Fifteen - Transforming governance patterns: challenges and opportunities for voluntary sector policy capacity

Summary

The question of who shapes policy and under what conditions is a critical one with a deep legacy of scholarship in the field of public administration. Traditionally, government policies and services were designed internally, with some ad hoc stakeholder engagement at various stages of the policy process. In today's world, policy problems are increasingly intricate and call on all sectors of the economy (Ansell & Bartenberger, 2017). Service delivery systems rely on a complex mix of networks and providers from the public, private and voluntary sectors (Hofstad & Torfing, 2016). As a result, the boundaries between public, private and voluntary organizations are blurring and our public policy curriculums need to adapt to this new multi-sectoral reality (Peters & Pierre, 2017). The ability to navigate these new interconnected networks and share knowledge will be invaluable, especially in an increasingly fast-paced policy environment. It is no longer possible to gain a systematic understanding of policy dynamics by focusing solely on the ‘public sector’. Indeed, a greater focus on voluntary organizations can enrich policy analysis, challenge existing paradigms, and contribute to better implementation and evaluation of policy because voluntary organizations are often on the front lines of tackling important social problems.

In this chapter, we examine some of the current trends shaping the nature of government–voluntary sector relations. Increasingly, we are seeing new collaborative ways of engaging voluntary organizations as partners and co-creators of policy (Torfing et al., 2012). Governance is currently in a moment of transition as the ebb and flow of political and institutional changes are restructuring the funding and the delivery mechanisms of social services. With a tight fiscal framework and slow economic growth on the horizon, governments are looking to their partners to find new ways of delivering better services by demonstrating impact and value. These important changes in the public policy landscape are occurring in the context of increased competition for public resources and this is driving pressure for innovation, performance and accountability within the voluntary sector. As we will illustrate, these governance dynamics continue to shape voluntary sector practices, albeit in new and interesting ways, ultimately compounding policy capacity issues. The chapter concludes by drawing out some of the implications of these trends for the theory and practice of public policy analysis.