Research project AM/01/002 (Research action AM)
What should government do, and what should it not do? And, if government should do it, how?
These questions regarding the core tasks of government and optimal institutional arrangements (‘delivery mixes’) for the scheduling of these tasks are central to the theory and practice behind government management.
Theories on ‘governance’ and market/government failings attempt first to determine criteria for the optimal mix between hierarchies, markets and networks in relation to government intervention. Such criteria are also central to scientific literature on self-sufficiency, privatisation and market mechanisms with respect to government tasks. With regard to the practice of government management, various OECD countries are asking themselves how extensive the role of their government should be in contemporary society.
This review of the core tasks of government will result in operations - large-scale or otherwise - relating to the ‘distancing’ of tasks away from government. This shift may take the form of task self-sufficiency, outsourcing involving the market, privatisation and assigning of the major role to the middle ground. In the process, more and more attention will be paid not only to choosing the most optimal institutional arrangement, but also to the method of government control.
OBJECTIVES
The aim of this study is to use theoretical literature, existing research and a new international comparative study as the basis for designing checklists and analysis instruments capable of providing technical support for a core-task debate at the federal government level.
The subject addressed by the study will aim therefore at creating a set of instruments to formulate an answer to the following study questions:
- What markers can be laid for task allocation between government, the individual and the middle ground between them? Where should government itself intervene, and in what areas should it intervene simply to regulate and control?
- What is the relationship between the central departments and installations set up to carry out actual tasks? And under what circumstances might regulation and control be conducted most efficiently?
In particular, instruments will be developed with regard to decision-making criteria for choosing the optimal form of government intervention on a specific task, and with regard to the success and failure factors governing the process of ‘distancing’ from government.
Overheid, markt of non-profit ? Onderbouwing van het maatschappelijk kerntakendebat
Verhoest, Koen - Vervloet, Dirk - Bouckaert, Geert Gent : Academia Press, 2003 (PB5972)
Taakverdeling tussen overheid en samenleving: onderbouwing van het kerntakendebat : samenvatting
Brussel : Federaal Wetenschapsbeleid, 2004 (SP1366)
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