Resumen

LæGREID, Per; NORD0, Åsta Dyrnes  y  RYKKJA, Lise H.. The Quest for Coordination in European Central Government. Gest. polít. pública [online]. 2017, vol.26, n.spe, pp.11-44. ISSN 1405-1079.

Coordination of government efforts dealing with complex policy areas such as social welfare or health is essential and has been a central part of recent reforms. This article addresses the quality of coordination in European central government as perceived by top civil servants. We study horizontal and vertical coordination and policy coherence and coordination. A main assumption is that coordination quality will vary with coordinating mechanisms and reform measures as well as with differences between countries. We examine how traditional hierarchical arrangements, NPM-measures as well as whole-of-government arrangements affect the coordination quality. The empirical basis of the analysis is a survey of administrative executives in ministries and central agencies in 10 European countries conducted in 2012. While these executives tend to evaluate vertical coordination in their own policy area as pretty good, they identify problems with other types of coordination—specifically horizontal coordination across policy areas. In spite of significant coordination reforms the effects are rather ambiguous. Both network arrangements associated with post-NPM and more traditional NPM instruments such performance management make a difference on the perception of coordination quality. There are also significant variations across countries.

Palabras llave : coordination; policy coherence; civil servants; reform.

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