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How to Improve the Outcome of State Welfare Services. Governance in A Systems‐Theoretical Perspective
Author(s) -
Andersen Simon Calmar
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
public administration
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.313
H-Index - 93
eISSN - 1467-9299
pISSN - 0033-3298
DOI - 10.1111/j.0033-3298.2005.00482.x
Subject(s) - counterintuitive , autonomy , corporate governance , outcome (game theory) , perspective (graphical) , welfare state , welfare , state (computer science) , public economics , public administration , economics , sociology , positive economics , political science , law , microeconomics , management , epistemology , politics , algorithm , artificial intelligence , computer science , philosophy
Much governance literature deals with the limited capacity of the state and the market to govern core state welfare services such as education, scientific research and healthcare. Rather less attention has been focused on how the outcome of these services can be improved politically. An analysis of Niklas Luhmann's systems theory (Luhmann 1997a, 2000) leads to the hypothesis that self‐governance, that is, a combination of professional autonomy and public peer‐evaluation, is a superior strategy. Though this may seem counterintuitive at first glance, this paper shows that it corresponds to well‐rooted principles of public administration and, in the sphere of education, to empirical findings on school choice and school effectiveness. This raises new perspectives for future comparative governance studies.