Institutional crisis and transformation
Today, political leaders throughout Europe are facing a real paradox. On the one hand, Europeans want them to find solutions to the major problems confronting our societies. On the other hand, people increeasingly distrust institutions and politics or are simply not interested in them” White Paper on Europea Governance EU Commision Brussels 2001 p1
Joan Subirats and Quim Brugue
In the institutional sphere we have diverse and serious problems. There is a clear disproportion between the ability and formal powers of institutions, and their real capacity to transform and change at a time when the economy and the market have managed to scape political-institutional control, maintaining and even increasing their ability to blackmail and condition public action.
In this sense, the obsolescence of the political foundations of the nation-state (which linked power to territory, population and sovereignty) is highlighted, at a time when the three elements mentioned present very different profiles to their traditional ones. The contradiction of political legitimacy based on a popular plebiscite every x years is also highlighted when the political dynamic and the actions of the media submit institutional actions to daily referenda. The institutions insist that the only means of democratic political action is representative democracy, while there are evermore people that are separated from this representative politics through legal inability (immigrants), by indifference, by verifying that it changes nothing in their lives. This very political weakening leads institutions to take refuge in legality, increasingly confusing legitimacy and legality.
In this context, institutions tend to a biased utilisation (unidirectional, hierarchical and controlling) of technology in order to maintain their hegemony in a drift that is increasingly authoritarian and autistic. How can institutional transformation be tackled? It is not about improving what already exists. That cannot be the objective, although the reforms may be instrumentally necessary.
Today, the main objectives are the improvement of the institutional system that sustains representative democracy: the electoral system, laws of political parties, entralisation, the role of parliament etc. On the other hand, a policy of transparency and good government in such areas as access to information, management of government assistance, the ethics of administrative actions, the behaviour of the top ranks etc is spoken about and publicised.
While at operative level, the source of inspiration for changes to public administration is sought in the New Public Management from ideas inspired in the way non-public organisations function. Institutions and administrations should be something else. They should be an essential part of implementing policy in a non-exclusive and non-hierarchical manner. Their work cannot be monopolistic. Without popular leadership there will be no transformation from above.
The legitimacy of institutions and administrations lies in their capacity to respond to popular needs and expectations, without that meaning dependency, clientilism or submission. This means that in todays complex society, our institutions and administrations should be capable of affecting the transformation of our societies, incorporating the diversity and transformative capacity of people and collectives. Inclusion and creativity should therefore be two central factors.
How should they work? The responses of New Public Management are of no use to us. We suggest certain working approaches. We must advance towards a deliberative administration in which dialogue substitutes for specialisation. This could become concrete by making transversality effective, breaking the myths of specialisation and segmentation, as well as by incorporating new management concepts such as trust and collaboration.
Operationally, this creates the need to formulate mechanisms of citizen participation and new forms of intergovernmental relations. To do this, we believe it is necessary to generate belief in another administration being possible (salvaging the value of the public and the prestige of its institutions) and having new reference points in relation to time (more patience), sentiment (more affection) and collaboration (less competitiveness).
Contact person of the line: Joan Subirats (joan.subirats(at)uab.es)
