Lesson Fifteen The Transformation of Governance:Gl...
Over the last generation，American government has undergone a steady，but often unnoticed，transformation.Its traditional processes and institutions have become more marginal to the fundamental debates.Meanwhile，new processes and institutions—often nongovernmental ones—have become more central to public policy.In doing the peoples'work to a large and growing degree，American governments share responsibility with other levels of government，with private companies，and with nonprofit organizations.
This transformation has had two effects.First，it has strained the traditional roles of all the players.For decades，we have debated privatizing and shrinking government.While the debate raged，however，we incrementally made important policy decisions.Those decisions have rendered much of the debate moot.Government has come to rely heavily on for-profit and nonprofit organizations for delivering goods and services ranging from anti-missile systems to welfare reform.It is not that these changes have obliterated the roles of Congress，the president，and the courts.State and local governments have become even livelier.Rather，these changes have layered new challenges on top of the traditional institutions and their processes.
Second，the new challenges have strained the capacity of governments—and their nongovernmental partners—to deliver high-quality public services.The basic structure of American government comes from New Deal days.It is a government driven by functional specialization and process control.However，new place-based problems have emerged:How can government's functions be coordinated in a single place?Can environmental regulations flowing down separate channels(air，water，and soil)merge to form a coherent environmental policy?New process-based problems have emerged as well:How can hierarchical bureaucracies，created with the presumption that they directly deliver services，cope with services increasingly delivered through multiple(often nongovernmental)partners?Budgetary control processes that work well for traditional bureaucracies often prove less effective in gathering information from nongovernmental partners or in shaping their incentives.Personnel systems designed to insulate government from political interference have proven less adaptive to these new challenges，especially in creating a cohort of executives skilled in managing indirect government.(https://www.daowen.com)
Consequently，government at all levels has found itself with new responsibilities but without the capacity to manage them effectively.The same is true of its nongovernmental partners.Moreover，despite these transformations，the expectations on government—by citizens and often by government officials—remain rooted in a past that no longer exists.Citizens expect their problems will be solved and tend not to care who solves them.Elected officials take a similar view:They create programs and appropriate money.They expect government agencies to deliver the goods and services.When problems emerge，their first instinct is to reorganize agencies or impose new procedures—when the problem often has to do with organizational structures and processes that no longer fit reality.The performance of American government—its effectiveness，efficiency，responsiveness，and accountability—depends on cracking these problems.
...Government had quietly been transformed，and Congress—along with the rest of government—struggled to get a handle on governmental programs.The transformation has followed two courses:globalization and devolution.On the international level，state and even local governments are working directly with other nations to promote trade or attract foreign investment.Organizations like the World Trade Organization(WTO)，the World Bank，and the International Monetary Fund(IMF)have taken a strong hand in shaping international relations....Other policy arenas that used to be domestic，from telecommunications to the environment，now have major international components.More decisions have flowed from the national to the international level—and at the international level，to both ad hoc and multinational organizations.Permanent organizations like the State Department have struggled to build the capacity to cope with these changes，while ad hoc ones never institutionalize.Maintaining national sovereignty while effectively pursuing international policy has become an increasingly difficult problem.
On the national level，more responsibility for both making and implementing policy has flowed to state and local governments.In environmental policy，the federal Environmental Protection Agency(EPA)has increasingly shifted into the role of service purchaser(through contracts with private companies to clean up Superfund sites)and service arranger(through partnerships with state governments).The EPA's success—and the success of environmental policy—hinges on how well EPA serves as orchestra conductor.Moreover，in many communities，small-scale quasigovernments are managing everything from education to arts districts.Some governance mechanisms have become computerbased，neighborhood-based，or both.
In short，America's preeminent policy strategies have tended to grow beyond the nation-state，to linkages with international organizations，and to focus below it，to partnerships with subnational，for-profit，and nonprofit organizations.Supra-national organizations have grown to new but poorly understood functions.Sub-national partnerships have transformed the role of state and local governments.As we have debated privatizing government，they have paradoxically also governmentalized a substantial part of the forprofit and nonprofit sectors.The federal government's institutions，political and administrative，find themselves with yet more challenges，from orchestrating these partnerships to shaping the national interest.The roles of all of these players have changed dramatically.Managing these roles requires capacity that lies far beyond the standard responses，structures，and processes that have gradually accumulated in American government.