In a path-breaking report released yesterday on Capitol Hill, Progressive Policy Institute Vice President Rob Atkinson explains how the federal government can and should be transformed by a series of big reforms that would align it with the "networked" nature of most private-sector enterprises in the Information Age. Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), who attended the event, hailed the report and said: "I don't think there is a more important issue for progressives and Democrats than figuring out how to make government work."
"Bureaucratic government is now a poorly honed tool to promote progressive change," Atkinson writes in the report. "Creating effective governance for the information age will require a fundamentally new approach, relying more on networks, information technology systems, and civic and private actors, and less on hierarchical, rules-based bureaucratic programs."
Atkinson says six key changes are needed for the transformation of government:
- a change from bureaucratic and rule-driven government to entrepreneurial and flexible government;
- from bureaucratic programs to empowered social entrepreneurs;
- from top-down control to bottom-up, complex, adaptive systems;
- from bureaucratic solutions to market-enabled solutions;
- from information controlled by the bureaucracy to information freely available to everyone; and
- from compliance with rules to accountability for results.
The first is to reinvent government agencies, particularly through information technologies. This step includes a fundamental restructuring of the civil service system to give agencies more flexibility and accountability; a rapid and comprehensive shift to "e-government" services; and, where appropriate, replacement of traditional agencies with government-sponsored non-profit corporations.
The second step is to foster third-sector networks and manage for accountability. This step involves shifting the role of government from acting as the owner-operator of public services to guiding and funding public and private networks and measuring and ensuring results. Charter public schools are a good example of this new model of using networks to deliver public services rather than wholly owned and operated government facilities.
The third step is to create information driven, network governance. That means converting top-down bureaucratic systems into bottom-up "adaptive" systems utilizing information technology tools. It also means harnessing markets to the service of public goals. Emissions "trading," a widely accepted tool for using market forces to reduce different types of air pollution, is a good example. Using electronic toll collection systems to pay for new highway capacity is another. It means using information technology to relentlessly collect and disseminate information on the performance of public systems.
Atkinson's report is both a handbook for reinventing government, and a manifesto for progressives who want to save activist government by thoroughly reforming how it works to make it vastly more effective and efficient.
As Rep. Adam Smith said at yesterday's event: "All those progressive policies that we want to implement in health care, education, environment and any number of issues aren't going to happen until people believe that government can make a positive difference." Government reform should not remain a back-burner issue primarily of interest to public administrators. It should be in the forefront of any progressive agenda for the country.
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Quelle: New Democrats Online