I agree with the direction of travel laid out here, but I think the author overlooks key recent evidence in the diagnosis of the issue. Even if the litany of "failed models" named here were indeed conceived as "supercharged NPM", in practice they have not remained isolated from these trends towards collaborative governance. To me, the real issue lies in the attempt at ‘government by contract’ - trying to improve social outcomes through a series of independent bi-lateral relationships, each governed by a stale and transactional written contract. Instead (and here I suspect we agree) governments should nurture multi-lateral partnerships underpinned by long-term relationships between people. (I recently co-authored an SSIR article describing some of the evolving practice: https://ssir.org/articles/entry/spotlighting_shared_outcomes_for_social_impact_programs_that_work)
COMMENTS
BY Nigel Ball
ON August 31, 2021 08:53 AM
I agree with the direction of travel laid out here, but I think the author overlooks key recent evidence in the diagnosis of the issue. Even if the litany of "failed models" named here were indeed conceived as "supercharged NPM", in practice they have not remained isolated from these trends towards collaborative governance. To me, the real issue lies in the attempt at ‘government by contract’ - trying to improve social outcomes through a series of independent bi-lateral relationships, each governed by a stale and transactional written contract. Instead (and here I suspect we agree) governments should nurture multi-lateral partnerships underpinned by long-term relationships between people. (I recently co-authored an SSIR article describing some of the evolving practice: https://ssir.org/articles/entry/spotlighting_shared_outcomes_for_social_impact_programs_that_work)