Abstract
Resumo A administração pública é forçada a encontrar um equilíbrio entre eficiência e democracia na definição da sua agenda e curso de ação. Uma das características da administração pública é que todas as decisões devem refletir valores democráticos, para além de serem eficientes. No entanto, a reforma administrativa, motivada por dificuldades financeiras, tende a destacar a importância do desempenho financeiro, em detrimento dos aspetos democráticos nas políticas de gestão pública. Esta pesquisa visa analisar a relação e tensão entre a eficiência e a democracia à luz da mais recente crise financeira global. O trabalho utiliza uma abordagem quantitativa e recolhe dados de governos locais portugueses para testar o argumento de uma relação linear inversa de desempenho financeiro e procedimentos democráticos. Os resultados confirmam o argumento de uma relação inversa, definida por Waldo (1948). Adicionalmente, os resultados também permitem concluir que a crise financeira evidenciou o efeito negativo dos procedimentos democráticos no desempenho financeiro.
Highlights
The New Public Management reform, in the wake of a deep financial crisis, focused on the use of market mechanisms for market delivery, the fragmentation of public units, pressure on efficiency, and pressure on private-sector management styles (Hood, 1991)
Between the 2005-08 and 2009-12 political cycles, we find an increase of inequalities of financial performance and an increasing disparity between municipalities
Several European countries were forced to apply for financial assistance from the troika
Summary
The New Public Management reform, in the wake of a deep financial crisis, focused on the use of market mechanisms for market delivery, the fragmentation of public units, pressure on efficiency, and pressure on private-sector management styles (Hood, 1991). One reason is that the reform agenda focused on aspects that needed to be changed. Dollery (2010) and Overeem (2008) claim that this is a recurrent clash portrayed in the literature under different excuses. It has been called as the tension between technical knowledge and peoples’ will, discretionary power and legitimacy or a dispute between bureaucracy and civic culture, a trade-off between local voices and diversity, accountability, and political responsiveness, and a primary concern with structural efficiency. Waldo’s classic argument of a negative relation has been tested under different contexts yet with inconsistent results (Gasiorowski, 2000; Skelcher, 2007; Vigoda, 2002)
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