Understanding Political Entrepreneurship in Local Government Administration – a Contextual Framework

A contextual Framework

Authors

  • Albin Olausson Linköping University, Centre for Municipality Studies
  • Petra Svensson Linköping University, Centre for Municipality studies

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.4335/17.3.643-658(2019)

Keywords:

political entrepreneurship, local government, public administrators, institutional demands, situated agency

Abstract

It has been argued that political entrepreneurship is playing an increased role for public organizations and play a vital role in local government organizations. Political entrepreneurship has previously been studied from the motivations and actions of the individual entrepreneur. We argue that in order to understand why political entrepreneurship occurs in local public administration, these aspects are not enough. Instead, we need to consider entrepreneurship as situated, and analyse contextual conditions which form institutional demands for political entrepreneurship. A tentative framework is presented, which distinguish conditions coming from reformed organizational setting and conditions coming from new policy challenges. Finally, we conclude that the character of the conditions and thus the institutional demands directs political entrepreneurship towards either value-generative or collaborative entrepreneurship.

References

Anderson, S.E., DeLeo, R. A. & Taylor, K. (2019) Policy Entrepreneurs, Legislators, and Agenda Setting: Information and Influence, Policy Studies Journal, https://doi.org/10.1111/psj.12331.

Andersson, K. (2009) Orchestrating Regional Development Through Projects: The 'Innovation Paradox' in Rural Finland, Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning, 11(3), pp. 187-201.

Andersson, S. & Bomander, T. (2015) Legitimate and legal boundaries for political entrepreneurship, In: Karlsson, C., Silander, C., & Silander, D. (eds) Political entrepreneurship: regional growth and entrepreneurial diversity in Sweden (Cheltenham, UK & Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar)

Archer, M. (2003) Structure, Agency and the Internal Conversation, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

Berg Johansen, C. & Waldorff, S. (2015) What are Institutional Logics - and Where is the Perspective Taking Us?, Academy of Management Annual Meeting Proceedings, 2015(1), https://doi.org/10.5465/ambpp.2015.14380abstract.

Bernhard, I., & Wihlborg, E. (2014) Policy entrepreneurs in networks: implementation of two Swedish municipal contact centres from an actor perspective, International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, 21(3), pp. 288–302.

Bevir, M., Rhodes, R. A. W. & Weller, P. (2003) Traditions of Governance: Interpreting the Changing Role of the public sector, Public Administration, 81(1) pp. 1-17.

Bevir, M. (2004) Governance an Interpretation: What are the Implications of Postfoundationalism?, Public Administration, 82(3), pp. 605-625.

Bevir, M. & Rhodes, R.A.W (2006) Defending Interpretation, European Political Science, 5, pp. 69-83.

Bevir, M. & Richards, D. (2009) Decentring Policy Networks: A Theoretical Agenda, Public Administration, 87(1), pp. 3-14.

Bovaird, T (2007) Beyond Engagement and Participation: User and Community Coproduction of Public Services, Public Administration Review, 67(5), pp. 846-860.

Burkitt, I. (2016) Relational agency: Relational sociology, agency and interaction, European Journal of Social Theory, 19(3), pp. 322-339

Crosby, B. C., ‘t Hart, P. & Torfing, J. (2017) Public value creation through collaborative innovation, Public Management Review, 19(5), pp. 655-669

Denters, B. & Rose, L. E. (2005) Towards Local Governance, In: Denters, D. & Rose, L. E. (eds.) Comparing Local Governance: Trends and Developments (Basingstoke: Palgrave McMillan ) pp. 246-262.

Edelenbos, I. & Van Meerkerk, J. (2015) Connective Capacity in Water Governance Practices: the Meaning of Boundary Spanning and Trust for Integrated Performance, Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 12, pp. 25-29.

Forester, J. (1999) The deliberative practitioner (Cambridge: MIT Press).

Fred, M. (2018) Projectification – the trojan horse of local government (Lund: Lund University).

Gunnarsson, L. (2017) Why we keep separating the ‘inseparable’: Dialecticizing intersectionality, European Journal of Women’s Studies, 24(2), pp. 114 –127.

Healey, P. (1997) Collaborative Planning: Shaping Places in Fragmented Societies (Vancouver: UBC Press).

Hedensted Lund, D. (2018) Co-Creation in Urban Governance: From Inclusion to Innovation, Scandinavian Journal of Public Administration, 22(2), pp. 3-17.

Hogdson, D., Fred, M., Bailey, S. & Hall, P. (2019) The Projectification of the Public Sector (Abingdon: Routledge).

Hysing, E. & Olsson, J. (2018) Green inside activism for sustainable development – political agency and institutional change (Basingstoke: Palgrave McMillan).

Iedema, R. (2003) Discourses of post-bureaucratic organization (Amsterdam: John Benjamin, cop.).

Johansson, V. (2015) When will we ever learn?, The NISPAcee Journal of Public Administration and Policy, 8(2).

Kingdon, J. W (1984, 2003) Agendas, Alternatives and Public Policies (London: Person Education).

Mintrom, M. & Norman, P. (2009) Political entrepreneurship and Policy Change, The Policy Studies Journal, 37(4), pp. 649-667.

Mintrom, M. (2015) Political entrepreneurs and Morality Politics: Learning from Failure and Success, In: Narbutaité Aflaki, I., Petridou, E., & Miles, L. (eds.) Entrepreneurship in the Polis: Understanding Political Entrepreneurship (Burlington, VT: Ashgate), pp. 103-118.

Mukhtar-Landgren, D. & Fred, M. (2018) Re-compartmentalizing local policies? The translation and mediation of European structural funds in Sweden, Critical Policy Studies, https://doi.org/10.1080/19460171.2018.1479282.

Noordegraaf, M., Van der Steen, M. & Van Twist, M. (2014) Fragmented or Connective Professionalism? Strategies for professionalizing the work of strategists and other (organizational) professionals, Public Administration, 92(1), pp. 21- 38.

Noordegraaf, M. (2015) Hybrid Professionalism and Beyond: (New) Forms of Public Professionalism in Changing Organizational and Societal Contexts, Journal of Professions and Organizations, 2(2), pp. 187-206.

O’Flynn, J. (2009) The Cult of Collaboration in Public Policy, The Australian Journal of Public Administration, 68(1), pp. 112-116.

Olausson, A. & Wihlborg, E. (2018) The legitimacy of political entrepreneurs in networks: lessons from local development projects in Swedish municipalities, In: Karlsson, C., Silander, C., & Silander, D. (eds) Governance and political entrepreneurship in Europe (Cheltenham, UK & Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar).

Olsson, J. (2016) Subversion in institutional change and stability (Basingstoke: Palgrave Mcmillan).

Olsson, J. & Hysing, E. (2012) Theorizing Inside Activism: Understanding Policymaking and Policy Change from Below, Planning Theory & Practice, 13(2), pp. 257-273.

Pache, A-C. & Santos, F. (2010) When Worlds Collide: The Internal Dynamics of Organizational Responses to Conflicting Institutional Demands, The Academy of Management Review, 35(3), pp. 455-476.

Pache, A-C. & Santos, F. (2011) Inside the hybrid organization: An organizational level view of responses to conflicting institutional demands, Working Paper DR-11001 (Cergy: ESSEC Research Centre).

Pache, A-C. & Santos, F. (2013) Inside the Hybrid Organization: Selective Coupling as a Response to Competing Institutional Logics, Academy of Management Journal, 56(4), pp. 972-1001.

Petridou, E. (2017) Political Entrepreneurship in Swedish: Towards a (Re)Theorization of Entrepreneurial Agency. (Sundsvall: Mid Sweden University).

Petridou, E. & Olausson, P. M. (2017) Political entrepreneurship and Policy Transfer: Flood Risk Governance in Northern Sweden, Central European Journal of Public Policy, 11(1), pp. 1-12.

Pollitt, C. & Bouckaert, G. (2011) Public management reform: a comparative analysis: new public management, governance, and the new-weberian state (Oxford: Oxford university press).

Rittel, H. W. J & Webber, M. M. (1973) Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning, Policy Sciences, 4, pp. 153-169.

Sjöblom, S., Godenhjelm, S., & Lundin, R. (2015). Projectification in the public sector – The case of the European Union, International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, 8(2), pp. 324-348.

Stoker, G. (2006) Public Value Management. A New Narrative for Networked Governance?, American Review of Public Administration, 36(1), pp. 41-57.

Stout, M. (2013) Logics of Legitimacy. Three Traditions of Public Administration Praxis, (Boco Raton: CRC Press).

Svensson, P. (2017) Cross-sector strategists. Dedicated bureaucrats in local government administration, (Gothenburg: Gothenburg University).

Svensson, P. (2019) Formalized policy entrepreneurship as a governance tool for policy integration, International Journal of Public Administration, ttps://doi.org/10.1080/01900692.2019.1590401.

Svärd, O. (2016) Företagare eller politiker? (Gothenburg: Gothenburg University).

Thornton, P. H. & Ocasio, W. (2008) Institutional logics, In: Greenwood, R., Oliver, C., Suddaby, R. & Sahlin-Andersson, K. (eds.) The SAGE handbook of organizational institutionalism. (London: SAGE Publishing).

Vallier, K. (2018) Exit, Voice, and Public Reason, American Political Science Review, 112(4), pp. 1120–1124.

Vangen, S. (2016) Developing Practice-Oriented Theory on Collaboration: A Paradox Lens, Public Administration Review, 77(2), pp. 263-272.

Van Meerkerk, I. & Edelenbos, J. (2015) The effects of boundary spanners on trust and performance of urban governance networks: findings from survey research on urban development projects in the Netherlands, Policy Sciences, 47(1), pp. 3-24.

Weber, E. P. & Khademian, A. M. (2008) Wicked Problems, Knowledge Challenges, and Collaborative Capacity Builders in Network Settings, Public Administration Review, 68, pp. 334–349.

Wihlborg, E., & Söderholm, K. (2013) Mediators in action: Organizing sociotechnical system change, Technology in Society, 35(4), pp. 267–275.

Wihlborg, E. (2018,). Political Entrepreneurs as Actor in Governance Networks - Conceptualizing political entrepreneurs through the Actor-Network Approach, In: Karlsson, C., Silander, D. & Silander, C (eds.) Governance and Political Entrepreneurship for Growth and Entrepreneurship in Times of Europe ́s Economic Crisis. (Cheltenham, UK & Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar).

von Bergman-Winberg, M-L. & Wihlborg, E. (2011) Politikens entreprenörskap: kreativ problemlösning och förändring, (Malmö: Liber).

Williams, P. (2012) Collaboration in Public Policy and Practice: Perspectives on Boundary Spanners, (Bristol: Bristol University Press).

Williams, P. (2013) We are all boundary spanners now?, International Journal of Public Sector Management, 26(1), pp. 17-32.

Published

2019-07-25

Issue

Section

Article