A New Vision for Public Administration

Participation in Decentralized Local Governance: Two Contrasting Cases from the Philippines

“…This empirical success of Marikina coincides with a new model suggested by Goodsell (2006), in which administrative control is supported by "public trust" of the citizens towards the public administration. In this "governance with trusts" model, democracy is underlined by the level of public trust rather than by direct participation of the citizens.…”

“…In this connection, the contrast of Naga and Marikina, once explained by Brillantes (2003) as a difference of leadership styles of Robredo and Fernando, can also be interpreted as a difference of approaches to governance. The active civil participation in Naga is congruent with a "participatory governance" model in the classification of Peters (2001), or the "civil society's view to public administration" recognized by Goodsell (2006), in which citizens are encouraged to be directly involved in local administration. Meanwhile, the local governance of Marikina simply relies on political democracy with limited amounts of direct civil participation.…”

“…The point is echoed by Werlin (2003), who attributed the success of Singapore to its disciplinary governance in which consensus building was appreciated. In addition, the coverage of "citizens" is also a matter of concern (Goodsell 2006). In the case of Naga, while decision making processes are well organized to achieve a consensus, question surrounding "who are the citizens?," or "who participates?"…”

Rethinking Public Organizations as Knowledge-Oriented and Technology-Driven Organizations

“…Public organizations contribute to democratic life sustaining public trust by providing efficiency, effectiveness, legality, and fostering integrity, involvement, and fairness (Goodsell, 2006). Public organizations have to rethink how to develop environmental, economic and social sustainability as the principle of governance driving action across policy sectors (Fiorino, 2010) managing information and knowledge (Dumay, Guthrie & Farneti, 2010) and embracing technology to promote citizenship and encourage public discussion, dialogue and participation of citizens in the policy process as a result of dialogue and shared values (Bourgon, 2007).…”

“…Technology helps redesign and implement public management reform for driving change and enables public organizations to proceed towards a sustainable development over time by enhancing democratic and civic values for creating public value and redefining the relationships with citizens and communities for building and maintaining public trust through a citizen-centered collaboration proceeding towards a sustainability perspective focusing on the dialogue of values in the public sector (Bryer, 2006;Cordella & Bonina, 2012;Goodsell, 2006;Larsson & Grönlund, 2014.…”