IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/devpol/v36y2018is2po748-o768.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Towards “cognitively complex” problem‐solving: Six models of public service reform

Author

Listed:
  • Willy McCourt

Abstract

This article proposes “cognitively complex problem‐solving” as a refinement of the recent problem‐solving approach to public service reform, and as an addition to existing political and institutional explanations for the frequent failure of reform. It substantiates the new problem‐solving model by identifying and selectively reviewing six models of reform that have been practised in developing countries over the past half‐century: public administration, decentralization, pay and employment reform, New Public Management, integrity and corruption reforms and “bottom‐up” reforms. A short case study of Myanmar is presented to illustrate the problem‐solving approach in practice.

Suggested Citation

  • Willy McCourt, 2018. "Towards “cognitively complex” problem‐solving: Six models of public service reform," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 36(S2), pages 748-768, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:devpol:v:36:y:2018:i:s2:p:o748-o768
    DOI: 10.1111/dpr.12306
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/dpr.12306
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/dpr.12306?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Andrews,Matt, 2013. "The Limits of Institutional Reform in Development," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107016330.
    2. Campos, Jose Edgardo & Esfahani, Hadi Salehi, 2000. "Credible Commitment and Success with Public Enterprise Reform," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 221-243, February.
    3. Blum, Jurgen Rene, 2014. "What factors predict how public sector projects perform ? a review of the World Bank's public sector management portfolio," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6798, The World Bank.
    4. Schick, Allen, 1998. "Why Most Developing Countries Should Not Try New Zealand's Reforms," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 13(1), pages 123-131, February.
    5. Mccourt, Willy, 2012. "Can Top-Down and Bottom-Up be Reconciled? Electoral Competition and Service Delivery in Malaysia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(11), pages 2329-2341.
    6. Verena Fritz & Kai Kaiser & Brian Levy, 2009. "Problem-Driven Governance and Political Economy Analysis : Good Practice Framework," World Bank Publications - Reports 16777, The World Bank Group.
    7. McCourt, Willy, 2003. "Political Commitment to Reform: Civil Service Reform in Swaziland," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 1015-1031, June.
    8. Willy McCourt, 2007. "Impartiality through bureaucracy? A Sri Lankan approach to managing values," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(3), pages 429-442.
    9. Grindle, Merilee S., 1997. "Divergent cultures? When public organizations perform well in developing countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 481-495, January.
    10. George, Alexander L., 1972. "The Case for Multiple Advocacy in Making Foreign Policy," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 66(3), pages 751-785, September.
    11. Arthur A. Goldsmith, 2011. "No Country Left Behind? Performance Standards and Accountability in US Foreign Assistance," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 29, pages 157-176, January.
    12. Johnson, J.H. & Wasty, S.S., 1993. "Borrower Ownership of Adjustment Programs and the Political Economy of Reform," World Bank - Discussion Papers 199, World Bank.
    13. Dani Rodrik, 2008. "Second-Best Institutions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(2), pages 100-104, May.
    14. Whitehead, Laurence, 1990. "Political explanations of macroeconomic management: A survey," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 18(8), pages 1133-1146, August.
    15. Richard Batley & Claire Mcloughlin, 2010. "Engagement with Non-State Service Providers in Fragile States: Reconciling State-Building and Service Delivery," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 28(2), pages 131-154, March.
    16. Bland, Gary, 2011. "Supporting Post-conflict Democratic Development? External Promotion of Participatory Budgeting in El Salvador," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 39(5), pages 863-873, May.
    17. David J. Wilkinson, 2006. "The Ambiguity Advantage," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-0-230-59789-1.
    18. Daniel R. Denison & Robert Hooijberg & Robert E. Quinn, 1995. "Paradox and Performance: Toward a Theory of Behavioral Complexity in Managerial Leadership," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 6(5), pages 524-540, October.
    19. A. Geske Dijkstra, 2002. "The Effectiveness of Policy Conditionality: Eight Country Experiences," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 33(2), pages 307-334, April.
    20. Merilee S. Grindle, 2007. "Good Enough Governance Revisited," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 25(5), pages 533-574, September.
    21. Bale, Malcolm & Dale, Tony, 1998. "Public Sector Reform in New Zealand and Its Relevance to Developing Countries," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 13(1), pages 103-121, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. McCourt, Willy, 2013. "Models of public service reform : a problem-solving approach," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6428, The World Bank.
    2. Mccourt, Willy, 2012. "Can Top-Down and Bottom-Up be Reconciled? Electoral Competition and Service Delivery in Malaysia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(11), pages 2329-2341.
    3. McCourt, Willy, 2003. "Political Commitment to Reform: Civil Service Reform in Swaziland," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 1015-1031, June.
    4. Khaleghian, Peyvand & Gupta, Monica Das, 2005. "Public management and the essential public health functions," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 33(7), pages 1083-1099, July.
    5. Saltanat Janenova & Colin Knox, 2020. "Combatting corruption in Kazakhstan: A role for ethics commissioners?," Public Administration & Development, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 40(3), pages 186-195, August.
    6. te Lintelo, Dolf J.H. & Lakshman, Rajith W.D., 2015. "Equate and Conflate: Political Commitment to Hunger and Undernutrition Reduction in Five High-Burden Countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 280-292.
    7. Pablo Yanguas, 2016. "The role and responsibility of foreign aid in recipient political settlements," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series esid-056-16, GDI, The University of Manchester.
    8. Andrews, Matt & Pritchett, Lant & Woolcock, Michael, 2013. "Escaping Capability Traps Through Problem Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA)," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 234-244.
    9. Roy T. Meyers, 2017. "Is the U.S. Congress an Insurmountable Obstacle to Any “Far-Sighted Conception of Budgeting”?," Public Budgeting & Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(4), pages 5-24, December.
    10. Alison J. Blaiklock & Cynthia A. Kiro & Michael Belgrave & Will Low & Eileen Davenport & Ian B. Hassall, 2002. "When the Invisible Hand Rocks the Cradle: New Zealand children in a time of change," Papers inwopa02/20, Innocenti Working Papers.
    11. Yanguas, Pablo & Hulme, David, 2015. "Barriers to Political Analysis in Aid Bureaucracies: From Principle to Practice in DFID and the World Bank," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 209-219.
    12. Bjoern Dressel & Jim Brumby, 2012. "Enhancing Capabilities of Central Finance Agencies : From Diagnosis to Action," World Bank Publications - Reports 12752, The World Bank Group.
    13. Andrews, Matt, 2015. "Has Sweden Injected Realism into Public Financial Management Reforms in Partner Countries?," Working Paper Series 15-063, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    14. ROUGIER Eric, 2015. ""The parts and the whole”: Unbundling and re-bundling institutional systems and their effect on economic development," Cahiers du GREThA (2007-2019) 2015-12, Groupe de Recherche en Economie Théorique et Appliquée (GREThA).
    15. Takaaki Masaki & Bradley C. Parks, 2020. "When do performance assessments influence policy behavior? Micro-evidence from the 2014 Reform Efforts Survey," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 15(2), pages 371-408, April.
    16. Presbitero, Andrea F., 2016. "Too much and too fast? Public investment scaling-up and absorptive capacity," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 17-31.
    17. Matt Andrews, 2013. "Explaining Positive Deviance in Public Sector Reforms in Development," CID Working Papers 267, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    18. Matt Andrews, 2013. "Explaining Positive Deviance in Public Sector Reforms in Development," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2013-117, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    19. Barry Eichengreen & Ugo Panizza, 2016. "A surplus of ambition: can Europe rely on large primary surpluses to solve its debt problem?," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 31(85), pages 5-49.
    20. Andrews, Matt, 2013. "Explaining Positive Deviance in Public Sector Reforms in Development," WIDER Working Paper Series 117, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:devpol:v:36:y:2018:i:s2:p:o748-o768. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/odioruk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.