Government engagement in co-operative service delivery in Romania: knowledge and acknowledgement.

• Author: Stanus, Cristina
• Position: POLSCI PAPERS - Report

Introduction

There is a global trend towards increased presence of third sector organisations in the provision of health, social, educational and cultural services (3) as instruments of public sector action, as a result of policies associated with new public management (Anheier 2009). The creation of a partnership between the government and key stakeholders in public service provision is thought to be the key in making the government both more effective and more legitimate (Pollitt & Bouckaert 2011, p.22). This trend is associated with the addition of market and network governance elements to the traditional hierarchical governance of the public sector (Meuleman 2011; Pollitt & Bouckaert 2011, pp.20-1) and increasingly blurred demarcation lines between the state and the third sector (Brandsen & Pestoff 2006).

While in Western states new public management and market principles precede the discourse on networks and governance in public sector reforms, in Central and Eastern European countries the engagement of the states with third sector service delivery is defined by reforms introducing concomitantly both market and network governance principles (Kuti 2011). This raises questions as to what characterizes the governance of state--third sector service delivery organisations relationships in Central and Eastern European contexts, a topic which is relatively absent in the literature. One reason for the relative absence of this topic is the significant variation of government engagement with third sector service delivery from country to country, which was documented by studies made in the Western countries and was linked to subjective factors (Phillips & Rathgeb Smith 2011) and individual level attitudes (Snavely and Desai 2001). Thus, attention was unavoidably averted towards national case studies (such as those reflected in Phillips & Rathgeb Smith 2011).

In Romania's case the relationship between the state and third sector service delivery organisations has been usually approached in documents stemming from the third sector itself, which generally place much emphasis on the adversarial rather than the collaborative aspects of this relationship (Pralong 2009, Lambru & Vamesu 2010, CCN-PROIS 2013). This relationship has not been approached as a governance practice, taking into account the concomitant introduction of market and network governance principles and mechanisms in the Romanian public sector. Therefore, we know very little about the state's take on the partnership and interdependence unavoidably embedded in collaborative service delivery and the specific factors shaping state engagement in this new policy space.

Based on a brief review of the relevant literature, this paper builds an interpretive framework which can be used to assess collaborative service delivery in Romania as a governance practice. This framework is then used to analyse policy discourse on the Romanian third sector in public service provision and infer the characteristics of state engagement in this new policy space. The next three sections of the paper describe the context, review the relevant literature and detail the analytical framework used. Then, the paper briefly presents the method and data used. In the second part of the paper the results of the analysis are detailed and discussed. The final section discusses the preparedness of Romanian governmental structures for co-governance in public service delivery, as well as the broader relevance of the findings for the existing literature on collaborative service delivery in Central and Eastern Europe.

Context: the service delivery third sector in Romania

The development of the Romanian third sector after 1989 is shaped by international donors and European Union accession requirements (Lambru & Vamesu 2010; Pralong 2009) and the concomitant introduction of market and network governance mechanisms. However, the development of the third sector is not a policy priority. It takes twelve years to finally produce a governmental ordinance regulating the third sector and several more to have it approved by the Parliament. Meanwhile, key pieces of regulation do set the stage for policy advocacy by third sector organisations and their formal involvement in local and national policy making (4). The introduction of the percentage designation mechanism, allowing individuals to support the activity of a third sector organisation of their choice by re-directing a part of their income tax, is the most significant example of political involvement in supporting the third sector in Romania.

The social role of Romanian third sector service delivery organisations is mitigated by the public trust in the sector and its financial strength. While 40 percent of the Romanian third sector organizations are involved in social, educational, or health service delivery, the need for state funding, severely increasing following the withdrawal of international donors after 2007, is not met (Lambru & Vamesu 2010). Public trust in the Romanian third sector is quite low and was contributed to, prior to 2000, by the use of prior legal loopholes to disguise profit-oriented operations (Dakova et al. 2000; Pralong 2009). The current state of the service delivery third sector in Romania is also dependent on the characteristics of the engagement of the Romanian state with this sector which are explored in more detail this paper.

Literature review: the state and third sector service delivery

The increasing importance of service-delivery third sector organizations is explained by the literature with reference to a multitude of factors. Among the explanations, the most compelling is the limited capacity of states to effectively and efficiently provide certain public services, along with an increased ability of third sector organisations (largely donor-driven) to act effectively in difficult areas of public policy and improve policy-making on national level (see for example Rhodes 1994; Brandsen & Pestoff 2006; Rosenbaum 2006). Another explanation focuses on market failure and suggests that, given this failure, citizens prefer to use public services provided by organisations that do not allow for the distribution of ill-gotten gains (Brandsen 2007, pp. 1-3). The legitimacy and the direct links these organisations may have with the potential recipients of services become a key factor (Nevile, 2010). Moreover, the rapid expansion of third sector service delivery might also be explained by policy transfers across policy domains and national borders (Phillips & Rathgeb Smith, 2011) and, in the European context, by the importance granted to third sector service delivery by the European Union (Osborne 2008).

The increased reliance of the state on third sector service delivery is sometimes described as a retreat of the state, but research has suggested that, instead of a reduction of government, there is a dispersal of government power and authority (Acheson 2010), as the government finds new ways of controlling service delivery even when it seems to have withdrawn completely. This is reflected into the discussions concerning the organisational and sector level effects of engaging the state: value and mission changes, the adoption by third sector organisations of operational governance mechanisms of procurement and performance and quantitative measures of success specific to the public sector (new public management principles and procedures), changes in the ability of third sector organisations to effectively perform policy advocacy in their area of expertise, and the creation of a two-tier third sector which separates organisations able to maintain independence from the rest of the sector (Carmel & Harlock 2008; Nevile 2010; Casey et al. 2010; Brandsen & Hout 2006).

Three types of relationships between government and the third sector have been identified by the literature: (a) co-production, or the arrangements where citizens produce their own services at least in part; (b) co-management, or the arrangements in which third sector organisations produce services in collaboration with the state; and (c) co-governance, or the arrangement in which the third sector participates in the planning and delivery of public services (Brandsen & Pestoff 2006). These arrangements show that instead of a clear separation and opposition between the state and the third sector we have increased interdependency (Brandsen 2007; Osborne 2006, p. 384).

The state engages these third sector service delivery organisations in three different capacities as regulator, funder, and service provider, and the policy decisions being made reflect whether the state emphasizes one or another of these capacities. The role of the state as funder of these services is quite significant, as the single most important determinant of the size of the non-profit sector around the world tends to be the extent of government support (mostly financial) for it (Salamon et al. 2003). The state's financial involvement in service delivery by non-state actors is strongly linked to the issue of independence, the literature discussing the ongoing 'commercialization of non-profits' (Anheier 2009, p. 1089). The involvement of third sector organisations in policymaking is largely a function of the structure of opportunities provided by the state (see Pop 2007 for an example in the area of educational policy).

Differences across countries in terms of institutionalization of co-governance have been explained by a subjective factor, a vision of the role of the third sector as more than deliverer of services, which advances the value of the sector for democracy, citizenship and economic development (Phillips & Rathgeb Smith 2011). The importance of the attitudes of government officials toward third sector service delivery organisations in the success of collaboration between government (central and local) and civil society organisations has also been pointed out (Snavely & Desai 2001)...