly to Belgium or Spain. Sweden also shares the continental culture of codified written law, with a first written Constitution dating back 1634 and a general codification of the Kingdom’s laws from 1734. This is the basis for a legal culture giving prominent value to the legally binding effect of administrative regulations, as opposed to the British system where—with the exception of a few Orders in Council—matters relating to administrative organisation are traditionally considered as internal service matters, i.e. internal rules, and are thus more easily amendable. European Models of Government 107 (2) independent agencies. One of the most specific features of the Swedish model of government is obviously the constitutional separation between the cabinet and administrative agencies, as embedded in the constitution since 1809. According to the Instrument of Government (the part of the Swedish constitution dealing with the institutional setting): ‘Neither any public authority, nor the Riksdag [parliament], nor the decision-making body of a local government commune may determine how an administrative authority shall make its decisions in a particular case concerning the exercise of public authority in relation to a private subject or a commune, or concerning the application of law.’4 The mere formulation of this provision shows that administrative agencies are placed on a footing close to that of the judiciary. The Swedish expression ‘förvaltningsmyndighet/-er’ relates to a high degree of autonomy in the word ‘myndighet’, which covers basically all public offices except the parliament and the cabinet. In practice, most ‘förvaltningsmyndigheter’ would have a name ending with ‘verk’ (e.g. Jordbruksverket, the agricultural authority, or Konkurrensverket, the competition authority). The exact meaning of this constitutional provision is that ministers and the cabinet have no hierarchical control over the administrative agencies. They are not entitled to ask them to take a given decision and cannot change a decision. The agencies are created by relevant acts of parliament and are charged with implementing the legislation. They are legally separate entities, are managed independently, and are only bound by general parliamentary and subordinate legislation. This shows that the Swedish constitution does not rest on a division of powers between three branches but at least four: parliament, cabinet, judiciary and administrative authorities. These four powers are separate and independent of each other, which does not preclude the cabinet’s political responsibility to parliament, nor government appointment of those in charge of higher judicial and administrative authorities. The most remarkable consequence of this system is the total lack of hierarchical power of ministers on administrative authorities: while the cabinet as a whole has in a number of cases the power to quash administrative decisions, it cannot give orders to civil servants nor substitute its own decisions for theirs. Furthermore, the power to quash administrative decisions has been transferred more and more to administrative courts. (3) exclusive collegiality of ministers’ decisions. In contrast to their counterparts in other European countries, the Swedish ministers have no formal decision-making power of their own. Decisions in individual cases are restricted to agencies. From a legal point of view, the powers of ministers are limited to presenting bills to parliament, making delegated (subordinate) legislation and quashing a limited number of agency decisions. In practice, the cabinet has a 108 Parliamentary Affairs leading role in policy-making, not only through its formal norm-making powers, but also through its budgetary powers and through general orientation and monitoring mechanisms for policy-implementation. But the only way to orient implementation by agencies is through the wording of legislation (including subordinate legislation), budget allocation, the appointment of agency top managers, and especially the formulation of general policy directives. All these actions and decision are taken collectively. Collegiality in the cabinet is a determining feature of all parliamentary systems; but elsewhere the legally binding output of collegiality is limited either in law or in practice to presenting bills to parliament or adopting subordinate legislation: in other parliamentary systems, the main power of ministers is their individual decision making-power—even if delegated. This is formally recognised for instance in the German constitutional ‘Ressortprinzip’. Most publications relating to Swedish government insist on the small size of its ‘ministries’: a total of about 2,000 civil servants, for a country of about 8 million inhabitants. Comparing this with other countries might be very misleading, as Swedish ‘ministries’ are really not much more than sections of a general support administration to be compared to the British Cabinet Office, the French Secrétariat Général du Gouvernement or the German Bundeskanzleramt from the point of view of both their structures and functions. One of the most interesting comparisons of the kind would be with the European Commission, which is the other executive body in Europe whose members only participate in collective decision-making and have no legal power of their own. (4) open government. There is enough literature on the Swedish legislation on official documents to avoid going into detail5, but a few elements have to be strongly underlined. In the Swedish case, open government and freedom of expression are closely linked in a constitutional law since 1766, the main consequen ... Purchase answer to see full attachment