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Governing by Numbers or Democratising Measurement: Do Performance Indicators Stand Participation?

Civil Society
Environmental Policy
Governance
Policy Analysis
Public Administration
S017
Catherine Fallon
Université de Liège
Frédéric Claisse
Université de Liège


Abstract

Public policy evaluation is generally associated to a dual logic, contributing at the same time to the efficiency as well as to the legitimation of public actions. This approach frequently appeals to performance indicators (PI) without questioning their constructed and contextual dimension and the reduction of the social complexity they induce. Practices and discourses in this field tend to swing between two antinomic registers: strenghtening of a managerial approach by policy makers and new participatory expectations by stakeholders. On one side, public policy reforms often incorporate New Public Management (NPM) principles (Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2004) such as quality-oriented approaches and performance measurement. NPM indeed advocates a quantitative practice based on a top-down, standardised approach focused on statistical knowledge and advocating a desire of transparency and increasing efficiency. The indicator-based measurement also endorses a legitimacy function (Zittoun 2009) because performance measure is often justified by an enhancement of public policy and by a stronger accountability (Halachmi 2005; Van Thiel et Leeuw 2002). On the other side, deliberative procedures associating citizens to policy makers proliferate, claiming also an increase in efficiency of public policy and its social acceptability (Chevallier 2011). This new way of managing aims at reaching a renewed social consensus on political actions by a local participation emanating from a bottom-up approach inspired by complex local experiences (Blondiaux 2008). Both sides face criticisms. Generalizing information through aggregation of local data faces the risk of « reduction » of rich, contextualized information (Fraser et al, 2006). Quantification of social phenomenon leads to a double reductionism : PI reduce social complexity to a single figure, and contribute at the same time to a normative twist of public action when pushing forward the search for performance and efficiency as main objective of policies while downplaying other less measurable social or environmental dimensions (Salais, 2010). Economy and management tend to colonize the largest part of political discourses (Ogien 2009). In the last decade, public governance focused so much on numbers and benchmarking that the digits and indicators seem to structure the whole decision making process instead of being a simple adjuvant to it (Dahler-Larsen 2012, Ogien 2009). Challenging the PI supremacy is complex, since NPM is widely accepted, and since the use of digit and PI is seen as an efficient communication tool by policy makers. This low level of resistance to quantification is also explained by the belief that information is obviously positive for decision making. Numbers offer the opportunity to compare situation easily, while participatory processes lead to context rich and complex information, difficult to compare or to aggregate at national level. Many scholars criticize the built in normativity of quantitative information, questioning its pretention to objectivity, scientificity as well as its apparent neutrality. The strength of quantification masks its negociated birth (Desrosières 1993). Simutaneously, local actors have to translate in local practices the policy indicators that where defined by experts far away from local concerns. Evaluation in environmental programs have shown the perverse affects top-down international policies imposing general and abstract concepts without questioning the modalities for contextualization and local operation (Fraser et al. 2006). This top down approach put the autonomy of local professionals under pressure (Chauvière 2007). These tensions could be resolved by defining new modes of coordination between experts and the knowledge of lay citizens. New patterns of local actions developed by professionals are analysed by scholars. Beyond the criticism of “governing by numbers” the hypothesis is to test the emergence of new families of context rich operational indicators, supporting local participation (Didier et al 2013). The central question is the following one : is it possible to reconcile both theoretically anf practically the management approach in public policy with participatory developments ? What is the heuristics of the analysis of emerging local patterns of professional engagement in policy evaluation ? Contributions could be addressed to three different panels in order to join up the work which is currently on going in this field.
Code Title Details
P373 The Political Effects of Performance Indicators View Panel Details