Illusions of Control? The Extension of New Public Management Through Corporate Governance Regulation

Abstract

Abstract: This study investigates the process of adoption of a new governance regulation in the public sector. The empirical setting of this paper is the adoption by the Québec government of regulations regarding the role of boards for 24 government enterprises. Building on a Latourian framework, the investigation relies on the analysis of parliamentary debates, commission hearings, and interviews with key participants. Plans to ‘improve’ governance were initially presented in generic formats in electoral promises of reform. Plans were then promoted through the construction of linkages with global and local scandals, as well as references to discourses about increasing distrust of public institutions and the absence of markets as a means to control behaviours. My analysis suggests that regulation offered as a ‘modernization of governance’ and viewed as an irreversible phenomenon to which one cannot oppose, may be an illusion of control within the public sector. Ideals of modernized governance continue to spread in society through their construction in ‘laboratories’ (e.g., commission hearings), where effectiveness in various jurisdictions is assumed and not questioned by governance experts, accountants and their technologies.